Does anybody know what a song looks like?

Here's the thing: I read music. And this is how I was trained: first sight, then sound.

This is unnatural, most would say, because as human children, even in this age of extreme literacy, we learn languages first by hearing them then much later by reading/writing them. But this is how music is taught in American schools. You learn the building blocks of clefs and noteheads and staves and accents then you sound it all out. And if you grow up and major in music (yes!) and study composition (never occurred to me!), a huge part of your development as a composer comes from analyzing and studying full scores. Say you love the music of John Adams, you contact Boosey & Hawkes for a "perusal" score of City Noir and maybe throw in some pieces by Stravinsky, Bernstein, and Carter for good measure. Then you study them. Hard. Like: "I love the sound he gets in this passage -- what instruments was he using? How are they spaced? In what inversions are the chords? How about the harmonic progression? How did he accomplish this feeling of grandeur here? That feeling of loss, diminution?" You study lots and lots of lots of works by lots and lots of composers. And you practice using some of their techniques to help express the music you want to express. This is how we learn.

I am in the process of writing an album. Fully orchestrated. Of my own songs. And I realize that I'm frustrated because I've never actually seen the kind of music I want to write. I don't know what an orchestrated song looks like on paper. (And those dumbed down piano/vocal fake books from Colony don't count.) It feels like I've got blinders on, or I'm just groping in the dark. No wonder! I'm a visual gal trying to bridge into an aural tradition.

So here's my wish list. Pop publishers, I am placing my order for perusal scores right now. I want to see the full original instrumental arrangements or transcriptions of the following albums:

1. Paul Simon Rhythm of the Saints
2. Paul Simon Graceland
3. Vampire Weekend self-titled
4. Rufus Wainwright Poses
5. Sufjan Stevens The Age of Adz 
6. Sarah McLachlan Fumbling Toward Ecstasy
7. Ben Folds Songs for Silverman
8. Sufjan Stevens Come On Feel the Illinoise! 
9. Death Cab for Cutie Plans
10. The Decemberists The Hazards of Love
11. Feist Let It Die
12. Damien Rice O
13. Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life 
14. Joni Mitchell Blue
15. MGMT Oracular Spectacular
16. Mumford and Sons Sigh No More
17. Muse Black Holes and Revelations
18. Nickel Creek self-titled
19. Oscar D'Leon Lloraras
20. The Shins Wincing the Night Away
21. Gorillaz Demon Days
22. Indigo Girls Swamp Ophelia
23. Tori Amos Boys for Pele
24. Alison Krauss & Union Station New Favorite
25. Ani DiFranco Up Up Up Up Up Up

I wish I could have these to study all summer. What would you want to study?

Away with me.

For 10 days I shut down my PR engine, locked myself out of social media, and played. An extended artist's staycation if you will, stocking the pond via serious acts of whimsy.

And here is why la vita è bella in New York City: the first night of my sabbatical began with Amanda F. Palmer throwing a spontaneous free street party in walking distance from my apartment, complete with reconstructed circus organ, people on stilts, giants, children, and women in panties being tied into rope swings (Look: I'm sure there's a name for this but I'm not going to punch it into Google, ok?).

As for the next night, if your ballerina singer illustrator graphic designer friend who just finished her MBA at Notre Dame calls out of the blue and asks if you want to go see a sold out Radiohead show, you say yes. In a moment designed to make me spazz in my seat, Thom Yorke quoted Steve Reich's "It's Gonna Rain" between tunes at the Prudential Center's Friday show. Then: post-show thunderstorm, running barefoot in the pouring rain, all girls' sleepover in Jersey City, wine, hallelujah.

[Lesser known fact: In 2008 Steve Reich expressed interest in writing for rock band configuration (keyboard, drumset, guitars, etc.) so I suggested maybe writing something for an existing rock band, namely Radiohead. Reich hadn't heard of Radiohead (!) so I giddily made him a mix tape, including 2+2=5. He really dug it, so I contacted Radiohead with the idea, and Reich began composing excerpts for the band to look over. After evaluating the excerpts, Jonny wrote back and determined that, while some of the band members are fluent music readers, others aren't, so they respectfully recused themselves from the project and the Bang on a Can All-Stars agreed to take it on. The resulting piece? 2x5. From what I understand, a new piece from Reich is even more directly inspired by Radiohead, premiering next spring in London.]

Saturday: met Ted Hearne's nephew along with Music at First's Will and Meg at the Mantra Percussion show. Sunday: sang in two ensembles and full choir for PSUMC's "Choir Sunday," learned some music history via Pam McAllister's hymn-sing sermon. A church couple rushed me at choir rehearsal to say how excited they were to see my name on Gabriel Kahane's blog, after seeing February House and becoming instamegafans. With my husband and my best friend's boy, biked to the ferry to Governer's Island, the island, had "ice cream," and biked back. Monday: moped through a rainy day that was supposed to be berry-picking. Felt very sorry for self. Tuesday: had lunch with a wise lady-neighbor, wrote a song-and-a-half (yay! the point!),  had a good voice lesson with Wendy Parr, a solid Brooklyn Wind Symphony rehearsal, and was asked to join a new brass band which I will do if I can somehow borrow or acquire a tenor horn.

Wednesday: Saw four guys in suspendered highwaters with pastel button-downs, bow ties, and horse heads racing each other down the beach at Coney Island (sideshow or hipster?), rode the Wonder Wheel (oh my Jesus the swinging cars), and got a back sunburn (frown of irresponsibility).

Then I blew town to play piano and sing in my niece's wedding on my parents' retirement farm. Yes, there were some old stand-bys but I did sneak in Debussy's Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum as the Recessional. Though I began piano lessons at 7, French horn at 11, and acquired a University degree in music, I'm fairly certain this was the first time that my relatives had heard me play or sing. No lies.

The wedding was gorgeous, another niece learned to turn pages, it's not every nuclear family that can sing a cappella quartets, and it would've been a quintet had my bass brother not been on toddler duty. Also: during the ceremony the neighbors across the holler started a super massive bon fire and blared Alice in Chains Man in the Box right in time with the final prayer. So that was a scream.
                                                                                                                                                                                       Post-wedding barefoot dance party with nieces, failed attempt to find hiking in the middle of the mountains (HOW), trumpet/horn duets with aforementioned toddler-chasing bass-voiced brother.

Meanwhile, the L magazine counted this coming Saturday's Brooklyn Wind Symphony "European Vacation" concert as one of the 20 Things You Must See And Do This Summer. June 16, 2 pm.

FREE. Like marching to the creek with your nieces and nephews. Or dancing so hard at your toddler nephew that he falls prostrate on the ground and weeps. (cc: husband)

Song alert: Microbiology

Here's the next addition to the "rough draft recording" collection: Microbiology. Written in early 2010 and polished up last week, recorded in a couple of live takes tonight. With Garage Band....so, you know, with a grain of salt please. Thanks and xoxo to Alaska for the set-up, adjustments.

I was originally hearing this with some Stan Getz-ish fuffffy saxophone and light drumset action but I'm not so sure now. Here you go, Bruce Springsteen. My answer to I'm On Fire.

++++ FOR GOD'S SAKE, PLEASE TRY TOO HARD!

THIS, Ben Folds, is the it.

THIS is what I've been talking about. THIS is what I've been doing on this blog. Ben Folds posted a note on Facebook (??) answering the questions aspiring artists ask him about how to "make it." It's so good, it's worth reading all the way through but here's a teeny excerpt on the section entitled...

++ WORK DILIGENTLY TO FIND YOUR VOICE:

Finding your Voice takes a lot of frustrating time. That's a painful period that all artists go through, sometimes more than once. I think that most artists don't want to admit that period ever existed. We all like to pretend we came out special and it all just magically happened. You will eventually find that it takes no effort to just be yourself, but the road to that place can be long and rough. The truth is that most artists would not want you to see the evolution of their Voice. It would be very embarrassing. Imitating your heroes, trying on ill advised affectations. It's all part of the trip. It's why all those Before They Were Stars footage is so cringe worthy. Nobody wants to be seen in that light and so successful musicians do the new generation a disservice by denying their shady artistic past. I for one, will do my best to cover my tracks because I don't want anyone seeing that sh*t!

This blog is my road map. My inspirational treasure map for any of those who might come behind me. Perhaps it could be crazy or professionally suicidal to allow the world to view my flipping, my flopping, my muddling months and years of finding my own voice, of finding my own sound, of becoming an active artist with successful shows and albums. Perhaps there are those friends or colleagues or passing readers who listen to these "rough draft scratch recordings" or read my naked ramblings and feel uncomfortable or embarrassed for me, thinking I just "don't have it" and I "shouldn't quit [my] day job" and all the other know-it-all things we say when somebody else does something that disturbs our own illusions of stability and security and propriety.

But I am a smarty-pants and I do not think so. I know that I will get there and I know the music will be good. And I believe that I am telling stories and writing songs that other people will take comfort or joy in and call home: something I have dreamed about for as long as I can remember. And when that time comes I want the world to know how messy and confusing and terrifying it was to get there. And maybe there will be just one person who, also messy and scared and confused, will see this map and recognize it and take courage to move forward to write that book, make that album, go to art school, launch that company, take on that social justice mission.

AND IT WILL HAVE MATTERED TO BOTH THIS AND THAT STARFISH.

BOOM.

(End mixed metaphor. Now read Ben Folds' entire post because it is razor sharp. Hat tip to Those Little Details for the link.)

Greenwood Cemetery 4/10/12

i will grow old 

and grow apart from all that's dear to me

i will grow old

i will grow old

sickness and death will surely come to me
i will go on

i will go on

in the sun

there is nothing that is done

(earth and sun)

 

here, i have made huge mistakes

i haven't been all that i could be

i've fought, hidden, and lied

i haven't seen what's right before me

i am subject to illness, to blind spots

and blind sides

 

i fall heir to all of this — even to forgiveness

i do not know

that there'll be golden gates or glassy sea

if there'll be hands, or face, to welcome me

i'll be alone and will not know

that dawn will break

fearless as the heart — leveled — after an earthquake

RIP Earl Scruggs: Who Will Sing for Me?

I am so sorry to learn of Earl Scruggs' passing.

Feeling particularly blue this evening, I had just come downstairs to work on a hymn I've been trying to finish when I saw the update on Facebook. It prompted me to pull out some tunes and, in doing so,  I realize that what I love about bluegrass and Southern gospel is that they make me feel both at home and homesick at the same time. That feeling drives my desire to sing, to make a song my home, to put that longing into music.

May I sing for you, Mr. Scruggs? I keep trying.

Oft I sing for my friends
When death's cold hand I see
But when I am called
Who will sing one song for me

I wonder who will sing for me 
When I'm called to the cross that silent sea
Who will sing for me

When friends have gathered 'round
And look down on me
Will they turn and walk away
Or will they sing one song for me

So I'll sing until the end
And helpful try to be
Assured that some friends 
Will sing one song for me

NPR's 50 Failed First Impressions

THIS. JUST. IN.


NPR's 50 Failed First Impressions.

"Debut albums are strange beasts. Some rocket artists to a lofty level of stardom that never seems to wane, making a permanent mark on the world of music. Others manage to attain a devoted cult status, but take years, maybe even decades, to do so. Even more go overshadowed by material the artist will eventually release. And there's just no calculating the countless number of debut LPs and EPs that get swept under the rug every year.

"Even though some artists just get it right the first time around, this mix is devoted to the ignored and under-appreciated debut. ..."