SOUND FASTING: cultural war roots in the music we consume

Trigger warning: highly offensive, racist, sexist, and derrogative post in every way, 100% nazi. If you read till here, you should be offended already and leave.

With rampant leftists marching cancel culture to crumb down on every liberty, basic morality, aesthetic beauty, and possibility of people to acknowledge any authority out there beside the US (or China) federal government (like God or something), the cultural war is heating up not only in the America but in other countries, even including culturally stable Italy. For the first time in over a century, Vatican decided to say at least a little something in the mainstream culture war. Unfortunately, Vatican only showed up in town already after both Catolic and Protestant churches had failed Western sociaties on all levels for over a century, so best of luck to them in regaining spiritual authority. However, the sleeping dragon of the sane colorblind majority who worships logic and the natural law isn’t sleeping any more. During the pandemic even some of the most politically neutral people had joined one of the two campuses. More and more I hear from people around the world that they are scared to say their opinions out loud because of cancel culture should they oppose sexualisation and politicization of school students. What left doen’t understand is that when kids are involved, the mothers are coming along. In MAGA hats and in F-15s if that is what it takes to protect our kids, our homes, and our future. This article is about where the roots of socialist indoctrination begin. And I’ll say it to all the parents who fight their school boards over CRT and sue their spa salons over completely naked men running around little girls’ locker rooms:

S-T-O-P LISTENING, PURCHASING, PLAYING, SINGING, COMPOSING, ARRANGING, RECORDING ANY SONG THAT HAS 4/4 (or 2/4) PERCUSSION BEAT IN IT.

Good men

They say “Evil triumps when good men do nothing”….. I say, “If good men do nothing, were they really good men to begin with?”

THE FIGHT FOR EQUALITY, and why religion is the most basic attribute of any functional society

Socialists and social rights advocates give a good fight for equality. Not the equity, or fairness of all, but the equality, or sameness of all. It’s a great idea, everyone are born equal, everyone should get equal treatment, and possess equal things. Except, we are not born equal, we do not live equal, we do not possess equal things, and we do not die equal.

On race, class, and the classical music bubble

A fun story.

I’m a half-Tatar by blood. Tatars are a small scattered central Asian muslim nationality with white skin and black, vivid, slightly alongated eyes. During my childhood, every summer I was living with Tatars in Crimea (then Ukraine), learning to appreciate Tatar cuisine, their love to wine, and the delightful grace which they carry in their poor lifestyle. Like Uzbek and Mongol, Tatar women often wear braids in their hair.

Traditional central Asian braids are made at some length unlike the afro braids:

Schubert’s “Auf dem Flusse” from Die Winterreise: Analysis

Schubert’s “Auf dem Flusse” from “Die Winterreise” song cycle is based on the poem by Wilhelm Müller; the 5 stanzas describe the frosted torrent and compare it to the narrator’s heart after a failure in marriage (“ein zerbrochner Ring”, Eng. ‘broken ring’). Even though “Auf dem Flusse” is written in the ternary song form, the first two sections which contain the first 4 stanzas are as long as the return where the last, fifth stanza, is repeated twice in a form of variations on the material of A section (the form reminds chaconne/passacaglia structure but is in 2/4). 

“Overworked and underpaid”: the specifics of performing arts nonprofit organizations

In other countries such organizations are traditionally owned and funded by the government. In US, on the contrary, performing artists (dancers, actors, musicians) and their managers are left to fate and favor of donors and foundations. Unlike other educational nonprofit organizations (Teach for America) performing arts companies do not try to expand their volume but to maximize their impact by employing better artists and creating thoughtful performances. The performing arts companies do not try to advocate for policies and do not have a global agreement on the ways to run business most effectively. It must be mentioned, that performing arts nonprofits take the model of operations from training programs in educational institutions and care them into the world of business. Therefore, the flexibility and adaptivity of many performing arts nonprofits are quite limited to the standard set of practices.

THOUGHT, VIRTUOSITY AND SPONTANEITY IN LUCIANO BERIO’S ‘SIX ENCORES’ FOR PIANO (THESIS)

THOUGHT, VIRTUOSITY AND SPONTANEITY
IN LUCIANO BERIO’S ‘SIX ENCORES’ FOR PIANO
Thesis
Presented in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for
the degree of
Master of Fine Arts
in Music Performance and Literature
Mills College, 2017
by
Asiia Fomalgaut

BEETHOVENIANA: AN EXPLORATION OF INTEGRATED COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUES THROUGH A PRISM OF SONIC MIGRATION (THESIS)

BEETHOVENIANA:

AN EXPLORATION OF INTEGRATED COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUES

THROUGH A PRISM OF SONIC MIGRATION

Thesis

Submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the

Degree of

Master of Arts

in Music Composition

Mills College, 2019

By

Asiia Fomalgaut

“Waldstein”: Analysis of the First Movement Allegro Con Brio of L. Beethoven’s Sonata in C-Major For Piano Solo op. 53

“Waldstein” (1804) belongs to the middle period of the Ludwig van Beethoven’s compositions. Op. 53 is the first sonata to focus on the extensive finale movement more than on the sonata allegro; also, is the first one in line of compositions where the middle slow movement is inseparable from the finale. The energetic first movement, sonata allegro of op. 53 is organized by motivic elements rather than by the melodic development. The brief Grundgestalt, the basic shape of the piece constructs all the subjects or themes and their variations, the bridge, all connecting elements, and the coda of the composition. It appears in repeated and variated forms in different keys and note values.

The registers in this movement are extremely low on the keyboard and never exceed F of the third octave. The timbral effect of the piece is created by contrasting registers of themes: 1^st theme always emerges from the depths of the piano bases, the second theme sings in the range of human voice and is melodic, and the closing subject has high scale runs in the right hand.

A Grotesque Comedy in Opera: Serge Prokofiev’s “The Love to the Three Oranges” op. 33

The whimsical score of the fairytale avant-garde opera “The Love to the Three Oranges” by Serge Prokofiev (composer and librettist) combines the elements of tragedy, comedy, fantasy and romance in the surrealistic staging. Based on the play by the Venetian Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806) “L’amore delle tre melarance”, “The Love to the Three Oranges” exhibits lavish Modernist theatrical techniques and commedia dell’arte which Prokofiev have possessed from the adaptation of Gozzi’s play by the provocative experimentalist of Russian drama theater[1] – the theater director, critic and whiter Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940). Both the plot and the orchestration carry Prokofiev’s satire, charm and imagination which insensibly meet with the theatrical parody, vaudevillian buffoonery, and political and social irony.

Handel’s “Giulio Cesare in Egitto”

The four-hour long opera-seria in three acts, written in 1724 in London for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Nicola Francesca Haym, had been fully dedicated to the themes of love and revenge. Protagonist characters alto castrato Giulio Cesare and soprano Cleopatra are developing the love theme through the opera with their eight solo arias and two recitativi each, and a finale duet “Caro! -Bella!”; while the static protagonists contralto Cornelia (three arias, two ariosos) and soprano Sesto (four arias and a duet “Son nata a lagrimar” with Cornelia) focus on the theme of revenge for their murdered husband/father Pompeo. They all, together with the bass – Tolomeo’s general Achilla whose allegiance change to Cleopatra’s side due to the rivalry with Tolomeo over Cornelia, seek to overthrow the tyrannical prince of Egypt in “the quest for a virtuous rulership”[1]. This opera-seria communicates the moral grounds by allowing the positive love (of Cesare and Cleopatra) and the positive vengeance (of Sesto and Cornelia) to win over the negative love (of Tolomeo and Achilla) and the negative vengeance (Tolomeo). 

John Cage’s Song books

During the most productive period of his life, in 1970 John Cage was commissioned to write two sets of voice solo pieces around a minute long each for singers Kathy Berberian and Simone Rist during only about three months. Cage continued in his Song books to experiment with voice solos or “vocal impressions of electronic music” (Fox, 2011), the first three of which were written in 1958 while visiting Luciano Berio and Kathy Berberian in Milan, Italy. In planning the quantity of solos in each book, Cage consulted with I-Ching book (Pritchett, 2012) out of an interest in random numbers generator rather than any in spiritual aspects of the book; I-Ching determined the amount of songs per book as 56 and 34. To create each of the 90 songs originally, Cage asked I-Ching three questions: 

Hip-hop pedagogy within a frame of formal music education

Lately, the hip-hop pedagogy emerged in a spotlight of the most radical and effective alternative educational choices. “As teachers concerned with developing a critical learning search for new and innovative ways to introduce educational relevance, hip-hop should be located in the range of approaches. Developing relationships based on familiarity and importance, students have the greater propensity to grasp concepts originally considered foreign or “uninteresting.” (David Stovall. (2006). We can relate: hip-hop culture, critical pedagogy, and the secondary classroom. Urban education, Vol. 41, No: 6, November 1, 2006, pp. 585-586). Unlike the common school subjects, there’re quite specific difficulties which so far had prevented hip-hop pedagogy from spreading over the formal music education: “music education researchers have arguably done little to consider developments in hip-hop pedagogy, critical hip-hop pedagogy, and hip-hop based education” (Adam J. Kruze. (2016). Toward hip-hop pedagogies for music education. International Journal of Music Education, 2016, Vol. 34(2), p. 247). This paper discusses the particular ways in which hip-hop culture affects music classrooms and proposes several methods of integrating hip-hop pedagogy and/or hip-hop based education in music studios. My contextual standpoint in researching this topic is of a white third-world female who had been formally trained as a classical pianist worldwide including in the USA, and works as a formal music instructor. I understand the role of hip-hop culture in American society and in urban societies around the planet, and am first-hand acquainted with the ways in which the system of academic music education operates.

In music schools and studios, there’s something about music that students know and comprehend better and deeper than their instructors.

Del vell al nou, del nou al vell

While on a field trip to Barcelona, I have attended the art exhibition “Del vell al nou, del nou al vell” (active between February 15 and March 4, 2018), which took place in Arts Santa Monica Museum. The name of the exhibition translates from Catalan as “From the old to the new, from the new to the old” and suggests somewhat of the reconceptualization of the artistic values against the traditional approaches to European fine arts. As a European born person who respects the ‘old’ ways in fine arts, I was eager to see what do the exhibited artists propose for the “new” in the day and in the future of Catalunya.

Multiple perspectives: the conceptualization of the core purpose of American music education

One of the most important and infrequently questioned issues around music education touches the ground of very understanding of the necessity to provide the population with music education. Why should we do this? Music education cannot be grasped outside of the socio-historical background in which it occurs. Understanding the roots of music education can assist contemporary music teachers as well as the general public to approach the current and future pursuits in the hands-on artful and scientific experience of music making. David Eliott acknowledges that “improving as a music educator involves the thoughtful examination of aims, goals, strategies, standards, and plans in relation to a rigorous professional belief system” (Elliott, D. J., & Silverman, M. (2015). Music matters: a philosophy of music education (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 4).

During different historical eras, the conceptualization of core social purposes of music-making and education varied vastly. Some of the main ideas behind music education include religious worship purposes, socialization purposes, purposes of establishment of international and interracial relationships, cultural preservation purpose, profit gaining purpose. All those grounds to music making were developed to dominate in some periods of time; however, they can coexist harmonically in a single individual’s reasoning to study and practice music. In the given paper, I’ll briefly overlook and compare the prevailing social constructs and bias around music education in the United States.

Good society? Good person? Good school?

Late capitalism emerged as colored with the transformations in media and information enterprises, intensified global migrations and the stabilization of class allocations in the United States. The values which are developed and practiced during capitalism era proved themselves good but insufficient to satisfy the definition of a good society or a fair society. Capitalism tends to seek the equality of rights and responsibilities between various races, genders, and classes; and people thrive for the equity and fairness in sharing the social rights and responsibilities and preserving their freedom.

How does public education reflect the innovations in accelerated life rates, and does the current educational scheme reflect the changes at all?

Luciano Berio’s Six Encores for piano solo

The anthology of the Six Encores (1965-1990) for piano solo, written by a major Italian modernist composer Luciano Berio (1925-2003), demonstrates a wide spectrum of compositional techniques and styles of 20^th-century musical experimental thought. To play the six short, one to four minutes each, pieces the performer must possess the highest level of preparation and impeccable knowledge of the instrument: yet virtuosity is only one aspect of the cycle. Four of the encores are dedicated to the four elements of nature – Water, Earth, Air and Fire, named in German as Wasserklavier, Erdenklavier Luftklavier and Feuerklavier; the other two, Brin and Leaf, are the epigraphic miniatures which symbolize the passage of an ephemeral entity. All of the Six Encores illustrate the spiritual visualization of scenic elements and depict a precise trajectory of their imagery stimulating listeners with improvisatory spontaneity mixed with stylistic logical calculation.

RUSSIAN DECADENCE AND SERGE PROKOFIEV’S OPERA “THE FIERY ANGEL”

Opera The Fiery Angel became a climax of S. Prokofiev’s creativity during the emigration period of his life 1918-1932. However unique and one-of-a-kind in opera genre of the time, Fiery Angel was not born as an occasional concept of the composer, but rather as a vertex of multidimensional philosophical and cultural flows in Russian Silver Age era (1890-1914). As a masterpiece of a specific cultural tradition, opera Fiery Angel should be analyzed through the lens of Russian Decadence and Symbolist movement. In Fiery Angel, the occult, precisely Satanism together with objectivism and Freudian philosophy find their way to speak to listeners through the prodigiously dramatic romantic story based on the Symbolist title novel of Valery Brusov.

The most conspicuous feature of both the novel and the opera is the intense demonic setting, which indicates the overt theme of Satanism penetrating the pieces.

PAULINE OLIVEROS’S ‘DEEP LISTENING’ METHOD IN THE CONTEXT OF MUSIC PERFORMANCE ANXIETY

Many, if not all of the music performers have experienced states of psychic excitement before and at the time of playing in public. Music theorists and psychologists explored the field of music performance anxiety or so-called stage fright in numerous researches. They comment on reasons for stage anxiety and excitation of musicians which may derive from various sources of psychological premises. Some reasons have to do with environmental conditions of a hall, significance of public judgment, current life circumstances of musicians, childhood traumas, social phobias, and also the level of performer’s preparation. Nevertheless to any of listed pathogens, both level and outcome of psychic excitement connected with public playing may vary depending on the personality of the performer. Some musicians report light excitation which helps them to build successful performance under any circumstances. Others require the help of professional therapists to overcome severe forms of stage anxiety. Psychologists and therapists who study these matters don’t have unified opinion on better ways to cope with music performance anxiety. Some of the main techniques for overcoming destructive forms of stage fright in modern scholarship include physical exercises and meditative practices. Pauline Oliveros’s method of Deep Listening takes the task of coping with music performance anxiety to a whole new level by combining the most innovative in all levels of matter.

What exactly is anxiety and how does it apply to music performance?

Curriculum and Aims in regards with music instruction

Thinking the curriculum is one of most complex issues in pedagogy. Music curriculum relates to an art subject, which, as well as is widely opened for interpretation, involves quite a significant number of established traditions and biases. Even though there are some prescribed prevailing elements in music curriculum, the details vary vastly among the different music and public schools, universities, conservatories, private studios, etc. In all the promiscuity of the music curriculum, some of the main flows remain the common ground with their beneficial and destructive consequences. The most prominent consequence to the current music curriculum indicates that while music education in the new century evolves as the one more humane and effective than a century ago, there’re less and less Western people who practice instrumental and vocal music making and provide music education to their kids.