Adam Tendler's Blog, page 18

composition postcards

email from today to a man writing a book

I classify HATE SPEECH (2013) as mixed media or tape/piano work, even though it involves my voice with the live acoustic instrument. As I remember it, I grouped by minute different sentences, phrases and words, using as the text the Facebook post of a Montana politician who flippantly joked about the murder of Matthew Shepard. I whispered all of the text, some fast and some slow. I remember organizing the text in bubbles or circles to keep track of which material to speak in which minute. But essentially I made a tape part and uploaded it online. Then I encouraged audience members to engage the tape part by streaming it on their smartphones in the hall, beginning it at the beginning of the piece, within seconds of the first notes. I have a notated, handwritten piano score that doesn’t acknowledge or correspond to the text, but theoretically ends about when the ‘tape’ playing does. The execution of all the elements in performance results in a focal point of a piano surrounded by soft but maybe menacing antiphonal whispers, which in a way sums up my childhood as a bullied gay kid.

I do have a speaking-pianist piece called Autumn Lines (2001-08) which I never wrote down, but performed a handful of times and even recorded (it’s on Spotify, iTunes, etc). Even though the performances resemble each other down to the note, I have always felt a little weirdness about the piece as a piece, since my conservatory conditioning has me still thinking, despite myself, that pieces only become pieces when someone scribbles something on a page, which I may have even attempted with this piece a few times. But why? I last performed it in San Francisco several years ago, but then decided pretty firmly not to do it in public anymore. It’s a very personal piece, using David Young’s translation of Li Po’s poetry as its text, and something about performing it has always left me feeling super exposed and vulnerable afterward. So I’ve stopped. At least for now.

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journal from 8/12/11, san francisco

beautiful concert. not well attended, but completely affirming. met at least two incredible people, and had another group from Barre who I couldn’t for the life of me remember – but who remembered ME. Interesting.

Everything went well except, in my opinion, the last movement of Autumn Lines, which was a mess. Driven back to SF from Berkeley by a man in a rickety van – still don’t know his name.

Bonnie, the director of the festival and patroness of Berkeley, shared the afternoon with me. “I had such a FUN afternoon,” she said, and I did too.

Diarrhea all day. Hope this improves.

Tomorrow, round two. Hopefully fun.

august 3 | notes to self

I want, with the sheer number of “thumbs down"s, for Pandora to feel like it has run out of options for my Bananarama station. And then, at the furthest reaches of its comfort zone, at the breaking point of habit and knowledge, it will have its breakthrough. 
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On the subway, a disoriented woman preaches, "death is nonsensical.”
_____

i teach two twin brothers, age four. very young, still in their “why” phase. I teach them separately and try to encourage them as much possible. today, in my encouragement, I called one of them “powerful” and he corrected me that his brother was, in fact, more powerful. 

After clarifying a few times that i’d heard him correctly, because it seemed like an odd thing to say, i asked,“why? why do you think he’s more powerful?" 

"he has a stronger vibration,” he said, mispronouncing the last word.

“a stronger…did you say ‘vibration’?”

“yes, a stronger vibration,” he answered, mispronouncing it again.

still puzzled, i tried to offer a simplification. “you mean, on piano?” he didn’t say anything. “or do you mean, like, out in the world?”

“out in the world.”
_____
clapping for police brutality is chilling enough, but also how about ONE new york police officer, whose health care i pay for, not clapping behind trump when he calls for an end to mine, for which i pay hundreds out of pocket per month. just one?
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very typical that i just shrieked “fuuuuuuuck” out the window, desperate to end the going-on-fifth hour of constant barking from the "dog spa” downstairs, only to discover the Mommy and Me class happening just across the way.  
_____

over the last couple days, i’ve considered many notes to self. and i’ve thought of reasons, just before bed, to avoid or postpone my journaling here. tomorrow, a recording session at the rubin, for which i have only excitement. the london sessions feel already like a year ago, though i think with some fair amount of pain and embarrassment about the difficult certain things posed me—for instance, figurework in, of all things MacDowell’s “Will o’ the Wisp.” Such things shouldn’t bring a grown pianist to his knees, and God knows if i was faced with that passage now, I might rattle it off without thinking. On the other end of the spectrum, i’ve spent a week practicing Cage’s 31'57.9864" for a pianist and, as in when we did the 10,000 Things a few years ago in Bard, I have an idealized version of performance, or at least a kind of profile of the notes and the gestures necessary to execute the notes. i still, on the other hand, have a couple more pages to transcribe of 34'46.776 for a pianist. I’ve performed 2/3 of that piece, and more recently than 31′, however it feels much more like a graphic score realization, at least in my mind’s eye. That said, I look forward to a week riding its roller coaster and seeing how used to it I can get, how much I can pick up along the way, how calmly I can react in the face of pure chaos. Can I treat this score and the passing of time in the same way that I might regard passing scenery from the backseat of a car, to borrow Cage’s imagery? I want to. I’ve always loved staring out the window of a car, as a passenger.
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Tudor’s approach seems to put a premium on control, on carving something controllable, maybe even predictable (at least for him), out of the fabric of chaos. Something playable out of the unplayable? I only wonder, though, if we lose something about the nature of the work this way.  If 34’ sounds sparse and thin via choice and omission, how does it then sound different from 31’, which by design sounds sparse® and thin(ner)? Do we still hear the unreasonable qualities of the former? 

Pianists have leveled the same critiques at me. I transcribed these pieces, for instance, so I lose the wonderful directional quality of Cage’s notation, the connections, the dots. I started down this path (of transcribing) mainly so I could keep track of harp notes and wildly unreadable ledger lines, and so now I’ve found myself deep in the woods with that commitment (of transcribing). But part of me regrets it now. I can think in one second of several ways I might have solved these problems of reading difficult, tiny, unconventional notation while still looking at the score itself. So I’ve lost something too. 

But that’s all an aside. Because I’ve framed my performance within the expectation that I won’t intelligently omit material, and that I’ll literally flail through the piece and grab what I can. Unlike Tudor (again, I suppose) I want to explore and present something actually quite…well, out of control. Where “something is always going wrong.” What does that look like or sound like? I will practice it and practice hard, and aim for the notes I’ve meticulously copied and that I know are there, but it’s a practice of failing comfortably, of controlling of my emotions in the face of chaos. This, I might argue, lines up philosophically with the Zen foundations of the piece? Bu then again, I can rationalize anything. 

I continue to wrestle with how I play these pieces. And in the future, or if I could do it again, I might do it differently. Like any musical masterpiece, over time the approach can change, resulting in almost unrecognizably different interpretations. I keep thinking Beethoven.

_____

still laboring over my interpretation of 34’. for all that it is and maybe isn’t, it’s not an improvisation. that, at least, it is not. 

i keep wondering if i should have applied some kind of chance operation to maybe reduce the material. to make it more intelligent in its design.
and then tonight, after weeks of this same inner-debate (arguably years), i thought of cage’s recording of 45’ for a speaker, and how it clocks in in excess of 46 minutes. what if he had chosen sentences or passages to omit, just to fit the timeframe? instead, he performs it best he can, accepting that it’s ‘wrong’ (?)]  

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One –> assigned times. if 34’ is drenched in choice, i want to eliminate my choices in One. Resistance = symbol. 

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in 34’, he says, “where impossibilities occur” the pianist can use his “discretion.” He also says the score can be read “in any focus.” escape hatches. but what is discretion…

Merriam-Webster definition of “discretion”:

1:  the quality of having or showing discernment or good judgment :  the quality of being discreet : circumspection; especially :  cautious reserve in speech

2:  ability to make responsible decisions

3a :  individual choice or judgment left the decision to his discretion 

b :  power of free decision or latitude of choice within certain legal bounds reached the age of discretion

4:  the result of separating or distinguishing

Or on Google, the first result:

1.  the quality of behaving or speaking in such a way as to avoid causing offense or revealing private information.

2. the freedom to decide what should be done in a particular situation.

_____

assigning chance-determined times to each ictus/event in “one.” i did it because i found my interpretation fell into habit, avoiding by default a world of possibilities based on my own preferences. throughout the process of generating and assigning, i kicked and screamed. “oh, i hate that! oh i really hate that!” but forced myself to go forward. 

transcribing it, maybe halfway through, the resistance gave way to acceptance, and then to confidence. the things that happen now resemble nothing that i would’ve chosen, and to execute these timings requires a bit of practice and coordination, only more evidence that it falls outside of anything my technique and physicality would have created on the spot. 

i scoured the performance notes looking for some mention by Cage of choice, of spontaneous creation, some hint that might to discourage me from treating the score, like many others by the composer, as a kind of blueprint,  a puzzle in which one puts the pieces together on their own, when all i wanted was to just float through it serenely, ethereally.

but i found no such hints. for friday’s performance, i’ll use the chance determined score, which now i really like. in the future, i’ll create another.  

July 27, 12:43am [ vibration

I want, with the sheer number of “thumbs down"s, for Pandora to feel like it has run out of options for my Bananarama station. And then, at the furthest reaches of its comfort zone, at the breaking point of habit and knowledge, it will have its breakthrough. This I believe.

On the subway, a disoriented preacher woman says, "death is nonsensical.”

I teach two twin brothers, age four. Very young. Still in their “why” phase. I tracu them separately, try to encourage them as much possible. Today I called one of them “powerful” and he corrected me that his brother was, in fact, more powerful.

“Why?” I asked.

“He has a stronger vibration,” he said, mispronouncing the last word.

“A stronger vibration?”

“Yes, a stronger vibration,” he answered, mispronouncing it again .

I tried to offer a simplification.. “On piano? Or out in the world?”

“Out in the world.”

july 26, 12:31am | 3m | makeup

recorded 31’ today. could have probably had take after take after take, but going into it i’d said two, and we stopped after two. the most time-consuming task involved prepping the piano and marking strings. set some levels for the contact mic for 0'00". brought doughnuts for the tech. he reminded me of kevin, only because they have the same job, and seemed very professional. minutes before we began, i made the mistake of looking at my phone. a student who(se family) cancelled yesterday (via an ‘assistant’) cancelled the makeup lesson for tomorrow that i never should have re-scheduled in the first place. enraged, i wrote back that we could do it next week, but that i’d basically wasted a trip yesterday, re-arranged my tomorrow, and all, so far, for nothing. and that if next tuesday doesn’t happen, they would forfeit their (dumb) lesson, which, after all, aligns with school policy. but i bring this up only because it got me completely wound up and furious before playing, all because i looked at the (dumb) phone. must stop with that. but speaking of wound up and furious, i ended today really, deeply angry at the country. i get the sense we’re losing. we meaning people like me, who seem to think that if the government can spend trillions on planes that will never fly, we can also afford to provide health care for all citizens. just an example. my absurdity bandwidth seems to have hit a kind of max. like i can’t process much more hypocrisy. this reminds me, back in may, new york city had already begun steaming in the heat, and we already had our impotent air conditioners screaming in vain. and i thought: “wait, really? in may? what about june, july, august…? how the hell am i going to do this?” so i feel the same way tonight about america. 

july 25, 12:16am | 6m | passenger

over the last couple days, i’ve considered many notes to self. and i’ve thought of reasons, just before bed, to avoid or postpone journaling here. tomorrow, a recording session at the rubin, for which i have only excitement. the london sessions feel already like a year ago, though fresh enough that i can still think with some fair amount of pain and embarrassment about the certain surprising things that rendered me powerless—for instance, an accompanying figure in, of all things, MacDowell. I still wonder if we ‘got it.’ Such things shouldn’t bring a grown pianist to his knees, and God knows if I sat faced with that passage now, I might rattle it off without thinking. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve spent this week practicing Cage’s 31'57.9864" for a pianist and, as in when we did the 10,000 Things a few years ago in Bard, I have an idealized version of performance. Or at least a kind of profile of the notes and the gestures necessary to execute the notes. On the other hand, I still have a couple more pages to transcribe of 34'46.776 for a pianist. Now, I’ve performed ¾ of that piece by now, and each time it has felt much more like a graphic score realization, even though Cage writes out all the notes. That said, I look forward to a week riding its roller coaster and seeing how used to it I can get, how many notes or gestures or directionsI can pick up along the way, how calmly I can react in the face of that piece’s chaos. Can I treat this score and the passing of time in the same way that I might regard passing scenery from the passenger seat of a car, to borrow Cage’s imagery? This too takes practice. I’ve always loved staring out the window of a car, as a passenger. 

july 20, 11:37, 11:37pm | 7m | fire retardant

stumbled upon an adult film exposition in Murray Hill earlier today; a group of firemen on the street comparing hands and marveling at the giant paws of one particular guy. one said: “you know what they say about guys with big hands…” as my imagination caught on fire.

wondered tonight in the kaplan penthouse: is this really the kaplan penthouse? but really, i hear about this place all the time. it appears in countless new york times reviews. i feel like i’ve seen pictures. my memory paints it a rather glitzy affair. this room tonight, completely windowless and carpeted, with chairs set out in rows with seat numbers taped onto them, resembled a hotel conference room. i really wondered, and still wonder, if perhaps tonight’s performance happened in a different area of the penthouse? i liked half of the program. the other seemed a bit precious for my sensibility. three men next to me could not stop themselves from talking in the moments before. it shouldn’t have bothered me, but i wanted to just beg for them to let the room fall silent, if for a second. the program started and, after an hour and twenty minutes, ended, and as the audience clapped, these guys started talking again, not stopping. so what the ear took in at that moment comprised of an audience clapping, and these dudes talking. the topic of conversation, the length of each piece. this subject had them captivated before the show also.
must i micromanage my surroundings to such an extent that no one can even talk? 

visited gerald today in the hotel chelsea. he remains sealed as ever behind a series of floor-to-ceiling plastic barriers. one once read: “fire retardant strong man." 

once every few months, f gets really obsessed with sarah palin. 

july 20, 12:31am | 10m | drugstore psychology/love letter

taking a bath tonight and reading pema chodron and listening to shakuhachi music, the power went out. everything went black. but the shakuhachi music stayed on—a battery operated bluetooth speaker and my phone as transmitter. showering after, i thought about this process of re-working my way through 31'57.9864" and 34'46.776" for the august 4th performance, and cage’s quote, “something is always going wrong.” and also, how i glanced a sentence in one of his letters about how someone he heard played the music of wolff and feldman too ‘faithfully to the score.’ all this and more had me really wondering about cage’s philosophy about performance, and the gauntlet he laid for tudor, in terms of performance, with a piece like 34’. all those thoughts happened in like a second. in the following second, i thought about how people tend to frame those pieces as kind of affectionate nudges toward tudor and his exactitude. the amount of work that went into these pieces, though, staggers me. the sheer amount of notes, dots, calculations— they resulted from herculean effort and patience. very little about them strike me as lighthearted. (but what do i know?) i kept thinking about those early letters from cage to tudor (many more from cage than responses from tudor), and the affection present in them, an arrestingly relatable form of fawning. and then i think of the businesslike tension in some of the later letters (financials, travels, etc.). it looks to me like a push-and-pull, and the tricky fine line between love, admiration and the pain of longing and wanting to possess. music served as the only vessel that could bring cage closer—closest—to tudor. the impossibilities in a piece like 34’ feels—okay and this is what i finally thought about in the shower—sort of … i want to say aggressive. appreciative, sure, of his pianist/muse’s technique and tenacity, sure. but he also constructed a situation for a pianist known for conquering the impossible, in which “something is always going wrong.” it happens sometimes that you love someone so much you discover you suddenly can’t stand them. what would a piece for that person look like, sound like? what would it demand of them? 

july 20, 12:31am | 10m | drugstore psychology

taking a bath tonight and reading pema chodron and listening to shakuhachi music, the power went out. everything went black. but the shakuhachi music stayed on—a battery operated bluetooth speaker and my phone as transmitter. showering after, i thought about this process of re-working my way through 31'57.9864" and 34'46.776" for the august 4th performance, and cage’s quote, “something is always going wrong.” and also, how i glanced a sentence in one of his letters about how someone he heard played the music of wolff and feldman too ‘faithfully to the score.’ all this and more had me really wondering about cage’s philosophy about performance, and the gauntlet he laid for tudor, in terms of performance, with a piece like 34’. all those thoughts happened in like a second. in the following second, i thought about how people tend to frame those pieces as kind of affectionate nudges toward tudor and his exactitude. the amount of work that went into these pieces, though, staggers me. the sheer amount of notes, dots, calculations— they resulted from herculean effort and patience. very little about them strike me as lighthearted. (but what do i know?) i kept thinking about those early letters from cage to tudor (many more from cage than responses from tudor), and the affection present in them, an arrestingly relatable form of fawning. and then i think of the businesslike tension in some of the later letters (financials, travels, etc.). it looks to me like a push-and-pull, and the tricky fine line between love, admiration and the pain of longing and wanting to possess. music served as the only vessel that could bring cage closer—closest—to tudor. the impossibility of a piece like 34’ feels—okay and this is what i finally thought about in the shower—sort of aggressive. appreciative, sure, of his pianist/muse’s technique and tenacity, sure. but he also constructed an impossible situation for a pianist known for conquering the impossible. this strikes me as typical of someone who loves too much, feels too much, who wants to seize a kind of power over someone who effortlessly renders them powerless. it’s like when you love someone so much you suddenly discover you can’t stand them. what would a piece for that person look like sound like? what would it demand of them? 

Silence, presence, and challenging conventions – thoughts on John Cage’s 4’33”

Silence, presence, and challenging conventions – thoughts on John Cage’s 4’33”:

sonateharder:

Really nice meditation from Frances Wilson on a recent performance of 4′33″ she attended.

sonateharder:Adam Tendler preparing to play 4’33” (picture:...

sonateharder:

Adam Tendler preparing to play 4’33” (picture: Tido Music)