Chihuly is a Genius

So, last week I went to the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park to see the Chihuly exhibit. Unbelievable. I enjoyed his works before, but seeing so many different works in person was a dream come true. You might have remembered his works from the Bellagio in Vegas? Truly remarkable works. One of the keys to this exhibit was the lighting, and it was interesting to see how the light had so much to do with the final result.

I've read a comment recently from an author that modern music is "pretty again," and I'm sure that some people have said this about art as well. It's finally "pretty again." I'm not sure if I would say this myself although I do hold similar reservations about modern works. I would even somewhat agree with this point, but I've never felt that something has to be pretty to be good or that something good is pretty.

Chihuly's work on the other hand is both. If you wanna sit back and admire the colors you can. If you want to delve more deeply into it, there's plenty to find. All his works have a story behind them. I can't say that there's some sort of message behind them or that they're meant to make a statement. I personally feel that the whole idea was to create something that looked cool. He just wanted to make something that looked cool. And what's wrong with that? Make something enjoyable to look at, something with aesthetic appeal, sit back and enjoy it. What emotions are evoked when you see these works? When these colors are put in these patterns on this medium? It reminds me a lot of Rothko, that color can have a powerful impact on the soul. But what'do I know?

I highly recommend seeing more at Chihuly's website but more importantly, to find the nearest place that has his works and see them in person. These photos, as lovely as they are, don't do them any justice (especially the lavender reeds below). I've always felt photos undermined sculpture anyway, but until I can afford a $6,000 piece myself, I'll have to settle for this.

You've got the nerve to write a fugue. . .

So, I'm writing part of a fugue into one of the aforementioned pieces and needed some brushing up. So I google "how to write a fugue," and find this video. I started cracking up. Say what you will about Glenn Gould, but he could write and had a great sense of humor. Enjoy.

Sunday Musings

Wow, today is such a beautiful day. First of all the weather here in California here is just so beautiful, but also, today's just been a great day all around. I spent at least two hours on the phone with my sister in Boston. It was a great time chattin' it up. One of those genuinely lifting conversations where both parties end up learning so much. Also, I've got good friends around to lift me up and keep me on my feet.

I listed out all the music that I've started sketching out but haven't completed yet. There's about 8 pieces in total. Some of them are short, but others a quite long. It's a bit daunting, and I'm kinda thinking to myself "Where did all these come from?" and "Where in the world do I start?" I don't see it as overwhelming. I'd like to finish two, maybe three by the end of summer.

I'm still quite busy, and there are bumps in the road, but I'm very happy. In fact, I don't remember being this happy in a long time. I'm just genuinely happy, not just temporarily amused. I don't really know how else to express it. I have a lot to be grateful for.

Le Sacre du printemps

Everyone wants to have some sort of exclusive hold on music that most of their peers have never heard of. To listen to something that no one else is listening to. For me, that's classical music.

Here's a video I found of the LA Philharmonic playing one of my favorite sections from "The Rite of Spring" by Igor Stravinsky. It was taken from their Grand Opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall (which is a phenomenal concert hall both esthetically and acoustically). Enjoy.

"New World" at the San Francisco Symphony

Last night I saw the San  Francisco Symphony for the first time. It's kind of embarrassing, I've lived in the Bay Area all my life but never taken the time to go see the Symphony. I decided I finally needed to go and see what I've been missing this whole time. Turns out this was the best opportunity: The played Beethoven's Piano Concert No. 5, "Emperor," and Dvorák's Slavic Dance No. 8, and Symphony No. 9, "New World." In a few weeks the San Francisco Symphony will take their summer break and come back in September when I'll be back up at school. I really lucked out here.

Entering the concert hall was great. I did a research paper on the acoustic renovations of this hall and had seen so many photos of the place that I felt I had been there before. I looked at the famous "acoustical cloud" made up of over 100 adjustable glass convex squares and saw how they were arranged. It's hard to explain. To see what I'm talking about check out this movie and this panorama.

The orchestra was a bit smaller that I was expecting, I suppose it's because it's the summer. It was conducted by James Gaffigan for the summer instead of Michael Tilson-Thomas. Gaffigan turned out to be a really good conductor. The Slavic Dance was played very well and despite it being short, it was bursting with energy.

Next, Natasha Paremski came onstage to play the "Emperor Concerto." She is a stunning pianist. Her interpretation was incredible, and played with great sensitivity to each passage, and maintained a fluid sort of grace the whole time. You could tell at the same time that she owned that piano; she let it know who was boss. It was probably the best "Emperor Concerto" I've ever heard. I would like to hear this girl play Rachmaninov and see what she does with it. The only down side was that she didn't play an encore.

Dvorák's ninth was the final work on the program. I've heard it played life once before, and it wasn't very good, so I was more than confident this was going to be awesome. I was not disappointed. The SFS made the whole work sound tremendously exciting from beginning to end. Even though some of the players probably had the attitude of "Well, this is a summer concert. It's not part of the real season. I don't really have to work as hard," it didn't keep the rest of the players down. For the first time I could really hear America's influence on Dvorák. He didn't quote folk tunes but he wrote new tunes and made them sound like they were quoted folk tunes. Genius.

The highlight of the evening was the Largo, the second movement. The English Horn player doesn't really do much the rest of the evening and he's got to be warmed up, tuned and really to impress by time the huge solo comes up in the Largo. He was right on the money tonight. Along with the strings, it was just an emotional powerhouse. Gaffigan led them well through the dynamics (albeit a little too fast for my taste) and phrasing of the piece.

All in all, it was a great evening of music. You really can't beat actually going there to hear it in person. All I gotta say is: Keep Music Live.

Fragments

Just as small update here,

I've finished three pieces of music in the space of just a few weeks. This never really happens. To think that I just spent four months in writers block. I've just recently become flush with ideas. I have the problem sometimes where I think of all these great ideas and never really flesh them out to their fullest potential. Out of 20 good ideas, I'll finish maybe three. I wish I had the capacity and ability to finish them all. This week though has been good for finishing ideas. If I can just keep up with what's falling out of my head...

Future of Audio

I just got a new USB turntable to convert some of my parents vinyls to CD. Meanwhile, while I'm capturing the recordings through the turntable's USB output, I'm listening to all these vinyls on my stereo through it's analog output. Simply put, the sound is amazing. The high frequencies are beautifully rounded off and clear; everything is full-bodied and everything has a lot of presence. This is something you just can't get from a CD or MP3. Audio sampled at 44.1 KHz starts to fall apart at 5 KHz. MP3's quality is even worse. The quality just doesn't compare.

There are some draw backs though. Vinyls are quite fragile and easily damaged. Pops and cracks are a common place. They are large and unwieldy, without any shot at portability. Despite it's incredible sound, it's not quite the ideal medium.

So what's the solution? The sound quality of vinyls with the durability and portability of CDs, does it exist? By way of digital audio there are two options: PCM and DSD. PCM is the way digital music on CDs are sampled. We can increase the sampling rate into triple digits, say 192 KHz. Bluray disc can handle high sampling rates, but still takes a lot of processing power to make it happen. DSD isn't sampled the way that PCM, and for that it sounds fantastic. This is closer to analog that any other option (some say it sounds even better). Super Audio CDs (SACD) can playback DSD. The problem is with the way it's sampled, It's pain to edit and tweak in the studio. It's not supported very much in the professional world.

Do we have a solution? Not yet.