Protecting the Brain from Conspiracies Against My Cosmos
In a change of pace from my concert-goings so far (that is, Barenboimfest 2K8), I went to a chamber music concert last night, of music for string quintet with flute and erhu. The concert was billed as "East meets West" (in English, not German); not really the kind of concert that I would normally spring for, actually, but since it was the Philharmonisches Streichquintett (formed by members of the Berliner Philharmoniker, led by the principal second violin) and a concert made up of almost entirely 21st century music, I went ahead and attended. Just hearing the string players over here play at all is ground enough to go to a concert - I've mentioned before and already how good the string sound is over here. Also, what with our family being so international these days (except for Nate), figured it was appropriate to go. And since Mikey never tells us anything about China, I had to go out and learn it for myself.
I have only limited experience with the Erhu. Back when I lived in Boston, I used to travel pretty frequently to New York, always taking the Chinatown bus (or I guess occasionally the similarly priced Greyhound (it's a Obama v. Clinton kind of decision between the two)), which, of course, drops one off in Chinatown. One time, when I was in Chinatown, catching a Subway, there was an old (presumably Chinese) man playing a tin-can erhu in the station. For whatever reason, there was a rather long wait for the train so I got to hear him for a little while. He played only "Happy Birthday" over and over again (I suppose he was unaware that the song is copyrighted and he could have potentially been charged for its use (they can get the Cutco knife guy to snip his pennies in two, pocket half)). At some point, a woman gave him a dollar and said "play something traditional." He took the money, but responded in no other way, and continued to play "Happy Birthday" over and over again. Pretty great.
This concert was actually way better than I was expecting. The erhu player seemed, from his bio, to pretty well world renowned, and seemed pretty virtuouso to me. And actually, there is quite a bit of similarity between the tone of the erhu and the tone of the violin - way more in common than I would have guessed. The core of the tone is incredibly similar, but the erhu has way more going on in the higher overtones - sort of like a violin-in-a-tin-can combined with the sound of just a violin. Several of the new pieces (written within the last couple of years) were quite good, I thought (though I may have just been in a good mood (actually, I've noticed this time around in Miami that I have this particular kind of enjoyment that enjoys the fact that its enjoying itself (dare I say, meta-enjoyment) - I'm generally bemused by the experience of it, and trying not to analyse (and I certainly don't analyse on the blog) why exactly I am having to constantly remind myself that I am enjoying myself)).
Part of it is that the introduction of a strange set of overtones into the string quintet also helps in making the Western instruments themselves sound strange. I get kind of punk rock about Western overtones now and then - bemoaning the way Christendom stripped anything "Eastern" (i.e. interesting) out of our tones, making Western music boringer than most others. I am not always punk rock about it, must of the time I know better, and believe in the usual more accurate explanations of phenomenons of overtones that you are now thinking of.
The concert was also an excellent tonicto the last one that I attended - the Barenboim/Staatskapelle Bruckner 8 (which it seems I have decided not to blog in detail about (it was great - a spectacle, phenomenal to see and hear, but also boring as fuck - any faults with the concert, in the end, were Bruckner's fault), despite having some more funny descriptions of Barenboim's conducting moves (the Frankenstein (he did a lot of Frankensteining, which may have contributed to the overall lack of momentum - or, rather, the inability of momentum to overcome the fact that it existed within Bruckner's 8th), the Matador, the Speed-Skater)) - which was all thick and long and uniform and painfully Western. This concert was made up of many short pieces for various smaller groups even, within the string quintet. While some of the pieces were more interesting than others (a couple actually sounded to me what music I would write might sound like, had I studied composition rather than horn (imagine for yourself what that might be)), there was only one piece that I thought was wholly unsuccesful -
happened to be by Philip Glass (part of the West, no doubt). Just boring, typical easy-listening current-period Glass. It apparently had something to do with Tai Chi or Qigong or some such thing, contraposed against Philip Glass "woah, a city!" shit. If there was Tai Chi involved, I imagine it as the kind practiced mainly by shoeless, balding middle-aged men in public parks who hope that doing this Tai Chi in the shade of a Sycamore will finally help them kick that nasty coke habit they picked up in the mid-80s. (I've always (not-so-)secretly hoped that P.G. was a major cokehead and that the reason he stopped making interesting music was to make sure he could sell enough of his music to maintain a $1,000/day habit.)
After the concert I met some friends at a bar, and helped my Canadian friend hit on a girl from Denmark with only DaF (German as a foreign language), having to stay in a crowded, noisy, smoky basement way longer than I would have liked. When I finally got home there was a note warning me that it was dangerous to use the hot water right now where I live - I guess the heater was/is Neo Tokyoing so there was no way to wash the terrible cellar-smoke smell out of my hair or sweatshirt. Goodness knows when I'll have hot water again (my Gastgeber (host woman) recommended I heat up some water in a kettle this morning to wash my hair - she seems to have noticed that hair like mine needs washing (she's a part-time hair stylist so attentive to such things (I'm tempted to have her give me a weird East Berliner haircut before I leave town again)) - or maybe she smelled the smoke. Keine Ahnung. Such is life in Berlin.
I have only limited experience with the Erhu. Back when I lived in Boston, I used to travel pretty frequently to New York, always taking the Chinatown bus (or I guess occasionally the similarly priced Greyhound (it's a Obama v. Clinton kind of decision between the two)), which, of course, drops one off in Chinatown. One time, when I was in Chinatown, catching a Subway, there was an old (presumably Chinese) man playing a tin-can erhu in the station. For whatever reason, there was a rather long wait for the train so I got to hear him for a little while. He played only "Happy Birthday" over and over again (I suppose he was unaware that the song is copyrighted and he could have potentially been charged for its use (they can get the Cutco knife guy to snip his pennies in two, pocket half)). At some point, a woman gave him a dollar and said "play something traditional." He took the money, but responded in no other way, and continued to play "Happy Birthday" over and over again. Pretty great.
This concert was actually way better than I was expecting. The erhu player seemed, from his bio, to pretty well world renowned, and seemed pretty virtuouso to me. And actually, there is quite a bit of similarity between the tone of the erhu and the tone of the violin - way more in common than I would have guessed. The core of the tone is incredibly similar, but the erhu has way more going on in the higher overtones - sort of like a violin-in-a-tin-can combined with the sound of just a violin. Several of the new pieces (written within the last couple of years) were quite good, I thought (though I may have just been in a good mood (actually, I've noticed this time around in Miami that I have this particular kind of enjoyment that enjoys the fact that its enjoying itself (dare I say, meta-enjoyment) - I'm generally bemused by the experience of it, and trying not to analyse (and I certainly don't analyse on the blog) why exactly I am having to constantly remind myself that I am enjoying myself)).
Part of it is that the introduction of a strange set of overtones into the string quintet also helps in making the Western instruments themselves sound strange. I get kind of punk rock about Western overtones now and then - bemoaning the way Christendom stripped anything "Eastern" (i.e. interesting) out of our tones, making Western music boringer than most others. I am not always punk rock about it, must of the time I know better, and believe in the usual more accurate explanations of phenomenons of overtones that you are now thinking of.
The concert was also an excellent tonicto the last one that I attended - the Barenboim/Staatskapelle Bruckner 8 (which it seems I have decided not to blog in detail about (it was great - a spectacle, phenomenal to see and hear, but also boring as fuck - any faults with the concert, in the end, were Bruckner's fault), despite having some more funny descriptions of Barenboim's conducting moves (the Frankenstein (he did a lot of Frankensteining, which may have contributed to the overall lack of momentum - or, rather, the inability of momentum to overcome the fact that it existed within Bruckner's 8th), the Matador, the Speed-Skater)) - which was all thick and long and uniform and painfully Western. This concert was made up of many short pieces for various smaller groups even, within the string quintet. While some of the pieces were more interesting than others (a couple actually sounded to me what music I would write might sound like, had I studied composition rather than horn (imagine for yourself what that might be)), there was only one piece that I thought was wholly unsuccesful -
happened to be by Philip Glass (part of the West, no doubt). Just boring, typical easy-listening current-period Glass. It apparently had something to do with Tai Chi or Qigong or some such thing, contraposed against Philip Glass "woah, a city!" shit. If there was Tai Chi involved, I imagine it as the kind practiced mainly by shoeless, balding middle-aged men in public parks who hope that doing this Tai Chi in the shade of a Sycamore will finally help them kick that nasty coke habit they picked up in the mid-80s. (I've always (not-so-)secretly hoped that P.G. was a major cokehead and that the reason he stopped making interesting music was to make sure he could sell enough of his music to maintain a $1,000/day habit.)
After the concert I met some friends at a bar, and helped my Canadian friend hit on a girl from Denmark with only DaF (German as a foreign language), having to stay in a crowded, noisy, smoky basement way longer than I would have liked. When I finally got home there was a note warning me that it was dangerous to use the hot water right now where I live - I guess the heater was/is Neo Tokyoing so there was no way to wash the terrible cellar-smoke smell out of my hair or sweatshirt. Goodness knows when I'll have hot water again (my Gastgeber (host woman) recommended I heat up some water in a kettle this morning to wash my hair - she seems to have noticed that hair like mine needs washing (she's a part-time hair stylist so attentive to such things (I'm tempted to have her give me a weird East Berliner haircut before I leave town again)) - or maybe she smelled the smoke. Keine Ahnung. Such is life in Berlin.
2 Comments:
That's a great story about the man in the subway station. "Happy Birthday" is as traditional as any song.
On that subject I'll note that today is our father's birthday, so Happy Birthday Dad. If I were in Chinatown I'd give the tin-can erhu guy a dollar to play his song for you...
By the way, I don't think there's anything treacherous about your meta-enjoyment. I think there's just this kind of locking-in sometimes when you realize you're having a good time, and that "Hey, I'm really enjoying this" awareness just feeds back into you as one more thing you like about what's going on. The last time I can clearly remember that happening at a music performance was at the Bohemian Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens a couple years ago with some subset of the immediate family, listening to a Czech oompah band play a Beatles medley.
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