Rubato, ma non troppo

Today a cool toy called the Echo Nest BPM Explorer was released. As discussed here and here, this makes it easy to analyze a piece of music to determine whether the performer used a click track or metronome.

Since my last post on music in 5/4 included one track with and one without a metronome, let's give it a test.

Here is a BPM chart for my rendition of the Bartók piece.
There is some variation around the beat, but not much, because I was sticking close to the metronome. (Something I rarely use.) The scale bars show that this variation is confined to a narrow range. The green line is a smoothed-out version of the instantaneous BPM, shown in white.


Here is the BPM chart for my rendition of the "Serenade".

There is much more variation going on there. Some of that is intentional rubato, though partially subconscious. But there is also a gradual increase in tempo from beginning to end. That is not intentional, but is probably common when I make recordings. Near the end I start thinking "Hey, this take seems ok! I'd better hurry and finish it before I goof up."


Finally, a more interesting example from Candlefire.

There is the same gradual speed-up as before. I often have that problem with Nyman, because his tempos are absolutely glacial in some cases. But the more interesting thing is the way the white line wiggles up and down regularly. As I explained before, this piece shifts back and forth between 3/4 and 4/4 in an interesting way which gives the impression of speeding-up and slowing-down. It appears that Echo Nest is fooled, just like a human listener would be. Though I'll need to study this more closely to figure out where it really thinks the beats are.

5/4

It's the fifth day of the fourth month. What better time is there to celebrate songs in 5/4 ?

About a year ago, when I was 100% determined that I was quitting my job, the song of the moment for me was When Your Minds's Made Up, from the movie Once.

When Your Mind's Made Up.

(My mind truly was made up. Why I didn't actually quit is another story, but at this moment I'm glad I didn't, because things got better there and got worse elsewhere.)

That song plays a central part in the movie, and we get to see it built up bit by bit through a long recording session. Though the 5/4 signature is rare, and has a reputation for sounding odd, when it is done well it can sound just as natural as 3/4.

Since it is a rare meter, it is rarely done well, especially by non-professionals. To prove that point, here is me doing Serenade by Emma Lou Diemer. (MP3)
I don't know much of her work, but the piano scores I've looked at look right up my alley, but mostly too hard for me. Very rhythmically interesting, with what appears to be an influence from Khachaturian.

The first piece I ever learned in 5/4 was In Mixolydian Mode from Bartok's collection Mikrokosmos. I had a hard time learning this one. For a long time I thought that was because it was in 5/4. I understand now that it was really hard because Bartok was making it hard on purpose. Though it starts out with a strong 5/4 feeling, very soon he starts playing with the stress, hiding the downbeats and subverting the rhythm so much that it is very hard to keep the feeling of 5. This is one of the very rare times I recorded with a metronome. (MP3)

If that doesn't sound good to you, you are not alone. I think Mr. B was thinking more of challenging the piano student more than making something that sounds good.

A few more famous examples of 5/4 actually done well are, of course, Take 5 and the theme to Mission Impossible.

Less well known, but good, are:
Science, by Sevish.

English Roundabout - XTC

River Man - Nick Drake

All I can say is, I'm glad this isn't the 7th day of the 8th month, because it will be a good while before I can play Hovhaness' Macedonian Mountain Dance at the right speed!

Stuck inside of Berkeley with the Macaron Blues Again

Macaroon day is finally here. Why am I not in Paris! Damn my lazy, non-planing-ahead ass!

This year the selection of Pierre Hermé includes the same-old same-old "Chocolate and Foie Gras", two different kinds of rose, jasmine, avocado-banana. Boring! But he's also started copying me by making one with safron and one with Campari. I'm sure his will be OK, but I did it first!

I'm still ahead of him, though. I'll be he's never made lavender-flavored, mardi-gras colored macaroons (with fleur-de-lys on top.) So there.

And oh, I just whipped up another batch for a French party tonight. Can you guess the flavor? Vanilla!

Sirens

Tuesday, I know I was supposed to be getting drunk on green beer, but somehow I took myself to a Chanticleer concert instead.

They are definitely great singers, but their normal repertoire isn't really my cup of tea. But this time they were serving up a three-course meal of young (only 30!) composers. There were pieces by Tarik O'Regan and Shawn Crouch, and they were fine, but still not getting me all worked up. And then the piece I was waiting for, Sirens by Mason Bates.

I've heard his work before twice at the Cabrillo festival. (One I loved, and one I didn't.) Both of those pieces involved electronics and orchestra. This one was pure voices. And lovely it was. There were bits with clusters of close-spaced pitches, like Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, for example:

Lux Aeterna - Ligeti

and pulsing bits that reminded me of Reich's Desert Music

Desert Music - Steve Reich

Then the movement in the Quechua language came from some other place entirely, with maracas and a bit of extended vocal technique. Overall, it was most enjoyable and I hope they record it soon!

Although the first piece was entirely in English (with text by Samuel Becket), I couldn't understand a word when I wasn't looking at the program. It could have been in Martian. I did only a little better with the second piece. But Bates set his text so clearly that I had no trouble at all understanding the English parts, and for the parts in other languages I could at least tell which language it was in. (Except, naturally, Quechua.)

I thought I might be able to go to an SF Symphony concert this Friday combining a work by Bates with the Sibelius 4th (a nice pairing), but I'm confusing March and May again!

Compuers Scare Me: part 2

I got an e-mail from e-music this morning asking me to check-out the new album by he group 0.43888888888889. What? It turns out the group is actually called 10:32 (don't ask me why) but the computer has interpreted the number wrong.

This sort of thing happens all the time with computers and it freaks me out. They control so much of our lives.

Even at this very moment my screen is blinking in and out.

Let us clear our heads with some music from a simpler era. Here is the B minor Prelude of Chopin.

Complaints

I knew it would happen sooner or later. Obama has disappointed me. At least it happened later that I thought. He sure lasted longer than Clinton, who disappointed me almost from his first day.

Despite claims that he wants to make government more open, he is refusing to release details of negotiations on an insane copyright law extension by claiming that to do so would endanger national security! Even if the proposed treaty made sense, and it doesn't, the appeal to national security is ludicrous.

Copyright is a useful concept, but it gets ridiculous at times. People who had no part in the creation of a work can fight for years over who can get paid for its use. Relatives of a deceased celebrity get to say who can or can not perform one of his pieces or can stick his name on a can of spray cheese, as may soon happen to Bob Marley. While at the same time living celebrities can do next to nothing to stop their image being plastered all over the place, and products like "Obama Fingers" can be legally sold. (I'm not sure why there were never any "Bush Nuggets" or "Clinton Balls".)

Now, for no particular reason, here is me playing "A Doll's Complaints", by César Franck. IMSLP claims it is in the public domain, if there still is such a thing.

Missing something?

Is your music missing something?

Well, if that something is cowbells or Christopher Walken, help is on the way. Through the miracle of modern technology, you can add cowbells to any song! Here, give a listen to Friend by Legendary Pink Dots.

	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

This is seriously cool. Because before adding anything to the song, it has to be analyzed to find the beats and the sections and so forth. There is now an open-source api called EchoNest Remix that lets you do that sort of analysis. It is almost enough to make me want to learn to program in Python!