About the Composer

Well, I haven’t had much to blog about for a while, so just to keep this thing alive, here’s a kitty playing a theremin. Enjoy.

Real blogging to return soon.

There was a cute article in last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle about an apparent new ukelele fad that’s sweeping the nation. It was interesting to me, because I’d been just starting to take notice of the instrument. It just seems to keep cropping up. I noticed only recently, for example, that it’s buried in the texture of a couple of Burt Bacharach songs, (albeit mostly bad ones).

The main reason the ukelele is on my mind at the moment is the now overexposed Israel Kamakawiwo’ole recording of his “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”/”What a Wonderful World” medley, which I listen to a lot with my son. His playing of the instrument is one of many beautiful things about that recording.

If you don’t know what I’m referring to, you’ll recognize it when you hear the clip, as it’s been quite overexposed in recent years. It’s a reworking of these songs accompanied only by ukelele, where the melody is drastically altered and the harmony is completely original. It’s wildly popular, and with good reason. Here’s a bit of it for reference:

Now I’ll let you in on my theory as to why this song is so mysteriously beautiful:

Inversions.

I’m guessing that a typical chord chart for this song would read: C - Em - F - G, etc. But, owing to the particular tuning of the tenor ukelele, with the low open G, almost every chord is an inversion, and the bass never sings anything other than G, G# and A.

So the result is: C/G - Em/G - F/A - G - F/A - G - Em/G - Am - F/A. It’s more beautiful this way because the voice leading is better. Everything your counterpoint teacher taught you is true. (I’m willing to overlook the first chord being in 2nd inversion in Bruddah Iz’s case.)

(By the way, here’s an interesting bit of background on this recording that I just found while researching this.)

Just found this while trying to find out more about the bass harmonica. Meet the Sväng New Harmonica Quartet of Finland, here offering a bit of that terrific Bulgarian rhythm I blogged about previously. I have trouble turning this off once it gets going. The second half of the video is more of a Ragtime number; also terrific.

As for the bass harmonica, I’d previously only heard it as part of the odd accompaniment in part of the Simon and Garfunkel song “The Boxer” (lai lai lai - thwack - lai lai lai lai lai… etc.). I finally got around to trying to figure out what on earth that instrument is!

Last year I posted a little item about my discovery of this wonderful instrument. Since then, that post has become increasingly popular, and so it seems appropriate to offer some updated information. The site of the people in Switzerland who make the hang is currently down, as is the site of the Canadian distributor whom I’d linked to in my previous post.

The long and the short of it is that hang drums will not be available again until next April, and then it can only be purchased in person, which means a trip to Bern, Switzerland. More details can be found among the more recent comments to this blog post. There is a comment at the bottom, dated today, from the creators of the Hang:

After a busy summer, with lots of visitors from all over the world, we are closing our doors for our yearly spell of Research and Development. During this time we will be looking at new ways of working with the metal and its music.

Hanghaus will remain closed to the public throughout the winter. During this period we will not be receiving visitors or selling instruments.

Please contact us in April of 2007, at which time we hope to be in a position to show you the results of our winter�s work.

Felix Rohner and Sabina Sch�rer

Hangbuilders

Also, I’ve been advised of a Yahoo group dedicated to the hang, and there is now an entry in Wikipedia. (Many thanks to Saggio for writing me with this updated information.)

It was mentioned in my previous post that I’ve been spending a lot of time with folk music lately. Regarding that, I recently discovered something new, because someone sent me this. (There’s audio.) Don’t spend more than 20 seconds with it, because it’s just an endless loop.

This little cartoon is one of those goofy things that quickly propogate all over the world because people have too much free time. But fortunately, for me, it led to my discovery of the wonderful Finnish folk ensemble Loituma. My curiosity about the music on that silly animation quickly led me on a path through Google, Wikipedia and iTunes, resulting in a spontaneous purchase of their 1995 album Things of Beauty.

To introduce Loituma a little bit, here’s a video of a complete live performance of the song “Ievan Polkka”, which was excerpted for that cartoon. Of course, this song is a lot of fun, and the vocal arrangement and performance are masterful, but I discovered that most of Loituma’s music is much more nuanced and subtle. Many of the pieces on this recording are based on the same kind of repetition and modality that draw me to Steve Reich and Arvo P�rt, although I suspect it’s approached from a different angle.

Folk Influences
Loituma are a Sibelius Academy-trained group of four vocalists (three female and one male), accompanying themselves with kanteles (traditional Finnish zither/harp-like instrument) and occasionally violin and other instruments. While their music draws on a variety of influences, I am particularly attracted to the elements that seem to be of the Finnish folk tradition(s). There’s quite a bit of pentatony and a tendency toward rather static harmony based on pedals. However, I know nothing of Finnish musical traditions, so I approached Loituma’s Hanni Autere, who was kind enough to confirm my suspicions and to further elucidate the subject.

The [folkloric] charasteristics we have come, for example, from “kantele music tradition”. The oldest kantele music contains a lot of pentatony, and it’s often meditative with, as you noticed, a lot of rarely changing pedals and simple harmonies. As for the newer tradition in Finnish music, the scales and harmonies widen as the variety of instruments grows.

Hanni also makes an interesting point about how the musical tradition is tied to the instrumental possibilities of the kantele. I supposed this is true in a number of musical traditions where, say, you might find a lot of pedal drones in vocal music that can be tied to traditions of bagpipe or hurdy-gurdy.

There are many kind of kanteles, and nowadays they basically vary from 5 hair-stringed to 40-stringed electric ones. The style of music changes as the number of strings grows. The biggest kanteles have a pitch changing system that’s related to the concert harp system. In that sense, kantele is more like a harp but otherwise I think it’s closer to zither.

Some Highlights
Among my favorite pieces on Things of Beauty, one common element is fact that the harmonies are built upon pedals that rarely change, if ever. When they do change, it’s pure magic. My favorite example is the second track, “Kultaansa Ik�v�iv� (There Is My Lover)”. This is not a traditional folk song, but an original song on a traditional text, composed by Loituma member Timo V��n�nen.

It begins with a very simple, pentatonic ostinato played by a single kantele. During the course of the song, additional kanteles are added, playing complementary ostinati, resulting in lovely cascading sonorities. Until about halfway through, the tonality is rigorously tied to an A pedal. Here’s a little bit of the beginning of the piece (mp3 - 0:44).

By about halfway through, the harmony has become quite rich, with the adding of ostinati and the intruduction of slowly changing sustained, non-vibrato violin notes. But then, something wonderful happens: a low D is introduced, changing the pedal and thus the whole character. A minute change in the texture, and we’re in a new, deeper place. Here’s what that sounds like (mp3 - 0:50). You’ll hear the pedal change to D, and then back to A in the lower octave.

An even better example is the all-kantele piece “Valamon Kirkonkellot”, probably the most Reich-like case. Here are some excerpts: the beginning (mp3 - 0:42), after about a minute (mp3 - 0:22), and here’s the big pedal change (mp3 - 0:46). Just as with many Reich pieces, you sort of know it’s coming, but you don’t know when it will be.

Getting back to pentatony, “Viimesen kerran (The Very Last Time)” is a traditional song presented by Loituma as a lovely a cappella arrangement. It’s a very simple pentatonic tune that I would swear up and down is a Hungarian folktune if it were played for me without text and out of context. This is interesting, given the distant relationship between the Hungarian and Finnish peoples.

This arrangement is exquisite in its simplicity. Fortunately, at the beginning we get to hear the tune (0:48) in it’s purest form. Gradually, wordless voices enter as accompaniment, bringing about some wonderful harmonies as the two upper voices move around over a low A pedal. The harmonies build and really blossom (0:35) during the course of the song.

“Kun mun kultani tulisi (Missing Him)” is another traditional folksong, arranged here for voices and kanteles. Although it’s not pentatonic, it also uses a pedal and wordless vocal accompaniment. Again, the harmonies that emerge (1:14) over the pedal are wonderful.

Things of Beauty is published in the U.S. by Northside - Nordic Roots Music.

P.S. — Isn’t the Finnish language beautiful to listen to?

NOTE: An update to this item was posted on September 12, 2006. You’ll find fresher information there.

One day last week while walking in Golden Gate Park, I heard an attractive percussion sound coming from near the fountain by the de Young. I went to investigate and discovered This Guy sitting on a bench and gently tapping what looked like a flying saucer or an inside-out steel drum. The sound was captivating; very similar to a steel drum, only the pitches were much more focused and rang for much longer. The guy playing it in the park was able to achieve counterpoint and harmony.

After listening for a while, I asked about the instrument, which I found out is called a “Hang” and made by a company in Switzerland. It looks like the Hang is in such high demand that you can’t even order one until March of next year.

Further research has revealed that… well, that there isn’t a lot of information on the internet about it, one exception being this very thorough site. The Hang is made to order, which means you choose the pitches (7 or 8 ), so virtually any scale can be achieved, including non-Western ones. The site referenced above also has a library of mp3 examples of various modes and scales.

It’s a beautiful sounding instrument, but I wonder how practical it would be to write for it as a classical composer. My first thought was how great it would be to have this in an orchestral percussion battery, but since it would require the orchestra to have access to a hang in the exact tuning your piece requires. (I think they cost in the neighborhood of $600) Maybe someone will get into the hang rental business.

The name “hang” is said to be from a Swiss German dialect’s word for “hand”. Hooray for David Kaetz (same site referenced above) for also knowing that “hang” is the Hungarian word for “sound”, “tone” and many related words. He has a very fun dictionary of Hungarian words based on the root “hang”.

My old friend Chris Mandra appeared out of nowhere this weekend, announcing that he was in San Francisco and on the way to Burning Man. When I say “old”… he was among my first friends when I arrived at the University of the Arts as a freshman, so we’re talking exactly twenty years now. Holy moly.

So, Chris is an interesting guy. He has gone from affable, endearingly pretentious, bearded composition student to shaved-headed Executive Producer of NPR Online to red-streaked, wild-haired electro-acoustic performance, uh, wizardy guy. (OK, not quite sure what’s up with my obsession with Chris’ hairstyle.)

Chris now goes by the name of “kataStatik” (and I relentlessly taunted him by calling him “katatastic”), and he performs on an instrument he invented called the “manDrum”. If I understand correctly, the manDrum consists of sensors he wears under his clothing that interact with software he wrote to control a synthesizer when struck. (Sorry, I’m not hip to all the real terminology.) So, basically, he beats himself silly, and music comes out.

There’s more to it than that. More details and video of the manDrum in action can be found on Chris’ web site. This is all quite removed from the musical world I live in, but it sure is interesting. Plus, I have to say: “manDrum” is a great name.