Ringing in Election Day
Ragnarok… Twilight of the Gods… It might be hyperbolic, and even a bit too “jokey.” However, taking a cue from Opera Depot’s Election Day sale of various versions of Richard Wagner’s opera Götterdämmerung, the finale seems all too appropriate in relation to the 2016 election at a number of levels. In this reappropriation of Wagner from another dangerous political movement that exploited discontent and engaged in fearmongering, one finds oaths and betrayals; the collapse of an existing order; and even references to the exploitation of nature, which (to my mind, at least) shares metaphorical parallels with concerns surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline. And all in this proto-steampunk production of the opera that sets it around Wagner’s own time, underscoring the continuity of myths and reality, past and present, and the political nature of a genre that all too often tries to hide its multitude of possible ideological underpinnings.
Gojidämmerung: A Tribute to Ifukube Akira
On 29 July, a film entitled Shin Gojira was released in Japan. To those in the know, last year’s announcement of this movie was exciting news, as its central “performer” had taken a decade-plus hiatus from film… that is, from work at the Japan-based studio Toho. For Legendary Pictures, he emerged in a U.S. film two years ago, under his Americanized name: Godzilla.
To some degree, this posting acts as a trip down memory lane, describing how I became a fan of the Toho films featuring Gojira / Godzilla and a rogue’s gallery of other daikaiju (giant monsters). I partially attribute my fandom to the work of Ifukube Akira (1914-2006), whose scores for various daikaiju movies lent extra emotional dimensions, ranging between profound power and pathos, to the sight of grown-ups lumbering around in rubber suits while knocking down miniature sets. However, like the Godzilla movies (or at least the better ones), both are than they have typically received.
Ifukube also created a number of non-film scores, and he cited some “legit” (that is, non-film) composers as influences. However, in keeping with the spirit of this blog’s primary interest in “unlikely” musical similarities, I consider possible connections between Ifukube’s music and that of other “legit” composers I subsequently came to place in my personal Parthenon of favourites.
The Different Faces of Godzilla
Godzilla has undergone subtle changes in appearance over the past 60 years, increasing in size to remain competitive with the increasing heights of Japan’s skyscrapers. Nonetheless, he has always been an oversized bipedal dinosaur with prominent dorsal plates, which glow prior to the discharge of radioactive flame, and acts as a virtually invincible embodiment of nuclear destruction. The U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 occurred less than a decade prior to Godzilla’s first cinematic appearance in 1954, itself inspired specifically by the story of the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon #5 unwittingly getting too close to a U.S. nuclear bomb test. For this reason, the film possesses a level of somberness that might surprise novices.
I suspect the more common association of Godzilla with “cheesiness” and “cheap” special effects comes from his increasing popularity with kids and evolution into a straight-up hero, at least in the later “Showa” era movies (1954-1975). Topped with lower budgets and recycled footage, the movies can indeed reach unbelievable levels of inane silliness.
Initial Impressions of Godzilla
Although I was vaguely aware of Godzilla as a kid, between the late 1970s Hanna Barbera animated series and an awesome Godzilla Battles Ghid… er… the Tricephalon Monster playset I got in 1980, I didn’t become a true fan until late 1984.
It was on a Saturday night in November of that year when my mother called me out to the living room, telling me that King Kong versus Godzilla (1962 J / 1963 US) was on WFFT 55, an independent channel out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. (I suspect the kids from Stranger Things also tuned in to the same station for the occasional old school horror fix.) Years before, I had seen a reproduction of the poster while flipping through the 1977 edition of The Filmgoer’s Companion (page 401), and felt hopped up at the opportunity to finally see it. At least to my 11-year-old mind, the movie didn’t disappoint. Even for a kid weaned on something as sleek as Star Wars, it was one of the most awesome things I had ever seen! Certainly with the conceit of two of the most iconic oversized monsters battling it out, it’s little wonder that Legendary Pictures plans a re-match for mid-2020… preceded by next year’s Kong of Skull Island, with its apparent (and wholly appropriate) nods to Apocalypse Now, Alien, and, of course, Heart of Darkness.
A recent re-watching of King Kong versus Godzilla, however, made me realize that the movie wasn’t that great. Points came off for the usage of brownface, some dodgy rear-projection, and Kong’s rather dopey and haggard look. Nonetheless, Godzilla himself remains a terrifying presence, his features looking especially angular and reptilian as he rampaged between the Arctic Ocean and mainland Japan.
And then there was that “roar,” for want of a better word. Difficult to translate into words, it’s usually rendered into the rather insufficient onomatopoeia of “skree-onk,” or something similar. To my mind, it sounds almost like a kind of terrifying organic carillon, piercing the air as a challenge or threat to any who would dare take on Godzilla. In his movie with Kong, Godzilla’s roar sounded like this. The roar took on numerous forms over the years, ranging between a slow low-pitched version in the original film and higher-pitched faster ones.
One of Four Fathers
The “roar” was developed by Ifukube Akira, whom Toho had also hired to score the first Godzilla movie. Indeed, Ifukube’s music generally aligns with the relatively grim tone of the film, removing it further from the “cheesy” and “childish” reputation that has somehow become encrusted on the series. But this does not preclude such music as the Godzilla March, a motif established in the title theme, and which would emerge in later movies as well.
According to a detailed account on a virtual museum dedicated to the composer, Ifukube was tasked with creating Godzilla’s roar after efforts to use recordings of animal sounds proved fruitless. Despite Ifukube’s initial skepticism, given that reptiles lack vocal chords, director Honda Ishirō convinced him that the roar could be a mutation brought about by nuclear tests. (Honda, along with Ifukube, producer Tanaka Tomoyuki, and special effects supervisor Tsuburaya Eiji, are considered the “four fathers” of Godzilla). Ultimately, a single string played vertically on a beaten up double bass, with leather gloves covered in pine tar, acted as the foundation for Godzilla’s iconic sound. Depending on the story, Ifukube also employed a modified amplifier box, knotted rope, and kettledrum for Godzilla’s footfalls.
Even before he composed the score for Gojira and gave the big guy his voice, Ifukube had already established himself as a “respectable” composer, creating “proper” musical pieces for full orchestra or soloists. Much to my own personal amusement, given my boyhood enjoyment of Ifukube’s daikaiju scores and later fanboydom towards Richard Strauss (1864-1949), I came to learn that one such work was a 1948 ballet based on Oscar Wilde’s play Salome. This rendition of the story occupies a different sound world from Strauss’ opera, which, funnily enough, has bits that could readily accompany a giant monster movie. (Cultural theorists of varying sorts could have a field day with that idea.) Rather, at least according to an uncited contribution to the Wikipedia article on Ifukube, his Salome “is written in a conservative, late-romantic style reminiscent of [Nikolai] Rimsky-Korsakov, [Modeste] Mussorgsky or even [Aram] Khachaturian.” As a fan of Rimsky-Korsakov, I can certainly hear the affinities there… some echoes of Scheherazade, for sure. In keeping with the Russian theme, a radio broadcast of Igor Stravinsky’s (1882-1971) Rite of Spring supposedly inspired the adolescent Ifukube to pursue composition, which he later studied formally under pianist and composer Alexander Tcherepnin.
Other “classical” influences include Manuel de Falla (1846-1946) and Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), also near contemporaries of Stravinsky. As well, Ifukube drew inspiration from music of the Ainu, an indigenous people from his home island of Hokkaido and parts of far eastern Russia.
Linking Ifukube and Monster Motifs
Interestingly, I first heard of Hokkaido during my formative Godzilla movie-viewing experience. And yet, Universal decided to add some of its own stock music cues for the U.S. version of King Kong versus Godzilla, while eschewing most of the music created by a son of Hokkaido itself. Most memorably, I recognized the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” theme, which accompanied a giant octopus attack on Kong’s home island. Even before I knew anything about leitmotifs and the like, I found it rather weird that The Creature’s theme somehow ended up in this movie. Personally, though, it’s interesting to note that composer Hans Salter (1896-1994) was originally from Vienna, and studied under modernist Alban Berg (1885-1935). For comparison, listen to this excerpt from the latter’s Three Pieces for Orchestra. Nonetheless, I didn’t mind the theme’s inclusion, given that I was transfixed by the build-up to the action promised by the title, and I knew nothing of Ifukube at the time. Besides, as with Ifukube, it was a prelude to the kinds of angsty and densely-orchestrated music I would end up enjoying years later.
It took quite a few Godzilla movies before Ifukube’s contributions to the series started to register. In fact, the next one I saw on WFFT-55 had no Ifukube at all. Instead, Gojira tai Hedorah (1971), released in the U.S. the following year as Godzilla versus the Smog Monster, opted for a far out mod score by Manabe Riichiro (1924-2015). Probably to make the movie more “hip” and up-to-date (much to producer Tanaka’s annoyance, which he targeted at director Banno Yoshimitsu), right down to the nascent environmental consciousness emerging around that time. Admittedly, the main theme (“Give Back the Sun!”), which appears several times throughout the movie, is quite catchy, along with some lounge music possessing vaguely Hendrixian stylings. However, in contrast to the motifs employed by Ifukube, the theme for Godzilla makes him sound like he’s blitzed or stoned, and then suddenly rallies to emerge from another one of his drunken stupors. “All right, I’ll do stuff that makes the damned kids happy.” (Hooray!) Also apt for the 1970s zeitgeist, I suppose.
A few months later, I saw my third Godzilla movie, purchased from Movies Unlimited for the princely sum of $39.95 plus shipping. In Ghidrah: The Three-Headed Monster (1964 J / 1965 US), Godzilla battles a triple-domed lightning-breathing dragon from outer space, with the help of oversized pteranadon Rodan and a larval descendant of the original Mothra. Unlike the aforementioned late show broadcasts, I had the advantage of being able to re-watch this one, which did a much better job of keeping Ifukube’s music. This was followed by another WFFT-55 broadcast. Destroy All Monsters (1968 J / 1969 US) features an all-star daikaiju cast wreaking havoc under alien control. Evoking the space-faring future of 1999, this one only used Ifukube’s music. I recognized motifs I had heard in Ghidrah, but which seemed to sound slower. Motif recognition continued with another $39.95 Movies Unlimited purchase: Mothra versus Godzilla (1964), typically considered one of the best Godzilla movies overall beyond the original.
By this time (around the middle of 1985), the themes associated with the various monsters had begun to seep into my head, even if I didn’t always make connections with specific monsters, and wouldn’t encounter the term “leitmotif” for another few years. I just found them memorable and exciting, nonetheless, and all of them were created by Ifukube. However, Koseki Yuji (1909-1989) wrote the score for Mothra’s original 1961 outing, including the songs used by the twin shobijin (fairies) to summon their guardian for rescue from an unscrupulous showman. Still, along with reworking some of the music by Koseki (who probably heard Strauss’ Josephslegende at least once), Ifukube created new themes for Mothra (and the shobijin) in her confrontation with Godzilla, including this sorrowful motif.
From videotapes, whether homemade recordings or deliveries from Movies Unlimited (including the U.S. cut of the original), I would audio tape favourite moments, usually accompanied by Ifukube’s score or whatever U.S.-imposed substitute, for later listening pleasure. In October 1985, when my parents and I took a trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, to visit my freshly-PhD’d oldest brother and future sister-law, I tried to suss out some of my favourite Godzilla movie themes from the keyboard in their apartment.
Putting Away “Childish Things” (and Failing)
Mind, this was all a few years before I re-discovered classical music, more or less on my own. As well, I was mostly successful at stuffing away my interest in giant monsters wreaking havoc on Japan… or at least I had learned how to pass as someone who didn’t nerd out over Godzilla. After all, it was a different time, when “nerdiness” was still looked down upon, especially in small rural towns. Still, as an undergrad at university, I did display a 6-inch Godzilla figure from years before as an obligatory desk tchotchke. In the meanwhile, beyond Godzilla 1985 (the “up-to-date” title slapped on the brief U.S. theatrical release of Big G’s return), Toho had brought back their hot property, this time as a more antiheroic force. However, subsequent films of the “Heisei” era (1984-1995) basically received no theatrical release in the U.S., possibly for political reasons. The same held true for Godzilla’s “last” movie, and all others in-between.
I only learned of these newer Godzilla films later in the decade. This occurred when the U.S.-made “GINO” (Godzilla in Name Only) came out in 1998, and merchandise related to the real deal began to appear. Ifukube lent his talents to four Heisei era efforts between 1991 and 1995, including the “last” one (which actually was Ifukube’s last, at least for an original score). He brought back motifs for old friends and (as was mostly the case in this later series) foes, including the big three: Ghidrah (now “Ghidorah”), Rodan, and Mothra. Ifukube also created new motifs for such creatures as Battra and Destoroyah. As for Mechagodzilla, its role as a defender of humankind (or at least Japan) received a heroic martial theme for Godzilla versus Mechagodzilla 2 (1993)… although the flesh-and-blood original remains more sympathetic overall, as his destructive path has some “relatable” intentions. This theme contrasts with the earlier one Ifukube assigned to Godzilla’s robotic double, when it was a tool of malevolent aliens in Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975 J / 1977 US). This earlier “final” Godzilla movie (at least for the Showa era) tried to re-introduce the kind of pathos that had been lacking from the more recent primarily kiddie-oriented flicks. This is topped with Godzilla retiring to the sea, accompanied by a resolution that almost seems to evoke Strauss at his most wistful. Indeed, the end of a hero’s life.
Expanding Tastes and Musical Connections
So I’ve regaled you with a rundown of the history of the movies featuring Godzilla and “friends” (at least from the Showa and Heisei eras), primarily through the music of Ifukube, with copious samples of themes from the movies, as well as my own personal experiences. And that’s without bringing in the two “Frankenstein” features from Toho! Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965 J / 1966 US) and War of the Gargantuans (1966 J / 1970 US) have their own compellingly tragic motifs by Ifukube, with plots focusing on oversized humanoid mutants. Plus there’s an assortment of other features from Toho that showcase Ifukube scores. But before the words get stuck in my throat, I need to wrap up the history lesson and trip down memory lane, and focus more closely on what compelled me to write this posting (besides some degree of fanboyism) in the first place. Mainly, as hinted a few times already, the similarities between music for daikaiju films and the classical music I tend to enjoy, at least beyond the stated influences in Ifukube.
The emergence of YouTube has provided an opportunity to revisit the music from Ifukube’s daikaiju movies, along with different interpretations of them. Some of my favourites come from Ifukube 100: A Legacy of Monster Music, which was part of the 2014 GFest in Chicago. Through a Kickstarter fundraiser effort, conductor John DeSentis and producer Chris Oglio raised money for a concert featuring suites representing most of Ifukube’s Godzilla movie scores. As demonstrated in the clips below, divided between the Showa and Heisei era movies, the attendees expressed enthusiasm for the musicians’ efforts, breathing new life into music that is rarely recorded or performed live.
Along with affording users the opportunity to listen closely to such rarities alone, without the other sounds and visuals, YouTube enables Ifukube fans to post and share their thoughts. Not surprisingly, one can find the dodgy hyperbole in comparing Ifukube with other traditionally “great” names in the classical canon. Although citing Ifukube as the Mozart or Beethoven of Japan is problematic at several levels, whether in terms of vague attempts at legitimation or Eurocentrism, there’s room for discussion about more specific points of comparison. Obviously, one can discuss Ifukube’s cited influences, but one can bring in other examples of music that share some similarities, possibly as additional recommended listening.
Based on my own listening experiences, I’ve found affinities between some of Ifukube’s music and certain personal favourite composers. In particular, Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). Although my personal pursuit of classical music began a bit after basically “giving up” daikaiju movies, flashes of the latter would emerge in my mind over the years upon hearing some of the more stereotypically “heavy” music of both… the second movement (Kraftig Bewegt) of Mahler’s First Symphony and the first few minutes of Brunnhilde’s Immolation from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung are perhaps the most memorable, their prominent brass and timpani being perhaps the most evocative for me personally. Perhaps too obviously, the appearance of fratricidal giants Fasolt and Fafner in Das Rheingold acted as another memory jogger. For what it’s worth Fafner gets turned into an oversized lizard (dragon), slain by Siegfried in the later eponymous opera in Wagner’s Ring.
As Mahler was fond of putting marches in his symphonies, Ifukube would usually insert at least one military march in his daikaiju movie scores. In this case, it seems appropriate to consider similarities regarding the marches. They can be rousing, but there’s a hint of impotence as well. In the daikaiju movies, it emerges in the plot… the military is sent in to take care of the threat, but its efforts are basically useless. This especially comes to the fore in the grim first Godzilla film. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces mobilize to defend Tokyo, to the tune of what would become the Godzilla March. However, accompanied by a more melancholic motif, which would also appear in subsequent movies (and can be heard in some previous clips), Godzilla tears through the city, his power too great for all the conventional military means we can throw at him.
Mahler’s own marches typically end up collapsing under their own weight… a bit too enthusiastic, to the point where one senses that he was making a statement about militarism. Indeed, as Mahler aficionado Leonard Bernstein mused in the fifth of his six 1973 lectures at Harvard, the composer (who died in 1911) seemed somehow “prescient” about the large scale horrors that would come in the 20th century. This included the two world wars, genocides, and (aptly for the focus of this posting) the threat of nuclear destruction. In this light, it seems especially apt to re-imagine Godzilla’s second attack on Tokyo in the first movie, accompanied by the first five minutes of Mahler’s Third Symphony, portraying the beast’s slow and implacable path of destruction.
If you somehow recalled from earlier the music composed for Creature from the Black Lagoon, which got slapped into King Kong versus Godzilla, it isn’t much of a stretch. Alban Berg, teacher of Creature composer Salter, admired Mahler, and was part of the same circle of Viennese artists and intellectuals. In fact (and cultural theorists might want to dig into this one as well), I even hear a bit of Berg in the clip from the 1975 Mechagodzilla motif (0:43-1:08), a specific bit associated with Katsura, the cybernetic daughter of the movie’s “mad scientist” Mafune Shinji, and which appears multiple times throughout the movie. Compare this with the concluding music from Berg’s 1935 opera Lulu, where the dying Countess Geschwitz expresses her love for the titular character over her body, after both had been stabbed by Jack the Ripper. And in Katsura’s death scene, am I the only one who also hears echoes of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde as well? Decide for yourself. But to my mind, Ifukube’s melancholic music seems well in line with the return to relative seriousness intended for Godzilla’s would-be final movie.
Continuing the Wagner motif, in Godzilla vs Destoroyah (1995), which was ultimately Ifukube’s final score for daikaiju movies, how could one not hear the conclusion of Brunnhilde’s Immolation (referenced earlier in this section) in what is known as Godzilla’s Requiem? Even speaking extramusically, Godzilla self-immolated. However, unlike Wagner’s Valkyrie, who brought about the titular twilight of the gods (or Ragnarok) after throwing herself on the funeral pyre for her husband Siegfried, Godzilla threatened to bring about a world-destroying nuclear meltdown… a fate that he unwittingly carried within him throughout the course of the movie. However, in both cases, I suppose one could imagine both sharing a kinship, their sacrifices tied intricately to the hubris of those who hold power.
Or Is It Just Me? Not Really…
Of course, there’s little to no documented evidence of the influence of Wagner and Mahler, or other major favourites of mine, on Ifukube. The similarities I hear between the melodies that open Salome (Strauss’ opera, not Ifukube’s ballet) and Destroy All Monsters is another idiosyncratic bit… never minding that the moon features prominently in both… or that the outfits worn by the Kilaakians in DAM and by Salome in the Götz Friedrich production of the opera bear some resemblance to each other. (Thoughts, cultural theorists?)
One thing I can say is that I was once taken to task in a YouTube comments section, after saying that a theme from a Godzilla movie reminded me of something by Wagner. My opponent indignantly stated that Ifukube “didn’t like Wagner.” Of course, I didn’t say he was inspired by Wagner… rather, I just thought the specific pieces (I believe from Götterdämmerung and the Godzilla “Requiem” from his last Heisei era appearance) sounded just enough alike for me to say so.
Certainly, in writing this posting, I’ve had doubts as to whether I should share the thoughts described in the last section… the very motivation driving this entire piece. After all, it goes against the straightforward story about influences, and suggests some degree of connection with late Romantic and early modern Austro-German composers. And this is all just, like, my opinion, man. As well, daikaiju movies somehow seem to be the last “nerdy” cultural product to remain beyond the pale of broader acceptance, while other Japanese forms like anime and manga have acquired some degree of cultural cache. (And I’ve yet to see a “Godzilla Go” app.)
Still, I’m not alone in finding such affinities. In a 2004 review from Slate, critic David Edelstein reviewed the 50th anniversary arthouse re-release of the original Gojira. He mentions the music a couple of times, comparing sections of Ifukube’s score with the same two composers (Wagner and Mahler) featured prominently in the previous section. Oddly enough, his comparisons differ from the ones I posit, but that makes my point even more compelling to consider.
The reptile’s head, with its cruel beady eyes, appears—to the heraldic low horns and drum rolls of Akira Ifukube’s stunning overture, which segues into a mournful march reminiscent of the first movement of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, and then into the film’s most famous musical phrase, the sawing, three-note string motif…
And, at the conclusion of the review:
The deep-sea final sequence is underlit and hazy, the music deeper and slower, invoking Wagner’s Götterdämmerung; and you can only just make out the blurred monster as it contemplates the divers, seeming to await its own demise. Gojira is no masterpiece, but it has the power of a masterpiece: It’s the most emotionally authentic fake monster movie ever made.
It’s quite telling that Edelstein doesn’t mention Ifukube’s actual influences, and the musical similarities he perceives are basically akin to my own. Perhaps, then, at least contrary to the kvetching of my nemesis in the YouTube comments section, there are musical conventions that indirectly connect Ifukube with the likes of Wagner, as well as Mahler and other composers of the same Austro-German tradition… including the ones who fled the real horrors of Nazism and applied similar ideas to horror films.
Indeed, even though I can’t access it currently, and the original paper remains untranslated, a talk given a few years ago seems promising, whether for musical or extramusical reasons. As part of the 2013 symposium Richard Wagner und das Kino der Dekadenz (likely timed to coincide with the composer’s bicentenary), Jörg Buttgereit and Marcus Stiglegger wrapped up the day with the talk “Monströses Pathos. Wagnerianische Monsterfilmsoundtracks von Akira Ifukube”. There are enough cognates to guess at the topic, and they relate to things I’ve noticed in reflecting on Ifukube’s daikaiju soundtracks. There is a kind of “Wagnerian” aspect to them, along with a sense of pathos, which one can readily hear in some of the clips provided throughout this posting.
As well, SUNY Genesco visiting professor of music Brooke McCorkle completed a 2015 dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, with a focus on Wagner within Japanese sociocultural contexts. Although I can’t currently access her full dissertation, either, McCorkle’s faculty page indicates a keen interest not only in Wagner, but also in music from Japanese films, including Ifukube’s daikaiju scores. Of course, this doesn’t demonstrate a specific connection between the two, but it makes me think about prospects for considering more formally how they might connect.
Certainly, these hints at prospective connections between Wagner and Ifukube, and perhaps even other composers of the Austro-German tradition, show great promise for future research. At least in an intersubjective sense, consideration of potential points of similarity could have implications for music recommendation, too, whether within systems-based or more personal senses. Especially now that Gojira has returned to work for Toho after over a decade’s respite, and Legendary is developing its own Godzilla sequels on the other side of the Pacific. Of course, Ifukube is no longer with us, but (for me at least) one cannot deny his role in making Gojira and numerous other monsters truly legendary.
“Haunted” by Poe: A 15th Anniversary Tribute
Originally published in two parts on 25 October and 30 October 2013 as “’Haunted’ by Poe: A 13 Year Tribute,” this revised version consolidates both sections into a single posting about Annie “Poe” Danielewski’s criminally neglected album Haunted, released on this date in 2000. I intended to write this as a single posting, but it ended up becoming so large that I split it into two. The first half considers some broader contexts in which music forms, the contexts that one can discern about Haunted, some personal musings on how it reminds me in some parts of my favourite classical music, and some final thoughts about the album’s significance.
Music recordings from practically any genre have a history, whether broad, personal, or both. Many accounts about recordings read as fairly straightforward stories, with myths that end up forming around them, whether for individual songs or entire albums. Read more…
I wouldn’t give a Plugged Nickelback for that Archive: “Capital Ideas” in Music, Part II
Since today’s posting focuses on Canadian music archives and contemplates notions of canonicity in popular music, it somehow seems like kismet that today also happens to mark the 20th anniversary of Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette. It therefore seems wholly appropriate to include her very much culturally significant, affectively electrifying, and well-crafted first album to start, and to counterbalance another not-quite-so-renowned representative of Canadian culture later.
The day after taking in presentations for the Canadian University Music Society (MusCan), I attended talks (and gave one myself) for the Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentations Centres (CAML). My talk, about musical omnivorousness, recommender systems, genres, and my study of listener perceptions of similarity, was the odd one out in relation to the others, as they focused quite a bit on archives. That said, I could see some parallels with my own work to varying degrees, in particular during a talk about the prejudices that some professional archivists seem to have against popular music.
The first two talks related to digitization projects for specific collections, including one at the University of Toronto for Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow (1890-1963), presented by Suzanne Meyers Sawa, James Mason, and Houman Behzadi. The other collection, for French tenor Louis Delaquerrière (1856-1937), is housed at the University of Western Ontario, and described in a presentation by Lisa Philpott and Joanne Paterson. To many, the idea of a French tenor’s archive appearing in Canada (and in “dull” London, Ontario, to boot) makes no logical sense at first glance. However, it turns out that Delaquerrière’s granddaughter ended up in London and, through a series of fortuitous events, entrusted her grandfather’s materials to the university. A similar story is true for the large Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) archive that also resides at UWO, as Mahler’s nephew (through his sister Justine) ended up teaching there, and his widow donated a collection of Mahler-related materials to the school in the 1980s.
The two collection-specific talks lasted approximately 20 minutes each, with the remaining 10 or so minutes for questions. However, the morning session’s final presentation, given by Isabelle Ringuet and Maureen Nevins of Library and Archives Canada (LAC), lasted an hour. The second half of that talk, presented by Nevins, consisted of samples from the collections in a variety of media. My personal favourite was a series of clips that consisted of the always independent-minded Canadian pianist Glenn Gould (1932-1982) arguing with some sound engineers. The first half of the presentation, given by Ringuet, covered the parameters of the collection, as well as its current charges to become more visible and broader in scope overall, whether in terms of increasing the diversity of musical styles, making access to materials easier to the broader public (especially through digitization efforts), and trying to reach out to Canadian musicians to secure “legal deposit.” This is particularly thorny, and not just because of the rather threatening-sounding name attached to securing materials that reflect Canada’s cultural heritage. As Ringuet mentioned, not only are a number of musicians (and possibly their representatives) unaware of legal deposit, but LAC has to figure out how to contact musicians them when they’re on tour and not at the “home bases”; deal with the sound recording practices of independent bands whose albums may be limited in number (in part due to their own budgetary constraints); and figure out how to deal with or leverage the ways in which various forms of technology (social media, relatively affordable recording tools, access versus ownership models, etc.) have changed music-making and recording practices. And all this is to be done as Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has slashed LAC as a whole, and as “austerity” dictates that the arts are frivolous and not worth studying.
After my talk in the afternoon, the presentation (or rant, I believe he called it) by the University of Toronto’s Brock Silversides pertained to “The Professional Archivist’s Fear of Popular Music” (which, as he explained, ties in with the tendency to stick with materials related to “classical” and “experimental” music due to their “seriousness”). It seemed an apt segue from my own presentation, whose primary leitmotif, and initial impetus from years ago, pertained to thinking about music categorization and recommendation beyond the confines of genre. Certainly, Silversides’ talk also tied in with the LAC presentation from that morning… how can an archive that collects music-related documents in a diversity of formats, whether at a national or local level, whether in Canada or elsewhere, be a truly good one if it flat out refuses anything related to popular music, especially if there are ties that make sense?
Of course, one must take practicalities into account, such as the ability to provide proper housing and care to such materials, which may come in a variety of formats requiring different methods of preservation, as well as the financial resources required to start and maintain a dedicated collection (which may include navigating thorny and constantly changing rules regarding copyright). As well, how does one assess the potential value of such a collection, at least in terms of potential value to researchers and cultural significance? Although these seem like legitimate concerns, many of the others mentioned by Silversides did strike me as amusing (and, it bears repeating, that Silversides’ main point was to express skepticism about their validity):
* Popular music is too ephemeral and not serious enough to merit serious value; it’s too “simple and inane.”
* Popular music is not an art. Its primary purpose it to make money.
* Popular music has “unsuitable” content, like sex and violence.
* Popular music is created by ne’er do wells who indulge in sex and violence themselves.
* Collecting popular music can ruin the reputation of an archive, or its archivist.
To be fair, the last point might make sense if one thinks about the “austerity narrative” mentioned earlier. People in general enjoy popular music, but might not understand why related archives would be worth their tax dollars. Otherwise, the above points are also rather lame. As I told Silversides during the post-session break, I could immediately think of counterexamples as he was going through the list of archivist prejudices against popular music. And certainly, he mentioned during his talk how Franz Liszt (1811-1886) and Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) were examples of classical musicians who didn’t have squeaky-clean reputations.
I also thought about how “rock and roll” has been around for 60 years (or, at least the mythologized history of it, with a canon all its own). How old are these reluctant archivists, anyway, and what are their frames of reference for assessing “greatness”? Have they been living under a rock, willfully avoiding anything that isn’t considered “great”? Have they heard absolutely no “popular” music, broadly speaking, that has value that one might consider akin to how they perceive classical music (and vice versa, considering that not all classical is great, and there’s quite a bit that could be considered fluff… especially compared to well-crafted popular music)? Have they shut themselves out from much of the standard operatic repertoire, and even some “story-based” tone poems, where sex and violence run rampant? Do they not know of Paganini, Liszt, or any number of “classical” musicians with “shady” reputations (depending on one’s tendencies towards judgmentalism)?
Of course, popular music may not be to one’s tastes, and that’s fine. I pretty much had that attitude when I was a teenager, but have since outgrown it (luckily by gradually finding popular music I did like, and being honest with myself that not all classical music is to my liking). But when one has the job of building an archive, especially to reflect culturally significant phenomena, that’s when one must leave one’s prejudices at the door. And I would imagine that in Canada, it’s even more important, given how much American culture (as well as certain political attitudes from about a decade ago) surges northwards… even if aspects of Canadian culture may riff on its southern counterparts.
Now, for instance, I’m not sure if there’s a Nickelback archive in the works, or if there’s one that’s completed already. But if I were placed in charge of a music archive in Canada, and if someone came to me asking if my archive would house various primary documents related to the band, I would jump at the chance to build a definitive Nickelback collection, if I had the proper support. Of course, I’m also aware of its reputation as a shining example of a band that sucks. Even so, for better or worse, Nickelback is also an example of Canadian musical culture. Despite its reputation, it has also become a major musical act, and perhaps an archive of Nickelback-related materials would help scholars who might want to discern why it has gotten such a bad reputation, while also having a fairly substantial fanbase.
In the final presentation I attended, Simon Côté-Lapointe of the Université de Montréal discussed usage of “non-text” archival materials to create new content. Of course, using pre-existing materials is nothing new, as Côté-Lapointe illustrated with hip-hop artist Afrika Bambaataa’s sampling of “Kraut rock” ensemble Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europe Express” (1977) in “Planet Rock” (1982)
This, of course, is especially interesting if one thinks about the ties between Kraut rock and avant-garde musicians from the 1950s, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, and how avant-garde music is tied in with “legitimate” music. This illustrates how the lineages among various genres connect through a tangle of strings, wandering beyond seemingly strictly-structured silos. Côté-Lapointe went on to describe a multimedia project of his own, which drew upon archives within Montreal, and discussed a variety of factors (copyright, quality, availability, etc.) that both creators and archivists should consider in the creation of new works that draw upon older ones.
This is, of course, nothing new, but (as in the case of doing a professional-sounding recording one’s own music) it’s *relatively* easier to create such projects than in the past. Certainly, this has implications for deciding what to include for metadata; what documents (or excerpts thereof) are used in the creation of a new work, and (in whatever systems of descriptive cataloguing) what fields would be most appropriate to account for them? How and where would one account for the connections, in a manner that makes sense to users?
The diversity of archive-related issues discussed at CAML demonstrates the dynamic nature of a field that might strike the uninitiated, completely ahistorically-minded, and possibly unimaginative as rather “dull.” But, as demonstrated above, there is much lively ongoing work that occurs in archives, including figuring out the best ways to preserve historical documents, making them available to interested parties, and the impact that emerging technologies can have on handling collections. As well, there’s debate over what’s “suitable” to include in archives (whether in terms of cultural or “timeless” value), and there are interesting implications with regard to the ways one could use archival materials for one’s own creative projects. One can hope that, even in a time where financial “austerity” somehow maintains itself as the driving narrative behind practically everything, archives at all levels can continue to do the work necessary to maintain a healthy cycle of cultural understanding and creativity that keeps us alive, whether individually or as a society.
Opera meets Industrial: Tristan and Isolde’s Downward Spiral
June 10th marks the 150th anniversary of the premier of Richard Wagner’s opera (or music drama, per Wagner’s preferred terminology) Tristan und Isolde. Given its importance to the history of opera, as well as its personal resonance, it seemed appropriate to do a related and timely posting. That said, I have nothing truly new to contribute, other than this updated (and hopefully improved) version of some musings I wrote in early 2013.
This posting relates to connections between Tristan and another work that seems “very different” on the surface, but which (to me, at least) might share deeper affinities. This is by no means a proper, polished academic study, and this blog is no place for such a thing. However, what follows does demonstrate how a listener might make “odd” connections between different kinds of music.
Richard Wagner’s 1865 opera Tristan und Isolde is one of the most sublimely beautiful works within so-called Western art music. It is also one of the most influential, inspiring a number of creative minds outside of music as well. Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo provides one such example, with the score by Bernard Herrmann alluding strongly to the opera.
One would be hard-pressed to come up with a polar opposite to Tristan, but industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails’ 1994 album The Downward Spiral could serve as one possibility. Certainly if assessed side-by-side, the conventions of the genres with which they are associated would underscore the case.
And that’s the problem.
What if both Tristan and The Downward Spiral contain complementary elements? Or perhaps, in fact, share more connections than people might feel comfortable acknowledging? What I write below explores the possibility, which is why this blog continues to remain outside the periphery, or perhaps beyond the pale, of more legit writings on music.
Two years ago, the Canadian Opera Company put on a new production of Tristan. Some interesting talents contributed to this particular version. Director Peter Sellars is well-known for iconoclastic opera stagings, such as a version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni set in Spanish Harlem.
In the clip below, Sellars describes the contributions of Bill Viola, whose video images explore states of mind within Tristan. Sellars’ and Viola’s work on the opera dates back to 2004 with The Tristan Project, developed in conjunction with Esa-Pekka Salonen, then-music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (and the conductor of the Vertigo Scène d’Amour at the top of this posting). Since that time, the production has moved among different venues. Whether for characters or performance attendees, Sellars mentions how Viola’s visuals create, “a synaesthetic world where you don’t know where your senses begin or end.”
Viola also provides a link between Tristan and Nine Inch Nails, as lead musician Trent Reznor brought him on to provide complementary visuals for some of its concerts. Viola describes how he used lighting and imagery to suit the change of mood between a high energy song to one of lower intensity, from storm to calm sea. The name of the latter should be familiar to fans of Claude Debussy.
Water imagery seems appropriate in relation to Tristan as well. The entire first act takes place on a ship returning from Isolde’s homeland of Ireland to Cornwall. Why is that, you ask? Well, like both opera and some relationships on Facebook, “it’s complicated,” both in the sense of “what’s happening” and in the relationship status of both characters.
Here are the essentials, which readers familiar with the opera can skip: Tristan is bringing back Isolde on behalf of his uncle King Marke, who wishes to marry her. Isolde is none too happy about this situation, however. On top of killing Isolde’s fiancé Morold, a wounded Tristan was brought back to health by Isolde under the assumed name (and interestingly apt anagram) “Tantris.” Isolde tried killing him in revenge when she figured out who he was, but couldn’t bring herself to do so when he looked into her eyes. Still, she wishes to poison both herself and Tristan. Isolde’s handmaiden Brangäne throws a wrench in this plan by switching the poison with a love potion, which Tristan and Isolde drink as they approach the shore. The opera continues for two more acts, concluding with both title characters dying together. Tristan goes first from wounds incurred during the second act. By his side, Isolde expires for no rational reason upon singing the Liebestod, or “Love Death.”
Thus concludes their journey into the endless night.
One could consider the on-stage action as literal, of course. Taking a cue from the discussions about Viola’s video installations for Nine Inch Nails and The Tristan Project, along with the twists and turns inherent in the plot, it seems more fruitful to consider Wagner’s music drama from a more symbolic perspective. The Act II Liebesnacht (clunkily translated into English as something like “night of love”) provides a perfect example. Tristan and Isolde have an illicit liaison while King Marke goes on a nighttime hunt. Since sexual union can’t be portrayed easily on stage for a number of reasons, directors have to figure out what the characters should do besides sing for approximately 30-40 minutes.
The Liebesnacht breaks abruptly with what some aptly call opera’s “most famous moment of coitus interruptus,” as King Marke and his retinue unexpectedly return to discover Tristan and Isolde together.
Even listening to the final minute makes this assessment quite clear. The same theme re-emerges in the Liebestod, but followed by a “satisfactory” conclusion that releases the tension that has built up, whether over roughly four hours or (in a typical concert performance of the opera’s Prelude and the Liebestod) ~15 minutes. La petite mort writ large.
In writing about the challenges of indexing “nonbook materials” (mainly images and sound), Elaine Svenonius mentions that “what music represents, when it is used for the purpose of representation, are dynamic processes” (1994, 604). At least in contrast to so-called absolute music, which is typically about nothing per se (except whatever personal meanings we attach to it), we might have some clue what a piece of music is “about” if it has already a non-musical idea or story behind it. Nonetheless, it’s still difficult to describe or capture music easily in words. On the other hand, whether based on instinct or cultural conditioning (or, as I tend to think, a complex mixture of both), we can pick up on implicit similarities between music and just about anything from the everyday world. To underscore these points, Svenonius quotes extensively from the entry “Aesthetics, problems of” from The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In fact, it mentions the Liebestod as an example:
‘… the patterns of rising and falling, crescendo and dimuendo, rising gradually to a climax and then concluding (such as are to be found in the “Liebestod” of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde) possess a considerable similarity or isomorphism with, the rhythm of the sexual climax (Hospers 1972, p. 48)’ (In Svenonius 1994, 604).
If such composition techniques are (more or less) “universally” understood as cultural conventions, intended to mimic a specific phenomenon in the everyday world, with the likely goal of creating certain feelings in the listener, it makes sense that musicians from different genres (at least within a broadly similar cultural context) would use them as well. Attach words that more directly portray what’s “happening,” especially in the language of the listener, and the non-musical meaning of the music becomes even more clear.
In some cases, starkly so.
The ninth track of The Downward Spiral is an unnerving and terrifying song, befitting themes explored throughout the album: self-aggrandizement, self-destruction, and ultimately hopelessness. “Big Man with a Gun” graphically portrays the protagonist’s rock-hard, but essentially impotent, machismo; an empty desire to use sex for power and humiliation. The lyrics make this very clear. In a way, so too does the guitar theme, which draws upon conventions similar to those described by Hospers. Not that it sounds exactly like the Liebestod, but there are vague echoes of it. Significantly, the melody for the Liebestod soars, while the guitar theme in “Big Man with a Gun” generally plays the same notes over and over, with no apparent resolution aside from a slight crescendo near the end.
Some of you may disagree, of course, that there’s anything to this idea whatsoever. I can understand why, and not just because we’re “supposed” to see Tristan as “high” art with poetic lyrics, while “Big Man with a Gun” is of a “lower” form with obscene lyrics. Maybe I’m merely isolating the convention noted by Hospers to hype up similarities between two works from very different genres. Nonetheless, it’s difficult to deny the presence of such a convention, along with the extramusical theme of sex… even if it’s portrayed in very different ways in both.
In reality, I’ve considered such connections for many years, long before beginning my research, and even further back than when I encountered Svenonius’ reference to Hospers. The proof? A customer review I wrote for The Downward Spiral on Amazon.com, way back in 2001. I say some admittedly daft, pseudo-intellectual stuff in flowery prose… and I still stand by some of it.
According to the review, my first encounter with The Downward Spiral occurred upon hearing “Closer” on my car radio, with a certain word removed to appease the Federal Communications Commission. (I wanna what you like an animal? Lick? The imagination runs riot!)
I felt “entranced,” probably by the weird tension between its ethereal and mechanistic aspects. Oddly enough, before finding the review and while pondering this particular posting, I had thought that my first encounter with the song occurred a year or two earlier. A mild summer evening in 1995, near the sand volleyball court of a park in my hometown, with “Closer” rumbling angrily and hypnotically from a pickup truck parked nearby.
While my genre interests had begun to expand by the time I first heard “Closer,” it wasn’t quite at the same level as it is now. It seemed curious that I, a classical person, could be drawn to an industrial band’s song. Nonetheless, I’ve always felt drawn to music with trancelike, ethereal aspects. This includes some recordings that one might readily dismiss as “New Age.” Classical has some of that as well, with both Debussy and Philip Glass coming to mind almost instantly. For what it’s worth, rather than using music for sleep and relaxation, I usually turn to white noise or, for brief naps, this track from Brian Eno’s 1983 album Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks:
When I wrote the Amazon.com review, I zoned in on the parallels I noted between Tristan and “Closer,” perhaps the best-known song from the album. Half of the first paragraph (and all in parentheses) outlines this idea:
My opinions on the similiarity (sic) of themes of all-consuming love in both “Closer” and Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan und Isolde” would constitute an entirely separate, and likely incoherent, essay. Sufficed to say that one must consider Reznor’s agonized plea, “Help me think I’m somebody else…” It’s Tristan without Wagner’s newly-knowing, newly-glowing quasi-spiritual Romanticism, reduced to a panting animal. Listening to this, followed by Isolde’s “Liebestod,” is an almost heartbreaking experience.
So, what the hell was I talking about? More or less what I was alluding to at the beginning; the notion that The Downward Spiral, or at least parts thereof, shared some similarities with Tristan, or (again) parts thereof. In this case, the extramuscial parallels stood out. Even if they’re more stark, the lyrics from “Closer” parallel some aspects of the Liebesnacht. From the latter portion of the song:
Tear down my reason
(Help me)
It’s your sex I can smell
(Help me)
You make me perfect
Help me become somebody else
I wanna fuck you like an animal
I wanna feel you from the inside
I wanna fuck you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed
You get me closer to God
Self-destructiveness. Becoming somebody else. Sexuality as a means of obtaining a divine state. Those sound awfully familiar.
That is, of course, if one believes that Tristan and Isolde are (at least subconsciously) on a self-destructive path as well? One might argue that Wagner’s music sounds more lush, glorious, ecstatic than Reznor’s, with “more poetic” words besides. Nonetheless, one could also argue that it almost renders us anaesthetic, or helps us forget, how Tristan and Isolde’s mutual intoxication ties in with a desire that would be considered toxic in the everyday world. (I borrow this notion of “aesthetics and anasthetics” from a 1992 article by Susan Buck-Morss. It actually mentions Wagner quite a bit towards the end, and many of its ideas seem potentially relevant to this posting as well.) The final minutes of the Liebesnacht make Tristan and Isolde’s death-devoted path abundantly clear:
BOTH
O endless night,
sweet night!
Glorious, exalted,
night of love!
Those whom you embrace,
on whom you smile,
how could they ever awaken
from you without dismay?
Now banish fear,
sweet death,
ardently desired
death in love!
In your arms,
devoted to you,
ever sacred glow,
freed from the misery of waking!
Furthermore, Tristan and Isolde wish to “become somebody else.” Again, going back to the Liebesnacht, a bit after the last passage and right before King Marke and his men burst in on them:
ISOLDE
Without languishing …
BOTH
enfolded in sweet darkness.
TRISTAN
Without separating …
BOTH
without parting,
dearly alone,
ever at one,
in unbounded space,
most blessed of dreams!
TRISTAN
You Tristan,
I Isolde,
no more Tristan!
ISOLDE
You Isolde,
I Tristan,
no more Isolde!
BOTH
No names,
no parting;
newly perceived,
newly kindled;
ever, unendingly,
one consciousness;
supreme joy of love
glowing in our breast!
Along with self-destruction in both Tristan and “Closer,” there’s also the theme of obtaining some kind of divine experience, which at least entails letting go of one’s ego. “You get me closer to God.” Perhaps Tristan’s anagram “Tantris” provides some clues about that aspect, with its possible connections to Tantric Buddhism. And, as discussed in the Canadian Opera Company interview with Viola and elsewhere, Wagner was influenced by “Eastern” culture through the writings of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
Of course, I might be reading too many extramusical parallels between both Tristan and “Closer.” The same could apply to my thought that Hospers’ observations, about the musical patterns of rising and falling in Tristan, could apply to “Closer” as well. And maybe I’m reading too much into Bill Viola’s contributions to the The Tristan Project as another connection.
The same could also be said for an article about underground industrial musician Pig, where we are asked to:
Imagine for a moment that Trent Reznor and Richard Wagner had an illegitimate mutant child and raised him in London on nothing but tequila and peyote with plenty of power tools and knives to play with. Next, imagine that they unleashed him on the unsuspecting world of underground industrial music in 1988.
Or a discussion thread that lists The Downward Spiral and The Best of Wagner as the best Gothic albums of all time, per Q Magazine.
Or the lineage mentioned in Metal Evolution from “pre-Metal” (which contains Wagner and other musicians from various genres) to Shock Rock to Industrial Metal.
Or an article about a University of Calgary undergraduate research symposium, which happens to ask by way of example, “What was Richard Wagner’s influence on Heavy Metal, Rammstein and Nine Inch Nails?”
Or, in a posting about his work with film director David Fincher, some discussion about Reznor’s usage of leitmotif in albums like The Downward Spiral:
What makes these albums so cinematic is not only their emphasis on story but their reliance on leitmotifs – that is, the repetitive use of short melodies, chord progressions, and/or rhythm patterns with which the Romanic opera composer Richard Wagner experimented in the nineteenth century. An example of the use of leitmotifs in Reznor’s work from this time period is the simple piano figure with which “Closer” closes and reappears in later songs on The Downward Spiral.
(Although that figure actually reminds me a bit of Va, pensiero from Nabucco, but we’re not talking about Verdi here…)
I will resist, however, trying to contemplate the possible connections among Fincher’s adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Reznor’s musical contributions to the film with collaborator Atticus Ross, and the fictional Nazi-tainted anti-Semitic (ahem) “Vanger” clan…
Currently, a number of recommender systems generally draw upon collaborative filtering algorithms, which take into account similarities among items or users, but not much deeper levels than those (and which end up reflecting genre-based categorization). However, as discussed above with regard to Wagner and Nine Inch Nails, notions of musical and extra-musical similarity might be more complex than current systems typically take into account, with seemingly “random” connections potentially belying deeper sociocultural and psychological roots, regardless of genre.
Shall I Listen? Music and Mood Regulation
As is known by friends, colleagues, people following me on social media platforms like Twitter, and anyone who reads this blog when I publish a posting, music has been an integral part of my life. Although I appreciate other forms of expression, there’s something about music that can move me like no other medium. Even when a more visual medium, such as film or television, evokes strong feelings, there’s usually some non-diegetic spectre that takes me over the edge. As well, I’ve used music as a basis for my doctoral work from the perspective of Library and Information Science, with an interest in how we conceptualize musical similarity, and the degree to which genre-based categorization influences such perceptions and our tastes.
Despite my keen interest in music, there are times when I don’t listen to it as often as I normally would, or when I hardly listen at all. Although it’s gotten somewhat better, I’ve dealt with this state of mind recently; of not treating myself as often to music as I normally would. What prompted this posting was something that happened earlier this week, although this was certainly not the first time it has happened of late. I took out my iPod at the bus stop near home, all set to listen to something. And then I listened to nothing, arriving at my destination and putting my iPod away without even pressing “Play.” It’s a paradoxical state, I suppose, given that one of the reasons why people listen to music is to regulate one’s mood or emotions (Clarke, Dibben, & Pitts, 2010). Can’t I just listen to Strauss’ Heldenleben or Bowie’s “Heroes,” and feel ready to take on the world? Isn’t that exactly what I should do to give myself a boost, as it somehow usually does if I find just the right thing? This posting is a brief reflection on the role music has played in my life, which was also perhaps spurred by a lecture I heard this week by Berthold Hoeckner on “Music, Media, and Memory.” It was a fascinating and complex talk on the ways in which forms of mechanical reproduction that came to the fore in the early 20th century (in particular sound recording and cinema) tried replicating human memory, with some references to Walter Benjamin’s ideas.
Almost always, music has been able to provide me with a range of wonderful feelings, from elation to comfort (even if it’s from “sad” music). I have vague memories of hearing and enjoying some of the classical long play (LP) albums my mother would play. In some cases, as with Bizet’s L’Arlésienne Suite, I would even run around the house, my own imaginings very different from those intended to be conveyed within the “story.” This older music somehow made me feel something, even if I didn’t know the names of the specific pieces. For some reason, however, I at some point developed an aptly youthful coolness towards classical. That is, until my first year of high school, when I rediscovered some of those old favourites tucked away in a two-drawer chest. My mother had moved on to cassettes, some of which were recorded from the aforementioned albums. But something prompted me to look for the music that had captured my childhood imagination, even if I can’t remember exactly what. It began with an enthusiasm for Russian composers, eventually followed by an enthusiasm for Germans, with some likely spins of discs for composers from other countries as well. I finally connected names of compositions and their creators with those aural memories, and even began a collection of my own, first on cassette, then eventually on compact disc (CD), when it became clear that the classical selection for the former was becoming increasingly slim.
So there I was, listening to the likes of Prokofiev, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakov, and then Wagner, Mahler, and Strauss, and then various others (such as Berlioz) who had their own appeal. Maybe it related to my childhood, or maybe they somehow reminded me of music from movies I liked, or maybe it was some of both. But then there was the reality of small rural town life in the Midwest and being an adolescent, topped off with living outside municipal limits and having parents who were older than practically everyone else’s. When it seemed like everyone else was listening to poppy synthy crap or hair metal, I felt like I would probably end up becoming the last advocate ever for classical music… an odd brew of false prestige and genuine love. Whether on bike rides or walks, in the countryside or in town (where we moved when I was 16), I would encounter others my age, who would occasionally ask what I was listening to. Maybe some of them said a good thing every so often, but I generally got (or at least remember more clearly) questions and comments wondering how I could listen to such stuff.
Along with my dislike of current recommender systems, which more or less draw upon genre (or, rather, algorithms that are used to interpret user behaviours), I consider the aforementioned experiences as another foundation for my research interests. More specifically, how could I have found music similar to what “everyone else” was listening to, and that I would have liked as well? Although this was quite a while before recommender systems or me knowing anything about information science, I actually did wonder how I could “fit in” more. I suppose I could have just pretended to like what I thought everyone else liked, but I wouldn’t have been me, and the ruse would’ve cracked eventually. But I did pick up on a few things that sounded reasonably good to me during high school dances; most especially some older “rock,” as well as whatever was playing when someone I liked danced with me. And, as the 1990s started to arrive, some rap.
When I arrived at university, I came with my well-established love of classical (or at least certain composers), as well as some classic rock (including The Doors, with some convincing from my much-older brother) and some rap. During my time there, I found that there were other people my age who also listened to classical… and other genres, too. That one could, for instance, encounter a music major who wears a Bach t-shirt one day, and a Metallica t-shirt the next. My first two years at university, I was lucky to share living spaces with other students who had a diverse range of tastes, including a music major from New Orleans.
After university, I’ll just say that the things I started figuring out during my time there, at least regarding musical diversity and similarity, continued to expand. Over the decade-and-a-half since obtaining my Bachelor’s Degree and beginning my PhD, I was lucky to keep finding more “non-classical” music I enjoyed. Somehow, hair metal even sounded good (although I still dislike poppy synthy stuff). I kept finding more connections, whether intended by musicians or somehow formulated in my own mind, among specific works from “very different” genres. This blog has quite a few stories about the initial thrill of such discovery. And I am definitely not the last person who will carry classical music and opera forward. Constantly coming up are younger performers and fans (and composers, too), a number of whom are even more avid about classical music than me, and who have an aptly hip sensibility to keep it dynamic and alive.
I can’t count how many snippets of musical memories, along with the circumstances in which they occurred, emerged in writing this. Many of them come from good times, whether the highs I’ve felt from the thrill of hearing something new (either a piece I’ve never heard before, or a striking interpretation of a pre-existing favourite), or events for which certain music was in the background. As described near the beginning, however, I haven’t felt as much like listening to music… or at least the usual things that help boost my mood. Typically, I can listen to something that I’m pretty sure will perk me up, make me feel motivated to get through some difficult tasks or the day, and it will work. But for the time being, I’ll just say that using music as a mood regulator doesn’t work as much as it has done typically. The possible reasons seem to vary: maybe I’ll enjoy something too much, even though I feel I don’t have the mental luxury to indulge in it; feeling overwhelmed and numbed by music that usually spurs me to feel like I can accomplish things; or not wanting to listen to anything that might break through the toughness I feel I need to maintain to keep pushing through things. In other words, based on my understanding of the lecture I mention at the beginning of this posting, might the memories and desires I associate with these pieces (or at least the interpretations of them carried in objects for listening) be too much? Certainly, being able to interact with other people has helped the most. But it’s difficult when I can’t get the usual burst from music otherwise. In any case, I’m hoping to return to some form of equilibrium.
Ich soll lauschen.
Guest Posting on Musical Similarity
Just this past week, I had a guest posting (Defining Musical Similarity: Genre and Beyond) put up on the brand-new blog for the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). Given that blog’s intended scope, it’s of a different flavour from my usual postings here, which typically focus on specific instances of cross-genre similarity, both real and “imagined” (or, the ones I tend to perceive). The guest posting for ASIS&T is more closely related to my discipline, library and information science (LIS), and it provides an overview of my research. Although it isn’t really about specific music, anyone who’s interested in the idea of cross-genre similarity at an abstract level might be interested in the posting’s encapsulation of the relevant research
More specifically, the posting discusses how genre has become the “best” mode for categorizing music in a variety of systems, with similar principles indirectly manifesting themselves within recommender systems. And that this continues to remain the case, despite:
- the limitations of behaviour-based algorithms of recommender systems;
- the lack of a definitive and immutable taxonomy of genres;
- the individual ways we perceive similarity and preference;
- the usage of similar musical principles across diverse genres;
- the emergence of “omnivorous” listeners; and
- trends in how one describes “legitimate” musical tastes (in other words, it isn’t all “classical and opera”).
Of course, relevant citations to all of the above points are given in the posting itself.
I also describe the scope of my proposed doctoral research, which relates to the ways in which people describe similarity as it pertains to music. It will be interesting to see the extent to which genre emerges as a factor, or if other factors also play a role as well. The posting concludes with potential applications and implications. Of course, I’m quite keen on the idea of recommendation (and even modes of categorization) that more actively breaks genre-based habits. That said, there are some potential issues with that as well. But that’s another guest posting…
Beyond Hominids and Star Children: Strauss at 150
Everyone has probably heard at least one piece by German composer Richard Strauss, born on this date in 1864. In fact, it is likely the same one. A progression of three notes that culminate in a suspenseful chord that remains unresolved, followed by a rhythmic thumping on the kettledrums. A similar theme appears again, and a third time, now evoking a sense of the sublime in a new theme. A ritual somehow sacred and profane, a worship of the sun, a feeling of the power of the universe.
Active vs. Passive Media: The False Dichotomy
Author’s note: Published a month after Virtual Environments and Opera, this posting originally appeared on tl;dr (13 March 2012), a now-defunct blog that focused on videogames and information. Currently in its place is some generic webpage advertising various things. While it would’ve been nice to know from the administrators that they were no longer hosting the site, especially since it has been on my curriculum vitae, I had the foresight to save the text, and to bring it back for those who might be curious about this particular topic. Regular readers of this blog might notice a slightly different style of writing, as I probably would have made this at least twice as long on here, and would have gone into greater detail about musical similarities.
In the comments section of my previous posting [Virtual Environments and Opera on tl;dr, (not the one on this blog)], I went on a tirade about “active” vs. “passive” media. I won’t pontificate on media theorist Marshall McLuhan, but I will consider some possible reasons why this split remains a useful rhetorical tool for people who advocate the virtues of specific formats.
You’ve probably heard advocates of reading describe how television, videogames, and other visual media are passive because they’re “preprocessed” (like fast food and TV dinners). Books, on the other hand, force you to translate text into the five senses, and are therefore more nourishing (like organic vegetables, but only if they’re locally grown and in-season). These are the people who proudly proclaim that they haven’t watched television since 1972.
Steve Johnson’s pro-popular culture book Everything Bad Is Good for You, whose title derives from ironic observations made in the Woody Allen films Annie Hall and Sleeper, makes the opposite claim. Books are actually a passive medium, because the author generally tells you “what to do.” On the other hand, among other things, videogames enable you to create your own story and to develop such abilities as hand-eye coordination.
So, if books are a more active medium than videogames, except when videogames are a more active medium than books, where does that leave us? Definitions of “activity” and “passivity” are little more than moving targets. Nonetheless, advocates of the former can resort to tortuous arguments to “prove” a specific point, while sidestepping the differences in quality that exist within all media. Text materials may have traditionally held a venerated status, but I’m sure we can all think of television shows and videogames that are more substantive than certain books [about sparkly vampires].
[And now, for a tangentially relevant history and theatre lesson, along with bathroom humour, a most excellent clip from Wayne’s World, and musical references that tie together SWTOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic) and Blazing Saddles…]
For nearly a century, certain interests have hyped up the differences between audience activity and passivity. Some visual artists and playwrights have focused on fostering “active” audience engagement with their works, with the stated goal of bringing about political change. They set their works in opposition to those that, at least for them, aid in maintaining the status quo by ignoring harsh social realities. The latter may range from novels and films about sparkly vampires to “masterworks” of art, all of which are “passively” appreciated or (to get Marxist here) consumed as commodities.
One could trace these concerns at least as far back as World War I (1914-1918). For the first time in history, mechanized death obliterated millions of young men. After the war, economic sanctions imposed on a defeated Germany set the stage for the eventual rise of a Mephistophelian monster who promised to restore that country’s pride. With the so-called civilized world in shambles, as well as the recent victory of “the workers” in formerly Tsarist Russia, the time seemed ripe to question “bourgeois capitalist” values. One such value was the elevated status of “art for art’s sake,” which holds that great art rises above everyday concerns. To counter that ideal, the Dadaists used absurdism to confront viewers with the futility of simply appreciating art in a world gone mad. Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) is one of the most iconic examples.
Of more specific importance to this posting is the emergence of politically-committed theatre in the period after World War I. Although actors and spectators share the same space, they inhabit two separate realms: the auditorium and the stage. Some playwrights, including the German Marxist Bertolt Brecht, attempted to bridge that gap by taking advantage of live theatre’s relative intimacy. Brecht expressed the belief that it had the potential to dissolve the boundary between actors and spectators, and spur collective political activity. Brecht’s plays draw upon a number of techniques that fall under the broad term alienation, designed to remind spectators that they’re only watching a play [that makes an “important point”]. It’s supposed to prevent them from investing too much emotionally in the characters, usually the dregs of society in Brecht, and to pay more attention to the socio-political implications of the play. One of the best-known alienating techniques is “breaking the fourth wall,” where a character directly addresses the audience. Although they don’t possess the same readily-apparent political agenda as Brecht, the Annie Hall clip near the beginning of this posting and at least one scene from Wayne’s World are examples.
Ironically, it’s hard to escape the sense that live political theatre invests some of its potential transformative power in the notion of spectator passivity; it’s supposed to make you active… in a manner that conforms to the intentions of the author. Furthermore, like educational games whose developers forget elements like “fun” and “enjoyment,” politically-committed works can do too well with alienating their audiences through didactic heavy-handedness. Luckily for Brecht, he at least possessed a sardonic wit, and had composer Kurt Weill along to write delightfully dissolute songs for some of his plays. Similar songs include certain tunes heard in the Imperial cantinas of SWTOR, as well as Lili von Shtup’s I’m Tired in Blazing Saddles. (No stranger to Brecht himself, Mel Brooks even mentions the influence.) Weill himself shouldn’t be too obscure, though: for Brecht’s Threepenny Opera, he wrote the oft-covered Mackie Messer.
With so much at stake, is it any wonder that serious advocates of active media can have an unshakeable faith in its fine distinction from passive media? More recently, however, French philosopher Jacques Rancière has questioned such received wisdom. “The Emancipated Spectator,” based on a talk given by Rancière in 2004, addresses the agenda-based usage of the terms under discussion. His questions about the distinction, which focuses specifically on actors and spectators in live theatre, are relevant to any medium. As he asks at one point, “What is more interactive, more communitarian, about [live theatre] spectators than a mass of individuals watching the same television show at the same hour?” (Rancière 2011, p. 16)
Questioning the active/passive actor/spectator dichotomy is very relevant here. In fact, what Rancière says about television shows could extend to MMO games. You participate in the action in real time, albeit from a safe distance via your avatar. On the other hand, gamers might have a soft spot for books as well, despite what Johnson says about them. (In fact, I suspect that many of you reading this probably don’t fit the old stereotype of gamer “passivity,” sitting in your parents’ basement, mollified by pressing buttons and staring at shiny, eyes glazed over as you mindlessly munch on chips.) As much as I disagree with Johnson’s assessment of books, the antiquated stereotypes about gamers probably necessitated a rhetorical pushback against book worship. At the very least, it can get people to talk more seriously about the positive aspects of videogames, and (even more broadly) to move away from the compulsion to pit one medium against another.
In addition to the elitist aspect of spectator “passivity,” which Rancière deconstructs towards the end of his 2007 paper “The Misadventures of Critical Thought” (Rancière 2011, pp. 25-49), the term remains insufficient for describing how individuals actually engage with specific media on their own terms. Why can’t we just define “activity” as the complex array of emotional, intellectual, and physiological responses we have to all media, whether political or not, and leave passivity out of the equation?
tl-dr
Notions of “active” and “passive” media are driven by individuals with specific agendas. They advocate for specific media that they perceive as active, while discounting the importance of others identified as passive. Books and videogames are two media that have been juxtaposed against each other in this manner. In reality, they provide complementary modes of cognitive, intellectual, and emotional engagement, which varies among individuals.
Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.
Geheimnisvolle Musik 
