Mountains

Mountains

Mountains noble blue
and ocean broadly embracing
where waves writhe restlessly
beneath the
silvering sliver moon
mysterious, currents aglow,
I see
out a window, across a deck,
over rooftops, down a slope,
ending in the clarity
that is the fog of my mind.
I sleep soon.
I sleep, and cannot see beyond
myself.
I am by myself,
and much is yet to be revealed.


(10/14/2013)

Learning to Compose

In my website bio I have talked broadly about why I write music. Here I'd like to dig a little bit into how I see the process of becoming a composer in general, and a little bit on how I came into doing it.

My philosophy of what is involved with studying to become a music composer is that there are basically two parts. First, you learn the rules and process of how to take a musical idea that you already have in mind, to refine it and apply guidelines of how instruments work, how sounds work together, and how a piece of music hangs together as a form, and then write the idea down in a musical score.

For many years, this basic idea of knowing the mechanics of how to write down musical ideas somewhat escaped me. I started out playing violin when I was ten, and also tinkering on a piano keyboard. In a handful of years, I had learned about notes and the violin staff, major scales, and time signatures and other basic things, but after about eight years playing violin in school and in lessons, I hadn't learned anything about harmony or counterpoint, or very much about rhythm, or how to inform my ear to be able to notate on a piece of paper something I'd heard. After some frustrations with trying to write music without really knowing the mechanics of the writing down of music, I gave up and set composing aside and focused on other subjects. I mistakenly felt that what I needed to know couldn't be taught and wasn't available from teachers or books. I thought one had to be innately talented with knowing how to make a musical composition, and since it was not happening for me, I must not have what it takes to write music. And I was mistaken, but it took me several years to realize this.

The second part of becoming a composer is that you have to get intimately familiar with a lot of different musical expressions and works spanning the history of western music and world music, and this experiential familiarity rewires your brain to make it more accessible to forming novel musical ideas that will work and be interesting and emotionally expressive. There are of course many subparts to this learning, such as experimentation with and learning how to write a satisfying musical line, musical phrasing, associations of sound color and rhythm, etc. There are questions of what is appropriate in a given genre or context. There are musical styles that must be understood from the inside out, how they move, how musical time is subtly different in, say, a symphony versus a rock song versus a samba.

This part of the process I had not really given up on and was doing on my own somewhat as I collected and listened to music over many years. I knew what I liked, and I started to get a sense just from listening to music many times over as to how harmony and counterpoint worked. So, pushed by all this music in my head that I didn't know how to write down and share with people, I decided eventually to try again at writing music, and then I discovered there was something called "music theory" and there were books and classes on it, and when you went to college to study music they could teach you all these things that interested me intensely, so I started studying music and how to be a music composer.

So now what does one do, as a music composer, who knows something of how to write down music, how to fit the pieces together into something that will sound good, and also how to come up with musical ideas based on a notion of a feeling that you want to evoke? Often, for myself, I feel like writing music is an intellectual exercise or puzzle to solve: how can I use a particular scale to create a tango, for example. How can I write a jazz piece that uses only 6 notes? Is this idea even possible? So writing music is exploration, maybe like a treasure hunt as much as an equation to solve. But then also there is the emotional level, how music makes me feel and how it is a way to share something with other people, and help bring people together. I think music is beautiful for how it can unite people, even when it is not explicitly "beautiful." Music, when it works, (and even when it is very incomplete or only partially realized) is always powerful and creates a reaction. The contours and vibrations of music resonate in not just the human ear, but also the human heart, the brain, the bones, the other organs, and between people who are in the same place or even nowhere near together but listening to the same thing possibly at different times.

Finally, it is not at all easy to write music, but a lot of people recognize the power of music, and perhaps the challenge of the task is another aspect that makes it worthwhile to try.

Lovin' Blues

Lovin' Blues

I will love you, my dear
'til the oceans run dry.
I will love you, my dear
'til all the oceans run dry.
You know I'll go on loving you,
so why you makin' me cry?


(9/11/2013)

NEW: Mid-Willamette Valley Resources Page

I want to share a new resource I've created: a list of local music and arts-related organizations in the Salem area. So far I've found a nice variety of types of groups and places involving music and other arts. Please come visit my resources page and let me know if you have any suggestions or updates!

Mid-Willamette Valley Local Music and Arts Resources

Reflections (non-music)

It is hard for me to have a blog about just my music, or just my poetry. I've been reading about writing lately, and feel like I wish I did more of it. So here is what I've been thinking about this morning. I don't know why, exactly. Maybe I am just feeling the passing of time as the summer starts to roll up into overcast late August days like today.


Reflection on loss – family, mortality

The Compassionate Friends is clearly a great organization, and I'm pleased to help the Salem chapter out with their website and emails, but I've never attended a support meeting. I've never lost a child or brother or sister or niece. Both of my parents are still living and doing fine, as are my sister and brother. I can't really imagine the experience of losing someone in my immediate family, though I do remember somewhat how it felt to come home one day in the first grade and find out my mother had been in a terrible car accident and nearly died. And I do remember having bad dark dreams as a young child in which my mother was deathly ill and I felt abandoned, alone. It was a cold, almost paralyzing feeling.

When a personal love relationship of ten years ended for me in 2008, I felt destroyed, and at times thought it would have been better if the person I loved had died, because then it would not somehow be my fault. It would not feel like a choice outside my control, made by someone else I cared for, to not be part of my life any longer. Of course this was just a thought I had. I don't know if it's true beyond the feeling of loss I was experiencing at the time.

In 2009, my father had a near-fatal heart attack, and at first it seemed likely my family would have to go on living without him. But then he miraculously recovered, and we did our best to put that thought aside.

All of my biological grandparents are no longer living. The last one passed on in 1997. That was a great loss, but not the same as it would be to lose someone I grew up with, seeing nearly every day, a part of my basic family unit. I wished I could have known my grandparents better. But I was too young.

Some day I will lose someone close. It will probably be sudden and unexpected. Perhaps I will see them for the last time in a hospital, and be allowed to say goodbye. And someday I will pass on.

People sometimes talk about living each day as if it were our last, but can we really live that way? Wouldn't that be a terribly morbid attitude to hold? Somehow, I feel maybe it is healthier to live each day as if there will be many more to come, because any one day is all we ever have, but no one day is so important that it could be more than just a day in a lifetime. At the same time, we should never take the people we have in our lives for granted. Each time we say goodbye might be the last time.

Haiku (summer)

The orange tabby
stretches for a butterfly —
petunias in bloom.


7/14/2013

"Virtual" choir that is actually a global social phenomenon

Contemporary choral composer Eric Whitacre has recently been collaborating with singers from all over the world through online social media to create what he calls "Virtual Choirs." When I first heard about this a year or two ago I was skeptical that someone could take recorded voices from so many people's computers and mix them together effectively to create "real" choral music.

Today I found that he's done a couple of talks with TED, and from watching them I came to realize the real point I was missing is not that they are creating "good music" with this digital voice mosaics, but that they are bringing together people from all over the globe, dozens of countries, political "enemies," people who will never meet in real life, and creating something beautiful together that is about the music – about what Boethius called musica humana – the harmony of human life and society.

The sound is pretty cool, but the idea is brilliant and beautiful.

Listen and watch Whitacre's TED Talk from 2011 here.
http://on.ted.com/Whitacre

Singer-Songwriter Concert Wednesday May 29

Upcoming concert announcement:

We've been working hard to prepare an evening of great new songs to share. We'll be performing one medley and a set of all-new songs written by members of the group, including a new song of mine called "Brave Little Boy." The concert is free and open to the public, so I hope you'll be able to come out and hear us!

* Singer-Songwriter / Guitar Ensemble Concert *
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 @ 7:30 p.m.Smith Recital Hall, Western Oregon University, Monmouth, OR
**Free

Announcement: Amanda's Recital this Saturday!

I created a radio spot for Amanda's recital this coming Saturday night at 7:30 p.m., Smith Recital Hall.

You can listen to it on her ReverbNation page HERE.

Recital Success!

Thanks to everyone who came out for my recital on the 19th! We had a pretty good crowd and my performers did an amazing job. I hope everyone had a great time.

I'm still working to get the recordings from the recital together, so watch this space soon for some new sounds!

A Night of Trombone ~ May 4th @ 7:30 p.m.

The Western Oregon University Department of Music presents:

Amanda La Mar's Senior Capstone Recital

A Night of Trombone

Smith Recital Hall

May 4, 2013 @ 7:30 p.m.

Free

Reception to follow.

WOU music and education student Amanda La Mar is completing her Bachelor's degree this spring, and will be presenting her senior recital at Smith Recital Hall on May 4th at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Amanda's program features diverse styles of music, from baroque and classical to jazz standards. She will open her recital with solo works on trombone by Galliard, Rachmaninoff, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Amanda will be the featured player of a trombone quartet on works by J.S. Bach and Edvard Grieg. Also an accomplished singer, Amanda will close her program by singing a number of jazz standards by Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Henry Mancini, and Cole Porter. She'll be accompanied by local jazz pianist Cassio Vianna.

May and June will be filled with the recitals of many other graduating students, a major rite of passage for the music program at Western. Visit the WOU music events webpage at www.wou.edu/music/event.php to find out about other upcoming recitals this spring. The music department can be reached at 503-838-8250.

I have a new website!

I just launched a new site a few days ago, and am in the process of setting up shop here:

http://kaltwassermusic.com/

I still plan to use this blog site to share updates and poems, but my music activities will be promoted more through the new pages, where I have information on upcoming events, my bio, my music samples, and soon a page where you can actually buy something from me!

Listening to Beethoven

Listening to Beethoven

A young man presses the keys,
lightly steps a brass pedal,
and movement changes minutes to sunbeams
thrumming, moving, dancing lightly
like air over a cool mountain brook.
Carillon bells peal prayers of grotto monks.
Little bells ripple on a lake.
The smallest bells press tiny feet in soft grasses,
sweet blond hair flowing after.
Pulses race between flower petals
as soaring scents pollinate the breeze
returning with the stars and planets,
caressing like spring rain
tickling green moss.

The lifted door of the piano mirrors open faces
gathered to hear his play.


(2/11/13 & 3/5/13)

Lost

Lost

By the convenience store
a lottery scratch-off game
is laminated to the asphalt.
This wet parking lot, see how
small printing blurs into pale paperboard.
It's upside-down, sealed, secreted.
Ruined by soaking
and truck tires,
it dissolves in oil and thin mud:
Not a winner.


(1/18/13)

Haiku

Haiku

fog on the window,
bubbles in the sink--
early breakfast dish-washing


(1/3/13)