this picture of Leonard Bernstein is the subject of the last shock I will talk about but the most I can say right now is that for me - he is the glue that molded all this together. To provide an overall perspective and understanding.
1. the shock of the old meets the new
maybe the first musical shock of the old meeting the new was a CBS recording Bach - the Greatest Hits Album. Walter, later Wendy Carlos performing the final movement of the Brandenberg Concerto on a Moog synthesizer. The strange thing is, although I have heard this so many times I have never heard the original to this day. Bach was my first introduction to classical music and many other composers just don't seem to cut it in comparison. He was a power house and add to it being performed on a synthesizer that was gutsy and majestic
almost at the same time I heard Emerson Lake and Palmer do a version of Aaron Copeland's Hoedown from the Trilogy album - all at the tender age of around eight.
my first introduction to glorious and powerful Hammond organ and Moog synthesizer in combination. I still revel that this much power came from a trio. This led to listening to assorted pieces of progressive rock and Yes. Yessongs. Triple gate fold sleeve, live.
2. A precursor to the shock of the new
Krautrock certainly had it's roots in 70's electronic music but it transformed it into it's own identity with bands like Can, Neu and Kraftwerk that influenced later punk and new wave music. But among all this was a freak of music that combined Indian Raag music with prog rock. It only goes just over eight minutes but feels like forever, in a grand way. In his early days he was in a group that had precursor members of Neu and Kraftwerk. The saddest thing that this was his only solo recording. He was stabbed in a bar in Dusseldorf by two drunks. This piece screams get a high end stereo.
Himmelblau from Wunderbar by Wolfgang Riechmann
3. the shock of the old and new in combination
Harry Partch. Now this is a music I had to grow into but when I finally got there, I was hooked. There is nothing that conveys such emotions and subsequently such sounds and there will never be. He organised his own 43 note scale and built and modified instruments to accommodate that scale. The first piece I heard was Delusion of the Fury.
this recording came with Harry Partch explaining each instrument in turn, as well as revealing many aspects of his musical philosophy.
my favorite quote of his involves musical truth and the time he spent striving for the truth. He discovered there were many truths and I am walking among those truths.
Listening to this opened a world of listening opportunities involving microntal tuning, but mainly the music of the guitar orchestra composer Glenn Branca who tuned his instruments to the harmonic series. Even built a number of his harmonic guitars and one of them is my main axe to this day. Play it really, really loud. Also, if you want to get out of renting a flat, to quote John Zorn, play something like this at a decent volume and I will guarantee you, you will be out of there by the end of the week, if not sooner. When my sons were small I played this in the car for them with all the windows down. A woman in heavy traffic in a car next to us accused me of child abuse. The boys thought it was majestic.
Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West. Western swing music more addictive than heroin. I like to describe it as hot rod music. The precision engineering of the Telecaster playing of Jimmy Bryant combined with the funny car styling of Speedy West. I had heard the names spoken in reverential terms but never heard them. In the final days of a dedicated store where you could actually buy music, one lunchtime, I heard this -
the title track from the compilation Stratosphere Boogie. Without pause I asked the guy by the counter what is this, quickly followed by I don't care if this is your own personal copy, I am buying this today - name your price. He sold it to me right away for 20 dollars. He could have got triple that. There was no way I was leaving without that disc. Later I got a four CD set and had my mind blown so many times. It has been said that Speedy West is the most recorded pedal steel player in history. That kind of information just makes me want to hear more. From that boxed set, then there was this - Railroadin'
all the sets and subsets of amazing, blissful, mental and yum all in one song
5. the shock of the new
maybe I am doing the title of this section an injustice but maybe it's my own fault. I sucked up so many different styles that I became a glutton and got a severe dose of musical gout. I came across one group by chance and I was hooked. Their use of odd meters was so refreshing and mesmerizing. Probably one of the few groups that have spun my head around in recent times, that felt "new".
Nik Bartsch's Ronin. They spun my head around on heavy rotation when I first heard them, but this piece sealed the deal for me. Modul 29 14
5. understanding the shock of the new
In the 70's, Leonard Bernstein made a video lecture - a six part lecture that goes for over 13 hours, at Harvard called the Unanswered Question. It examined the syntax and approach to music as we moved into the 20th century, including examples of it's origins. For the title of the lecture and as a jumping off point he used the piece the Unanswered Question by Charles Ives
the conclusion is interesting because of all the examples cited he doesn't know what the question is but he knows the answer is yes. Take time to watch it on Youtube. I never thought that a series of such a length could be so enthralling, also provide such a detailed overview as to how we arrived at this concept called now. Even though Ives experimented with quarter tones he expressed a compelling approach using the same twelve notes as everyone on the standard keyboard.
now these examples are a mere jumping off point. So much music came my way by the action of letting my ears follow them. These are just some examples that go under the category of epiphany; that were the catalyst for heading in so many directions. There are so many examples from minimalism, music concrete and even as an extension of that - rap.
I could not go without mention a dear friend, Andrew, who is no longer with us. I used to go around to his flat, armed with a pad and pen and revel in his record collection of over 10000 lps. I never asked him to play anything. He just put something on with me responding with the constant question.
what the fuck was that?
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