Alan Coady’s Musical Blog

While looking into YouTube for illustrative material, I came across an accidental learning network which took me from vague understanding of a piece to one sufficient to recreate the piece from its DNA. Let me explain.

The piece concerned is Steve Reich’s Piano Phase. (Part 1 on YouTube here – Part 2 here).

Reich, probably the best known minimalist composer, stumbled upon phasing technique by accident. He explains in this clip (at 2:30) from a South Bank Show special. The same recorded musical fragment was copied onto two separate tape loops (it was the 60s after all). Both machines were started simultaneously but, because few such machines run at exactly the same speed, one began to edge in front of the other – creating (the impression of) new rhythms and melodies emerging. Eventually they would end up back in sync.

Piano Phase, the first live phasing piece, begins with a 12-note fragment which you can see at 5:46 in the clip. This was a real find – the DNA of the piece. I decided to construct a version of the piece from that. The musical motif is to be played simultaneously by two pianists. Then one will edge ahead of the other. A live human performance would allow one person to make tiny, almost unnoticeable adjustments. Using score writing software – I had to choose specific durations and decided that the size of step I would take would be half the length of the notes themselves. This means that, following the initial exposition of the theme, the music would move through 24 noticeable changes before returning to synchrony. In the following midi file (which really represents a portrait of the piece, as opposed to the piece itself) the piano on the right edges forward while the one on the left holds to the original pulse. Each edging forward takes place after 4 repetitions.

Piano Phase 

Having seen the outcome of this, I realised that the apparent simplicity of this music belies the incredible difficulty in performing it. Reich himself in the South Bank Show interviews, stressed how this requires listening at an intense level. Various phasing pieces ensued over Reich’s career. Some are played by two or more people and some by one person against a recording. This amazing and beautifully shot film of (parts of) Piano Phase features Peter Aidu playing solo, on two pianos:

I was pleased at having learned so much about the piece and the compositional techniques but ended up being more interested in the following question: if you were taking part in such a piece would you prefer to play with/against:

• another live musician?

• a recording?

• yourself?

Here are some other versions of Piano Phase on YouTube:

video phase      with dancers      DJ remix

Steve Reich also has a MySpace, which includes the entire South Bank Show documentary as well as extracts from My Name is Daniel Pearl; Fast; Music for 18 Musicians; Different Trains; & Electric Counterpoint.

Now that YouTube is unblocked in our schools, I decided to have a look for footage which might support pupils in their understanding and enjoyment of music. Before long it became clear that there was a wealth of invaluable resources. But how are these to be passed on? By word of mouth, simply when we happen to recall something interesting? In the (temporary?) absence of another source I’ve created a new page entitled YouTube links – general (as opposed to the guitar-based one). The form and categorisations may well change when more useful links crop up.

When I was younger, so much younger than today, a friend said that it was his choice not to read music as he felt it would remove feeling from the picture. I wonder how he would have coped with the assertion that, as a result of playing along with a computer, pupils would more quickly approach the right feel of a piece – even although the computer-generated file was devoid of dynamic variation (see Thoroughly Modern Midi) and flexibility of tempo. But such is the paradoxical world of IT and instrumental music. In a situation where the file will not only produce the written parts but also play-along audio files, it’s important to be fussy about articulation. Many pupils do not acknowledge written articulation but very few do not intuitively go along with it - if it’s contained in, say, a Sibelius or midi file. Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising in a subject where the ears of many take in more than the eyes.

What is surprising is that, seated in a mixed group, most pupils will pick out the appropriate feel for their part even in a passage of mixed articulations, such as the one between 0:33 and 0:48 of this midi file-  Jealousy - where the legato notes of the tune and bass parts sandwich the detached notes of the three harmony parts; or between 1:03 and 1:55 where there are three simultaneous articulations:

• legato tune

• bass and lowest harmony part employing full-length notes, rests and detached notes

• upper harmony parts restricted to on detached notes

Also surprising is that when discussing the (as yet unnamed) phenomenon of articulation in lessons, if you ask what aspect of music is being discussed, hardly anyone will guess correctly. Some will suggest, “rhythm” until you point out that, whether this aspect is observed or not, the notes all start at the right time, which is what many people consider rhythm to mean. However, when I say, “I’ll start to spell it out on this laptop screen and you try to guess before I get to the end of the word,” I rarely get passed “articu——”

Many pupils, baffled by the whole idea of articulation, find a way in through the following analogy:

• detached notes – detached houses

• legato notes – terraced houses

• over-laping notes (chords or broken chords) – flats

The reason this topic occupies my thoughts at the moment is that yesterday, in the East Lothian Guitar Ensemble’s rehearsal for the Showcase Concert* I was delighted to see the group knock our arrangement of the Jacob Gade’s 1925 tango tune, Jealousy into shape in pretty much one go – articulation and all – pretty impressive for a Friday afternoon! Ironically, it has more varied articulation per part than the other two pieces put together. Sometimes things just work out on their own.

* East Lothian Showcase Concert – Friday 27 March at 19:30 in Musselburgh Grammar School.

It’s fitting when something new, positive and creative comes along for New Year, so thanks to Ewan McIntosh for the heads up on wordia, whose mission is to redefine the dictionary. This is done by means of short videos, to which collection we are all invited to contribute. The part of the invitation I particularly like is, “think of a word which has a special meaning for you.” As everyone in the teaching game knows, wanting to take part is a huge part of the journey.

I see an opportunity here for pupils and teachers of Music to parallel the excellent work of LTS’s Learn Listening Online. There seems to be room for inventive and fun ways of illustrating concepts. Moreover, the fact that it is a dictionary should reinforce the connection between music and language. Contributors will need to think about parts of speech and perhaps even etymology. If contributing to this is not the embodiment of CfE, in terms of cross-curricular, creative connectivity, then I don’t know what is.

This illustration of the concept of round might give some idea of what I’m describing. My current favourite, however, is parody – this word was just asking for it.

Happy New Year!

Peter Lovatt’s improvisation workshop, which followed hot on the heels of The Science of Improvisation, concentrated on verbal as opposed to musical improvisation. I imagine the reasons for this included:

• not all present would have brought instruments

• not all present were musicians

• breaking into groups, working verbally would produce less racket than would its musical equivalent

However, being an guitar teacher, I’ve since thought about how to make use of parallels. I should perhaps point out here as a prelude to outlining my memory and analysis of events that, unlike the two longer seminars, I did not make an audio recording – the nature of the workshop simply wasn’t going to lend itself to that, as we were frequently to break into changing groups to try out the various ideas. I know how unreliable memory can be, but I feel I can remember most of what happened.

At the heart of the workshop was (more…)

Synchronicity can be the glue that binds ideas together. Alan Armstrong points out that all teachers (including instructors) need to become teachers of numeracy (along with literacy and well-being). I hear that that classroom colleagues in MGS are meeting in groups to discuss how this will be done*. I probe the theory knowledge of a gifted, multi-instrumental pupil and find some cloudiness in the numbers area. This is not due to lack of ability on the pupil, who is in a top Maths set, but due to the multi-modality which music imposes on numbers. With exceptions the numbers involved rarely rise above 7 and therefore we require these few, overworked digits to perform a multiplicity of functions (accidental pun). The big hitters in one area, are Z List celebrities in the next; numbers which seem like immediately family members in one context are, at best, distant cousins in another. Even the most mathematically gifted pupils will feel, at times, that they are drowning in a whirlpool of, polygamous, shape-shifting integers.

Confused? Join the club. That’s why I intend to produce some kind of table to help pupils (and any other interested parties) see at a glance the many faces and functions of these digits. Adapting the Kipling process, I’ll compile a prototype, run it past some pupils & colleagues, make necessary adjustments and additions and post it here – most probably on a new Lesson Support Page.

In the meantime, let me mention just a numerical oddity which struck me the other day while listening to an old mp3 download of Radio 4’s In Our Time. The conversation concerned the Fibonacci series, golden sections etc. and their prevalence in nature, architecture, art and music. It occurred to me for the first time that the Fibonacci series does not feature the number most prevalent in Western music – 4. Strange.

* unfortunately instructors rehearse ensemble at this time and can’t join in.

I conducted a short experiment over the last couple of days, concerning who gets what part in the first of our East Lothian Guitar Ensemble arrangements. The piece is in three parts – top, middle and bass. I’ve also created four heterophonic parts so you could say the structure of parts is:

1, 1a, 2, 2a, 3, 3a, 3b

Using Sibelius, I played the score to the pupils at performance speed – which is pretty brisk . In addition to the speed there are two other unusual factors:

• there are 7 beats per bar – grouped as follows 12 12 123

• it is based on a very unusual scale (E Lydian Dominant) – resulting in unusual harmonies - one effect of which can be to make the less confident pupil occasionally doubt that they have landed on the correct note

Before the music began pupils were asked to identify which parts would meet the following criteria for them:

• the part would (eventually*) be manageable

• it would provide some element of challenge and interest

• it might appeal to their natural strengths e.g. by being essentially melodic, harmonic or rhythmic in nature

• it would avoid any feeling of distress

Somewhat to my surprise, every group and individual chose as I would have predicted. This could mean one (or possibly more) of three things:

• that pupils are aware of their current levels

• that they are aware of the likely speed of progress over the remaining months (even although some have not yet played in the East Lothian group)

• that I am unconscious of Derren Brown-style levels of manipulation

Over the holiday, I hope to upload not only play-along midi files but parts of the piece so, if you play the guitar, you could simulate the experiment. For this particular piece, Hungarian Wedding Dance, most of the parts will be in TAB as opposed to traditional notation. This is due to the fact that many of the notes have been relocated onto strings other than the one where they would normally be found. This is done for two reasons:

• increased resonance e.g. using 2^nd string E at fret 5 instead of open E on string 1 – the sound of which is a little thinner

• the note is more easily reached from the previous note than it would be in its normal location

* eventually, in this case, is the Showcase Concert on Friday 27 March at 7:30 in Musselburgh Grammar School

If there’s one thing I like to see it’s the BBC spending my hard-earned cash on repeats – when they are as interesting as one I wrote about last December. You still have 6 days to Listen Again to Ivan Hewitt exploring the origins of music. This subject, still in its infancy, arouses as much controversy as it does interest.

I recently read something in Steven Mithen’s excellently written and thought provoking book The Singing Neanderthals which stopped me in my tracks. The passage concerned the research, by Professor Willi Steinke of Queens University in Kingston, Canada, into the melodic recall of a subject with amusia, following a stroke at the age of 64. The subject was unable to identify many well-known instrumental themes. However, when themes with lyrics were played, recall was normal – even although the lyrics were not present! Steinke and his colleagues concluded that melody and lyrics were stored in different parts of the brain – the prosody of the lyrics helping to summon up the tune, and the rhythms of the tune aiding the reverse.

Suddenly my mind jumped back 42 years to my first piano tutor book, in which every melody featured lyrics – added after the event by the author, John W. Schaum. At the time I regarded them as a slightly annoying irrelevance because I was six years old and knew everything. Now the aspiration behind them seems clear. I began to think that, although the beginners’ materials I use have no lyrics, there may be an argument for adding some – more particularly for asking the pupils to add their own.

By an amazing coincidence of timing, this topic was brought up at our in service on Thursday, by one of my colleagues who was keen to discover similarities and differences in our approaches to teaching rhythm. Recommendations and reservations were expressed – the latter concerning examples where words had been forced to fit rhythms in an unnatural way, and possible confusion arising from the differing prosody of varying accents and dialects.

Still – it’s something interesting to think about. Any experiences, views, recommendations to offer?

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