I think it’s safe to say that Evening Music listeners are music lovers. At some point in your past you had a musical experience that changed you, that opened you to the power of music.
For me it probably happened at some of the concerts I saw when I was young: the British band Soft Machine opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1968, or Rahsaan Roland Kirk performing with the Mothers of Invention the next year. Or seeing a performance of Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” in which my father sang.
But before those musical encounters outside my home, there was the music inside my home. Music was very important to my parents, especially my father, Kenneth Garland. He was an advertising executive, but I understood—because everyone who knew him understood—that he loved music. He sang classical music and popular songs, accompanying himself on the piano. My mother, Barbara Garland, enjoyed acting, and many times my parents were the leads in local theater productions in Lexington, Massachusetts. And they sang the lead roles in a series of locally-created (and quite good) musicals. That’s Mom kneeling on stage in the photo, circa 1960. My father took the other photos before I was born.
On this Mother’s Day weekend I think back to what seemed at the time to be an average childhood: coaching my mother on her lines, watching my parents rehearse, hearing them sing, seeing the joy of their creative work with friends, and knowing that they loved what they were doing. I’m aware now that my childhood (which I shared with my brother Chris) wasn’t average, and I’m so grateful for that unusual environment, where creativity was an everyday joy.
Mothers are the font of all music. With tuneful words of affection and with lullabies, they are the origin of music for each of us. They help establish the musical world we grow into, and our receptivity to it.
What tuned you in to the power of music? Mother’s lullabies? A concert? A particular song? Something you heard on the radio? Please leave a comment.
And thanks to all of you who responded to this Blog over the last two weeks. In your answers to my question, “what are doing as you listen to Evening Music?” a fascinating group portrait was created, one which I imagine can be as interesting to you as it is to me (see below).
Evening Music: Talk to David
Mother of Music
May 9, 2008 – 6:56 pm
Whatcha Doin’?
May 2, 2008 – 7:00 pm
Anne Garland | Flickr
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I was so intrigued by your responses to last weekend’s Blog, that I want to read more. I invited listeners to tell me what they were doing while listening to Weekend Evening Music. Answers ranged from cooking, relaxing, reading, and solving crossword puzzles while naked, to novel-writing, painting, sewing, biophysics research, having a barbecue, and designing skyscrapers (while fully clothed?).
I also asked what type of music suits these activities, and most people seemed to feel that the Weekend Evening Music mix of familiar music and new discoveries works well. There seemed to be a preference for contemplative music. Some of you clearly enjoyed the Friday night film music feature (each Friday at 10 pm). I felt like I was getting to know the Evening Music community a little better.
So what about this weekend? Surely some different listeners are listening. Or have your activities or musical needs changed? Whatcha doin’?
Weekend Function
April 25, 2008 – 3:52 pm
As I program Weekend Evening Music my musical choices are guided by the functions that weekend listening might serve for you, which, I imagine, vary from night to night, and on any given night. And some of the functions are contradictory: on Fridays some of you want to wind down from your work week; others want to rev up for the weekend; some of you are traveling to a weekend destination. On Saturday night you might listen to the radio for a sense of companionship, or as accompaniment to a social get-together. On Sunday evening maybe you just want an unobtrusive background, or to be engaged about the upcoming week; maybe you’re traveling home from a weekend out of town and you want to be soothed.
I’d like to know: What do YOU want from Evening Music on the weekend? What music works best with your weekend activities? What function does radio listening serve during your weekend? Is it different from the week nights?
Go ahead and name specific pieces of music if that helps you make your point, but since the effect of a given piece of music is so subjective, please point out what it is about the music that fulfills your weekend needs.
Thanks,
David
Moving Colors
April 18, 2008 – 6:52 pm
I just got back from a visit to The Museum of Modern Art, where, as a museum member, I got to see a preview of a roomful of changing color by Olafur Eliasson (you may coincidentally see an ad for the show on the right-hand side of this page).
As beautiful as the colors are in the still photos I’m including here, a really important aspect of the exhibit is that it changes in time. Colors continuously revolve and overlap and are projected on the viewer’s body.
It seemed to me that adding the dimension of time to the visual art experience made Eliasson’s piece much closer to music than it is to the paintings, drawings and sculptures in the rest of MoMA.
Some musicians associate certain colors with certain musical pitches or chords. Olivier Messiaen described his compositions in terms of vivid, detailed color juxtapositions. Scriabin wanted to build a “color organ” for his music.
Some other interesting efforts toward Color Music (the Ocular Harpsichord!) are detailed here.
Have you had a synaesthetic experience? What color is the sound of a clarinet? What does purple and green sound like?
As it happens I was at MoMA last night, too, to see the movie “Mickey One,” the first showing in the MoMA’s Jazz Score film series.
I love Eddie Sauter’s music for “Mickey One,” and have played it several times on WNYC. I’ll play some of Sauter’s score on this Friday night’s film music feature at 10 pm. Also some of Fred Katz’s jazz score for the original “Little Shop of Horrors,” and more.
Sensuous
April 11, 2008 – 6:54 pm
I was talking about Evening Music programming ideas with weeknight host Terrance McKnight, and one thing we thought we’d do is to experiment with adjective-inspired music. We assign ourselves a word to bounce off of, and see where it takes us.
The word this weekend is “sensuous.” Sensuality is often connected to physical touch, but that’s one thing the radio medium isn’t very good at. However, music is certainly a sensuous experience, and can be so in many different ways. This Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings at 9 pm, I’ll offer some music I consider sensuous, ranging from the very languid beauty of Harold Budd’s “Madrigals of the Rose Angel” to the euphoric exuberance of Duke Ellington’s Orchestra performing his “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival.
I’ve left a little room in my plans so that you can contribute. What music do you consider sensuous? Leave a comment here describing what and why, and if it’s a compelling suggestion, and we have the music at hand in the WNYC Library, I’ll include it on the air along with your comment.
The photo above is from The Luminous Playhouse Theater Company, by my wife Anne Garland (http://www.flickr.com/photos/oh-anne). Follow that link for some evocative, involving scenes.
And now turn on your computer speakers and witness some rank silliness (possibly NSFW) forwarded by listener Frank Coffee. He sent this link, declaring, “At last, a good translation of what the chorus of Carmina Burana is really singing.”
http://carmina.ytmnd.com/
Elmer
April 3, 2008 – 4:00 pm
WNYC listeners are an amazing resource. I learned that years ago when I asked a question about Orson Welles on the air, and promptly got a call from one of his biographers. Another time I questioned the origin of the waltz, and got a call from a dance historian. Interesting people doing interesting things are listening. For example, Thelma Schoonmaker.
Ms. Schoonmaker edits Martin Scorsese’s movies (for which she’s won a few Oscars), and sometimes she does this while listening to Evening Music. She listened often enough to learn of me and my interest in film music (which I feature every Friday at 10 pm), and she generously put me touch with film score great Elmer Bernstein when he came to New York in 1993 to record his score for Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence.”
I produced a four-hour interview with Bernstein for Spinning On Air, and was even invited to one of the orchestra recording sessions for “The Age of Innocence” — absolutely fascinating to watch and hear that process as Bernstein and Scorsese conferred and adjusted the music for optimum effect. Ms. Schoonmaker was there, too, and Spike Lee dropped in, and now I’ve run out of names to drop. It was a thrill.
Elmer Bernstein (pronounced “Bernsteen”) was born here in New York City, April 4, 1922. From 1951 until just before his death in 2004, Bernstein scored scores of movies. Maybe you’ve whistled his theme to “The Magnificent Seven,” wept to his music for “To Kill a Mockingbird,” or enjoyed his jazzy scores for “The Man with the Golden Arm” or “Sweet Smell of Success.”
Bernstein was a modernist and a craftsman, who always designed elegant solutions for his clients’ musical needs, finding a synergy of art and commerce. In these ways he was comparable to the designers Charles and Ray Eames, with whom he worked. In addition to the striking furniture and design work produced by the Eames Studio, they made innovative short films, many of which were scored by Elmer Bernstein. We’ll hear some of that music tonight at 10:00, as well as other Bernstein score highlights. The Eameses and Bernstein both proved that something designed to serve a practical function can also be a work of art.
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I enjoyed sharing music and springtime observations with you last Friday, and went home Friday night looking forward to more. But Saturday morning I was hit by a virus that knocked me out for a few days. Thanks to Michael John Carley and Marcia Young, who sat in for me on the air at short notice. I’m back and all better.
I loved reading your comments about signs of spring: the sounds Dan heard; Steve’s reference to a Robert Frost poem, and Susan’s follow-up with that text; Joe’s own poem; Craig’s red New England hills, Rayna’s brown New Jersey, and Dror’s garden video; and I’m glad to learn from Susan that the bush I couldn’t identify is witch hazel.
Have any Elmer Bernstein anecdotes? Favorite movies with Bernstein scores? Favorite Eames design? Reaction to what you hear on Evening Music? Spring color reports? Please comment!
Spring Yellow
March 28, 2008 – 2:00 pm
On Wednesday I took my camera with me to Central Park, thinking it might be nice to post a picture of spring greenery on this new Evening Music blog. I was too early for green. I hadn’t realized before: the first color of spring is yellow. Not only daffodils, willow branches, and a bush I can’t identify (maybe you can? See the picture where yellow blossoms fill the frame at right), but against the gray background of bare trees and dormant grass other yellow things caught my eye: the “wet paint” sign on the benches; a yellow cab passing a yellow sign with yellow blossoms in the background; a row of yellow pedi-cabs; and the golden statue at the park’s Columbus Circle entrance.
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What signs and colors of spring are you seeing? Many WNYC listeners live in the New York area, but through wnyc.org we have listeners around the world. Is southern New Jersey seeing greens, pinks and purples? Are Australian listeners seeing the yellowing leaves of autumn? Please add your comments and observations below. |
This Sunday’s Spinning On Air (7-8 pm) features an ensemble I think will be of interest to Evening Music listeners. Ilham is an Arabic word for inspiration, and it’s the name of this group comprised of a Syrian singer, Canadian cellist, and Iraqi-American trumpeter and santur (Persian hammered dulcimer) player. They rely on the inspiration of the moment and the interplay of three different traditions to create brand new music with deep roots. They perform in the WNYC Studio and talk about their music in a way that illuminates some of the subtleties of Arabic music.
And enjoy the music I have for you on Evening Music this weekend, including a limited-edition recording of “Joshua,” a new film score by Nico Muhly, Friday at 10:00; and The Frick Collection Concert, Saturday at 8:00; and so much more.
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