I had the chance, this morning, to look through Dušan Bogdanović's
Polyrhythmic and Polymetric Studies, both the first section of exercises and the etudes in the second section and I've got to say that it strikes me as the best thing I've ever seen of its kind. The range of polyrhythms is much smaller than those treated in another fine series of exercises and studies, Polyrhythms, A Musician's Guide by the jazz drummer Peter Magadini, but Bogdanović's melodic treatment of them has an added layer of musical substance and consideration. I think both books are essential for anyone who reaches the level of playing music containing varied and extended polyrhythms and polymeters (they aren't exactly the same things) or anyone who wants to master them for use in improvisation (impromptu composition) or composition (frozen improvisation). Both of those works are miles and miles ahead of Paul Hindemith's similar exercises in his famous book, Elementary Training For Musicians. If and when I'm ready to take students again I will
probably adapt some of them for keyboard, though I'm not up to
or arrogant enough to try to transcribe the etudes. Not sure
they'd work very well on keyboard, especially piano. Maybe on a
clavichord, though. Hope that idea annoys a certain someone. As I said, I have to have my fun, too.
Here is a doctoral dissertation by Michael J. Morey on the Polyrhythmic and Polymetric Studies, to get your interest up. Youtubes of three of the etudes were posted below last Tuesday if you want to hear some of them.
"Both of those works are miles and miles ahead of Paul Hindemith's similar exercises in his famous book, Elementary Training For Musicians."
ReplyDeleteThe chances of that guy being a better pedagogue or composer than Hindemith are somewhere between slim and zilch.
Paul Hindemith's composition students were notorious for falling into the habits of copying him. I have wondered if Charlie Parker had been able to study with him if it might not have cramped his genius. Off hand I can't think of one of his students, except perhaps Alvin Etler who developed a personal style that you might not suspect was influenced by him. Hindemith was a great composer, though I wouldn't necessarily put him in the highest rank in most instances but his teaching seems to have been more apt to stunt originality than facilitate it. I can name a large number of teachers who were able to teach their students without that happening, Schoenberg, Sessions, Bolcom, and certainly into the past.
DeleteI don't know enough, yet, about who Bogdanović has taught but I wouldn't be surprised if his methods didn't lead to a great amount of originality in his students. Unlike you, dopey, I've been a music teacher for the past 44 years. I've used Hindemith's Elementary Training and a number of other books to teach students the fundamentals of music. Hindemith's book is very good but it isn't even the best, it certainly isn't the best for teaching polyrhythms and polymeters. I don't think it's in any way superior to a number of other books for specific topics, some of the older than his. Samuel Cole's Melodia, for example, in tonal reading. George Wedge's books, specifically placing ear-training in the context of learning harmony are, in my opinion, superior to Hindemith, taking into account their emphasis on major-minor tonality. He, in no way surpasses the practice of either reading through large numbers of Gregorian chants on one end or Lars Edlund's Modus Novus at the other end of music history. Some of Hindemith's advice in the foreword is excellent, at least one thing he advised is, in my experience, quite risky.
I strongly suspect you couldn't, unprepared read through the exercises in Fundamental Training past about page 20, if even that far. I'll bet you couldn't sight sing far into the first volume of the Mikrokosmos where you're only dealing with melodies ranging in five adjacent notes and simple rhythms. You are a putz.
"You are a putz. "
ReplyDeletePerhaps, but one with better taste than you.
:-)
BTW, where is it written that you have to be a musician to listen to music?
BTW, Hindemith wrote a theatrical and musical masterpiece called MATHIS DER MALER.
ReplyDeleteYour guy wrote some New Age wallpaper for guitar.
Unless you saw the production in New York about two decades ago, I'll bet you've never heard more than the Symphony drawn from the music. Though you may have read the back side of an LP when you got assigned to listen to it in Music Appre, way back a when.
DeleteAs to its theatricality, I'll bet you have no idea what the plot of it is, I doubt more than a couple of handfuls of non-musicians and or musicians who weren't involved in one of the very rare productions of the opera could describe the dramatic action. It is so convoluted so as to make it nearly impossible to follow unless you have a synopsis with you as you listen. It is one of the most confusing, complex and odd pieces of theater I can think of.
And the message of it, especially in the context of the rise of the Nazi regime is fraught with questionable ambiguities. I think it's one big cop out when the only moral stand to take was not artistic isolation but political engagement and resistance. The composers in concentration camps were more defiant and they knew they were going to die, not only be denied performances.
"Bogdanovic’s playing simply acts as a vehicle for his luminous, multicultural compositions. But what playing! Wielding a solo classical guitar, Dusan handles tricky polymeters, Balkan melodies, startling counterpoint, and oud- inspired improvised lines with nuance and sinewy grace. The depth of ideas and clarity of his playing borders on spooky. If you love guitar, you must investigate this jewel.”
Guitar Player, USA, 1996
I could go on and on with the reviews but, here, Putzy,
"Classically trained European guitarist makes his debut a stunning acoustic date with flutist James Newton and Charlie Haden’s sonorous bass. Superb, distinctive chamber jazz.”
Billboard, USA, 1984
I'll take Charlie Haden and James Newton's opinion over your mewling and puking any day. That taste you're claiming to have is the regurgitated, predigested pablum you've been guzzling for the past seven decades.
"Leo Brouwer and Dusan Bogdanovic are inarguably two of the most important classical guitar composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Perhaps more so than any other composers of our time, Bogdanovic and Brouwer produce pieces of consistent quality while continuing to explore and expand their unique voices.”
DeleteGuitar Review, USA, 2003
Go ahead, make fun of Leo Brouwer based on something you've read in Wikipedia.
I've heard the entire opera on several occasions. The late 70s DGG recording of it with Fischer-Dieskau is one of my favorite things ever.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/Hindemith-Mathis-Maler-Paul/dp/B0040UEHW8
Also, go fuck yourself.
" It is one of the most confusing, complex and odd pieces of theater I can think of. "
ReplyDeleteIf you're an idiot, I'm sure that's true
So you're admitting you couldn't tell someone what the plot was.
DeleteI'm not the only one who said it didn't exactly work as theater. It would probably be the common consensus if a work so seldom performed could generate a common consensus.
I doubt, very much, that you've listened to it a number of times. You certainly haven't seen it on stage as it is very, very seldom performed. Hindemith is probably the lest often played of the big four of early - mid 20th century composers other than his many sonatas for solo instruments. Those were, by the way, a brilliant strategy for getting your music played. If you write a sonata for Trombone or Tuba or Haeckelphone you're bound to get played more than if you only write for the more often written for instruments. Hindemith was quite smart and he was a very good composer, I didn't even question the value of his book, I merely noted that the polyrhythmic and polymetric exercises in his Elementary Training weren't as involved as those in Bogdanovic's and Magadini's books. You've probably never even heard of Magadini's book, though it is famous among advanced music students. If you had anything like an attention span instead of an attention deficit you'd see that I accurately noted that Bogdanovic's book didn't deal with as many polyrhythms as Magadini's. You're the one who thinks these things are black and white questions because that's the way children think and you never developed. That's pretty much how the rump at Baby Blue thinks about everything, they are children. I'm not interested in that bull shit interspersed with chatter about what you guys are having for lunch and supper interspersed with your whining about lumbago - is that what you call ED? - and you regurgitating that pablum talked about above. Let me guess, today it was .... some white rip-off Brit invasion band that had you and the tots all talking.
Oh, and, what do you know, Haden, Newton and Tony Jones recorded an album with Dusan Bagdonavic, they played two of the movements of that Jazz Sonata you disparaged so ignorantly the other day and several other of Bagdonavic's piece. But, what do those three guys know as compared to the Crown Dunce of Duncaton.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.discogs.com/Dusan-Bogdanovic-with-James-Newton-2-Charlie-Haden-Tony-Jones-Early-To-Rise/master/296315