I am using more and more all tools of the site www.reverbnation.com. It’s so time-consuming to update all social networks each da, so I say thank you to reverbnation, because they have created such useful tools to make the life of the internet-promoter easier. My favourite application at reverbnation is updating the status of reverbnation, myspace, twitter and facebook at the same time. And you are automatically logged in all of your accounts. Actually I am testing the RSS-Feed for blogging with this post and I am curious, if it will work as well as the other features.
Imitating finger-style
Often i try to imitate finger-style, when i play or compose something for guitar. This self-composed piece of music uses a flamenco-technique, which presents one tremolo-voice against a melody-voice. The melody-voice, which i have used, is build up on the fifth intervall. Therefore you have to overstretch often the left-hand to reach uncommon chords. I think I should train to smile while playing.
Tosca
A few days ago
i visited the local opera. I listened to “Tosca” written by Giacomo Puccini. During the first act I were in danger to fall to sleep, because the story starts confusing and as a listener you have to be very attentive to follow. But at the end of the first act, when the way to the conflict is shown, my attention was catched with ease. Then during the second act the conflict culminates as Toscas lover Cavaradossi is catched by the police. The chief of the police, Scarpia, tries to blackmail Tosca. She shall spend a night of love with him to save Cavaradossi. But Tosca kills Scarpia. Before Scarpia had given the command to save Tosca’s lover but he has fooled her. In the third act Tosca has to realise this and also Cavaradossi is killed. And Tosca kills herself. You see there are a lot of killings in this bloody opera and because of the brutal story you could imagine Romero as a good director for it. So i critizise the lack of blood in the production. After Cavaradossi is brutally tortured he gets only one single drop of blood on his forehead. And after Scarpia is stabbed to death he also not looses the juice of life, but his life of course. If I would be the director I would splatter tons of blood all over the stage to show the real pain and suffering of the protagonists. Basing upon the elements of comedy in some parts of the dialogues you could also interpretate the libretto as a tragic comedy. Or you can show it as an brutal nightmare. But you have to decide and not to hang between the extrems.
Musically I were very impressed by the singers and the music, which changes between romantic and impressionistic parts developing a very personal style. I think Puccini is the italian composer, which is mostly comparable to Wagner, because he is also creating long dramatic curves seldomly interrupted by closed parts. Puccini arranges brillantly and i were surprised sometimes by the use of organ or celesta, or a cello-quartet or the use of tubular-bells. He defines a very unique style of creating melodies, but i can not explain, what is so unique.
All in all it was a very impressive evening.
A musician goes to church
I want to take a look on church from the view of a musician: Since a few month I practice to go to a protestantic church on sunday and besides all questions about religion and belief a visitation of any church can fill your ears with many musical impressions. When you go in your attention is first catched by the wonderful acoustics (in case you are in a church with wonderful acoustics) and your exitement is raised by whispers and coughs until the mighty organ throws the first chords into the space. If you can listen to a serious organist, you are welcomed with a serious work and the organist will not only present something from the baroque-period. Perhaps you can listen to a work of Max Reger or Louis Vierne, or perhaps more modern like Olivier Messiean or Paul Hindemith. Depending on the acoustics the organ merges more or less with the room and it can be difficult to follow the movements of all single voices, but on the other hand organ and room merge and become something else. It is very interesting to listen carefully to the different voices and to the overall sound and to think over the possibilities of this impressing instrument.
Then the mass starts and during the celebration you sing sometimes together with the other people. Every song is introduced by the organ and again you can admire something, if the organist is a professional (as in my case): He or she can show a lot of different musical styles and periods during one single song or during a few songs. Starting with the introduction, which can be pentatonic, or chromatic, or romantic, or atonal, the accompaniment of the singers can be used by the organist as a complicated work of variations showing lots of different styles and lots of musical times and periods. While listening to these in the best case well conceived accompaniments you have to sing and you can train to be in tune with the organ and to highlite the right words. Sometimes the songs are not easy to sing also for a musician and I wonder sometimes, how the community manage it together.
If you are lucky you participate in a music-mass and you can admire a choir, or a choir together with a small orchestra, or another combination. Sometimes you also sing the liturgy together with the priest. But all in all when it ends your mind and ears are full of music and impressions, you have learned a lot, and you are thankful for another concert, which costs only a freely-given something at the exit.
Rebirth of Giallo
Two years ago a friend and colleague asked me to write a soundtrack for his upcoming movie, which he produced just with the little help of a few friends. Meanwhile he has really finished a lot of scenes and is presenting them on youtube. The preview promises the rebirth of a genre called “giallo”, which was made famous by Dario Argento and other mostly italian directors. A “giallo” contains a serial-killer, young women as nude victims and of course gallons of blood, which are spilled over everything. The simple action is made worthy and enjoyable by an artistic use of camera-movement, interesting and creative light and changes between very slow and very fast action. The high contrast between the meditative camera-drives during normal scenes and the exploding action during the slaughter-scenes gives the “giallo” his special flow. While I admired a scene of this new giallo it came to my mind, that modern movies have lost that sense for slowness and also the sense for light or use it in a more subtle way. Especially the slowness is gone, because our modern times are fast and the directors can not expect so much patience. I have really enjoyed the work of Oliver and I wish him and me good luck to bring the old “giallo” back to life.
I guess, that I will start to work on the soundtrack soon and I am thinking on combining electric and acoustic instruments. Of course I will inform here about any further developments.
Advertising your music at myspace
Every musician is presenting his or her works at myspace. Everybody tells you, that it’s absolutely necessary to do this in times of so called web 2.0. So I have also done it, but I have often thought about the question, what could be the advantage as against other possibilities. If I discussed the theme with other musicians I always heard the answer, that being on myspace would be a competition in collecting friends. The more friends you have the more important you should be and the more near to success you should stand. But I asked more and more, because I still not understood, what kind of advantage you get from a lot of “friends”. If you are still not famous, you can invite a lot of people, but the people are in most cases not interested to hear your music. They are only looking for own friends and only therefore they allow to add them and looking at the problem from the opposite side I also add people to get more “friends” mostly and not, because I am really interested in them or in what they are doing.
So at last nobody could convince me to recognise advantages of myspace. A few days ago I discussed again about that theme with a musician and colleague and he replied, that all of these unknown people could be customers in advance. I could reach them all with messages advertising my albums. After coming home I have now really meditated about this argument, but I am still not satisfied: I explore, that most people I get contact with also try to look for listeners. They all are seeking for listeners, they don’t want to be found as a listener. I fear and I guess all musicians at myspace have to fear, that we find there only ourselves and no normal people, which could be a customer and a fan in future. We are all walking in a circle there and it becomes a vicious circle, in which we are all caught forever.
video on youtube
Two days ago have published a video, which shows me playing a self-composed piece for acoustic guitar. Unfortunately it’s a little bit dark, cause it was recorded in the evening:
Hello world!
I will start to present my music here.
