Defiance is both a television series and video game set in the same post-apocalyptic world

It’s been a good time for Sci-Fi music. With so many blockbuster films, television series, and video games becoming practically mainstream there’s no lack of scores being written. Of most interest to me, however, is diegetic music – music that appears in the film/tv/video game universe rather than the music that appears as a score to the productions.

This is music as would be heard by in-universe characters. For example, while everyone the Klingon Theme (called “Klingon Battle” in the score cue) from Star Trek: The Motion Picture with Klingons, it’s not necessarily music that in universe Klingons would recognize as part of their musical world or culture.

Compare to this in universe excerpt of the Klingon Opera, “Aktuh and Maylota”

And compare also with this cue, the Kronos Wartet (pun intended), from the score for the most recent Star Trek movie which may or may not be diegetic

One of the things that strikes me as odd–and this is as much a commentary on contemporary culture and how these forms of media seem to reflect it–is that there tends to be very little diegetic music being written (with a few exceptions) in many of these franchises.  Why I find that odd is that it says something about how writers view the role of music in the lives of the people inhabiting their worlds.  I’m going to talk a little about television rather than film and video games since there are quite a few relatively popular sci-fi themed series currently airing.

Post-apocalyptic series seem to be pretty popular these days.  The Walking Dead, Falling Skies, Revolution, Defiance are currently airing series while some recent cancelled series like Terra Nova and Primeval: New World had an implicit post-apocalyptic future world as a backdrop to the modern or past settings (it should be noted that both the latter heavily involved time-travel and regularly featured dinosaurs–things that didn’t seem to help the rebooted V series or The Sarah Connor Chronicles).

With the exception of Defiance (notable for being launched as a video game and television series), there is next to no diegetic music portrayed within the series respective worlds.  It can be argued that in most of these series the inhabitants are spending too much time just trying to survive to worry much about, say, listening to music much less making it.  But I just can’t shake how full of song and music that, say, Tolkien’s Middle Earth is (some of which he started writing while he was in the trenches during WWI).  Is it fair comparing fantasy to sci-fi?  Well, how much diegetic music is in the popular Game of Thrones?  Or the recently ended Merlin series? Or recently cancelled Sinbad show?

The interesting thing about Bear McCreary and his work for Defiance is that he has to create specific musics for the various Votan races as well as creating the score for the episodes–in other words he is writing both in-universe and out-universe music and his blog about some of that creation process is fascinating and familiar (as I had to do similar in/out universe music for the Klingon Christmas Carol).  This brings us back to the Klingons at the beginning of the post–the Star Trek universe had copious amounts of diegetic music.  Klingon Opera became as ubiquitous a topic of conversation amongst characters and we have characters listening to or singing it as well as numerous other styles of Klingon music.

It’s not as if I’d want characters to spontaneously break out into song as in musicals (though interesting to note that musical movies have pretty much died out–Les Misérables film notwithstanding) but cultures seem more alive and 3-dimensional with active music participation.

Cyanide Studios Video Game, “Of Orcs and Men”

And no, I’m not talking about some of the marketing imagery that can be found on, say, the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s recent release of “The Greatest Video Game Music” which features a cello on the cover (albeit, played by a special ops troop ostensibly from one of the video game scores featured on the album).

The image above is from Cyanide Studio’s video game, “Of Orcs and Men” (2012), the soundtrack of which was composed by composer, Olivier Derivière, and recorded by the Boston Cello Quartet.

Another video game score which prominently features the cello as a solo instrument is Austin Wintory‘s score for the Thatgamecompany videogame, Journey, and recorded by the Macedonia Radio Symphonic Orchestra.

Here’s the score with text commentary by the composer:

This score also has the distinction of being the first videogame score nominated for a Grammy Award!  The score has been arranged into a concert piece for solo cello and orchestra called, “Woven Variations,” and was premiered by the pioneering Tina Guo and the Golden State Pops Orchestra.

Cello Fortress is an interactive videogame designed for art galleries and museums by artist, game designer, and cellist, Joost van Dongen.  Designed as a hybrid concert piece and interactive installation, the audience plays against the cellist who manipulates action via live improvisation.

In a previous post about composers I quoted from a Mellon Foundation report that, “Composers today find much friendlier territory in dance, theater, and chamber music.”  Videogames weren’t included in the list (the report was 1998 after all) but some are already prophesizing the decline of that industry since budgets are approaching blockbuster film proportions with a comparable level of pushing for that big “Hit” which may or may not be sustainable in any sense.

From a composer and an independent musician’s standpoint, however, there is still plenty of room for economic growth if you can break into this industry–at the same time, look at the musical forces used for these scores/performances.  A cello quartet coupled with electronic music is far cheaper than hiring a full orchestra.  Hiring the Macedonia Radio Symphonic Orchestra to do the score for Journey is surely less expensive than hiring the London Philharmonic Orchestra to record the score.  Playing your own score is surely the cheapest way to get a performance!

Maybe I need to score for a Klingon videogame, eh?  Until then, I’ll stick to writing for dance, theater, and chamber music!

János Starker (July 5 1924 – April 28, 2013)

There’s really nothing I can add to all the litanies, and many more cellists and musicians have had a much closer professional and personal relationship than I ever had the chance.  My closest contact with him was when I was 15 and played the Dvořák Cello Concerto (which was something tied to his early claim to fame) for him in a masterclass while I was attending the IU Summer String Academy in 1987.

I hadn’t realized Starker had made over 160 recordings (sometimes you can actually learn things from wikipedia entries!) and only vaguely remember that he had won a Grammy for one of them which I didn’t mention in my post about playing with Grammy Award winners.

In many ways Starker was probably more influential to me as a musician from afar than directly.  I went through a “non-emotive” stage (and still come back to it occasionally) that “culminated” in my undergrad thesis about the ethics of performance practice.  I still find it fascinating that how we look onstage can profoundly affect how we’re perceived by audiences–even when the audio being heard is exactly the same between different performers or performances!

Seeing how Starker lets the music do the talking can best be seen in the numerous videos of him on youtube–especially those from his 1988 Tokyo recital (just the year after I played for him).  Here’s the first movement of the Kodály Sonata for Solo Cello.

Very little wasted effort in using overt body language and he has a level of technical precision that isn’t marred by exuberant emotive physical gestures!  Usually when I’m having some kind of technical difficulty the first thing I ask myself is “am I overly emoting something?” and “is that getting in the way of my playing?”

As often as not, I am and it is!  Not that there is anything inherently wrong about being emotive in your playing, but as the oft lofted criticism goes–we make a visual show to hide the deficiencies of our musical show.  As Starker would say, “Create excitement. Don’t get excited.” which is almost as old a maxim as you can find in aesthetics (cf. my post, to create or to copy).  Indian Rasa and Arabic Tarab abound in it, after all, and these might point to the roots of some of the most ancient theories and practices of aesthetics as exist.

At the same time, I think we can see the pure joy of making music that Starker had.  Just watching this video shows us that even he couldn’t completely restrain emotive gestures.

I’m just not sure we’re in a world that can just simply enjoy music anymore and I fear that the death of Mr. Starker is symbolic of that.

R.I.P. János Starker (July 5 1924 – April 28, 2013)

A recent piece in the Bloomberg Businessweek brings up some interesting issues regarding (re)selling a digital copy of music.  Some folks understand that when you sell your hard-copy (e.g. CD) then technically you also sell the “license” that allows you to listen to that music.  In other words, it’s not legal to make a copy of the CD, and then sell the CD while retaining your copy for personal usage any more than it is legal to download a digital copy without paying (or being given permission by the copyright holder) for it.  The personal usage “license” is bound with the ownership of the physical CD.

Of course there are plenty of folks who make copies for themselves–in some cases, just to protect the quality of the original from continuous usage (e.g. CD copy for your car), in other cases just to have a portable version for a compatible playback system (e.g. most cars aren’t quipped to play vinyl).  Whether or not making a copy is legal is something that’s been debated for some time (see this thread for some of the issues and cases involved).

Selling a digital file that you purchased is part of the focus of the piece.  Ideally, when you sell your copy of the music (whether a hard copy format like cassette or CD or digital mp3) you’ve given up your right to listen to any copy of the file you might have made.  That’s part of what the Vivendi case against ReDigi issue is about.

The interesting point mentioned in passing is that Stock photo services have become a relatively lucrative [digital] business while providing a wide variety of licenses for various usages.

These services may not give the users enough credit. Stock photo services have profitably operated for years, offering different resolutions, sizes, and license arrangements for each digital photo or video. The licenses aren’t that difficult to understand. If we are going to have this license hell, there should be different options available—a license to listen, a license to share, a license to send 100 copies out to anyone you choose, and so forth.

Of course there are various licensing business offering some of these variety of services that are much more sensitive to the consumer needs than the traditional PROs, but it remains to be seen if a model for services will ever be standardized.

Some JSTOR paraphernalia my wife got for me while she was at the ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) Conference in Indianapolis last weekend.

So yes, JSTOR is my friend, but while spending a lot of time searching databases of peer reviewed journals and more academic books I didn’t think to look at more “mundane” periodicals.  You know, those things we used to read everyday before we had the internet–Newspapers!  I discovered that I also have access to ProQuest (I know–sometimes I’m really slow!), which has access to periodicals, such as the New York Times, all the way back to 1851!

So I’ve been reading tons of ancient news, and finding some very interesting stuff and decided (hence the title of this post) to start an annotated bibliographic timeline of the so-called “Orchestra Crisis.”  Right now I’m just doing random searches with relevant strings, but am slowly adding entries to this here.  I’m still deciding on formatting and will likely put this up at my website in a more formal presentation–and obviously, there are no annotations yet.  Let me give you a few of the gems I’ve found–since it seems to be the [Classical Music] doom and gloom consensus that it wasn’t until after Baumol’s Cost disease (and some say even much later) that we’ve recognized this “crisis.”

From the St. Louis Post – Dispatch:

Few people know how heavy the individual contributions have been.  I have no figures at hand, but I think that more than $150,000 has been contributed during 35 years to pay the shortages in annual income.  In this regard, however, St. Louis’ experience is not different from that of other cities where symphony orchestras have been created: if ordinary prices are charged for the seats a heavy deficit must result and must be paid by some one surely during the early years of the orchestra’s existence, and, perhaps, continuously.

N.A. (1904) “Public Asked to Support Orchestra” St Louis Post – Dispatch, November 10, pg. 3 <<http://search.proquest.com.oberon.ius.edu/docview/577565967/fulltextPDF/13D7EE474D349D260E4/4>>

The date of the publication, as you can see, is from 1904.  Most of the references I’ve found before that date only mention individual orchestra deficits without reference to orchestras in general.  The emphasized portion (my emphasis, btw) shows how the author has an understanding that deficits are a common thing though there doesn’t seem to be an understanding that non-performance income must be a continuous thing.

One of the first references (that I’ve found so far) to an Orchestra Crisis, is from this 1923 piece:

Aldritch, Richard.  (1923) “An Orchestral Crisis” New York Times, May 6, pg. X3 <<http://search.proquest.com.oberon.ius.edu/news/docview/100253315/abstract/13D7D7342F361721BA6/1>>

Where Aldritch suggested the possible disbanding of the Chicago Orchestra if the management and musicians couldn’t come to terms.  He also says some not-so-nice things about the field (as well as those who fund and support it) as a whole:

Rich men will pay the deficit in Chicago, as elsewhere — they always do.  That seems to be one of the things rich men are for, and enough of them seem to be aware of their duty and destiny to keep things going in the orchestral world.  The only trouble in some places indeed, as in New York, is to restrain the rich men from rushing ahead and founding new orchestras when somebody asks for them, whether they are needed by the public or not.  The public and its needs, indeed, seem to be the last consideration.

…

For everywhere the mounting costs of orchestral performances are becoming a matter of concern.

That last comment is particularly interesting since, as you can see from some of the other pieces I’ve listed from 1924 refer to a summit, of sorts, of symphony backers (i.e. rich men) to the house of industrialist, Clarence H. Mackay, to figure out how to save orchestras.  As one of the titles intimates, this includes “Discuss[ing] Big Business Methods, Including Mergers.”  Indeed, with the New York Phil’s merger (in 1921) with New York’s National Symphony Orchestra, the idea of merging orchestras was most definitely on the table (the NYP will eventually also merge with the New York Symphony Society in 1928).  I remember reading a fascinating history of the New York Phil in an article (that I got through JSTOR, of course) that describes its early history and the trials and tribulations (not “tribble-ations” – heh).

Anyway, if you have access to ProQuest or any other database of old newspapers (or heck–just do it the old-fashioned way and visit your library and find a Periodical Index and look through the microfiche) these articles are well worth a look at how most everyone understood the financial difficulties of performing arts organizations, and how some have occasionally cried “wolf” (not the Wolf Report – heh) throughout [at least] the past century or so.

Besides, these are the sources for information about orchestras that most people will have read–not the peer-reviewed journal articles, academic texts, and the “Sky is Falling” proclamations by pundits and experts, which, as we know tend to be terrible at prediction anyway.

“Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” by Sheryl Sandberg

I haven’t talked about this enough and though I recognize how blind auditions has certainly leveled the playing field of performers in Orchestras.  As I mentioned in an older post Robert Levine, does look at how most positions of leadership in the Orchestra and in the management and staff of Orchestras isn’t particularly balanced.

Levine also mentions there seems to be a disparity among instrument choices, for example women are far more represented as flute and harp players which seems to indicate an early gender bias for instrumental choices in schools well before the level of college and then professional life.  This may very well be one of the biggest impediments–how early gender associations for particular fields leads to an asymmetry in how children eventually move on into fields.  A recent post at NewMusicBox by Chicago based  Ellen McSweeney discusses a number of that early gender biasing as she’s experienced them as well as how the research is showing it.

The title of my post is taken from hers and below I’m just going to repost the list of research items she condenses from Sheryl Sandberg’s (COO of Facebook) book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, with McSweeney’s commentary.

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1. Women musicians, like all women, pay a “likability tax” when they are self-promoting, assertive, and successful. One of the most important sociological facts Sandberg emphasizes is that success and likability are positively correlated for men, and negatively correlated for women. A strong body of research demonstrates that if a man has an ambitious, thriving, and successful career, his peers will find him more likable; if a woman has the same kind of career, her peers will find her less likable. Two studies in the Journal of Applied Psychology called this the “penalty for success.” Women artists pay a social tax for their professional achievements that men do not. Women musicians cannot promote themselves in the same way that men do without facing negative consequences in the way they are perceived personally. This is particularly problematic for performing artists, who must cultivate personal connections and an enthusiastic fan base (read: people who like you) in order to survive. Women find themselves in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. We shouldn’t be surprised that they might shy away from career developments that would make them, say, Chicagoan of the Year in Music—or that when it comes time to choose, journalists don’t find those women leaders quite as appealing.
2. Women musicians are less likely to embark on high visibility projects, take professional risks, and conceive of themselves as leaders—which leaves them at a distinct disadvantage in developing entrepreneurial careers. Research in “gender differences in task choice” has demonstrated that, when given the opportunity to choose a more challenging or risky task at work, women were far less likely than men to choose that path. Other research has demonstrated that millennial women are less likely than their male peers to characterize themselves as leaders and visionaries. This does not mean, of course, that women cannot take risks and establish visionary careers; it means that, due to gender socialization, they are statistically less likely to even conceive of that as a possibility.
3. Women consistently underestimate their own talents and abilities, leaving them at a disadvantage in the essential realm of self-promotion. Research in Lean In indicates that even when women and men perform equally well as surgeons, the women are likely to believe that they have performed worse. When it comes time for women artists to announce a new commission, upload a new performance video, or send a press release, how might this chronic devaluation of their abilities affect them?
4. When choosing who to hire, men are significantly more likely to choose a man. The consulting firm Innovisor found this to be true in more than twenty countries. So in a field where most composers, conductors, curators, music writers, and “visionaries” are men, the situation of a mostly male circle of influencers is likely to perpetuate itself.
5. Similarly, senior men are more likely to mentor young men than young women. Sandberg, drawing on research from the Journal of Vocational Behavior, notes that “mentoring relationships often form when the younger person reminds the more senior person of themselves. This means that men will often gravitate towards sponsoring younger men, with whom they connect more naturally. Since there are so many more men at the top of every industry, the proverbial old-boy network continues to flourish.” This means that fewer women musicians are being sponsored and mentored by influential, senior men in their field.
Having a mentor relationship misperceived as a romantic or sexual relationship is also a problem. Research in The Sponsor Effect shows that 64% of high-ranking executive men are hesitant to have a meeting with a more junior woman, and half of junior women avoided close contact with senior men. This means that in crucial social settings, like post-concert beers or a brainstorming coffee date, young women are less comfortable seeking out mentorship that could yield enormous professional dividends in the early stages of their careers.
6. Women are taught from an early age to worry about whether they can have children and a career. Five years before I had my first real boyfriend, my violin teacher was talking to me about balancing work and family life. Let’s face it: this seed of anxiety was never planted in the minds of my male colleagues. Sandberg cites research which shows that in two Princeton University studies—one conducted in 1974, one in 2006—there was a dramatic disparity between male and female students’ perceptions of whether work and family would be a conflict for them. In both studies, twice as many women foresaw this as a problem. This inner worry, Sandberg claims, means that women who want families “lean back” from their careers rather than leaning in.

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This recent piece by Deborah Copaken Kogan gives a depressing account of how a career can be shaped by these forces.

Jon Silpayamanant playing with Multi Grammy Award winner, Yo-Yo Ma, and my former cello teacher, Eric Edberg, in Kresge Auditorium during DePauw Discourse. September 29, 2011.

Sometimes it’s good just to reflect on your musical experiences.  I know I’ve said that in the grand scheme of things the Grammy Awards don’t mean much and given what I said in my previous post even a figure some of us might consider to be the elder statesmen of post WWII Anglo-American pop doesn’t seem to be known by a wide swath of younger audiences, it does still matter to some folks.

Also, I’ve been thinking about Lotka Curves, Musical Excellence, and Charles Murray lately and have been preparing a post about my thoughts.  But more on that later.

Jon Silpayamanant playing for Multi Grammy Award winner, Ray Price (in blue). Grammy Award winner, Bobby Flores (immediately right of Mr. Price) played fiddle. The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, TN. October 1, 2009

All the Grammy Award winners I’ve played with are at the top of their game.  There’s  no doubt about that.  All phenomenal musicians who, even if they have pick-up bands, manage to deliver on a scale most of us can’t imagine doing much less accomplish with the same frequency.  The Grammys aren’t a perfectly objective measure of the ability of these artists–at least not in the same way that the World Cup or Superbowl are relatively objective measures of Athletes.  Whether the musicians who are award a Grammy are the most gifted musicians (or simply the most gifted performers), it’s not a stretch to say the 10,000 rule probably had some effect.

Being celebrities means they understand that it’s not just about their onstage performances.  The weekend I played with Yo-Yo Ma, he also participated in a flash mob performance at the Hub with DePauw Music Students:

As well as a free performance at one of the local retirement homes, Asbury Towers, with DePauw faculty and students (even trading cellos with the student cellist for the performance):

Ray Price will always sit out at a merch table in the lobby after shows to sign autographs and take photos with his fans.  He stays until the last fan has left meaning that often we might be there for a hour or more waiting on the tour bus before we took off for the next stop.  After the “Jewish Bluegrass with Sass” concert, which was recorded for later radio broadcast, Hazzan Mike Stein open the stage for a couple of jams with the local musicians that accompanied him on the show as well as any local bluegrass musicians who brought an instrument.

Jon Silpayamanant playing with Grammy Award winner, Hazzan Mike Stein, and local bluegrass musicians after the concert which was recorded for live broadcast. Adath Jeshurun Synagogue in Louisville, KY. March 3, 2013

Sometimes the involvement with these musicians means doing things like this video recording session with Ray Price I participated in:

Other times, it involves opening for, or having other Grammy Award winners open for us.  While I was touring with Ray Price we’ve had Grammy Award winners like Crystal Gayle and Roy Clark open for us and we’ve shared the bill with/opened for Multi Grammy Award winners such as George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Willie Nelson.

Jon Silpayamanant with Roy Clark (Ray Price to the left) after playing a show with him in Lancaster, PA at the American Music Theatre. September 18, 2008

There are also near misses.  While the tabla player, Badal Roy, recorded some half dozen or more albums with Miles Davis, none of those are on the list of some 8 or so albums by Davis that had a Grammy associated with it.  He and his Jazz Combo were incredible musicians nonetheless, and I had a blast playing with them one evening at a local Jazz club in Indianapolis when I just happened to have my cello with me.

One of the lessons to be learned here is, if there is any chance at all that you might get a chance to play with someone you think is worth playing with, then make sure your instrument is with you (or very nearby)–you may regret if it isn’t!

Jon Silpayamanant with Crystal Gayle after playing a show with her in Lancaster, PA at the American Music Theatre. September 18, 2008

The other lesson to be learned here is something I’ll be talking about more in depth in a future post (the one I mentioned above) as it deals with how little actual control we have (the 10,000 rule notwithstanding) over our musical environments and how crucial it is to be in control of those aspects (like simply having your instrument on hand for a jam or you 10,000 hours of practice) over which we have total rein.

Many of those things I discussed in Creating Sustainability as an Entrepreneurial Musician post and a recent interview with comedian Louis C.K. especially emphasizes work:

Does it matter that what you’ve achieved, with your online special and your tour can’t be replicated by other performers who don’t have the visibility or fan base that you do?

Why do you think those people don’t have the same resources that I have, the same visibility or relationship? What’s different between me and them?

You have the platform. You have the level of recognition.

So why do I have the platform and the recognition?

At this point you’ve put in the time.

There you go. There’s no way around that. There’s people that say: “It’s not fair. You have all that stuff.” I wasn’t born with it. It was a horrible process to get to this. It took me my whole life. If you’re new at this — and by “new at it,” I mean 15 years in, or even 20 — you’re just starting to get traction. Young musicians believe they should be able to throw a band together and be famous, and anything that’s in their way is unfair and evil. What are you, in your 20s, you picked up a guitar? Give it a minute.

While to a large extent true, sometimes you do luck into a larger fanbase–with label backing/tour support; or by being asked to tour with NIN, thus piggy-backing somewhat on their fanbase (yes, I’m talking about Amanda Palmer again)–but those are factors that are largely out of your control, though there are ways to place yourself in a good position to maximize the possibility for making those lucky connections–like something as simple as having your instrument on hand for a jam with a Grammy Award winning musician!

Dothraki Love Songs are Srsly Serious!

Occasionally I do weird web searches–it’s usually how I find some very interesting things that I would never have come across even while some bemoan that the net has killed browsing culture.  Sure, it’s still not the same thing as having the physical and visceral feel of picking out a book and looking at it, but that’s not the point here.

I was looking for Dothraki Music since I’m interested in how “Geek Cultures” have created their own musical genres, and I came across this link blogpost, The Dothraki Have No Word For ‘Valentine’ by Kirk Hamilton.  The post, as you can see from the date, took place right before Valentine it linked to a series of Game of Throne Valentine Cards which I thought were hilarious when I first posted them to my Klingon Band’s facebook page last year.

The Hamilton’s post also included a link to Buzzfeed post which had screensave scans of twitter images of many of the folks who were wondering who the heck Paul McCartney is since he performed at the end of the Grammys last year.  This image is probably the most concise collection of the tweets (though the #OldFart hashtag in a later scan further down the page cracked me up):

Who is Paul McCartney?

Point is, what some of us may feel is “popular,” and therefore “relevant,” is usually informed by an idiosyncratic notion formed by what might have been “big” during some of our formative years as well as in a relatively restrictive context.  For example, how many people have heard of Lata Mangeshkar?  Go to India and probably some billions of people have listened to and loved some of her thousands of Bollywood playback songs over her 50 + year career.

The interesting thing about aging pop stars is the “close to classical” status they are starting to have.  Some of that was discussed in my Aging of the Orchestra Audience is “A Function of Demographic Evolution” post.  As Orchestras beef up their Pops Seasons with such fare as the Music of the Beatles concerts, we’re inexorably moving towards turning old pop music into classics much as has been done with classical music of the past when that used to be popular.

And it’s not just happening in orchestras.  One of the popular festivals down here is our Abbey Road on the River and a recent commenter on Greg Sandow’s most recent post talks about a Beatles Festival at Baldwin Wallace University.

What started as a small, student-driven performance for campus friends has quickly grown into a BW tradition. With a wink and a nod to the Conservatory’s long-running Bach Festival, the new “Beatles Festival” pays tribute to the music of the Fab Four, and students are running the show.

When Universities start canonizing music, you start to wonder how much relevance that music has anymore and the “Who is Paul McCartney?” twitter storm just accentuates the fact.  Some of the comments on Hamilton’s post could have just as easily have been read on a thread bemoaning the decline of culture due to the so-called decline of classical music:

Sometimes, I despair for the future, then I read those “Who is Paul McCartney?” tweets, and suddenly I hope the world does end in 2012.

…

[M]aybe it’s the fact that as new generations come along, the more distant we become from musical heritage. When it comes to music, I find that a lot of kids these days are only accepting of music that sounds aesthetically new, the other day my nine year old nephew was in my car and I was listening to Ziggy Stardust era Bowie, and he said that he didn’t like it because “it sounds old”. It’ll probably be the case that they turn 18 and suddenly develop a taste in music, we can only hope anyway, the music industry’s in dire straits when it comes to quality.

…

[I]t’s up to us to keep all those classics alive by enjoying them and showing them to others.

Which brings me back to Dothraki Love Songs–or rather, just Dothraki Music.  The Game of Thrones is a wildly popular HBO series based on a fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin.  While the series is still continuing, the first novel was published in 1996.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the following meme wasn’t created specifically in reference to this and other HBO programs:

Books: Get HBO programming 10 years before everyone else

And the ultimate irony is, if folks were to see a pic of the author (just 6 years younger than McCartney), I don’t doubt they’d be hashtagging #OldFart.  Fortunately for authors, looking young and being young isn’t nearly as important as it is for performers.

I’m on a tangent again–the Dothraki are a race of nomadic, horse-riding warriors.  Inspired, no doubt, by our own historical Huns and Mongols.  Thing is, I recently bought a Morin Khuur which I’ll be using for my Central Asian Music/Dance project, Raks Makam, and thought this would be the perfect instrument for a Dothraki musician!

Jon Silpayamanant’s Morin Khuur

Because I need another ConLanguage to learn and new costume to make for my musical journey, right?  But somehow, I think it would be a good (and much cooler than wearing a Wookiee costume) look for me!

Khal Drogo shows us how to make a Dothraki Necktie

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RELATED LINKS:

• Lekh Dothraki – fan site for the Dothraki language created by George R. R. Martin and David Peterson.
• Dothraki alphabet at Omniglot, the online encyclopedia of writing systems & languages

An Indonesian luthier working on a Keroncong Cello. Note there are only three pegs.

Some time ago I posted about a style of music in Indonesia called Keroncong.  In the image above you can see that a luthier is working on a Keroncong Selo (Cello), most of have three strings since the instrument is used as a plucked, rather than bowed instrument.  The video I posted in the previous post I’ve come to learn was of what might be considered on of the most Keroncong songs ever written, “Bengawan Solo,” which is about the Solo River which is the largest river in Java.

I’ve probably since listened to several dozen versions of this though the video above probably is one of the best close-ups of the pizzacato style of Keroncong Cellists.  The tune was written by Javanese composer, Gesang Martohartono, in 1940 before the occupation of Indonesia by Japan in 1942.  As Margaret Kartomi describes it¹:

The song text describes the historic grandeur of the Solo River, flowing through Central and East Java, one of the most fertile areas of Indonesia, which has supported and sustained human life since prehistoric times. A local trade route, it linked the fertile inland kingdoms of Java in the first and second millennia to the rich spice trade of Indonesia. The text of the song acclaims the river for the way it has supported and enriched the crops and lives of the people. Yet as the song was being completed in September 1940, the people were suffering from the effects of that year’s long dry season (kemarau), and by the time the composer first sang the song in the rainy season (December of that year), the River Solo was in flood, bringing misery to thousands of people whose lives were dominated by the power of the river (personal communication from Gesang). As a symbol of their fortunes, the song spoke eloquently to the people’s condition.

The song is written in langgam keroncong (i.e. 32-, 24-, or 20-bar) form and accompanied in keroncong asli (“authentic kroncong”) style though, as I mentioned, I’ve heard so many versions of the tune in various styles.  For example, this lovely version by the Indonesian Dance of Illinois group from a concert they did at Purdue University in Lafayette, IN:

Kartomi’s paper discusses many of the versions, including several foreign language versions of it.  I’ve heard versions in Mandarin, Japanese, Thai–the tune seems nearly as ubiquitous and popular as, say, “Ue o Muite Arukō” which is much more well known by it’s inexplicable name 0utside of Japan, “Sukiyaki.”  Ironically, this is one of the first songs I learned how to sing in Thai while I was a youngster here in the states–I hadn’t even heard the original Japanese version made famous by Sakamoto until just a few years ago.

The relative paucity of papers written about Keroncong in English is frustrating.  Most of the websites are simply re-wordings or variants of a very general introduction that can be found at the wikipedia entry.  As Judith Becker stated some time ago²:

A history of kroncong, or even a description of the various kinds of kroncong has yet to be written, either in Indonesian or English.  This article is the briefest of introductions to a musical style which has a wider audience and more practitioners than any other in Indonesia.

Ersnt Heins bluntly states³ that this is simply a prejudice that musicologist have against musical forms that aren’t “authentic” (since the instrumentation and style of Keroncong can be traced back to Dutch influence in the late 16th century):

For a long time the unauthenticity of kroncong and tanjidor has been taken for granted, and therefore until now neither has received much musicological attention. This is mainly due to the fact that neither type is ‘beautiful’, ‘high’, or ‘pure native music’ in the sense of earlier ethnomusicology. Jaap Kunst makes only marginal mention of kroncong in his standard work Music in Java (1949, 3/1973:375). It is played, he writes, “with enthusiasm and unmistakable musicality, but without the slightest real musical culture.”

While I haven’t found any Keroncong histories in English, I would highly doubt there haven’t been none written in Indonesian since Becker made the above comment.  I’ve actually come across a 76 page thesis⁴ specifically on the improvisation technique in Keroncong Cello in Indonesian so I imagine there are several works, as well as histories and descriptions of the music by now.  Unfortunately, as I mentioned–it is in Indonesian and I haven’t had the time to sort through it or to get someone to help me struggle through it.

One thing is clear is that once Keroncong moved into central Java, the style started to incorporate elements of the indigenous art music form, Gamelan.  Here are two videos of the same group performing “Bengawan Solo,” and then a Gamelan styled Keroncong tune, “Gambang Suling” (this latter video I posted in my previous blog).

While I haven’t said too much more than I did in my previous post about this genre, I’ve at least cited a few works which should allow the reader to learn much more than can be found on the interwebs.  And really, this post was just an excuse to start back up my Sunday Spotlight on the Non-Western Cello series as it has been far too long (nearly two years) since I’ve made my last entry.

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REFERENCES

1) Margaret Kartomi (1998) “The Pan-East/Southeast Asian and National Indonesian Song Bengawan Solo and Its Javanese Composer,” Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 30, pp. 85-101 <<doi:10.2307/768555>>

2) Judith Becker (1975) “Kroncong, Indonesian Popular Music,” Asian Music, Vol. 7, No. 1, Southeast Asia Issue, pp. 14-19 <<http://www.jstor.org/stable/833923>>

3) Ernst Heins (1975) “Kroncong and Tanjidor – Two Cases of Urban Folk Music in Jakarta,” Asian Music, Vol. 7, No. 1, Southeast Asia Issue (1975), pp. 20-32 <<http://www.jstor.org/stable/833924>>

4) Dwi Kurniadi (2002) “Teknik Improvisasi Cello Pada Musik Keroncong” (Cello Improvisation Technique in Keroncong Music), Universitas Negeri Jakarta (Jakarta State University), <<http://www.scribd.com/doc/4913354/SKRIPSI-2Improvisasi-Cello-Keroncong>>

“Narcissus,” by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (ca 1597-1599)

On my facebook feed, Eric Edberg had posted a link about the internet “narcissism epidemic.”  It linked to a piece talking about a NYT piece about the rise of “a statistically significant trend toward narcissism and hostility in popular music” (here’s an NPR talk with the researcher).  This seems to follow a trend towards narcissism and hostility in [American] society in general.

For several decades, students have filled out a questionnaire called the Narcissism Personality Inventory, in which they’ve had to choose between two statements like “I try not to be a show-off” and “I will usually show off if I get the chance.” The level of narcissism measured by these questionnaires has been rising since the early 1980s, according to an analysis of campus data by Dr. Twenge and Dr. Campbell.

That trend has been questioned by other researchers who published fresh data from additional students. But in the latest round of the debate, the critics’ data has been reanalyzed by Dr. Twenge, who says that it actually supports her argument. In a meta-analysis published last year in Social Psychological and Personality Science, Dr. Twenge and Joshua D. Foster looked at data from nearly 50,000 students — including the new data from critics — and concluded that narcissism has increased significantly in the past three decades.

During this period, there have also been reports of higher levels of loneliness and depression — which may be no coincidence, according to the authors of the song-lyrics study.

And I think the push back in media and amongst the “Chicken Little Think Tank” regarding the so-called “decline in classical music” don’t often consider the larger societal issues and the possible negative effects that can accompany a shift in musical culture (if such a shift is actually happening as they claim it).

American Symphony Orchestras are still one of the few musical institutions in the world where blind auditions create a relatively equal representation of sex in Orchestras as opposed to what is [still] a predominantly “boys club” type of environment found in pop music circles–and with all the concomitant sexism issues.  There’s always been a bit of a Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll aesthetic associated with the history of popular music since the formation of Rock and I don’t really see that going away too soon (though I must admit that it has evolved a bit).

I still remember what it was like to be playing the non-classical and local pop music circuit.  Women and girls were so infrequently performers that (as I mentioned in a comment to my Looking good can make you play worse… post) comments like the ubiquitous “she’s only in the band because she’s screwing one of the band members” were seriously offered as a reason for the rare appearance of a female performer on stage.  Not something that could be seriously entertained in a climate with blind auditions.

There are far more female performers in bands today than in the past, so such sexist reasoning has faded more in the background (hence why I think things have evolved a bit) but other interesting issues have become more commonplace.

The big question is, if narcissism has some survival value, how narcissistic can a population get before it becomes maladaptive?