Yes? ...or No? Ask Glenn Miller!

After all these years I guess we ought to be used to it. (I'm talking about fans of prog-rock giants 'Yes', of course.)

In-fighting, personnel changes, in-ings and outings a-plenty...it is par for the course for the band! To my reckoning there have now been at least a dozen 'official members' of Yes. Please correct me if I'm wrong but, in vague order, I think it's something like Squire, Anderson, Banks, Kaye, Bruford, Howe, Wakeman (R), White, Moraz, Downes, Horn, Rabin, Jobson - who only recorded a video...for the group's biggest ever hit that he didn't play on - Sherwood, Khoroshev, Wakeman (O) and Benoit David. The list SHOULD include, IMHO, Tom Brislin for the wonderful work he did on the Yes Symphonic tour but official websites don't include him...also, you might say that if Eddie Jobson counts then so should Vangelis?

Either way its a cracking 'squad' and the band have 43 years of history, they've played thousands of gigs to millions of people and recorded 20+ studio albums - one more if you include the one credited to Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe who played gigs full of Yes music but weren't allowed to use the name!

The reason for that, of course, is that the one constant in all those 'official' Yes concerts and on every recording is 'The Fish', Mr Chris Squire - bassist extraordinaire and much under-used singer and song-writer to boot. In my eyes Squire is a musical genius. NO-ONE can make a bass guitar sound the way he does and, therefore, none has ever been as easily recognisable. His one solo album is an oft-overlooked Progressive Rock gem and even his quirky 'Swiss Choir' album from a couple of years ago took no time at all to firmly cement itself in my all-time top 5 Christmas albums!

However, it seems to me that, despite being a great music-man, Chris is not quite a 'people' man. I might be wrong but why else would the Yes line-up change as often as most of us change our boxer-shorts? Jon Anderson has been in and out three times now, Rick Wakeman has had, I reckon, five stints as keyboardist, Eddie Jobson didn't get beyond rehearsals! (Rumour has it Squire wouldn't let him wear make-up on stage!)

Yes have had enormous success on whatever scale you want to judge them...LP/CD sales, awards, record numbers of successive nights at venues like MSG, number one singles...on and on.

Some LPs/CDs have gone down as 'classics' - to me, 'Close to the Edge' from the early 1970s is one of the top5 pop/rock albums ever made - many Yes fans agree - while others give the 'Best Yes Album' accolade to 'Relayer'. On the other hand there have been some albums that, let's just say, get played less than others :) For me the nadir came with 'Open Your Eyes' but others equally hate 'Union', 'Big Generator' or 'Talk'. When I first discovered Yes (when I was a raw 18 year old music student who hitherto had prided himself on listening to little else but The Beatles, Beach Boys and Harry Nilsson) that particular niche firmly belonged to 1980's 'Drama'.

It seemed that 'real' Yes fans did not (would not?) recognise 'Drama' as a 'proper' Yes album because a) it didn't have Jon Anderson singing and b) it featured what was regarded then as a naff 'pop' group called The Buggles. Talk about snobbery! When Anderson and Rick Wakeman waved goodbye to Yes (Wakeman for the 2nd time) in 1979 Squire invited the 2 'Buggles' on board - Geoff Downes was recognised as a talented and innovative keyboard player, Horn had the 'ability' to sound a bit like Anderson...and singers who could mirror his range well enough to even attempt the Yes back-catalogue are and were then rather a rarity!

Hindsight has been kind to 'Drama' - in fact it is a very fine album, almost (now) universally agreed by Yes fans. Unfortunately, when the Drama-era line-up went on tour it didn't take very long for anyone to notice that Horn's voice, whilst fine in the studio, simply could not cope in the arena! Listening to a bootleg like 'Live in Leicester' is a painful experience apart from in the instrumental sections! Horn's perpetual straining and wildly erratic tuning must have embarrassed the rest of the band, however kind they may have been to him at the time! Of course, Horn went on to become one of the best and most successful record producers ever (the man behind 'Frankie Goes to Hollywood' and 'Art Of Noise' just for starters) while Downes has spent most of the last 30 years with prog-rock supergroup Asia.

I've been listening, this week, to Yes's new CD 'Fly From Here'. It is the group's first new studio CD since 'Magnification' more than a decade ago...and The Buggles are back!

The problem with being a rock band for 43 years is that all our bodies age differently. Rick Wakeman almost died in 1974 after a massive heart attack...again he almost expired while recording 'Return to the Centre of the Earth' after contracting pneumonia. Alcohol and cigarettes would surely also have killed him by now had he not, wisely, given them up decades ago...and most men who have tried to cope with alimony payments like he must have lived with would probably have given up the ghost long before now! Rick must often ask himself why he had such a propensity to attempt to emulate Henry VIII down the '6 Wives' path!

When Squire & co wanted to tour a couple of years ago Wakeman had learned his limits and declined the invitation; Anderson had a near death experience himself and asked for the tour to be be delayed while he recovered. Squire refused his pleas and unceremoniously booted out his old buddy, replacing him with the singer from a Canadian Yes-Tribute band! Most fans thought this would be just for one tour...yet here we are at new album time...and Anderson is, clearly, history. He has not hidden his feelings about this...and nor have some Yes fans - or 'Yuppets' as they have been disparagingly labelled by Geoff Downes! Controversy simply WILL NOT leave Yes alone, it seems.

The new CD is built around a song the 1980 Drama-era Yes performed live '(We Can) Fly From Here', only now it's been extended to a 25 minute 'epic' in 6 sections. Reviews have been mixed...largely dependant on various factors, like:

• how one feels about the Anderson situation
• what one thought of Drama in the first place
• the fact some Yes fans simply don't like Geoff Downes
• any number of other factors!

...but mainly it seems to be based on what their Yes loving 'mates' think and what on-line Yes forums they belong to!

I don't belong to any Yes-forums so listened to the CD with no pre-conceptions; I might feel that Anderson has been harshly treated - on the other hand, if the rest of the band want to tour and play concerts more than the twice a week Anderson could manage, surely replacing Benoit David with him just for the CD would be equally unfair on David? Downes was back because he wrote most of the new material and because his fellow ex-Buggle, Horn, was producing. Rick's son Oliver Wakeman, if anyone, actually has been more callously discarded than anyone!

The production is crystal clean and from an audio angle the CD sounds great! Squire's bass chunders and rumbles away as powerfully as ever and his backing vocals (apart from his bass playing probably the most important long-term component of the classic Yes-sound) soar magnificently as ever. Chris even gets a lead vocal on the final song - which also (coincidence?) I feel is the best on the album.

There's a reworking of an old Buggles song, some mathematically intricate, typical Yes-time signature complexity, a classic Steve Howe guitar piece and several other obvious reminders that this IS Yes (not least Steve Howe revisiting the very same 12 string sound/technique from all-time Yes classic song 'And You & I'). Benoit David's voice, casting aside all politics and opinion, is excellent throughout. Indeed, sometimes, he DOES sound so incredibly like Jon Anderson anyone less than a dyed in the wool Yes fan might never notice it wasn't him!

Like all Yes albums, time will be the best judge. I'm not going to say 7/10 or whatever right now, after just a week! Yes albums are marked by their eventual heritage in band-lore (we have already seen how Drama's 'star' has risen since 1981, when I fist became a 'fan') Except...one has to wonder how much longer the Yes story has to go? Another decade from now most will be well into their 70s...could there possibly be a band-full of near-octogenarian Proggers in wheelchairs on the Hammy Apollo stage in 2025?

This is a new problem for rock music that I'm not sure too many have thought that much about yet!

Will a band or artist's music 'die' when they themselves die or retire? We live in an age where the afore-mentioned Tribute Bands keep alive music when the bands themselves can't! Was the Paul Rodgers-fronted band that has been around for the last few years 'REALLY' Queen? Is this new band 'REALLY' Yes? Are Daltrey and Townshend alone enough to call their band 'The Who'? The legal answer may, indeed, be that they all are 'REALLY' who they say they are but...like I asked above...what about in twenty years time?

I can actually see a sort of 'band franchise' scenario developing! I'm very much reminded of the well-known thoughts of WWII band-leader Glenn Miller - who wanted the SOUND and MUSIC of his band to be more important than the musicians themselves. He wanted people to be able to go on enjoying his music many years into the future. Miller died in 1944...yet there is STILL a Glenn Miller Band touring the world today - playing concerts 67 years later. Miller certainly got his wish!

Earlier this year one of my favourite current prog bands, Frost*, was put 'on-hold' or hiatus or disbanded or whatever...Jem Godfrey, the man behind the project, decided this was so! And so it was! He has suggested since on Twitter that he might 'franchise' the band name! Maybe great minds think alike!?! But how could it be same without Jem?

Well, how can Yes be Yes without a or b or c or d? Like I said in the title...ask Glenn Miller!

What 'Dates' a Piece of Music?

If there is anything likely to wind me up and set me off (like a clockwork toy!) it's being told that a piece of music has 'had its day'.

I mean, what gives any of us the right to judge music in that way? Most Mozart music is 225-250 years old, Bach up to 300. Josquin du Pres wrote down his 'Danserye' around half a millennium ago and I have many friends who like 'Greensleeves' which is of a similar vintage.

It pains me to enlarge on this by admitting that the church is, by far, the biggest sinner in this respect. We worship in an age where, to some, only 'modern worship songs' are deemed worthy of usage...there are many good examples of this genre but, largely speaking, these are tuneless, repetitive dirges of minimal musical value - with 'trendy' accompaniments built on bare fifths...basically, as long as it has a guitar, bass and drum kit it 'will do'.

In my 'church' - The Salvation Army - such an ensemble is known as a 'worship band'. Really? What a gross, unfeeling insult to the thousands of Sally Army bandsmen of the past 130-odd years who have expressed their 'worship' through brass banding! And what an insult to the group of Christian musicians who are asked (or told!) to 'stand aside' on Youth weekends so the 'contemporary ensemble' can take the centre stage!

In the Salvation Army 'The Joystrings' are seen as 'ancient history' - something of a joke to the youth of today...a group of ancients who twanged guitars when The Beatles were in the charts and who our parents (or grandparents!) thought were 'relevant' and 'groovy' way back when! Younger Salvationsist musicians will often admit to having an admiration for Lennon/McCartney...but admiration for Webb/Davidson is far less forthcoming!

Even the wonderful legacy of the Gowans/Larsson musicals is often sneered at. Before our service on Sunday evening I played a sequence of tunes from their first musical "Take Over Bid': fine melodies like 'It Happened to Me', 'Inside, Outside' and 'I Dream of a Day'. A few people came up to me and said thank you...others informed me that, in their opinion, these tunes were best consigned to history! What an insult to our great musical heritage!

On Sunday our Songsters (choir) sang one of the finest compositions ever published by the SA - the sublime 'In The Secret Of Thy Presence' (words by General Albert Orsborn, music by Eric Ball). It was a wonderful performance of a marvellous piece of music and one could feel the Holy Spirit moving in the moments after the piece ended. I have long loved this piece; my young son encountered it when it was sung by the Terrirorial Youth Choir a few years ago and the music and words were able to speak to a new generation. Good music transcends time...

Yet, tonight, our Songster Leader shared with us the response to the song - many had thanked her for its use, some had not been as enthused. I remarked to the person nearest me 'how could anyone not love that piece?' The response I received was one of absolute indifference...'I think it's had its day'.

Had its day? Has Mozart had its day? Have The Beatles? What about Glenn Miller? Hoagy Carmichael? George Gershwin? Is Parry's 'Jerusalem' a melody no longer worthy of our consideration? What about the many, many hits penned and produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman 25 years ago and sung by Kylie, Sinitta and Rick Astley and others? What about ThenRolling Stones? The Beach Boys? Simon & Garfunkel?

Good music is NOT bound or judged by time! 'Shine, Jesus Shine' is still sung today in churches because, despite being a quarter of a century old, it works! Likewise, 'The Lord's My Shepherd' ticks the same boxes despite the melody being hundreds...and the words thousands...of years old!

Like a couple of dozen other Salvation Army discards, 'In The Secret' has, in the last few years, been picked up by quality, non-SA musicians and re-recorded, and treated with respect, reverence and the deference it deserves, by NON-SA musicians (namely the world-renowned 'Kings Singers') and brought to our ears once more. It seems to me that, where the Salvationists' ears have become numbed to its own quality music, the outsiders' ears have lapped up with relish our discards. 'Had its day'? By no means! NO Army music is more than 140 years old! That makes it a century more modern than Mozart, newer than Verdi or Wagner and, at least, contemporary with Puccini, Miller or McCartney!

Give Army music a chance to live before we bury it!!!

Across The Universe

I wrote this piece many years ago but it's worth reposting on December 8th, any year...

Across the Universe - by Marc Harry

My mum came into my room on Tuesday morning and told me to "prepare myself for a shock". I immediately thought my grandfather had died or been taken more seriously ill. In retrospect, awful though it sounds, I would have taken it better if that was what had happened.

She told me John Lennon had been shot. I replied, "how is he?" and she slowly shook her head and said "he isn't - he's dead."

What? John? The most important man in the world to my life? The Beatle? The Walrus ?? The man whose new LP I had queued around the corner to buy just a few weeks ago? Dead? My head couldn't take it in.

I sat on the floor with my radio and tuned from station to station...why were they all playing Imagine? Ah..7.30 - the news...no, I don't want to hear that, find another station...no...another - and so on as the news began to sink into my reality.

I made a shrine in my bedroom window. I hung up my electric guitar and surrounded it with LP covers. I went out and bought every English newspaper (to my utter regret a few weeks later I cut them up to make a collage for my bedroom wall - each newspaper is now worth a
fortune !). I got to school VERY late.

My friend and I offered to spend Wednesday afternoon (general studies period) in the school Music Room playing John Lennon records for other fans to show their respect. We were told to do two songs live for every record played (I was a singer/pianist/guitarist, he a
pianist). So we booked the room and advertised the event. 15 minutes before the event on Wednesday we had to move to the school hall ! I recall rows of girls in Beatles scarves wearing round John Lennon specs in floods of tears as Colin and I played Across the
Universe, If I Fell, Imagine, Isolation and others. It was my first gig. It helped me grieve yet gave me such a feeling of pride that I could share John's music in this way - and that so many others amongst my school friends felt the same grief.

Of course, I wanted to know the story of what had happened too. There are many versions and conspiracy theories but the one generally accepted as nearest to the truth goes something like this...

Mark David Chapman* was, actually, a very nice young man. A massive Beatles fan and especially of John. To some extent he had even modelled himself on his hero - as so many of us have done over the years. He was a good, clean living young man who taught in his local
Sunday School.

Then (on my birthday !), Oct 9th 1975 Sean was born after a very long struggle by John and Yoko to conceive and carry a baby full term (Yoko had had several miscarriages, of course). John was the proudest parent there could ever be. He knew he had made mistakes in
the fatherhood of Julian and promised himself he would not make the same mistake again this time around. No being away on long tours, coming home and finding his son another couple of inches taller - no missing out on first smiles, first words etc. His EMI contract
almost at an end he felt free - free from contracts, free from expectations and no burden on him to sing or record ever again unless he wanted to. So he didn't.

John stayed at home and looked after the baby while Yoko multiplied the family fortune through careful business investments. John changed the nappies (diapers), John sang Sean to sleep, John danced with him to stop him crying. John cooked the bread...John was doing
what he wanted to do - be a daddy !

And the world missed John. They called him crazy - "dreaming my life away" as he sat there watching the wheels go round. And Mark Chapman missed him too. The story goes that he started to believe he could help fill the gap. He tried to look like John until people in
restaurants asked him to sign autographs...marrying a rather plain, Japanese wife helped maintain the charade...he was even invited on stage to perform as John. And so the 'madness' began...

Chapman started booking into hotels as John Lennon. He booked airline tickets too. As he descended into a form of schizophrenia he was actually starting to believe he was John Lennon. And he was happy...and the world still missed John, the 'loony ex-Beatle locked away in the
austere Dakota buildings near Central Park.' The man who had said (according to the press) "I have made my contribution to society".

Then Sean started school and who needs a full-time househusband? While on holiday in Bermuda John started thinking about making another record. he had listened to the radio playing the New Wave music of 79/80. He knew that if the world could put Lene Lovich in
the charts then they could also listen to Yoko (at last). He sang his new ideas for songs over the phone to Yoko - she had thought the same and sang her songs back...and the world welcomed John Lennon back into the fold and bought his new album Double Fantasy. The single, Starting Over hit the charts too. And Mark Chapman, like any John Lennon fan bought the album.

And they say he liked it...but he knew it wasn't him...and if John Lennon was back in the world - where did he fit in? With his mental decline in freefall he fed its fever by reading and rereading JD Salinger's 'Catcher in the Rye'. Swinging moment by moment between being John Lennon's biggest fan and seeing his oft-time hero as some sort of grotesque impostor he bought another airline ticket to New York. He stood as so many fans had done before him in the shadow of
the Dakota and waited for a glimpse of his idol and was rewarded with a signature on his copy of Double Fantasy. In his own way, John Lennon had signed his own death warrant for, as he got
into the car which would take he and Yoko to their final recording session Chapman proudly clutched his prize...and waited.

Returning home late at night after putting the finishing touches to Yoko's 'Walking on Thin Ice' John got out of the car. His attention was drawn by Chapman's "Excuse me Mr Lennon," and as he turned his head a volley of shots littered the air. John fell, his blood-splattered glasses flew across the pavement (sidewalk), Yoko screamed. A nearby police patrol picked up the latest
crime statistic and bundled him into the back of the car and headed for the hospital. Part way there one of the two police officers looked around and thought he recognised their passenger. As he asked, "Are you John Lennon?" the barely conscious John vaguely nodded and
muttered a final "Yeah".

On arrival at the hospital, emergency crews tried for some time to revive their patient but to no avail. John had crossed his universe, watched his final wheel go round and the man who told us to give peace a chance and that all we needed was love had left this stage for the final time. "Turned out nice again."**

And the whole world mourned. Starting Over hit number one, closely followed by Imagine and Woman. Tributes poured out like New Year's Eve champagne. As so many discovered that month - you don't know what you got - until you lose it.

And I did my concert. And I still miss him. Bless you...

Marc

* There are many who will not speak his name. Rather Voldermortian? MDC applied (yet again) for parole this year (2010). It was denied once more.

** at the end of the Beatles version of Free as a Bird you hear a ukulele. As it fades you hear the words "made by John Lennon." John never said that. The words he recorded were "Turned out nice again", a catchphrase of wartime British comic George Formby. When that was
played backwards for the single.................

Unless You've Been There....

Many years ago, long before I knew what depression was I remember reading about some of my favourite comedians and the differences between their on-stage (or on-screen) personas and their real-life personalities. It seemed hard to imagine Spike Milligan or Robin Williams as chronic depressives, yet the fact is they both were...and their situation is far from a rarity in the world of entertainment. One of the most common anecdotes about depression tells of the young man who went to his doctor telling of the crippling sadness that was ruining his life. The doctor told him to go out that evening and see a world famous clown who was appearing in that town - "He would cheer anyone up," the doctor continued. The young man burst into tears crying that he WAS that clown...

I used to think depression was just an excuse for some people being miserable and, heaven knows, I've met enough miserable people in my life! There is at least a small part of everyone who has not suffered this illness that would like to see those complaining of depression given a good shake and told to 'pull themselves together'. Again, I know this for a fact because I used to be one of their number!

I have suffered immeasurably in the last 4 months from people who insisted they cared for and were 'concerned' for me - yet, instead of support and encouragement (and, even more lacking - the crucial attempt to understand how I was feeling or what might be best for me) I was cast off from some of the main things that helped my condition, kept me active, gave me a sense of fulfilment in life...or, in a more basic explanation, got me out of the house...for most of the time I would stay here in the safety of my 'castle' where I'm not expected to be anything other than ME and where the other people I meet love me unconditionally and understand me completely.

I felt great over the weekend! It was my birthday on Saturday - 48 but with a mind that feels 18 and a body that feels 68 - and I drove to North Wales with my two younger sons and my wonderful mum. If I was to drive rather than be (God forbid) a passenger I had to promise not to drive too fast and not to play loud rock music on the journey. So, we listened to a random selection from the old Portsmouth Songsters recordings (thanks to Lewis's iPhione shuffle feature) and we sang along to everything from Step Out to Take My Life.

Saturday evening I sang a selection of songs I'd written but finishing up with John Wetton's wonderful 'Battle Lines' as part of an excellent evening's music and on Sunday sang twice more in church services before the drive back home (during which the music ranged a little wider and the speedometer, I confess, twitched over mum's 'acceptable' once or twice! I felt good and fulfilled!

Yesterday, Monday, I was tired but, worse than that, I felt 'low'...one of those 'lows' that comes every few months that makes you not want to breathe, let alone get up or go out! As a single dad I have no option but to 'force it' - to do thing that rankles all depressives more than anything else...to 'pull yourself together', if you wish! Ieuan had to go to the doctor and all four of us had dentist check-ups. Today, I woke to what I hope and pray is the 'epicentre' of the 'low'. In the meantime, the good old doc had once more increased my anti-depression medication.

Yet, this afternoon, I was booked to entertain a group of people in Southsea and there was no way I could or would let them down so near to the event. Even as I forced myself to get ready, walked to the car and drove the few miles to the venue my mind was refusing to connect at all with the idea that, within half an hour, people would be sitting expectantly, waiting for me to entertain, challenge, inspire and have rolling in fits of laughter...what a bizarre concept that someone who felt the way I did could achieve all that?

As I sat at the back of the venue with a lovely, hot cup of tea, several people I have known for years walked past and asked how I was. "Fine," I replied, with a smile! Well, you do - don't you? Believe me, the last thing they would want was the truth or a lengthy explanation to the contrary! And soon, it was time...

I sang, I told a story. Then more...a bit about John Lennon and a much appreciated 'Imagine' then (how bizarre!) they really were guffawing and rolling with laughter to my poem about the Harvest Festival. A few more songs and a couple more poems later and time was almost up. I ended with the song that has become a bit if a 'theme tune' for me in the last few years - Joy Webb's incredible composition 'There Will be God' with my own rhapsodic arrangement with sweeping, complex piano accompaniment building to the massive crescendo of positivity as the eponymous last line is delivered, culminating in a 16 beat, fortissimo top G to emphasise the truth I know...but can't always feel!

As I said in my Facebook status a few minutes later as I sat in my car, "I needed that song today more than my audience did."

The clown had successfully hidden his tears once again. Despite how I had felt before, a combination of my own professionalism and determination, natural adrenaline and God's supernatural power got me through and (not wanting to sound at all big-headed or arrogant) thrilled the audience who went away so clearly happy.

Now, I sit at home a couple of hours after the show ended. There is still enough adrenaline coursing through my veins to have held off the return of the 'low' - so I'm not curled in a (big) ball ignoring the world but enjoying a cuddle and glass of Cream Soda with Ieuan while I type a blog and he watches 'Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs' again! I remember it will be time to prepare tea soon and that reminds me it's Tuesday and that I should be somewhere tonight - but won't be - because, as I wrote at the start of this piece, those who ought to have supported me cast me off.

So...should I watch Wales lose again tonight or is that just 'asking' for the 'low' to return? See, if I can joke about it things must be on the 'up' again! Hope so anyway!

What is Music?

GCSE Listening Paper 1992:

(Musical extract played on the tape - short excerpt from Mendelssohn's 'Fingal's Cave')

Q. Make one comment about the music you hear

My pupil's actual written answer on the exam paper: "It does my head in"

**********************************************

I had tried - for five years at that point - to persuade the young lady concerned that there was more music worth listening to than just Kylie and New Kids on the Block. In some cases, I learned eventually, you just have to give up!

Sometimes, it's hard even to convince the uneducated teenager that what they are being asked to listen to is describable AS music!

Take Steve Reich's famous 'Clapping Music'. No pitched notes, no instruments (save hands) - two performers clapping an identical rhythm pattern, with one of them getting progressively more and more 'out of phase' with the other until, eventually, enough patterns have been repeated to once again bring the two together in unison. A simple idea...but music? Or is it more like a (rhythm) game?

Skip 18 years into the future and I have just had a very interesting Facebook conversation with a talented young friend. He is a professional military musician, percussionist with several notable brass bands and also works in the rock/pop field - so it's not someone unacquainted with different genres and styles of music I am talking about.

It seems Glen flicked over to tonight's Prom concert part-way through the London Première of Julian Anderson's 'Fantasias'. His comment?

"Just flicked on the Proms, what a load of rubbish! When are they ever going to play a nice melody and not just tune up!"

You might imagine - a bit like a red rag to an old bull like me! I may not have been over-impressed by Mr Anderson's latest opus myself - but I'll defend its right to exist and be described as music to the death!

So...to go back to my title...what IS music?

In the afore-mentioned teaching career I would ask that question of my Year 7 classes and write the responses on my whiteboard:

tunes

instruments

rhythm

sounds

beats

Same answers, every class - every year.

None of the responses are the answer to the question! Music might contain some or all of these but none (except one) are a prerequisite of 'music'! 'Sounds' being that response, of course.*

My next question to the class, therefore, is obvious! Does that mean that all sounds are music?

Discussions ensued! The majority would say "no" but some would say, "Yes, all sounds are music". I ask every person in the room to 'make a single, short noise'. Thirty children enjoy the chance to do so: shy girls tap the desk, Johnny and his five brash mates make fart noises or belch - they think it's original, of course!

I ask if that was music and most agree it wasn't - it was just 'random'. So, I invite Johnny to the front of the class and ask him to point at members of the class in turn and, when he does, for each to make his/her noise. More often than not Johnny returns to the same few friends, in turn, hence introducing repeated, identifiable patterns into the 'performance'. Most of the class now think that Johnny's piece WAS music...sort of!

I open the classroom door and ask everyone to listen to the sounds they can hear outside and we then make another list:

trees rustling

traffic

footsteps

fire alarm/police siren

plane

voices

birds

We agree that wasn't music either - just random noises again - so I play a CD I prepared earlier that places each of the sounds we had just heard and discussed into a defined 'soundscape'.

Same sounds as the random ones but, now, quite a lot think my piece could be described as music...so what had changed?

Here is the crux or aim of the whole lesson - the introduction (never by ME, by the way) of the word ORGANISED. If random sounds are somehow organised we turn them into music - and once that bridge is crossed most of my pupils were ready for more.

Leonard Bernstein once described music as "Sounds that change*** and move along in time." It is the placing of sounds into a context of time that turns them into music - organising them, if you like!

Glen followed up his first comment with:

"come off it - really did sound like they where just tuning up at one point! That's not Music!"

Really? Over two centuries ago Haydn used 'tuning up' as part of his Symphony Number 60 - 'Il Distratto' (The Absent-Minded Man). So did Britten in 'Young Person's Guide'. When The Beatles asked their assembled musical forces to 'make any sounds, getting gradually higher and higher' they created the famous, apocolyptic crescendo you can hear twice in 'A Day In The Life' - not far from 'tuning up', really, is it?

I'm quite sure Julian Anderson's instructions to the National Youth Orchestra this evening were quite clear in their intent - certainly I'd guess, clearer than some of the more outlandish Graphic Scores produced during the last century!

Whether 'Fantasias' is 'good' music or not remains to be debated. The answer will depend on many factors and will always be an individual one - some will love it and many more, surely, will not! Whether it goes on to become part of the popular orchestral repertoire yet to be seen!

But music it most certainly is! ****

********************************

* There might even be some who would argue against even THIS, however. I have seen 'silent' choirs of deaf children 'singing' using signing - together, in time...'performing' a song. Music?

Further, most people who have been music students are aware of John Cage's famous 4'33" - a piece of 'music' in which a pianist sits at a piano silently for the duration of the 'piece'! The argument is always, "Well, OF COURSE, it's not (proper) music!"**

** Oy!!!...read the rest of the blog...THEN read this you impatient person! ****

*** The word 'change' is also important in this description - or else one might be able to describe a resting heartbeat as 'music'. If it is resting (i.e. virtually constant) then the sounds won't usually change, so failing Bernstein's criteria. If one goes for a short run then rests again the sound of the heart will find its tempo increased, then decreased again - in this scenario you have made a conscious decision to run, knowing this will cause the tempo change = arranged/organised the sound...and I'd, therefore, defend it as music!

**** My interpretation of 4'33" is that Cage has been an absolute genius on this occasion, manipulating the audience into becoming the performance! The pianist sits in silence listening tothe discomfort of an audience not knowing how to react to the situation. Uneasy shuffling, embarrassed coughs, hushed whispers ("has he started yet?" "what's going on?"), maybe even unwrapping of boiled sweets! And the pianist/audience, being 'in the know' hears the sounds created from the composer's stimulus - the 'organised sound' of my final definition!

I Got You Covered....

I wanted to write today...but didn't know what about...so I went for as nice, relaxing bath - putting my BlackBerry on 'shuffle tracks' and settling back.

The bath lasted five tracks...and all five were cover versions! I had members of Yes, The Doors and Styx covering Pink Floyd's 'Don't Leave Me Now', John Wetton covering Genesis's 'Your Own Special Way, Harry Nilsson singing Jimmy Webb's 'Campo De Encino', The Beatles paying their tribute to Chuck Berry and 'Memphis Tennessee' and then a surprise!

I knew the song 'Vine Street' and have done for decades - it is the opening song on Harry Nilsson's 'Nilsson Sings Newman' album (a whole album of cover versions, of course). But this was certainly not the dulcet tones of a young Nilsson's tenor...and it wasn't Randy's unmistakeable tuneful croak either!

So, I had to get out of the bath! Turned out (as many of you more astute readers will have noticed) to be Van Dyke Parks and a CD I'd only recently purchased (but long wanted) and not yet listened to - 'Song Cycle' - on which every song is a VDP original...except for that one which, like Nilsson, opens the album! After that I had to rifle through my archive to see if I actually had a Randy Newman version...and I did, albeit a demo, as part of the 4CD retrospective set 'Guilty'.

I'd already been thinking, during the bath, about the concept of 'covers'. Prior to The Beatles the accepted 'norm' was for professional songwriters to write the songs, a record producer to find them and suggest them to a group or artist and 'away you go'. We all know how George Martin wanted The Beatles to record and release 'How Do You Do It' and managed to prise an unenthusiastic and reluctant studio version from them only for John to successfully argue that 'Please Please Me' was better and even suggest the 'surefire number one' be given to another of Brian Epstein's groups, Gerry & the Pacemakers. (It followed Please Please Me to Number one in the UK charts two months later, by the way!)

The Beatles and many other 1960s artists certainly blurred the lines between songwriter and artist to such an extent that, a decade later, almost all artists and groups wrote the majority of their own material - and that became the new 'norm' and, to some extent, still is today. There were (and are still) professional songwriters - but Tin Pan Alley was never quite the same again.

Cover versions and Nilsson have always made an interesting subject for debate. Harry was, undoubtedly, a marvellous songwriter, yet his career will forever be marked by the fact that his biggest hits were cover versions - most notably Badfinger's Without You and Fred Neil's Everybody's Talkin'. Harry wrote plenty of songs that became hits for other artists including The Monkees, Three Dog Night and David Cassidy - but the irony remained!

Such is the enormity of the number of cover versions associated with the music of Harry Nilsson that my friend Tom Westendorf has managed to put three 'packages ' of songs numbering 580 songs together for a yearly series of internet radio specials called 'Harry All Day'. (Artists featured are as diverse as actors George Segal, Robin Williams and Curtis 'Booger' Armstrong, The Muppets, The Turtles, Brian Wilson and Keith Moon...and even a couple of efforts by yours truly (happy indeed to share such exalted company!)

They say Paul McCartney's Yesterday is the most covered song of all with many thousands of official record and CD releases (goodness only knows how many millions of times it has been sung in bars and clubs and concert halls around the world in the last 45 years!)

Next week Brian Wilson himself releases a whole album of Gershwin 'interpretations' - said to be so much more than mere 'covers' - like Nilsson, I expect Brian to prove he has the genius to 'make other people's songs his own!

The funny thing is, if you'd asked me (before the bath) how many 'cover versions' I had on my BlackBerry I'd have probably guessed at less than ten. For my 'shuffle' function to find five consecutively out of a total of just under 2,000 songs I'm guessing there's a fair few more than that!

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PS - I can't help but think this post makes for a fine game of '6 Degrees of Separation'. Many of the artists mentioned are barely a degree of one away but I find I can even get from Styx to Brian Wilson in one...so I doubt 6 degrees would be needed anywhere!

Imagine...all the people...

I was reminded this week of an old pastime I used to enjoy!

Back in the early 80s. when the Sony Walkman was still a pipe dream for most of us and the CD still being shown on Tomorrow's World (still playing after being smeared with raspberry jam I seem to recall) I was a young music student in Colchester, Essex doing my BA (hons) in Music composition and performance.

There was plenty of music at college of course and plenty back at my digs (as my grant became ever more swallowed up by the cash registers of Parrot Records)! The problem was getting to and from the 'Institute' - usually on my trusty bicycle. These days, of course, my sons rarely leave the house without iPod headphones and I have a 16GB microSD card in my BlackBerry that holds nearly 200 CDs...

...And thereby hangs the reason for my 'lost pastime' - the Imaginary Gig!

For I would cycle up and down the chestnut-lined 'Avenue of Remembrance' enjoying the most sublime 'one-off' music concerts in which the (already-late) John Lennon shared a stage with Brian Wilson, the whole series of live gigs by Harry Nilsson (who famously never played live concerts) - one gig per album! I put together my own 'supergroups' with eclectic mixtures of musicians like Phil Collins, Rick Wakeman, Greg Lake and Ritchie Blackmore...and, probably most often, joined Paul, George and Ringo on-stage in John's place for many, many Beatles reunions! (I even had the temerity to Imagine them adding some of my own songs to the set-list...but, I guess, that what dreams are for!)

The reminder came about because of the impending re-release of a novel called 'Glimpses' by American author Lewis Shiner. Without giving too much away a (usually) drunk sound engineer discovers he can not only 'internalise' gigs and sessions in the same way I did...but he could actually record them on tape! And, thus, the world got to hear several 'long-lost masterpieces' and the readers got to 'meet' some long-dead rock stars...a rather bizarre but very enjoyable read, especially for any who, like me, are big fans of The Beatles and Brian Wilson.

As a musician I gradually became aware that not everyone was able to share my pastime - I believe it to be linked to the same part of the psyche that enables me to play any tune I've heard without music, yet others simply cannot. One of my close friends has played with Salvation Army bands for well over 50 years; I dare not even try to imagine the number of times he has played a tune like 'Away In A Manger'? A typical carolling session (of which there are still a dozen or so each year but, in years gone by there might have easily been 30 a year) would yield at least six playings (3x2 verses). Yet Alex assures me he still could not play the tune without the music in front of him - and he is no mean musician, let me assure you!

So I was joyed somewhat when the skill of 'internalising music' became part of the National Curriculum orders for Music during my teaching career - and it was something I always tried to encourage my pupils to do - on whatever level they were able. I never discovered anyone else who could (or at least openly admitted) internalising to the extent I did until I met a friend on the Internet about 12 years ago. Jim Painton (see http://sho-sho-sho-show-offsky.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html ) could...and we spent some time exchanging emails - sending each other lists of musicians to 'imagine' playing together - so it was no surprise that Jim (who wrote the liner notes for my Christmas CD and allowed me to reciprocate for his 'Painton Place') was to the one to send me my copy of 'Glimpses' (not JUST any old copy, of course, it was a signed 1st edition).

I think I might do a bit more 'daydream gigging'...see you when I get back...