“DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?”

DCI/DCM Spring Clinic, 2000 DoubleTree Hotel/O’Hare

May 6, 2000

Introduction: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” - John Wooden

“The more I live the life of music the more I am convinced that it is the freely imaginative mind that is at the core of all vital music making and music listening.” - Copland

“How shall we explain the power that men and women of all times have recognized in music, or account for the enormous importance they have ascribed to it?” “Music, of all the arts, seems to be the most remote from the ordinary concerns and preoccupations of people; of all things created by man, its utility, as that word is generally understood, is least easy to demonstrate.” - Sessions The Interdisciplinary Nature : “Music as mathematics, music as architecture or as image, music in any static, sizable form has always held fascination for the lay mind.” “In the art of music, creation and interpretation are indissolubly linked, more so than in any other of the arts, with the possible exception of dancing.” The Basics: “Music, more than any other art, has been under the law of tradition.” -Fredrick Goldbeck “What we may call the raw, formal materials of music, are also the expressive elements, and these, again, have their basis in certain of the most elementary, intimate, and vital experience through which we live as human beings. Let us consider now the means through which these raw materials are coordinated, become coherent, and are rendered significant; through which, in other words, they begin to be music.”

The ear coordinates impressions by reducing them always to their

simplest relationships, by seeing (or rather hearing) them always in the simplest light.

“Music 101” Melody

Horizontal structure of music

Succession of notes in horizontal movement

Two basic elements of music that define melody are pitch & rhythm

Melodic Structure • Motive (or motif) - a short melodic (or rhythmic) idea that constitutes a fragment of a musical theme

[Beethoven 5]

• Phrase - two or more motives combined; usually a complete musical statement

• Period (or Section) - a larger component of a musical piece that encompasses two or more phrases

Cadence - separates sections or phrases; helps organize musical pieces into segments

Melodic Motion • Conjunct - movement stepwise (scalar); creates a more smooth feeling:

[examples: Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, Mvt.4; Tori Amos; Dave Matthews]

• Disjunct - movement using leaps or skips; creates more angular feeling

[ex.: Copland ―Laurie’s Song/Dawn Upshaw; Barber School for Scandal; Elgar

―Nimrod‖]

Good melody includes some of both. [ex.: Jewel; Jon Secada]

Melodic Contour Basic shape of a melody or part of a melody

• Ascending / ["Do, Re, Mi"]

• Descending \ ["Joy to the World"]

• Arch (inverted U shape) ["Edelweiss"]

• Inverted Arch (U-shaped) ["Star Spangled Banner"]

• Multiple Arch ["Danny Boy]

• Static Line ——["One Note Samba" (verse)]

Harmony Vertical structure of music - Simultaneous sounding of notes

Simple vs. Complex harmony

Triad - 3 notes (often chords)

Chords - major, minor, augmented, diminshed, seventh [piano demo]

The 3rd of the chord - defines chord type (major or minor)

Harmony (cont.)

Tonal center - The primary tone to which all other tones in a passage are related (usually the "tonic"). A

tonal center can be different than the key signature.

Bitonality - simultaneous use of two keys or tonal centers [Schuman piano piece; "Rite of Spring"; Ives-

"Variations on America"]

Polytonality - simultaneous use of three or more keys or tonal centers (infrequently used)

Tonic - first degree of a scale, to which all other scale tones are related

Dominant - fifth degree of a scale (chords based on fifth scale degree are dominant chords)

Subdominant - fourth degree of a scale

Consonance - effect which creates a feeling of repose - usually by using more consonant intervals (octave,

third, fourth, fifth, sixth including octave displacements)

Dissonance - effect which creates more tension, usually employing more dissonant intervals (2nds, 7ths,

tritone, clusters including octave displacements)

Context is integral to determining consonance and dissonance.

Timbre (Tone Color) Individual vs. Ensemble [examples: Berio Sequenzas 5 (Lindberg) and 3 (Schadeberg)]

• Bright — Dark

• Open — Muffled

• Pointed attack —Soft attack

• Round and full — thin and edgy

Texture Melody and its setting

• Monophonic - one sound; simplest - can be a solo instrument or a group performing the same line

[example: Berlioz Requiem ―Dies Irae‖]

• Homophonic – melody/accompaniment; melody/harmony/chords; (most music) [ex.: Bartok: Mvt.2]

Polyphonic - more than one melody at same time; independent, equal melodic lines which usually are

complementary ["Row, Row, Row Your Boat" - round; Bach fugues; Britten - "Young Person's

Guide•]

[ex.: Pachabel Canon in D; di Lasso ―Domine Labia Mea‖

• Mixed - combination of above textures

Rhythm • Horizontal aspect - Created by the sounding of a series of consecutive notes (minimum of two)

Relates to beat or pulse of section or piece; rhythm is created by the durations of the notes and the

durations between the notes in a series

• Vertical aspect - simultaneous sounding of two or more notes or different sounds occurring at different,

but interdependent times (needs to be a identifiable connection; thus duration between notes cannot be

too extensive)

Rhythm (cont.)

• Principal system of rhythm in Western music is based on grouping into two's and three's, which a

regularly recurring emphasis (accent) on the first note of each group.

Meter Pattern of fixed timing units (beats) by which the timespan of a section or a piece is measured;

Indicated by a time signature (meter signature)

Simple meter - duple meters (2/2, 2/4, 2/8); triple meters (3/2, 3/4, 3/8); quadruple meters (4/2,

4/4, 4/8)

Compound meter - simple meters multiplied by three (6/2, 6/4, 6/8; 9/2, 9/4, 9/8, 9/16; 12/4,

12/8, 12/16)

Odd meters - 5/4, 5/8, 7/4, 7/8, 11/4, etc. or compound meters, such as 9/8 broken into 2 + 2 + 2 +

3)

["Blue Rondo a la Turk"; Sting - "Fill Her Up"; "Mars"; also Don Ellis tunes]

Mixed meters - using different meters in succession

Tempo

Underlying speed of a section or piece

Accelerando - getting faster

Ritardando (Ritard) or Rallentando - getting slower

Rubato - Flexible tempo involving slight accelerandos and ritardandos; can be used in only the melody

(usually a solo performer), while the accompaniment maintains a constant tempo or with an entire

ensemble affecting the whole musical texture.

Feel (Groove) Straight (even) 8th or 16th notes vs. Shuffled (uneven) 8th or 16th notes

Pulse Usually the basic, underlying beat of a section or piece; Combines meter, tempo, and feel.

Pulse may not be heard as the same as written meter (Half-time or Double-time feel)

Pulse may not be heard as same as the written beat (in time signature) ["Jungle Funk" -Tom Scott]

Pulse or Beat vs. Feet - not always the same

Syncopation - breaking of the normal pulse of the meter, accent, and rhythm by deviating from the

normal occurring groups of two's or three's

Augmentation - note values doubled (usually while the beat remains constant)

Diminution - note values halved (usually while the beat remains constant)

Form Architecture or structure

Melodic structure - motive (theme), phrase, section (period)

Sections given different names, depending on style:

• Contemporary commercial styles (rock, pop, R&B, funk, hip-hop, etc)

Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Breakdown, Outro, Fade

Hook - Defining component(s) or characteristic(s) of piece that is usually most memorable (piece

of a melody, a lyric, rhythm, a sound, a bass line, etc., or a combination ["Birdland" hooks]

• Jazz

Head - the initial (and often only) melody (term sometimes used with other contemporary styles)

• Orchestral pieces

Exposition (beginning); Development (Middle); Recapitulation (End); Coda (Concluding part)

Transitions - can stand alone or be a part of a larger section; can be short or extended; leads to the

subsequent section; musically connects two sections

Binary form - two parts

Dynamics Volume; intensity

Loud - forte f

Very loud- fortissimo ff

Very, very loud - fortississimo fff

Soft - piano p

Very soft - pianissimo pp

Very, very soft - pianississimo ppp

Medium-soft - mezzopiano mp

Medium-loud - mezzoforte mf

Crescendo - increase volume over a duration

Diminuendo or decrescendo - decrease volume over a duration

Phrasing Clear and meaningful rendition of music (usually melodic lines);

Refers to separation of melody into its constitutive phrases; Primary means of achieving this goal is

separation of melodic line into smaller units (varying in length from a group of measures to single

notes

Rhythmic consistency Interpretation (rhythmic; idiomatic)

Expression The quality that accounts for the emotional effect of music on humans;

Inflection, subtlety, connection of line, forward motion, intensity (dynamics)

Usually, but not always, related to desired musical qualities (in tune, good tone, accurate rhythm, etc.)

Construction (Items to consider; different ways to view presentations)

Two broad construction perspectives A. Foreground — Middle ground — Background

B. Melody

Countermelody (if used)

Accompaniment/Harmony delineation or expansion

Bass line

Percussion

All musical lines have a Horizontal relationship and a Vertical relationship, though most lines

predominate in one relationship more than the other; the relationship emphasis can change

very quickly

Contributory aspects to construction Tension — Release

Emotional contour (highs vs. lows; peaks vs. valleys; for there to be highs, there have to be lows)

Development vs. Climax (appropriateness, connection, forward motion)

Transition (writing vs. performance) - Transition performance is frequently indicative of the depth and

quality of musical understanding and musical maturity of performers.

Power — Subtlety

Technical involvement: High — Low

Voicing: Open sound — Closed sound; High range — Low range

Density — Sparsity

Clarity - Masks of volume and tessitura

Focus (melody, lead voice, or primary voice)

Color (timbre and orchestration; individual vs. ensemble)

Rests or Silence - what is not written is often more important than what is written.

Fast tempos do not necessarily create more difficulty for performance than slow tempos (though they can)

Fast notes and technical passages are not necessarily more difficult than passages with longer or slower-

moving notes (though they can be).

Context is integral! What else is occurring at the same time?

Terms

Composition - the process of creating an original musical work

Arrangement - adaptation of a composition for a medium different that the original

Orchestration - assigning specific parts or notes to specific instruments (often happens at the same time as

the arrangement is written)

Percussion Membranes - a percussion instrument with a head (snares, tenors, bass drums, timpani, conga drums,

bongos, timbales, tom toms, tambourine, frame drums, etc.)

Battery - term used to distinguish between the non-pitched percussion on the field (snares, tenors, bass

drums, crash cymbals) and the Pit instruments. Battery instruments can also be in the pit.

A Gong is a pitched instrument; a Tam tam is a non-pitched instrument (Both have similar appearances; if

the instrument has a protruding bump in the center, it's a gong; tam tams are more prevalent

Cymbals - A cymbal with its rim turned up is a Chinese cymbal; if it doesn't, it's a Turkish cymbal (though

it may be made in the U.S.)

Role of percussion • Color, rhythm, orchestration

• Complementary to and supportive of style

• Individual instrument tone color - mallet choice; placement on head/keyboard bar

• Ensemble tone color

• Space

• Counterpoint within percussion and between percussion and brass

• Overall relationship to music - supportive? independent?

Other Musical Terms Ostinato - A phrase that repeated persistantly, usually in immediate succession and in same voice and at the

same pitch (can also occur in non-pitched instruments)

Sequence - repetition in the same part at a different pitch

Imitation - repetition in a different part at the same or different pitch

Legato - sustained and smooth sounding (aka tenuto)

Staccato - short

Pads - notes of longer durations; usually found in accompaniment (aka "footballs")

Pedal point - a long-held note or the same note repeated, normally in bass

Hemiola -Two independent rhythms occuring in a 3 to 2 ratio; mostly occurs in 3/4 (divides three beats

into two equal parts) and 6/8 meters (divides two beats into three equal parts)

Diatonic -related to a natural 7-note scale; notes in passage confined to the notes of the scale based on the

tonal center

Chromatic - use of pitches not present in the diatonic scale

Pentatonic - usually applies to a five-note scale (the most common of which creates an Oriental sound)

Modulation - change of a key (tonal center) within a piece

Tessitura - general range of a musical line; "average" lie of the part, i.e., high or low; does not take into

account a few isolated (extreme high or low) notes

Backbeat - refers to beats 2 and 4 of, most often, a rock groove; usually played on snare drum, but can be

played on any percussion instrument

LISTENING/PERCEPTION THEORY Overview: “Listening is a talent, and like any other talent or craft, we possess it in varying degrees. Where I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the non-musician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. I think I know how the professional musician will react to music. But with the amateur it is different; one never can be sure how he will react. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me. Nothing really tells him what he should be learning. No treatise or chart or guide can ever sufficiently pull together the various strands of a complex piece of music… only ones own imagination can do that. Recognizing the beautiful in an abstract art like music partakes somewhat of a minor miracle; each time it happens I remain slightly incredulous. “Mere professionalism, however, is not at all a guarantee of intelligent listening. Executant ability, even of the highest order, is no guarantee of instinct in judgement. The sensitive amateurs, just because he lacks the prejudices and preconceptions of the professional musician, is sometimes a surer guide to the true quality of a piece of music.

The ideal listener, it seems to me, would combine the preparation of the trained professional with the innocence if the intuitive amateur.” - Copland In a study of perceived volumes of sound, non-musicians rated greater accuracy than musicians. Hoover, Perceptual and Motor Skills. June 1992. Listening:

One way of listening to music is to absorb the physical sensations of the

sounds. Another way to listen to music is to be aware of its expressive qualities.

The indefiniteness of music is to its advantage. One work of music may be heard by a thousand people, but each hears it in a slightly different way, depending on each individual’s inclinations. But even more important, music can break through the limitation of words.

The third way to listen to music involves concentrating on what is happening in the music – what notes are being played or sung, at what speed, in what range of pitches, in what combination with what other notes, and so on. This is what musicians usually mean when they talk about “listening.” Qualities of Sound: Musical sound has the following basic attributes:

level or pitch

strength or degree of loudness

color “Laboratory experiments have demonstrated that differences in tone color are the first differences apparent to the untrained ear.” “It is surprising to note how little investigation has been devoted to this whole sphere of music.” “My intention is that tonal image and expressive meaning are inter-connected in the composers mind…” “Nowadays, we tend to look upon transcriptions with suspicion because we consider the composers expressive ideas to be reflected in a precise way by its tonal investiture.” “Most peoples’ aural memory is remarkably strong; heard sounds remain in the mind for long periods of time, and with a sharpness that is also remarkable.”

Performance: “The subject of communication with an audience brings us quite rationally to a consideration of the performers role, and the interaction of the creative and interpretive mind which is crucial to the whole musical experience.” “Great interpretation, as the “big public” understands it, is generally of the fiery and romantic type.” “By only a slim margin a tasteless exhibitionism is separated from an experience that can be deeply moving.”

“Effortless singing or playing is one of the major jobs of music listening: it indicates a measure of mental confidence and a degree of physical assurance in the handling of the instrument…”

“The reader of a poem does not generally receive the poem through the medium of an interpreter, nor does he, generally, actually “perform,” i.e. read aloud, the poem himself.”

Listening vs. Hearing/Perception/Interdisciplinary: “What people say, what people do, and what people say they do are all entirely different things.” - Margaret Mead

“Auditory stimuli are more temporally discriminable in memory than visual stimuli.” (Marks and Crowder)

“One day the instructor projected a Rembrandt painting on the screen and proceeded to point out the treatment of light and shadow, the overall design, the brushwork for the hands of one of the figures, and similar features. After a while I was struck by a simple but important fact: Every feature that was being pointed out had been there when I first looked at the painting, but I hadn’t been aware of them. I had looked but not really seen! Most people hear music, but they really don’t listen carefully to it, and aren’t aware of all that is present in the combination of sounds.” (Sessions)

“There are a number of reasons why most people don’t hear music fully.

The main one is the fact that music is found almost everywhere in American life today. You can’t go shopping in a supermarket, wait in an airport, or eat in a restaurant without your ears being massaged with music. Many people choose to have music sounding around them on the radio or tape player much of their lives, including when they jog, study, or drive down the street. It hardly needs to be pointed out that the relation to music of the listener is even more complex than that of the performer.” - Copland

Roger Sessions: “I often wonder how many of us stop to think of what a complex of functions we include in the term “ear” in referring to musical perception or musical ability. There are certainly current, apart from musically informed people, many grotesque misapprehensions of what the “ear” really means. I remember a gathering, mainly of literary people, in which I was taken to task for implying quite casually that the sound of an orchestral score, and the possible interpretations of that score, could be quite vivid to me through reading the notes, even if I had neither heard the score performed nor played the notes

myself. Such a claim seemed to them more than miraculous and they regarded as impossibly arrogant, not to say fraudulent, my claim that I was the seeming miracle man who could accomplish it, even though they themselves would not have accepted even as mildly humorous a suggestion that perhaps they ought to read their poems aloud in order to make sure that the rhymes were correct! Actually the auditory functions possessed by the musician, even the musical genius, are possessed by the human race as a whole; they are not the peculiar property of musically gifted people nor are they, some educational theorists to the contrary notwithstanding, indications or criteria of musical ability. The musician has to develop them…” Four Stages of Listeners: (Ratner)

First, he must hear; I have already indicated what I man by this.

The second stage is enjoyment…

The third of the four phases I have spoken of consists in what we call “musical understanding.” The really “understanding” listener takes the music into his consciousness and remakes it actually or in his imagination, for his own uses.

The listener’s final stage is that of discrimination. It is important that it should be the final stage since real discrimination is possible only with understanding; and both snobbery and immaturity at times foster prejudices which certainly differ from discrimination in any real sense. Actually it is almost impossible not to discriminate if we persist in and deepen our musical experience.

“To draw a graph of a particular musical structure is generally possible,

and may be of some help to the cultivated listener; but we do not usually want to listen to music with diagrams in our laps. And if we did, I question the wisdom of such an idea, for too great concentration on the purely formal outlines of a piece of music might detract form free association with other elements in the piece.” - Copland Improving Listening Skills:

- Adopt a positive attitude toward listening to music. - Improve your memory for music. - Concentrate on main themes and the important musical ideas. - Hear as much detail as possible. - Encourage you reactions to music - Consciously notice your responses while listening.

- Do not attempt to visualize specific scenes or fantasize. - Develop different expectations as you listen to music. - Apply the knowledge you acquire about music to the music you hear. - Practice learning to listen to music more effectively.

Tests of good listening: How can you tell if you are hearing a piece of music fully and accurately? There is no easy answer, but you can ask yourself these practical questions:

Does the music seem sensible in its own way?

Does it move along without seeming dead and stagnant?

Am I hearing specific details of form, rhythm, and melody?

Have I kept my attention focused on the music all the time?

Do I get some reactions or feeling from the music as I hear it?

Do I like to listen to the music? Do I enjoy it?

Does it seem interesting?

Do I want to hear the work again? “The human is doomed to make choices.” - Carl Jung

Philosophy/Intent: We find that listening to music, as we understand it, is a relatively late, a relatively sophisticated, and even a rather artificial means of access to it, and that even until fairly recent times composers presumably did not think of their music primarily as being listened to, but rather as being played and sung, or at most as being heard incidentally as part of an occasion, of which the center of attention for those who heard it lay elsewhere than in the qualities of the music as such.

As happens so often in speaking of music, the facts are much simpler than the words found to describe them. No one denies that music arouses emotions, nor do most people deny that the values of music are both qualitatively and quantitatively connected with the emotions it arouses. Yet it is not easy to say just what this connection is. If we try to define the emotions aroused by specific pieces of music, we run into difficulties.

Does this mean that the “message” or “emotional content” of music is an illusion, and that actually a given piece of music conveys one thing to one man, another thing to another, and that out illusion of specific emotional content derives entirely from the quite adventitious associations which we are able to bring to it? I do not believe this for a moment and I thoroughly dislike the terms, indeed the whole jargon, in general use. On the contrary, I believe that music “expresses” something very definite, and that it expresses it in the most precise way. Meaning In Music: “The precise meaning of music is a question that should never have been asked, and in any event will never elicit a precise answer.” – Aaron Copland Beethoven in answer to a query as to the “meaning” of his Eroica Symphony turned to the piano and played the first bars of the work, he was, in effect, not only implying that its message could not be conveyed in any other way; he was also, and at least as clearly, implying that that message was something quite exact and precise, embodied in the tones, rhythms, harmonies, and dynamics of the passage. Music does not express feelings, but merely releases images of feelings. It is only with the memory of feelings in our mind that we can have any feeling like reaction caused by music. The reactions music evokes are not feelings, but they are images, memories of feelings. – Paul Hindemith “Music expresses itself.” – Igor Stravinsky

Music As Language: Music, then, is a language - that is, a means of communication, and what it communicates is perfectly definite and clear. When trained musicians listen to music, they use the same parts of the brain as they employ in verbal conversation. This suggests that the brain may treat music as a form of language. The Economist, June 7, 1997. “Music is more than a language.” Psychology Today, December, 1985. “Consumer:” In brief, the “listener” has become, in relation to these facts, the “consumer,” and however unaware we as individuals are of this, it is nevertheless the basic explanation of our interest in him. Critic: The critic is, in fact, the listener who has become articulate, who has learned to put his judgements and his values into words. Are we not all familiar with the type of pseudo-sophistication that gives more importance to aversions than to preferences, that is more afraid of loving what is bad than of disliking what is good? Because criticism, like composing, like performance, must spring out of a genuine culture; that is, a pervasive musical impulse, a living and shared relationship to music, which communicates itself within the framework of some kind of common experience.

* * * * *

“Reverence for the classics in our time has been turned into a form of discrimination against all other music.” ”The simple truth is that our concert halls have been turned into musical museums – auditory museums of a most limited kind.”- Copland

Bibliography Aural Skills: Ashley, Richard D. Toward a Theory of Instruction in Aural Skills. The University of Illinois, 1982. Fitzpatrick, James B. The Development and Evolution of a Curriculum in Music Listening Skills. The University of Iowa, 1968. Haack, Paul. A Study of Two Approaches to the Teaching of Music Listening Skills. The University of Wisconsin, 1966. Karpinski, Gary S. Aural Skills Acquisition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Ladanyi, Johann G. Evaluative Listening Skills and the Feasibility of Their Assessment. The University of Illinois, 1989. Miller, Everett F. The Effect of Sound System Frequency Range on the Development of Listening Skills. Kansas State University, 1978. Mullee, Marguerite. Development of a Workshop to Teach Adult Music Listening Skills. New York: Macmillan/McGraw-Hill School Publishing Company, 1993. O’Connor, Joseph. Listening Skills In Music. Lambent Publishing, 1989. Ratner, Leonard G. The Listener’s Art. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1977. Musical Genre: Brown, Hubert. A Comparison of the Use of “Popular” and “Serious” Music in an Audio-Visual Programmed Method to Teach Listening Skills. The University of Kansas, 1971. Copland, Aaron. Copland on Music. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1963. Theory/Philosophy/Psychology:

Cone, Edward T. Musical Form and Musical Performance. New York: WW. Norton and Co., 1968. Copland, Aaron. Music and Imagination. Cambridge: Harvard University Press Mann, Michael. Measuring Emotional Responses to Music. University of Miami, 1997. Meyer, Leonard B. Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956. Prall, D.W. Aesthetic Analysis. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co, 1936. Tighe, Thomas and others. Psychology and Music: The Understanding of Melody and Rhythm. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Publishers, 1992. Integrated Processes: Carter, David. Inside Music: A Practical Workbook Developing Composing, Performing, and Listening Skills. London: Faber Publishing, 1991. Sessions, Roger. The Musical Experience: Composer, Performer, Listener. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950. Perception: Hoover, David. “Perception of Loudness and Musical Preference” Perception and Motor Skills, June 1992. Marks, Allison. And Crowder, Robert. “Temporal Distinctiveness and Modality” Journal of Experimental Psychology, January, 1997. Rosenfeld, Anne H. “Music, the Beautiful Disturber” Psychology Today, December, 1985. Smith, Camille M. The Effects on Listening Perception Skills of Two Approaches to Teaching Music Appreciation. Indiana University, 1980. Theory: Stravinsky, Igor and Craft, Robert. Expositions and Developments. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1962.

THOUGHTS TO PONDER

When performers concentrate more on impressing judges, the pleasure of performing to an audience is lost. Dina Kirnarskaya, Moscow News (July 1,

1994)

“Competitions fall all over themselves to find juries with eclectic tastes…so they wind up with a winner who offends the fewest jurors, instead of a strong artist with something to say.” “The Sound of

Too Much Music,” The Economist (June 14, 1997)

“A work must be produced with more than technical skill to be regarded as aesthetically valuable. They may be technically functional without imagination, or unusual but made without skill. Neither case involves artistry…” John Armstrong The

British Journal of Aesthetics, October, 1996.

Falling Down Stairs

From “Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach With Mark Morris & The Mark Morris Dance Group

Featuring Suite No. 3 for Unaccompanied Cello – J.S. Bach

This video production, third in a series of six, depicts the collaboration of virtuoso Ma with contemporary choreography artist Morris. Their interaction is illustrative of a practical application of the listening process as applied to visual design. Other installments of this “Inspired by Bach” series include collaborations between cellist Ma and Garden Designer Julie Moir Messervy, Kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando, ice dancers Torvill & Dean, and filmmaker Atom Egoyan. Each guest artist creates based on one of the six Cello Suites of Bach. Regarding the Suite No. 3, Morris says, “I’ve known the Third Suite for much of my life, and had never considered choreographing it. It was already complete. But working on the piece with Yo-Yo was a thrill and a revelation. And we found we really did have something to say.” Director of the video project, Barbara Willis Sweete: “On first listening to the Third Cello Siute, I was inspired by its range of expression…I was further inspired by the resilience of its structure and the economy of its means.” “For me, the key was to find the balance between making a visual presentation of the music and participating in the “dance” through the choice of camera moves, angles, frame sizes and editing. It is my hope that the screen reveals a unified interpretation with no discernable line between music, dance and visual images, and that this presentation refers back to the original work in such a way that Bach, were he here today, would have enjoyed taking part in this collaboration.”

The Series - “Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach:”

The Music Garden/Cello Suite No.1 (SHV 60196) The Sound of the Carceri/Cello Suite No.2 (SHV 60197) Falling Down Stairs/Cello Suite No.3 (SHV 60198) Sarabande/Cello Suite No.4 (SHV 62852) Struggle for Hope/Cello Suite No.5 (SHV 62724)

Six Gestures/Cello Suite No.6 (SHV 62808)

Sony Classical Videos: www.sonyclassical.com