what's_wrong_with_brahms


	what's_wrong_with_brahms_htm
oldephebe	yeah - i went to click on to brahms to see what what our brahms maven had left for us to gleefully peruse and !@##@?!! - all that comes up is an infuriating white sheath of blankness - blather gods! Hear me! Restore unto us that respendant page - we have come to pour over the sparkling jems oh she who is called unhinged has left - she who hath been kissed by twin muses - O great big blue blather gods - bend your eyes upon this ragged supplicant who only seeks to sift through the Art of she who is called unhinged - umm yeah and it would be nice if you hooked up ztupid questions as well later ...	030827
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unhinged	look at that.... it's all better. you sure have some power over the blather_gods. usually we all sit here and scream and they don't listen. bastards.	030827
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unhinged	yeah, and what i posted under brahms wasn't anything great....sorry ;-\	030827
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oldephebe	hmm - your modesty is refreshing but i've read these turgid musicologists analysis of brahms - and they never really seem to get to the soul, that ineffable and yet recognizable quality that imbues brahms compositions with thier compelling diachotomy - in a word or two - you do - okay and could you translate - ah semi-colon, dash, backslah? - being a word or book nerd i'm somewhat illierate in the old computerese - daf says i'm somewhat dated - oh well	030827
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minnesota_chris	they were changing the oil.	030828
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unhinged	well, yeah, that's because plenty of musicologists and theorists try to reduce music down to the math and science of it presenting cold hard facts in a cold hard manner. whenever i see the word analysis the first thing that comes to mind is 'anal.' i hate analyzing music down to it's small components like it's some kind of science experiment or math equation. art cannot be reduced to it's smallest parts. there is no meaning in it anymore when people try to do that. it's like taking a monet and putting it under a microscope and analyzing the shape and size of every brush stroke. and then some historian posing as a scientist comes up with monet's 'method' and writes a book and people try to copy by learning his 'method' but the fact of the matter is no one ever comes up with the beauty of monet. his genius is distinctly his own. that's like analyzing every piece brahms ever wrote and coming up with his 'method'(which the theorists and musicologists do) and then me sitting down and trying to write; following to the tee the 'method'. and it comes out sounding nothing like brahms; OF COURSE. you can't write about music without writing about the beauty of it. that is why i went to music school. because the beauty of it captivated my life and i never wanted to let it go. and i truly hate the way some of my training has bastardized the beauty of music. now i sit down to listen and i hear chord progressions; i sit and analyze the oddity of bartok as i sit and listen; or i hear a simple folk dance tune and say to myself 'my my that's just I-V-I-V-I' AND I HATE THAT. but the way my mind works, once i learn the tools of analysis my brain is constantly analyzing. but i always try to temper such cold hard methods with the passion of beauty that i and all other musicians have been attracted to in the first place (and maybe i'm presumptous to call myself a musician but i feel like i'm getting there; the last time my dad heard me perform he gave me our understated/overstated 'wow' (the thing he says when nothing else can come to his mind because he's so awed; me being his little girl of course) and said 'i think you can say you are a musician now kid'). music is not the goddamn notes on the goddamn page. even if you follow all the instructions that the composer leaves you, do create the beauty they had in mind if you don't feel it with your heart? no. and back to brahms, when i hear brahms i hear the emotional rollercoaster compacted into the 'method' that all that hemiola and major/minor blurring and typical pianstic configurations and blah blah blah communicates a larger meaning. that is the beauty of music. so sometimes this academic bullshit frustrates me. and sometimes i have little flashes of dreams of founding a school for not only the talented but only the passionate. and i think that that would be a successful experiment. but once again, i find that the lab is about to close so i have to shut off my rant for now. later oldephebe. (ps. that little thing at the end of my last post is my embarassed face; look at it sideways)	030830
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oldephebe	yep, another tour de force, tear the sky down exposition - unhinged simply brilliant - you've voiced a lot of the things i've always wanted to say to my music professors who were disdainful of my affinity for jazz - and refused to see how music without passion is meaningless - even the beauty of the II V7 I motif as it occurs in jazz and shock! even some classsical music - i love clasical music but you're right they sucked all the life out of it - especially as it relates to composition and conducting - they just just sucked out all the life and disencouraged embellishment or or any kind of intuitive talismanic approach to conducting - dammit i'll never truly grasp the composers intent unlesss i lived inside his /her mind - but this is what the music is saying to me - i've studied the times and the age wherein he was whelped, i've grazed upon the gestalt of that age - and now let me add myself to this score - and these are the compensatory strengths of this ensemble - shouldn't i try to cast them in the best light possible - can't i ask for more from these talented musicians that just rote recapitulation? - anyway thank you for giving me something to think about - i haven't mused upon these things for quite some time - later ...	030830
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unhinged	yeah, i saw a lot of profs at youngstown who were disdainful towards jazz; there was a violinist in my studio who leaned towards jazz cause he started out as a bluegrass fiddler rather than a classical brat like the rest of us and he started taking the jazz improv classes and our teacher scoffed at him instead of supporting him because our teacher didn't understand. he also scoffed at my involvement in early music ensemble because i thought (still think actually) historical reference and performance practice are key to understanding certain kinds of music. the reason a lot of people are bored with baroque and renaissance music is cause we don't play it the way they did. i was even bored to play it and sing it until i started studying the period practice. we look at everything through our 19th century conservatory trained eyes and say 'that is the right way.' honestly, the classical music world is going to spin in on itself if we don't turn away from our lofty academic standard of music as technique and theory and history (but most of which many are very ready and eager to ignore if it doesn't suit them). i would rather sit and listen to an empassioned violinist that makes a few mistakes than a technical robot. of course the GOOD ones have both ends. but more often than not, it's the robots that over-run it all. and fuck all of them and fuck all the people that reduced music to that. and oh believe me; i went through my rough spots. there were semesters where i didn't practice my violin hardly at all. i played in ensembles, in my lesson, but never took it out of the case in a practice room. i hated the way i played, i hated how i was judged and the standards i was judged on, i hated that i needed help and no one would help me, but i wasn't going to let them and all their lofty stupid fucking idiotic standards get me down in the end even though it almost destroyed me. i have seen so many perfectly capable and wonderful musicians turn away from the business because they didn't think they were good enough. i really had no choice in the matter though; so many times i wanted to drop out of music school and work at wal-mart for the rest of my life (but as someone so kindly pointed out 'they don't hire potheads at wal-mart'). but then i discovered pieces like brahms' first violin sonata, and got to work on the bartok duos with my bach_goddess and i worked with my theory prof as accompinaist (damnit, i can never spell that word) for practically four months straight and he only charged me $300 because it wasn't about the money. it was about the experience, for both of us. and i got to be the concertmaster of madame_butterfly by puccini. god, so many good things that i'm glad i stuck it out for. i_faltered many times in my music education. how do you let someone tell you that your heart is wrong when the only thing you can really be true to is YOUR heart? so i guess i'm learning the standards so that i can break them really. as much as i wish for the utopian musical society where we all prize passion over technical proficiency that's a wish-washy dream of american communism, something that definitely didn't survive. and once again i'm convinced that i was born at least 30 years too late. damn.	030902
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oldephebe says	yep, i feel you unhinged, i feel you	030902
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andru235	cheers to you both. let us get drunk to the drinking songs of the academic festival overture. perhaps brahms was saying something about theory...!	050901
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unhinged	suzuki appropriated some brahms. my pedagogy teacher recommended to skip it. i teach it to every single one of my students. just today i played a brahms waltz for an eight year old.	100221