It’s here… 

http://www.ntsmusic.co.uk/NTS_Music/Blog/Blog.html

ALL THE BEST.

The following piece  does not yet exist but were it to exist, it would be the most contemporary piece of contemporary music in the world.

The Opening:

Not enough pieces open with just one note that is microtonally and timbrally modified. Therefore this paradigm of the new will begin thusly, probably on the note A but naturally tuned to 443.7HZ.

The Middle:

As we all know ‘The Middle’ is the least important part of any work of art. Many architects forget  this section entirely and it can take years before anyone notices. In music, the middle is a good chance for the composer to use material from earlier pieces which they wrote a part of but could never really be bothered finishing. While doing this, there are just a few things to bear in mind:

The Inherent Truth of the Tam-Tam

There should be at least one massive Tam-Tam stroke in the piece. Many people are under the misapprehension that these occur at climaxes, but this is false logic that confuses cause with effect. It is in fact the climaxes that occur when the Tam-Tam is played, thus rendering Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie (for one Tam-Tam) the most climactic piece of music in history. 

Bongos:

Always have them nearby. Even if you haven’t written them in the score, even if there are no percussionists in the line-up, you never know when you might have to bongo.

The Quote that Digs your Depth:

There will come a point – shortly after the Tam-Tam – when the newly roused listener will ask ‘what is the meaning of all this?’. It is at this point that you reveal the ace in your toolshed, the spade in your sleeve, it is now time for the tonal quote. It’s best to choose a good composer to quote, as the lack of meaning in one’s own piece is superseded by a myriad of complex illusions and new found depth. Chins will be stroked, heads scratched and post-modern theorists will wet themselves with joy if you play this card correctly.

The Laptop:

It is pretty important that somewhere on stage there is a macbook (preferably new and 78-inch). It doesn’t have to be switched on but someone with haphazard concert dress should sit and gaze intently at the screen for the duration of the piece. Usually there is a fight against drowsiness for those occupying this position for which a colleague of mine, Remmy Canedo, would proscribe Rambo IV.

The End:

The secret to ending a piece is to come up with a short idea that is in no way connected to the work you have just written. Once you have these anti-coherent, left-field bars all one has to do is attach them to the end: fertig. This affects the listener much like unexpected arousal from members of the same sex: ‘Gosh! This is confusing… but I rather like it.’. No transition is required. 

Plant pots require watering only in the season of the sands.

For the acoustic composer – even one as young and handsome as myself – the world of electronic music is an attractive yet bewildering strand of new music-making. The possibilities are endless, the results usually bad and the technical details rarely explained in a language that everyday musicians can understand.

Recently I have been learning a little more, particularly about the software used at the musical-technological cave of wonders, IRCAM: Open Music, a primarily pre-compositional tool (most use it to generate notes and rhythms which they insert into scores); Audio sculpt, which very niftily analyses sound files and is particularly useful in observing overtones of recorded material; and Max MSP (not an IRCAM product), which is an extremely flexible interface that allows for all sorts of sound and video processing, often in ‘real time’.

Real time (live) electronics are en vogue at the moment in Paris, which has some of the realest time in Europe. Not so in Stuttgart. Prof. Marco Stroppa who leads the department is sceptical of the term ‘real time’ as he believes all time during a musical performance is real, whether the material is pre-recorded or not. You can read what he has to say about it HERE. Stroppa has been interested in sound synthesis (building synthetic sounds ‘from scratch’) for decades; from the times when computing was in its infancy and processing could take days.

Technology has changed immensely since then, yet Stroppa’s synthesis-philosophy and aesthetic goals have remained constant. He combines his knowledge of the physics of sound with a highly refined sensitivity to timbre and musical morphology. He has made it clear to all of us that have been taught by him that the tools we choose to control sound are in some way the sound themselves, that no tool is comprehensive and that certain sounds require different approaches.

To give an example, recently we were exposed to cataRT from IRCAM, which is a granular synthesis tool (taking tiny bits of sound – ‘grains’ – and rearranging them) designed for composer George Aperghis. This programme lead to instantly pleasing sounds that I could really hear making musical sense – which is not always the case in this field. However, despite the wealth of parameters that could be adjusted there was indeed an overall ‘sound’ of the patch and indeed of granular synthesis in general which – I’m told – is more or less an electro-stereotype. ‘Real’ electronic composers would not touch it, or indeed any other ‘ready-made’ product that leads the user to ‘think like the computer rather than the computer thinking like you’, proving that the thought process behind the controls and the end result are inextricably linked.

For Stroppa the mode of thought of the composer is clearly different in the electronic world, which leads to something of a conundrum for those of us who have not spent years learning IRCAM software, Max MSP or various types of programming language. Are we forever to languish in the electronic gutter, painting our primitive wishes onto some cave wall for much more talented computery people to make into something wonderful? Or do we take three years out to become proficient in Max, Open Music, Super Collider, etc. while producing little music in the meantime? The answer, as per usual, comes from what our musical wishes are and whether electronics are the best medium for their realisation. What is clear is that the best way to learn is not through the study of abstract principles, but through practical work – the desire to ‘make’ something. There is such a wealth of possibilities that to learn any one well there has to be focus; practical work makes you focus on the precise tools you require.

What has been disappointing thus far is that the many hours I spent playing Pro Evolution Soccer, Speedball 2, Shogun Total War etc. have not advanced me in this field nearly as much as I had hoped. I always thought there would be a connection between smashing a creepy marionette into the air with a giant sword, pulling out two guns and shooting it while still in the air, and the nuances of the lisp programming language. Still, these are early days. There’s always next semester. 

The LSO were in town a few weeks back with some superb Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. I was sure I didn’t really like Tchaik 5, but Valery Gergiev – reluctantly balding maestro and chief conductor – persuaded me otherwise. It was wonderful music-making, that put me in mind primarily of sandwiches.

For there was a time that I had a job (something I have not made a habit of) and in this job I was employed by a venerable Edinburgh performance institution to dispense alcohol to the masses at stomach-lurching prices. On this particular night Gergiev was in town with some Russian chums for an opera performance, which was exciting as I could often stick my head into the auditorium to have a swatch at what was occurring (non Scots/Scotophiles please see urban dictionary for definition of swatch).

Upon my arrival I saw one of my managers going about in tears because of an altercation with the conductor about his sandwiches. She was furiously making a plate up for the direttore, who had expressed surprise at the lack of sandwiches on his arrival and was soon to express disdain upon their arrival. The whole affair was a classic example of a situation in which no one need raise their voice or shed a tear, but needless to say both acts were performed before the evening was even begun. I suggested that maybe he should have done better at FILLING the staff in, but this was not deemed helpful.

The main point I take away from this story is that many star artists and musicians can be arse-holes who treat their fellow human beings with very little respect. And not only star conductors, composers too are often the rudest, most self-centred cads and/or bounders you could hope to meet. We have documentary evidence of Schoenberg’s cruelty to Berg, Strauss taking Hofmannstahl to task and Wagner being in general a massive nob-end.

Yet, when I listen to Wagner or hear Gergiev conduct I experience something wonderful – call it truth, or ‘being touched’, or an expression of the Will which is the one true thing in itself. And this feels so much like the highest thing we can aspire to that its morality is almost unquestionable. What are the ethics of someone who is on so many levels a terrible human being making you feel like that?

On a train coming back from Donaueschingen there was a kerfuffle with the tickets of my travelling companion - a composer senior to me in status and age. Only after borrowing the ticket chap’s pen was the deal complete. Handing back the implement she said ‘sorry… artists!’. It was the kind of statement that in English could well have had an ‘eh?’ at the end. I was surprised, as I steer clear of the artists label and sometimes feel a bit silly calling myself a musician as it is a profession to which I aspire, but am not yet a member.

This labelling of ‘the artist’ is indicative of a feeling that somehow there are different rules for creative people. Artists do indeed need to do strange things sometimes to create or to experience but being a bastard is not often one of them. Talented people will always receive attention and different personalities will react to that in different ways, but while these talents are letting people experience the transcendence that music can offer one feels they should not forget the more mundane existences of those around them. Nor should those around them excuse inhumane treatment on grounds of their being ‘creative’.

There is always the argument that when Valery gets on the podium it is ‘complete sausage’ (as the Germans would say) whether he just flipped someone the bird on his way in. And as soon as the music begins it is clear a world with Gergiev is far better than a world without. Incidentally, these are the issues one should seriously consider when playing ‘which composer from the past would I most like to meet’. Only say Sibelius if you want to stare into a symphony-fuelled fire with only a supremely depressed man for company. Better pick Rossini – at least you’d get a decent meal out of it.

There is an insurmountable discrepancy between the purity of the best musical experience and the human imperfections of the composer and performers. It is for every listener to decide how far they can ignore these personalities to take something from the work – a process that is most obvious in the slow reintroduction of the acutely anti-semitic Wagner into Israeli musical life. For me, any enmity towards Gergiev was gone after a few bars, but then it wasn’t me who had to make his sandwiches….

With the sounds Xenakis’s Terretektorh revolving inside my brain it behoved me only to return to my palatial residence and get stuck into a good eight-hour sleep. I had located my hostel earlier in the day as it was so very conveniently close to the station - in the middle of the red-light district. While on my first ‘reconnaissance’ pass I had a little difficulty locating my abode and was told helpfully ‘Hostel? Nooo, no Hostel. Here, only strip clubs.’ Despite these early difficulties, it was not long before I was safely installed in what is one of the nicest Jugendherbergen I have had the joy of visiting.

So it was during daylight. But they say it changes when the sun goes down, as only by night did the place come alive. As I turned down the street after the evening concert a row of fat old men and cheaply-clad women stood outside each lurid shop unit trying to coax you to the other side of their tinted windows.

While shaking my head at a gap-tothed fatty (see Chaucer’s Wife of Bath) I threw him an strained smile before realising that I had no respect for him and really this is one place where there is no need to be polite to retailers. Simultaneously, on my other side I felt a hand on my arm and a woman’s voice said ‘warte doch mal’ but I was passed before even seeing her face. This somehow put me in mind of the one Goethe quote I learned in German, ‘verweile doch, du bist so schön!’ (But stay, you are so beautiful!’). And with only tangential literary references for company, I reached the hostel.

In the morning the only signs of excess were a few glass bottles and vomit that someone had neatly disgorged in a corner. My prized eight hours had been somewhat shortened by an earth-shaking snoring performance by four out of five of my roommates. Sound moved from bed to bed, sometimes together, other times in a call and response fashion as they vied for sonic supremacy. Next time I’m definitely bringing the ear plugs.

First up was the Ensemble Modern Academy concert. The Academy is a great programme where younger players are ‘nurtured’ by the professionals and play lots of yummy new music. This concert of bits and bobs from Xenakis, Pintscher and Berio was well played, if not exactly scintillating. What was extraordinary was the level of trendiness displayed by the ensemble. Skinny jeans and top-buttoned shirts were present in abundance: the trumpet player had a tie so thin he had might as well have tied a feather round his neck with a piece of string.

The grown-up Ensemble Modern played later in the day with a concert of new compositions. Most of the works displayed characteristics of the ‘typical’ EM piece which runs a little like so: an extremely aggressive opening with loud electronics and bass clarinet while someone, somewhere, is hitting something and screaming; a passage with lots of runs that tail-off into a few seconds stillness; the return of the screamy-bang music which then breaks down into a dance-music beat; END.

The indisputable highlight of day 2 was the JACK quartet, who played Ligeti, Xenakis and Scelsi quartets with über-dynamics and brilliant coordination. What made these performances all the more remarkable is that I enjoyed them so much despite the softly audible tingling of somebody’s hearing-aid throughout. It was particularly nice to see the two violinists swapping the leadership role, a set of circumstances that is unlikely to occur in multiple other contemporary string quartets one could mention. Later I was a little shocked when the cellist mentioned his ‘roommate’ (in the context of an excellent conversation about Elliott Smith). This suggested to me a rather unexpected set of economic circumstances. Safe to say, however, that on this performance his days of room-sharing may well be very quickly over.

The tram is coming, the tram is coming. Oh God. Oh good God.

I have fifteen seconds to choose the album that will define the coming journey and not even a clue which artist to select. It is the rather ‘first world problem’ of 74.4 days of music and nothing you want to hear. Much of that is ‘classical’, which unfortunately does not lend itself to listening ‘unterwegs’ due to its dynamic contrasts (though sometimes I stick on old Berlin Philharmonic recordings of Bach and it seems to work OK – cue self-satisfied chortle).

In the early days of ‘the listening question’ I chose something familiar, a solid track from the Strokes or the Smiths, Belle and Sebastian or Radiohead. But after increasingly frequent recurrences of the dilemma there was only one option left: the sound of silence.

Naturally, silence is not what you get on the U-Bahn but this was in fact what made the journey interesting – much more interesting than pumping the same old tunes down my ears. Rather than inhabiting a familiar, English-speaking world I was for once genuinely present in Stuttgart and that is a feeling to be prized in an unfamiliar land. Moreover, I learnt how the brother of the woman across from me fared in his exams (not badly) and that you can telephone ‘with’ somebody (dative) in German.

Music has a glorious way of taking us outside of our present time and location and that is indeed why so many use it to relieve the drudgery of commuting. Sometimes, however, it gives the mind no space to process the events of the day or just to think its own thoughts. On busy days I find the former leads to increased stress rather than the desired relaxation.

If I am not alone in feeling pressure to put in the earphones, then there is a whole swathe of the population under musical anaesthetic for hours every day. Fair enough you might say, people are free to live in whatever state of alertness they choose. And I would agree, were we completely alone during this process.

But the truth is, while we are being put under, someone is whispering in our ear, grinding the ideals of the purely commercial concern that is the music business into our brains. New tracks are released to introduce a little novelty to our lives and keep us ‘fitter, happier and more productive’ but they will be spewing the same sexist, capitalist, idealised-heteronormative-love-life bile as all their predecessors.

I realise there are different degrees of commercial music-making that I have thus far brushed over. Yet the majority of my pressurised listeners will be feasting on the cash-cows of the record companies and even the most discerning of consumers will not be completely unsullied.

Music – like image – has a very powerful effect on the subconscious. An effect made all the more dangerous perhaps by the fact it so easily overlooked. It’s probably going too far to say taking the earphones out is some kind of protest but it genuinely took me a few months to realise the ipod had started defining my listening habits. For the sake of your musical well-being, make sure it’s the other way around. 

Who is the most famous British composer? If you had asked me a year ago I would have thrown my head back in laughter before giving a quick, witty and eloquent response such as ‘erm… Thomas Adès? George Benjamin? Or maybe Harrison Birtwistle?’. However, the answer rather depends on where you are asking the question, to an extent that I would not have credited but a twelve-month prior to these worrying times.

For in Germany, probably the most well-known composer of those fair islands – or ‘England’ as they insist on calling it – is Brian Ferneyhough, high bird-king of the nested tuplets (that is, he writes a lot of complex rhythms). ‘So what?’ you may ask, ‘a rose by any other name’ and so forth. Yet it has quite profound consequences for what British music is seen to be. What with the vast ‘English’ talents of James Dillon (born Glasgow), Richard Barrett (born Swansea) and Michael Finnissy (O.K. I’ll give them that one) Britain is a land of complex Modernism, a haven of hard abstraction.

They are of course in for a shock if they ever visit. They would find the names that had populated their image of British music strangely absent and a host of new faces in their place; instead of complexity a fine, often simply-hewn surface that owes as much to Britten as to Webern.

I do not wish to come down on either side of the pond because the coexistence of these two strands in British composition provides great artistic riches. I blame neither one side or the other for mutual ignorance but – perhaps predictably – I blame pretty much everyone.

For the European follower of new music an Adès, Knussen or Jimmy Macmillan is a conservative curiosity not worthy of attention. Yet, there is enough music that I love and respect by the famous group – the ‘composers-I-have-grouped-together-for-the-purpose-of-this-article’ group – to make me think that you are missing out not knowing it. Equally, Britain has been too slow to get in touch with its complex side and embrace those composers who have won the respect of the world without really gaining it at home. A look at the otherwise commendable BASCA British Composer Awards shortlist does rather show a bias to the ‘stay-at-home’ posse mentioned above.

The times they are a-changing, however, as Ferneyhough and co. are being performed at Huddersfield and by the likes of the BBC with far greater regularity. For Brian it is too late, however, he fell out with the people making the big decisions decades ago and has little warmth left in his heart for his homeland. He left ‘two fingers in the air, to linger there’.

It begs the question, what has changed since his youth so that the same will not happen again? There needs to be a great change in the attitudes of our educational and performance institutions if the next generation of modernists are not to be turned away. The London Sinfonietta – to give but one example – could do with opening up a little, if they want to maintain their pole-position new music ensemble status.

Who are the most famous British composers? It is not just a question of music but of identity and performance-politics. For those who want a rich musical landscape at home it is certainly worth considering.