World's Worst

Both of the world's worst involved Don Swin.

I. Intentional

I was preparing desktop-published text for a concert by the Griffin Music Ensemble at the Newton Arts Center. For the list of composers being performed, the designer asked me to put a bullet before names of the composers who lived in Newton.

Don Swin: Do the composers know about this?

Me: No. Why?

Don Swin: It would be a bullet surprise.

II. Unintentional

I have nothing but admiration for busy professional composers such as Jerry Bilik, who's been around and done everything. But when I was in high school, I knew nothing of him save for a band piece I played in Vermont All-State called American Civil War Fantasy. It's a straight-up Hollywoody medley of mid-nineteenth century American popular songs that, while not dreck, is full of dreckiness. 'round  about thirty years ago, Don Swin and I used his name as a placeholder for mediocre.

So when we were waiting for a rehearsal in Jordan Hall, Boston, we sat while a rehearsal of the Strauss Serenade finished. What we heard was bland and boring.

Me: This sounds dull enough to be by Bilik.

At that moment, the harmony blossomed into a big, fat beautiful dominant thirteenth chord.

Me: Well, that was an un-Bilik chord.

Holding Fourth

Recontextualize.

Recontextual eyes.

One has something to do with music. The other belongs in a list of World's Worst Pickup Lines. Actually, both will fit in a worst pickup line.

Baby, you have such recontextual eyes. Let's go to my place and recontextualize.

If the response is Huh huh, yer a poet and don't know it, then while the pickup line is still World's Worst, at least you've located its niche audience. Smaller still is its knish audience. I've stretched this joke a little further than it was designed to go.

It's the same, only different. That's how you say recontextualize with five words instead of one. Indeed, I use the word a lot when I teach first year theory — I especially like to noun it. Verbing stuff (as in, say, Let's partay!) is so 2006.

So in the case of this little musical example — a typical example of the hanging-note direct modulation — first comes the functional description. The section ends with a perfect authentic cadence in A major, with a repeated A left hanging. The A is then suddenly, immediately, irrevocably (due to the nature of time) recontextualized as the third of the brand spanking new key, F major. The cadential motive is also recontextualized within the new key, still decorating A with a double neighbor.

Then comes the multisyllabapalooza. This is a recontextualization of A within a parallel phrase. Eight syllables! I count the syllables on my fingers, invariably involving both hands. If I could do it on one hand, there's no way I'd still be teaching music theory. I'd be that star pianist who can play sixteen-note chords without rolling them. Rach 3? Kid stuff. Plus, imagine all the thumb wrestling with my pet spiders ...

When that A is suddenly recontextualized in the new key, there's a distinct musical affect. The note, which just nanoseconds ago was a comfortable tonic, is now the third in the tonic chord, and functionally less stable. And there was no warning! It could be both jarring and beautiful at the same time. Note "could be". Musical affects are as hard to pin down and describe as serendipity and accessibility and impermanence. Is that moment expressive? If so, what kind of expressivity? Happy, sad, indifferent, bemused, dirty? Sorry to report that it can be all of them, some of them, or none of them. MWA ha ha ha!

What can be said is that A acquires a new function there, thus it acquires a new meaning. And what does meaning mean, anyway?

A pause to let the cosmic out. Out, out, out. In, out.

Teaching of theory — and of composition, for that matter — involves a lot of reverse engineering of moments in existing music like that one. The goal, at the end of the day, is to give the theory student or composer another compositional tool. And this is where it gets weird. Because when all the elements come together, it's unavoidable to say the composer uses all the tools at his/her disposal to create emotion in music. That recontextualized A is but one of gazillions of them.

The ultimate reverse engineering job is the teaching of species counterpoint. Some dead guy named Fux looked at a bunch of polyphonic vocal music that people seemed to like, took a statistical survey of its tendencies, and wrote a book where the tendencies were turned into incontrovertible rules — incidentally thumbing his nose at Rameau, who had also looked at a bunch of music that people seemed to like, took a statistical survey of its tendencies, and wrote a book. Rameau gave us the chord of nature and the undertone series to kick around. Fux gave us dissonance treatment. Plus lots of other stuff.

Thus was another chapter born in the age-old Clash of the Titans: Harmony vs. Counterpoint. This time it's personal! And when these titans clash, who wins?

Counterpoint. Always counterpoint. Because (take the half-dozen logical leaps here) music unfolds in time. Need proof? Look over to the right at the excerpt from the first Brandenburg Concerto of Bach. This famously gut-wrenching dissonant passage features, in the middle of the second beat of the first two bars, an A-natural in the violins against A-flat in the bass. They are both right, even though they create a simultaneous cross-relation. The oboes are moving up, thus the A-natural; the bass is moving down (and inflecting toward C minor), hence the A-flat. As John Cougar Mellencamp almost sang, I say counterpoint, counterpoint always wins.

When Beethoven wanted to study with Haydn, what did he bring along as his credentials to prove his worthiness for study? Yes, a notebook of species counterpoint. With coffee stains.

The first three species of counterpoint involve 1-to-1, 2-to-1, and 4-to-1 plodding melodies against a cantus firmus. The fourth involves suspensions, accented dissonances, and unaccented resolutions — this is the species of recontextualization, dude.

For you see, the rule in fourth species is to do something consonant mid-measure, hold onto it, and wait to see where the cantus firmus goes. If the held note is consonant, you can go anywhere; if it's dissonant, you gotta, you just gotta, move by step to a consonant note (even worse, it's gotta be an imperfect consonance). So over there to the right, when the sustained A meets the new F in the CF, it's consonant — now it's like the blank tile in Scrabble. Go anywhere! However, when that new D meets the E of the CF, whoa. That dissonance has to resolve by step to the C. Has to, has to, has to. Must, must, must. Composer guy (hey, that's me!) has no choice. And guess what? The E of the CF recontextualizes the D from a consonant note into a dissonant one.

When I initially explain the kind of affects that come about musically from fourth species-like stuff that happens in actual music, I talk about mixers. Parties. God is a DJ, Life is a Dance Floor, You are the Melody. You're hanging out at a party with some friends. You all sit down and have a rousing good time. One friend excuses herself to get some chips; another goes to the dance floor; another goes to the bathroom. Three people you don't know take their chairs. Now, you are contextualized in a group where you don't belong, and can't have a conversation. So you must get out of your chair and seek out people you know. Then you start or join another conversation. Some people excuse themselves. Repeat until you stop.

It's a heavy analogy, fraught with fraughtiness, but it gets the job done.

In the mind of the composer, hoping to create an expressive, magic, musical moment, a similar analogy may be at play. Here's a single note in the ... oboe, shall we say ... perfectly beautiful within the harmony. The note sustains while the harmony changes; now the oboe doesn't belong; thus a melody involving that note's resolution. Thus, tension and release.

I've always been partial to tension and release. But tense about partial release.

Taking a very simple beginning that everyone knows whether they know they know it or not — the Theme from Platoon by Uncle Sam — the outer voices of that famous beginning show proper fourth species counterpoint at work. The sustained beginning tone is first contextualized in a (relatively) consonant harmony, then made dissonant when the bass moves. The tune has no choice but to resolve and start moving. Here, it's a 4-3 suspension, or so say the experts. The dissonant 4th with the bass resolves down by step to the consonant 3rd. And the moment where the first note becomes dissonant — devastating, when played right, and the listener is doing his or her job.

Getting back to the Mozart slow movement of this post, there's that gorgeous second theme for the orchestra only that is full of sadness and longing. It's also an excellent example of academic counterpoint. Lots of it fourth species. For you see, the tune itself is presented in canon with itself at the second. On the top staff, the first violins and flute. The top voice of the second staff is the bassoon playing the same tune a bar later and a step higher (minus two octaves). At the bottom, the bass line, doing a nice conservative stepwise ascent from scale degree 1 to scale degree 5.

Wait — academic counterpoint? Do tell. Well, first there's the canon. Then there's the sadness and longing stuff on the downbeats caused by the fourth-species type moments. So when the bassoon follows the main tune and sustains its B over the barline, it's dissonant with the C# of the tune; hence it must move down by step in resolution. Good thing Mozart already designed the tune to do that right there. Because the violins are going to sustain a C# over the downbeat in the next bar, to clash with the D that the bassoon is obliged to play there. Thus, the tune must move down by step again. And then the moment that cuts with a knife. A metaphorical knife, that is. Realizing that we're talking about sound waves, after all. It's the downbeat with the E# in the violins and the fourth species suspended D in the bassoon, all of it against the bass reaching its local goal of C#. That sonority there is (metaphorically) crunchier than any (nonmetaphorical) bran cereal ever made. And the augmented second (plus an octave) formed with the bassoon and violins is properly resolved in the bassoon, as it was designed to do.

But wait, there's more, and the affect is even more (metaphorically) devastating. The violins start the tune again, on A. The first time the A sustained, it did so in a consonant context as the harmony stayed on the tonic. This time, the stakes are raised: as the A sustains, it is contextualized under a B# — a diminished seventh!, within an applied diminshed seventh chord — and this time the move to G# is really necessary. Obligatory, you might say. As the listening brain would say here, Ouch.

Wow. Academic and devastating at the same time. Insert joke of your choice here.

Then things get pretty interesting when you start to look at the counterpoint inherent in compound lines (melodies that carry the tonal information for more than one voice) — perhaps the simplest of which is the sort of twaddle littered all over Vivaldi — such as this bunch o' sixteenth notes that represent two voices moving in sixths but out of sync in that fourth species way. Hence the D and C# together are resolved by D and B together, etcetera. Yes, fourth species is a very convenient note-spinning device, and this particular manifestation thereof gets called the 7-6 suspension chain. Because that's what we call it. When we call it anything at all.

Now returning to the Mozart and the opening piano melody; it's already been noted that the opening melody is a compound line, moving in sixths at first, and remaining incomplete at the half cadence.

To find the fourth species kind of counterpoint, it's necessary first to make a reduction showing the important notes, or more precisely, the structural notes.

Then, perhaps, show how the notes in the music itself actually unfold in a pretty herky-jerky rhythm. Noting, of course, that the top two lines unfold in the context of a single melody.

Which then provides us with a way of looking under the hood of the really peculiar, leapy melody in the second bar.

Where, using the ultimate power of fourth species, we can see no fewer than four prepared dissonances and their proper resolutions. Of course, just because all the dissonance treatment is correct, it doesn't make the melody itself any less peculiar. But in detail — 1) the A of the tune, repeated on the downbeat, is suspended, thus creating a dissonance of a seventh with the B of the next voice down. Which we hear next. The G# in the tune is the resolution of the dissonant 7th. 2) the bass also suspends over the bar, and when the top voice resolves to G#, its resolution itself creates a dissonance with the bass, which must move to E# in resolution. 3) the resolution to E# creates a tritone with the B of the second voice, which is rearticulated, and resolves properly, down by step, in the next bar. 4) the D of the tenor voice forms a diminished seventh with the bass when the bass moves, so it too must move down by step, as it does properly. Wow, almost a domino effect of resolutions necessitating other resolutions, etc.

Dry, academic. And peculiar. And moving, all at the same time. Huh. And always with recontextual eyes.

Wait, Davy. Can a Modernist like you use any of this stuff?

Çoitanly! How about Berg? Now there's a modernist. In the last Altenberg Lieder at the climax, there is a certifiably gorgeous and devastating moment. After a climax has been built to an A major triad, it is suddenly soft while the singer arpeggiates down the triad from A to E. Already the harmony has moved to an F# half-diminished seventh chord, and by the downbeat of the next bar, when the E is sung again ("hier sind keine menschen") it's recontextualized in a G diminished seventh chord with A-flat added (for those of us playing along at home, that's a verticalization of the piece's opening five-note motive). But the feeling at that moment is certainly, at least to me, one of desperation, longing, surprise. As that same E has its bottom drop right out of it.

Yes, Davy. But Berg is dead. Can you use this stuff at all? Can you? Can you? Huh?

Well, okay. Just one example. Since you asked. How did I try to make Beautiful beautiful? It's this melody setting the word Beautiful, the first line of a Louise Bogan poem. There's the incipit A, decorated with an F, then a leap down a major seventh, presumably to a lower voice. The major seventh "resolves" to G when the voice continues the word. It's like a 7-6 suspension, but isn't one. Yes, we've moved from metaphors to similes.

But since music is all about making magic out of same only different — well, when I'm choosing my notes, I like to do stuff on occasion that seems to work the same as fourth species. Only different.

Updates and addenda

Talking Points

The piece for 'cello and 16 strings is finished, clocking in at around 14 minutes. I was asked for 8 to 10. Imagine if I were an elevator operator. 8th floor, please. Here you are, sir or madam. 14th floor.

It ended up not writing itself, so I had to write it.

The title is Talking Points (Right Wing Echo Chamber). I liked both titles, so I punted to the trailing parenthetical thing to get them both in. Given that construction, though, I could just as well call it Talking Points (Put a Ring On It).

The Computer Changed Everything. Again.

In making my long list of analog tools for score production, I somehow left out a big one: correction tape. I remember shopping at stationery stores and the Correction Tape display being a major one — half-line, one-line, two-line, three-line, four-line and five-line, at the very least. I was well-stocked with one-line, two-line, and five-line. One- and two-line tape was used vertically to replace bits of copying that had gotten smudged or inky. Five-line tape was used horizontally to white out whole staves on standard printed music paper — in order to separate instrument families, soloist, give more line for piano leger lines, etc.

Licking it would also make you high. Or possibly ill. But then you wouldn't be able to use it on a score. On the other hand, you wouldn't care.

Incidentally. A pet peeve of mine, non sequiturially. It's leger lines. Leger! Leger! Leger! Not ledger lines. The word means light, or floating off the staff. It doesn't mean it's a place where you put figures and ciphers. And verily I say unto you, I have never, ever used the word cipher in a sentence before this very day. Alas, the stupido spelling has made it into common usage. When I say common usage, I mean stupid usage. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to help stamp out the stupido spelling. Don't let it keep you on the ege, don't go out on a lege, don't hege your bets, don't be a stool pidgeon, and don't call your ledgislator about it, though. End of rant.

For now.

The first example up to the right there is the master of the first page of my violin concerto (yes, © CF Peters) (I wish I were its master, but you know...), lovingly copied by hand by me in 1983. The paper is 24-line green Dayman Music paper, and there is correction tape blotting out some of the lines, and a few mailing labels providing the extra space for instrument names, etc. It is not smudged or dirty, thus you know it was sprayed with fixative, back in the days when we had an ozone layer.

How now? Moody?

A shared fascination with pickles has emerged recently. When I say fascination, I mean we eat them with great relish (not literally), and very much like spicy pickles when they are done right. Rick somehow knows the Rick of Rick's Picks and when I told him I'd gotten Rick's Picks at the local Whole Foods, and that they did not carry their The People's Pickle, he had some of those and some Mean Beans shipped to my work address. I've never had pickles sent to my work address before. Usually we stand around the faculty mailboxes, mumbling as we get the usual ... lecture on an obscure topic in sociology ... please post this announcement of a summer program in Dubrovna ... the benefits office reminds you that the 15th of this month is we love our benefits day ... applications for research funds for quantitative topics are due on the 6th ... pickles ...

Also due to Rick's anecdotal evidence, I went all around Waterbury, Vermont in search of a local pickle called Duffy's Pickles that he'd bought at the Johnson Writers thingie. They are jarred with jalapeños, which interested me to no end. We showed up at the Waterbury Farmer's Market on the one day of the summer that Duffy's didn't have a booth, and we ended up buying a jar from a woman at a booth who was selling sliced lamb sandwiches.

The Duffy's were good. Even on hot dogs. Especially on hot dogs.

In the webcam picture wherein I prove I've received the pickles, I am wearing a Chicago baseball cap given to me by Gusty Thomas. I had to go all the way to Chicago to get it. I also am apparently proving I brushed my teeth.

'tudes and 'ludes

The stage is set for Prélude #2. Possible palindromic titles are coming in at a rate not seen since the title sweepstakes for the left-hand étude. Thankfully, no one has yet suggested Tooth Toot. Because that would be weird. Much better: Oh, Tooth Toot! Ho!

A Slut Was Tooth Toot, Ere Tooth Toot Saw Tulsa.

Beats the hell out of the MIDI

I have just read a draft of I-Chen's dissertation on me. There are copious footnotes, an introductory chapter that charts the history of the piano étude, and a substantial bibliography. It has 171 pages and 324 footnotes. It is encyclopedic with details on all 100 études (100 comes to those who wait), and it is a fascinating read. Even though it is about me. Especially because it is about me.

I have never advised a dissertation that is this long, and my own was 99 pages, including copious musical examples.

Twenty-two years from now, look for the first dissertations on the Rakowski Préludes. They are totally going to kick the études' ass(es).

Schnozz hands!

I.

I am lucky to work at a first-rate, top-drawer, high-level research institution. This means that, among other things, going home and staring out the window is considered work.
For you see, and for those of you playing along at home, staring out the window is a big part of a composer's process. What the composer creates from this process, after lots of staring out the window, is research. 

Which doesn't sound exactly right. Davy must now recontextualize.

Recontextualize — which composers do anyway. Staring out the window is all about the recontextualizing. As is lots of music.

Need proof? The second theme of the Waldstein being in E major instead of the traditional G major is a large scale recontextualization of the E at the top of the piece's first sonority. Actually, its second sonority. Dude, it begins on a lone C, then the chord happens. But I am getting way off topic here. Not to mention, kind of cosmic.

At my research institution, we faculty are expected, in addition to teaching, to produce research and artistic creations. Note that the two are on parallel tracks. Note also that my research institution is sufficiently enlightened to give equal stature to artistic creations. Almost invariably, though, the people sitting around long tables in dark rooms charged with evaluating quantity and quality of such stuff have concrete standards for evaluating research but need a lot of help evaluating artistic creations — mostly with similes and by analogy, as it turns out. Is a CD "like" a book? Is a public performance "like" a juried paper? Is a standing ovation "like"a good review in a journal? Is writing a symphony "like" writing a book? Is getting a symphony performed "like" getting a book published? Is getting a symphony published "like" getting a book published? Is staring out the window "like" staring into a microscope? What's the creative equivalent of a 17-page journal article with 23 footnotes?

But the point is. Staring outside and noticing that a brown spot has appeared on the lawn where one wasn't before — that's recontextualizing. Therefore it's process. Therefore it's artistic creation. Therefore it's like research.

If I were Frank Zappa, I would then up and write a Brown Spot Tornado. Rim shot.

II.

One important topic that gets taught in first year theory is the pedal point. Named after the pedals on the organ, of course, for pieces when they get the opposite of happy feet. Most theory-takers associate the pedal point with the bass, and yes, it's the most convenient place to put it, especially if you have sad feet. In a nutshell, it's a note that stays put even as the chords change.

So tonic pedals (already pedal point is abbreviated to pedal, since it's what we do) are most common at beginnings and endings of pieces, and dominant pedals most commonly prepare recapitulations — the resolution to the tonic after such a long wait causing a structural downbeat. There are plenty of pop songs with pedals that go into this lecture, because they exist: Prince's 1999 starts with a dominant pedal that resolves quickly enough to a tonic pedal.

The lecture finishes with the poor cousin pedals — notes not in the bass that hang around. So there is the top-voice tonic pedal in, say, the Hill Street Blues theme, and a middle voice guitar pedal on the dominant in You Keep Me Hanging On — in the latter case, note how the engineer plays with that pedal by moving it from speaker to speaker, causing potential dizziness for the attentive listener or house pet. Note also how a metaphor is created by the unyielding pedal note that keeps hanging on.

Keep in mind the distinction between a tonic pedal and a wah-wah pedal. The latter doesn't get taught until third year theory, oddly enough during the banjo-writing unit. I can't explain why.

In the classical realm, the usual example is the opening of the K. 331 sonata of Mozart. The dominant, E, is always there, played by the left thumb. When I demonstrate this as a middle-voice pedal for my class, I normally go all out. The middle voice is so easy, just one note! Watch how easy! And I play the right hand as notated, the bass line as notated, and the repeated E's with my nose.

Since the advent of phone cameras, I only do that once per year. Though this is not by any means the only class of the semester in which I hear Do it again! I didn't have my phone out! a lot. After all, since I can balance a piano bench on my head, why would I not?

III.

Once there almost seemed to be commercial value to my piano études — by which I mean I'd written six of them consecutively on intervals, like Debussy, and the first book of études had sold almost nine copies — I gave myself a challenge to write a whole book of them within a year, while also writing the other pieces on my plate and also teaching the fall semester with an overload. Be it noted that I played the piano with my nose twice that semester, since the overload was an extra section of first year theory. I was taking the spring semester off without pay, and a colony hop was lined up. As far as being lined up goes, a colony hop was.

I had written a few of those intervaltudes at the MacDowell Colony the previous summer, and already one of the writers called me nothing but étude dude. Here's an example: Hey étude dude! Here's another: It's the étude dude! And yet another: Save a spot for étude dude!

Would I be typecast as the piano étude guy? This was to be the third book of ten études, zooming me past Chopin on the all-time list of piano études by those of Polish extraction. Actually, they tried extracting the Polish from me once, but they didn't bring big enough tweezers. They also brought a harp. They didn't say why.

It was the summer of 1999, Beff and I were still living full-time in Maine, and I began with the chromatic wedgetude, in memory of Earl Kim.

For my next trick, I thought I'd write a 'tude in which the pianist would have to play with his or her nose. I had experience playing piano with my nose, after all, and writing something beautiful given proboscan restrictions would definitely make my brain bigger. Plus, I'd already written an étude for thumbs and pinkies only, and one for the index fingers only. Dude, restrictions ce sont moi!

IV.

So I embarked on what was officially a research trip. I drove to Beff's workplace — the University of Maine — in order see if it was possible to play both black and white keys with my nose on every piano in the joint. It was good research. It was necessary research. For you see, the first three practice rooms I entered had pianos with flat lids that just 'bout gave my forehead enough leeway to play some black keys as well as the white keys with my nose. I tried a black key glissando on one of them, and it made me sneeze. I hope I didn't leave any evidence of that particular research behind. I hadn't brought tissues.

The fourth piano, though. Had one of those curvy one-piece lids that blocked my forehead and disallowed any keys being nosed except the white ones. Thus for the sake of the nosetude, my possible nasal vocabulary was reduced by five twelfths. I couldn't even play black keys with my forehead on this piano (obviously thinking ahead to an étude that I never got around to) — and not just because none of the Polish in me had been extracted.

Even though Schönberg famously said that there was still much great music to be written in C major, I'm pretty sure he didn't mean that any of it would be for the nose. So diatonic or modal white-key music wasn't in the cards. Nor was it in the tall grass.

V.

Then came time to conceive and to write. I went directly to a window and stared, returning quickly with the piece's template. First and foremost, the music must sound serious and as beautiful as I can make it, given the size of my brain. Secondly, the part for the nose, besides being all on the white keys, must be structurally essential (how many noses aren't?). Thirdly, I must use the epigraph "Give me a pianist, and make it lean" on the score. And fourthly, the nose shouldn't always play — the drama (if that's what you want to call it) of having the nose exit and return would be part of the form of the piece. Just like at the doctor's office.

Thus, a five part structure that's really fun to say out loud: nose, no nose, nose, no nose, nose. Not unlike a concerto movement, really — solo, tutti, solo, tutti, solo. Which is less fun to say out loud.

In concerti, too, there are various kinds of combinations of musical materials that happen. They just do. So if the notes work out — and they did — there would be something musical associated with the nose and something else associated with no nose and in the second no nose, the two somethings would be played together. Yes, just like the denouement of The South Park Movie and tons of musicals, except less complicated.

To make the nose essential — and also to give plenty of space to giant-craniumed pianists (Brainiac, say)— the nose music is in the middle register and the hands at the extremes of the piano. Hence, the opening, which can not be played with only two hands. And here I inform you that the musical examples are copyright © by C.F. Peters.

Since the nose can play two notes, it occasionally is asked to. Actually, the person owning the nose is asked to. Noses have no free will of their own, especially when there's Claritin™ at hand.

The no nose music turned out to be more quickly-moving and more flowing, so it turned out well when the nose music joined in — note the lower voice in the right hand, entirely on the white keys. The upper voice was heard already in the first no nose music.

Pause to reflect. Add eight instruments to that music and you will have a No Nose Nonet.

I was satisfied that it was good music, kind of pretty. I wrote in the notes for it that the nose part may be played by a third hand or by an extremely well-trained pet. I moved on to the next étude.

VI.



VII.

The third book of études was finished the following March. Various pianists had copies of the recent 'tudes and some were learning some of them.

Geoffy told me he would premiere Schnozzage (the title is a pun with a dog treat called Snausages, not to mention that Schnozz is Yiddish for nose) and a few other 'tudes on a concert of the Phantom Arts Ensemble, and at my research institution. Things didn't work out that I could make a rehearsal before the concert, so I'd be seeing it and hearing it for the first time at the performance. I know Geoffy and his playing well enough that he always gets it right, so that was cool.

Schnozzage was in middle of a set of three or four 'tudes, and it came after one of the whizbang ones. I was sitting in the middle of a row, fairly close to the piano. I like to see the hands. Geoffy finished the whizbang one with a flourish. Then he got all serious. There was a brief pause. The music was put on the stand.

He took off his glasses and placed them to the right of the music. There was a brief inhalation. Then his entire torso, it seemed, rigid and with the hands in the stress position, rotated in the direction of the piano, and landed on the keys. The first sonority of the piece was perfectly synchronized.

When I was writing the 'tude I hardly had time to think about what it would look like when played. All the nose-playing I'd ever witnessed was with my own nose, after all. Plus, I was busy making it work formally and musically. But I didn't think about what it looked like.

It was so.

Fucking.

Funny.

I don't remember much about the performance because I was expending so much energy keeping the guffaws that wanted to burst out from doing so. Miraculously, there was no sound of laughter from me, or from anyone else in the hall. Red-faced from exertion, and with tears coming out of my elbows, I finally got to laugh during the thunderous applause. And the people around me, every one of them, leaned over to me and said, "I'm glad you thought it was funny, too."

But it was supposed to be beautiful, too. Which I finally got to notice when I got the recording of the concert.

VIII.

Shortly thereafter, Amy Briggs was embarking on her 'tudeathon and learning two dozen of them at a time. There was some question as to whether she would be able to perform Schnozzage, however, because she has a small nose, and in test runs she couldn't get much of any sound. It was perhaps a good thing that she hadn't had to teach pedal point in the middle register by that point.

Then I got a breathless call from her. I can play Schnozzage! I can play Schnozzage! It turns out that she figured out a way involving the ocean of the motion that doesn't depend on length to produce a beautiful sound. Judy Sherman called it the most expressive nose in the business.

I hadn't realized that the technique for playing the piano with the nose could potentially be pornographic. There was still so much to learn.

At the recording session, Judy announced that the tape was rolling and we were ready to start recording. There was a pause. Then Amy's voice on the monitors: This piano smells funny. If there were aisles in the control room, we would have rolled in them.

Meanwhile, we made the 'tude movies and I would play them for anyone who wouldn't run away. Schnozzage was always the popular one. Just as it started, the most frequent comment was, "Oh no, she's not going to ..."

IX.

Max Baer, Jr., was typecast as Jethro. Even in a guest spot on Love Boat wearing a suit and playing a millionaire, there was no way it was anything but Jethro dressed up. Bob Denver, even given the sterling example of Dobie Gillis, was typecast as Gilligan.

Yes, I have watched Love Boat. There is much for which I must atone.

I, meanwhile, was already typecast as étude dude within a very small circle, but was in danger of becoming The Nose Guy. "Hey, études! You wrote that nose piece, right? Funny!"

When Amy was giving an all-Davytude concert at my research institution, I got a call from the local newspaper. The guy on the other end wanted to write a feature on the concert. "It should get you a nice audience. (pause) Is Amy going to play the piano with her nose?" "Yes." "Good, that will be the focus of the story!" I'm pretty sure if I'd said no, there would have been no article. Who's going to turn out for a concert of mod piano music if there's no playing with the nose? And the article's title was Rakowski Nose Music.

Crap. I'm The Nose Guy.

Amy has played Schnozzage around a lot, and when there's been press, the nose aspect is always played up. For every mention that it's a nice piece, there are plenty more that say she played with her nose! Ain't that zany? Liner Notes Danny did a good job in that regard.

Thankfully I wrote ninety-nine other études that don't use the nose, or at least not on purpose. Stride. That one's pretty good. Funk. Clave ...

X.

When Amy was in town for her research institution concert, I was in residence at the MacDowell Colony, which is not far. Amy agreed to do an abbreviated concert for MacDowell's outreach program, for a few dozen schoolchildren. I got to do fun narratives before each 'tude she did, and she herself talked about the music, too. Some of the other residents at the Colony came to the event, as well. Schnozzage was in that concert's repertoire, and before it started, Amy invited the kids to come closer to watch.

Afterwards, the kids got to ask questions. Some of them did not yet understand the distinction between asking a question and sharing. Thus the question Bach is my favorite pianist. And the question I'm working on Golliwog's Cakewalk.

Later I got a nice handwritten note from one of the resident writers who'd been at the event. She raved about Schnozzage, how beautiful the music was, and especially about its visual effect. In her description, it looked like a religious experience — that with the face on the keys and the arms and hands spread as if in supplication, it was as if the performer was praying to and worshipping the music, in perfect submission to it, as performers should be.

That visual aspect hadn't occurred to me until then. She was right.

I shouldn't have laughed.

I have gotten that same reaction a few other times, too. Imagine that — music with multiple interpretations.

Geoffy's wife commented to me, not knowing what the MacDowell writer had told me, that yes, Schnozzage could look funny, but it also looked like the performer was praying to the music, and it seemed rather profound.

Okay, that's now my story. And I'm stickin' to it.

XI.

Rick Moody called Schnozzage in its meditative slowness, astringent and incredibly sad. He then makes some very astute and poetic observations. That's also my story. To it will sticking also be done by me.

Hooked on mnemonics

Unbelievably, I never went to an artist colony until I was on my thirty-third trip around the sun. What was I thinkin'? I even celebrated the completion of the thirty-third revolution at a colony, with Rolling Rock, naturally. And with luminous luminaries such as Helen Winternitz, Alvin Singleton, Tom Chandler and Tania León to celebrate it with. And coonskin caps.

Just before finishing that thirty-third trip, I embarked on one of the least glamorous collaborations ever. They tell you plenty of collaborations are born at artist colonies, and they are right. This one wasn't necessarily for the ages — perhaps it was for the widths (I don't get the joke either). Said Chandler poet guy said he had words for a state song for Rhode Island and he wanted someone to write music for it (that would be moi). As he told it, since Rhode Island is the smallest state with the most, uh, ancient and ingrained political corruption, it needed a very strong song that would evoke so much loyalty that its citizens would go so far as to self-mutilate as a sign of their love of state. O Rhode Island/I would pound nails in my eyes was the opening salvo.

Hmm.

I wrote a nice solemn setting in 3 that you could graduate to, taught it to the assembled throng, and it became our theme. Note that without the silent 'e' it would have been our them, which is just weird. I wrot it in about 45 minuts, passed out the sheet music, and ther you go. The only reason I agreed to do it was that I wanted to challenge myself to discover the most tasteless ways to use French augmented sixths in a piece of music (I don't know wher els I would us them, but ther you go). Success. There's even one of those French thingies decorating a secondary dominant!

We now learn and sing O Rhode Island in every music theory class I teach. Since I now have a perfect specimen of how to use the French sixth in other than sterling ways.

A few years later, a Columbia theory student arranged the tune for a cappella choir and got a group to sing it at a gathering given by Jack Greenberg, then a Dean. The new words: O Columbia/I would pound nails in my eyes....

It would work for Pennsylvania, too, with the "O" removed. It wouldn't work at all for Florida. (O flor-ID-a)

Right around the same time, I was hangin' at the same Colony with Marilyn Chin, whom I had met in the previous colony of my thirty-third revolution hop. See, with a silent 'e' added, it would be a revolution hope, even stranger, no? Marilyn had been hoping around from colony to colony, too, and dreaded returning to teaching at the end of the summer.

So at dinner one night, she asked if I knew any song mnemonics for poetic meters. Excuse me? I don't trust words that begin mn, and it just sounded like a suspicious question. Plus, I hardly ever — maybe never — use words that begin with mn. Actually, I wasn't listening because I was talking to someone else. So I asked her to repeat the question, this time with me listening. The derivation of the word is Greek, she said. Really? Mno shit?

She was going to teach poetic meter in a beginning poetry class (don't everybody?) and she thought if she knew of some well-known songs that utilized standard meters, she could teach them by using the songs as examples, rather than dryly. — the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down; the wind beneath my wings; forty-seven pairs of freshly laundered trousers.

I thought long and hard, and came up with zilch on the spot. Except Farmer in the Dell, which was easy. Iambic triameter (gesundheit!). Three poetic feet (a poetic yard!) of unstressed, stressed.

The problem, of course, was that not a lot of poetry that would be studied in a beginning poetry class has been written in iambic triameter. Unless you consider nursery rhymes to be actual poetry. No, you're the snob! No, you are! Whatever you say about me bounces right back on you!

Well, there is one well-known e.e. cummings poem — a very dark one — that is written in iambic triameter. I knew that because I had just done a setting of it for voice and orchestra, as the finale of my first symphony, which I had just finished.

My first symphony is very serious. You can tell by the name: Symphony No. 1

The thing with having a nursery rhyme in the same poetic meter as the serious, dark poem of cummings is, of course, that you can sing the poem to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell. Rendering it instantly hilarious. Enough hilarity to relaunch the Hindenburg. Go ahead, follow the link to the poem and sing it as The Farmer in the Dell. I can wait.

See? I'm still here.

No, really. Go do it.

It also seems to be well known that a vast quantity of Emily Dickinson poems can be sung to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas. Again, shared song and poetic meters. Others have noted, usually with not much hilarity at all, that Frost's Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening can be sung to the tune of Hernando's Hideaway. The reader is invited to do more research therein.

I remember when I noticed that in the hymnal we used in church, there were series of numbers separated by commas printed near the title of each hymn — and I figured out it was a tally of the number of syllables of each line in the hymn. Apparently you could match up hymns with the same syllable count and sing them to any of the other tunes.

And there are like, what, five or six different available hymn settings of Away in a Manger?

The real hard task, said Marilyn, was to find a song in iambic pentameter. Since there's so much serious poetry written with it. Especially sonnets. And, as Marilyn recognized, once the students have a song mnemonic for iambic pentameter, then it makes it easier for them to write the sonnets she will assign them — since they can sing and get exactly the right stresses and number of syllables every time (stresses and number of syllables = poetic meter, dude. I am so redundant).

After a day of thinking and writing some of Winged Contraption, I had the answer. O come, O come, Emmanuel. The words themselves are in iambic tetrameter, but the medieval composer who wrote it stuck a nice honkin' melisma on "man" — and on "Is" of Israel in the second line. Take out the melisma (i.e., add two syllables) and you've got your iambic pentameter. Woo hoo! Stir to taste!

Our first test case will be, of course, a sonnet. Does it work? Of course it does, because, well, it just does. You can even see Billie's dissonance with the meter (tem - per - ate) and make the argument that by putting Thou on a weak poetic syllable, he's diminishing thine importance. Well, you can make the argument. I just never ever get a chance to use thine in a sentence. Although I do use it with the silent 'e' chopped off. Yes, the ending of the Lord's Prayer will never be the same: For thin is the kingdom and the power, and the glory forever, Amen. It also won't be the sam.

And I have found myself idly composing lines in iambic pentameter to pass the time — as all pretentious people do — by using this song. Or maybe, just maybe ... I have found myself.

Aah.

I don't remember if Marilyn and I settled on songs for other poetic meters. I mean, once you've conquered the meter of Shakespeare's sonnets, how much higher is there to go? How much higher should you go?

But if you want to sing the classic poetry not covered by these two songs, and then laugh so hard that snot comes out of your nose, go out and find them. Right now.

I can wait.