Forthcoming Intuitions

Anne Michaels is a Toronto based Canadian poet, best known for her 1986 award winning collection of poetry called The Weight of Oranges. She has written one novel, Fugitive Pieces, which is an exploration of the Holocaust through the perspective of the possibility of love and faith. Along with writing poetry and a novel, Michaels has also composed musical scores for theater.

I actually just randomly picked her out of the list of authors on the International Festivals of Authors website. The first thing I did was go straight to her poetry section. I began reading a poem by her called, Memoriam, and I was just mesmerized. The way her words flowed together when I read them aloud, the way every line had something to say without actually directly saying anything. It reminded me of what our teacher always refers to when we write, we should write with as little information as possible and concentrate more on the details.

“The lake’s slight movement is stilled by fading light.
Soon the stars’ tiny mouths, the moon’s blue mouth.”

The lines above are a great example of what our teacher refers to. Michaels was trying to portray a situation where it was night time, and the moon and stars had come out too, in more descriptive words, which of course makes a huge difference in the way we interpret the scene. I think it’s an absolutely wonderful way of describing a situation without saying what it is. I believe that it makes an individual’s sense of imagination grow and accumulate ideas in various different forms. I am extremely terrible at this method of writing, and I feel that is because in the past years we have been taught to focus our attention more on the information and less on details, so that we can get straight to the point. During this course I would really like to master this skill by writing more poems because I have realized that poetry is an excellent way to use very descriptive language, and that it is easier to work with.

Cry:

1. Weep
2. Wail
3. Sob

Laugh:

1. Cackle
2. Chuckle
3. Jeer

Speak:

1. Talk
2. Converse
3. Discourse

Move:

1. Transfer
2. Maneuver
3. Shift

Smile:

1. Grin
2. Smirk
3. Beam

Joe Jones was an avant-garde musician who was associated with Fluxus, he was very well known for his creation of rhythmic music machines. In the late 1950s he began a short career as a jazz drummer. In the 1960s Jones began to study avant-garde experimental composition first with John Cage and then Earle Brown. Through these connections, Jones was able to form artistic associations with  Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles and La Monte Young. In 1962, he began experimenting with mechanical instruments which resulted in creating objects such as musical boats, solar music umbrellas and a pedaled vehicle that pulled handmade instruments on wheels called “The Longest Pull Toy in the World”.

Jones’ musical style is a lot different from what I have heard recently in class, mainly because his sound experiments have more to do with mechanical sounds rather than vocal sounds. Though, after I heard his piece Aint Misbehavin’ , I realized he also experimented with the vocals. I really enjoyed listening to this piece because for some reason I’m very fascinated with low pitches and he really does work it! It’s quite hard to find him in his own words, or have someone quoting on him. For now, lets listen to another piece I really enjoyed…

Dracula

Before I being to investigate the Joy of Gibberish , I would just like to point out that I’ m in love with Stephan Fry and his comedic genius. I think him and Hugh Laurie were just amazingly hilarious in the series Jeeves and Wooster. Now that I’ve got that off my chest, listening to the Joy of Gibberish was very entertaining, especially when you know who Stephan Fry is, it makes everything a lot more pleasurable! What made the piece interesting were the examples or the audio clips that were a part of it, they made the argument more strong. And what was the argument, one may ask; true rubbish should be devoid of all meaning. I had never known that. I always thought that all gibberish had at least some sort of meaning, like when toddlers speak. Even thought they may be saying complete and utter gibberish, there is a meaning behind it, a sort of command or need. I guess, it’s the meaning that lies within the action and not the speech. One thing that really caught my attention was the little piece on the Mary Poppins classic song,  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, I ended up looking into the actual lyrics and realized the song was meant to tell kids that,

“When trying to express oneself, it’s frankly quite absurd,
To leaf through lengthy lexicons to find the perfect word.
A little spontaneity keeps conversation keen,
You need to find a way to say, precisely what you mean…”

So I guess speaking in tongues can more likely save you a lot more brain power! I would actually really love to speak gibberish and record it. I know for a fact that I speak while I sleep, hmmm maybe I can record that.

Even though this song is called Gibberish, it actually has nothing to do with ‘gibberish’…I just like the song :p

Beth Anderson is a critically acclaimed composer of neo-romantic, avant-garde music, text-sound work, and musical theatre. She has worked with the likes of John Cage, Terry Riley, Robert Ashley and Larry Austin at Mills College and U.C. Davis. Although, she was born in Kentucky, she mostly studied in California. She is a member of Broadcast Musicians Inc. (BMI), the American Composers’ Forum, International Alliance of Women in Music, the American Music Center, Poets and Writers and New York Women Composers. She resides in New York City where she produces Women’s Work, a concert series, for Greenwich House Arts.

When I listened to Anderson’s piece If I Were A Poet , I literally went blank. I had no thoughts, no feelings, no reactions towards the piece. I basically just listened to it. Once I finished listening to it, I listened to the piece again, hoping I’d get some sort of reaction. Fortunately, I did, she reminded me of Jaap Blonk and his piece on What the President Will say and Do. Though, both had a different approach to their own pieces, one thing that made their pieces similar was the repetition of what they were enunciating. Anderson, in her piece, also changed the word order, and often repeated the same word more then a couple of times. This made the piece contradict Blonk’s piece, where he only deducted the vowels of the words without changing the word order of the sentence.

I was unable to find Anderson’s thoughts on her approach to what she does. However, others have commented on her brilliance:

At the start of the twenty-first century, composer Beth Anderson is one of the most exciting personalities on the American classical music scene, bucking trends of formalism and attempting to make touch with her inner self, tastes and identity in her music.

–David N. Lewis, Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide

A refreshing simplicity without naivete–deeply felt, direct, and yes, beautiful.

–Alan Gillmore, musicologist