late next year when
UNStudio unveils 5 Franklin
Place, an apartment
lower wrapped in sinuous
aluminum strips. Developed
by Sleepy Hudson,
the 2O-5tDfy New York
building is the first U.S.
project for this Dutch
firm, interiors are being
designed with B&B Italia's
contract division, led by
general manager Emanuele
Busnelli. A computer rendering ^... .^ aluminum-strip facade of 5 FranM'm ñaca, a New York apanmenf tower by UNSfudio.
Fred Segal has a new
last name. Fred Segal
Green, Deborah Guyer
Greene's 1,200-squarefoot
outpost inside the
ultimate Los Angeles
retailer's Santa Monica
location, was
^- constructed entirely
from reclaimed,
recycled, and otherwise
Sustainable materials. The
global assortment
of ecologically
sound home furnishings
on offer there includes
Simbl's pillows,
made of silk and
cotton that mimic autumn foliage
None. "On the horizon." May 2008. 16 Nov. 2008
The U.S. Green Building Council recently
released proposed versions of its LEED
rating systems, collectively called LEED
2009. Use of the LEED system has grown tremendously,
and is expected to accelerate as
local and state government agencies pass
resolutions requiring LEED certification for
both public and private projects.
However, LEED
2009 is not a new
version of LEED.
It is intended to
be a much needed
and long overdue
reorganization of LEED, LEED 2009 aims
to provide consistency by aligning requirements
and documentation across the various
LEED rating systems, such as New Construction
and Major Renovations, and Commercial
Interiors.
The advantage to users, designers, engineers, owners, and contractors is obvious:
Learn the rules once, and apply them to
any LEED project regardless of what LEED
system is used. But a much bigger fix is
required: Reform the LEED certification
review process Have you ever wondered why many of the
LEED submittals requirements and calculations
seem more complicated than they need
.
to be? Why the LEED reference guides are
sometimes unclear, leaving it up to the project
team to figure out what to do, or to seek out
a special LEED consultant to help?
The consultants who develop LEED reference
guides are the same consultants who
certify LEED projects. And these same consultants
also are hired on projects seeking
certification—an obvious conflict of interest.
It's human nature, and good business practice.
to give yourself an edge. For example, you can
make your competitors charge more to complete
a project, by making them jump through unnecessary hoops to cover the cost of the
extra work they are forced to do. The harder
the requirements are to understand, then the
higher the fee that can be charged when selling
consulting services.
In an effort to address this problem, USGBC
is spinning off the LEED certification work to
a subsidiary called the Green Building Certification
Institute (GBCI). However, GBCI and
USGBC share the same physical address, and
the upper management remains the same for
the two entities. USGBC is still responsible
for LEED, its requirements, and the certification
process.
True reform could be assisted greatly by
the following recommendations: First, the
consulting companies that sell LEED certification
services should not be allowed to
develop LEED documentation requirements.
Second, companies that are contracted to
adjudicate LEED submittals should not be
allowed to review the submittals of their
competitors. And finally, USGBC-hired consultants
should not be allowed to sell their services
as LEED project consultants, while they
also are paid as reviewers of those projects
completed by their competitors.
The certification review consultants need
to work directly as employees for the new
GBCI entity. This would reduce the conflictof-
interest problem, and the many troubles
the USGBC knows it has with the certification
review process that is now in place.
LEED has grown up enough for truly independent
consultants to perform the certification
reviews. It's time for the USGBC to take
this step and get it done. Icsel
Miranda, Hernado. "Reform the leed process." July 2008. 16 Nov. 2008
¡menor Designio back m Nueva York, with our Park Avenue (South) hornea mere stone's throw from almost all of this month's stories. And can 1 tell you with heartfelt awe-and a tiny speck of sentimentality, if you allow it-just how öi^little old New York can be? Even when we're talking one-bedrooms, as we often are
around these parts, we've got an l.SOO-square-footer: Shamir Shah's own loft in a 193O's printing plant. Then there's the 52-story New York Times lower, almost every space inside the work of Gensler. And Interior Design Hail of Fame member Clodagh, celebrating 25 huge years in the profession, just completed her largest project ever, the Caledonia condominiums. (Check out the 7O's photos of her as a fashion designer, too.)
Like Clodagh's magnum opus, this issue is landmark for me professionally and personally, marking my
eighth anniversary at the helm of this spiendid magazine. I might be eager to revel in such a rich and fulfilling
moment and forget all else, but 1 can't ignore this year's exceedingly unwelcome new Manhattan resident,
a gargantuan bear running amok on Wall Street. Designers down there are experiencing a colossal hangover
after years of gleefully gallivanting through residential real-estate conversions, and you don't have to be Nostradamus
to foresee a whole mountain of commercial square footage in the classifieds. Or make that an entire
mountain range when you consider all the fiscal and political disasters this presidential administration has
heaped on top. limes are tough-New York tough. Still, in two months there will be, yes. Change. That's when
I plan to strap on my climbing boots, check my ropes and piton, and head on up. See you at the top
None. "Tough love." Sept. 2008. 16 Nov. 2008
When London's Haunch of Venison gallery opens a New York branch in Rockefeller Center in September.
sharp knives and tongues will be ready to go to work— and not just because "Abstract Expressionism: A World Elsewhere," the non-selling inaugural exhibition of work by Willem de Kooning. Mark Rothko, lackson Pollock, and others is ambitiously heing
billed as "one of the first surveys of the movement in New York in nearly 40 years." What pundits will most
likely be talking about is an event that took place a year and a half ago when Christie's acquired the modern
and contemporary gallery in what many saw as a violation of the customary separation between primary sales, usually bandied by galleries, and the secondary market, typically the domain of auction houses. Since the acquisition. Haunch of Venison bas been handling both its own stable of artists and Christie's private sales, and the art world has yet to get over it. Now that a Haunch of Venison offs boot is opening in a duplex penthouse around the corner from Christie's.... You get tbe picture.
Well, let tbem talk. If the art at Haunch of Venison doesn't shut them up. the architecture will. Just stepping out
of the elevators into tbe reception atrium, wbich soars 30 feet from the public galleries on tbe 20th floor to the
offices on the 21st. is enough to make most jaws drop. And that's just tbe beginning. As designed by Steven Learner Studio. Haunch of Venison's 20.000 square feet may be one of New York's smartest, most versatile art spaces. Steven Learner founded bis art-centric architecture firm a little more than a decade ago. and he collects minimalist sculpture and contemporary photography, so he clearly understands gallery design, "You need to carve
out space for art. You need walls. You need to control the light." he explains, adding tbat tbe Haunch of Venison
location's 64 virindows presented one of the project's most serious challenges. "You can't cover all tbe windows, *
Pnvious sprvod: At the New Vorii gallery Haunch of Venison, designed by Steven Leamer Studio, The Institute, a vinyl triptych biy Ian Monroe, meets Camouflage (Church. Synagogue, and Mosque), o three-port scu/pture in painted hordboard by Nathan Caley.
Oppoti». The custom desk in the terrazzo-floored reception area is mode of finger-jointed Douglas fir. On the 30-faot-high atrium wall, which covers four of the gallery's original G4 windows, hangs Brian Alfred's ocrylic on canvas Millions Living Now Wilt
Never Die!!!
appreciation. This blend of opposites is prominent in the galleries, where pristine
white walls and luxurious gray-flecked white terrazzo flooring establish a
luminous counterpoint to the blackened steel lining the doorways. Brick walls
in the main gallery and the perimeter passageways are painted a dark industrial
gray; ductwork and sprinklers in the passages are visible through industrial
steel-mesh panels. In the four rooms dedicated to private viewing, however.
Learner turned down the volume. Radiators disappear inside pale gray covers of perforated powder-coated steel, topped by white solid surfacing; flooring is rift-sawn oak. He chose the neutral palette and the mix of vintage and •* Opposite top: Lacquered steel-mesh panels run along o passage displaying Dawn Chorus, an acrylic on canvas by Jitish Kailot. Opposite bottom: Adam Pendleton's silk
screen Sympathy for the Devil tines a wait in one ofthe galleries without naturat light. Top: Work by Rachel Howard fills a passage, Scissors and Scissors [Incest] in gloss
and acrylic an canvas to Drawing
Schwartz, Chirstine. "Blue-chip white box." Aug. 2008. 16 Nov. 2008
At the Canadian law firm Torys. "We don't moose around." And that goes not only for filing briefs but also for acquiring art. During Canada's recession-plagued 198O's, while other corporate collections folded. Torys continued purchasing the work of contemporary Canadian artists-and displaying it at headquarters in the Toronto-Dominion Centre, a complex built around two towers 3nd a pavilion designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the 196O's. As the decades passed in that same location, the culture of the practice shifted dramatically. Client meetings once held in lawyers' offices, for example, now take place in conference rooms to protect the confidenliality of competitors. "Where at one time it was common to have four to eight people at tfiose meetings, we started to need spaces that could handle video conferences, Internet-enabled
projects, and functions for up to 200." Torys partner Darren £. Sukonick says. Moving could have been a solution.
Instead, though, he and his fellow partners renewed their lease and retained Kuwabara Payne McKenna
Blumberg Architects to revamp the interior. To accommodate the lawyers' new modes of working. KPMB consolidated all reception and meeting areas in 30.000 square feet on one full floor, the 33rd. and a partial floor below. Then the architects had to figure out
how to accommodate a range of uses, what 5ukonick calls a "sit-down on the sofa to a cocktail party," as well
as an art collection that tops ¿lOO works. Before, they were unevenly dispersed across the office's nine and a
half floors. It was a case of "not maximizing their investment." KPMB founding principal Marianne McKenna
says. Assisted by associate Steven Casey. McKenna set about providing much-needed versatility while celebrating Torys's cultural patronage.
200 INTEfiiaRQESIGN.fJn Pnviùug spread: Printed on the plastic-laminate surface of the foldup portitians dividing the lorger conference suite ot 7Drys, a Toronto low office by Kuwaboro Poyne McKenna Blumberg Architects, is a
photograph. With the Light [On My View], commissioned from Pascal
Grand moison. Photogiophy: Moris Mezuiis. Oppo$lt9: In reception, the ocrylic-pointed wooden dots of Renée
von Holm's Currencies, 195O's & 196O's,/bee o lounge furnished with
Gordon Guillaumier armchairs, Antonello Masca founge chairs, and
Rodolfo Dardani tables. Photography: TamArban. Left, from top: Photographs from Robert Fones's commissioned
senes. Somewhere, appear on partitians in the smaller conference suite. Alberta Meda designed the chairs in bath suites. Phatagraphy: Maris Mezulis. Right: The custom tobies' tops are linoleum. Photography: Tom Aiban.
AUG.08 INTERIORDESIGN.NET 201
Her biggest move involved twin runs of conference spaces, hugging opposite
window walls on the main client fioor. Thanks to articulated partitions that fold
up into the ceiling, these suites can combine as one huge, long room or split up into as many as five individual ones. When the partitions come down, they offer not only privacy but also visual interest: They're completely clad in photography commissioned for the purpose by Fela Grunwald Fine Arts. A consultant for Torys since 1995, Fela Grunwald believes that commissioning work on this scale is unprecedented for a Canadian law firm. Yet Torys partner Richard J. Balfour. Who oversaw the renovation with Sukonick. argues that agreeing to the idea was simply logical: "In their natural state, these movable walls are white laminate, which feels like a bad hotel. We had to have the walls, so we had to deal with the problem."
Five Canadian artists, total, were invited to compete for one of the two conference spaces. The smaller suite
was ultimately turned over to Toronto's Robert Fones, who covered both sides of three partitions in photographs
of waves in the city's harbor, over which he'd superimposed translated excerpts from Miguel de Cervantes's Don
Quixote. The typeface. Fones's own creation, is almost as liquid as the watery background. As he explains in a
written artist's statement, "Sureiy lawyers could be driven as mad by text as easily as Don Quixote was by •*
HECEFTIDN CONF£R£NCE SUITES
2 0 2 INTERIORDESIGN.NET AUG.OB Top, from left: Bepre inviting Fones to compete for the conference
Commission, rofysoctfuirecih/sphotograph Reading the Inscription. Ihis Grond maisan photograph is from the false fieflection Become on Me series. Photography: Tom Arban. Bottom: Woal-carpeted stairs connect the three office floors. Photography: Shai Gil. Opposite: When the larger suite's partitians are all up, five rooms become one 3.000-squore-foot spoce. Photography: Moris Mezulis. Z04 lf JTERIOROESIGN.NET AUG.08 books on chivalry." The larger suite's partitions, four of them, feature supersize close-ups of an androgynous
model in a pensive mood-photographed by Montreal's Pascal Grand maison.
The art competition helped drive KPMB's next steps in designing client spaces. Knowing that other pieces
from the law firm's art collection would supplement the site-specific works, the architects carved out unusually
wide corridors to double as galleries. In some parts of the four corridors, which basically form a ring between
the conference suites and the service core, drywall planes appear to float in front of walnut paneling-McKenna
calls these wbite rectangles "easels."
Walnut paneling and bronze door frames add elegance to the conference suites. McKenna's tightly curated materials palette and subdued tones, like the folding partitions, pay homage to the Miesian pedigree of the Dominion Centre. Carpet is a subtle pale gray, tabletops a darker shade. As McKenna puts it. "We evoked the somber, cigar-smoking Mies."
Sokol, David. "O Canada." Aug. 2008. Torys llp kuwabara payne. 16 Nov. 2008
But Berlioz blows it. The big failures in the work are the title characters, Beatrice and Benedick (to give them the names they have in Shakespeare), who plainly are in love (everybody else can see it) but won't admit it and instead spend every moment savaging each other verbally. In the opera, they simply aren't funny -- and, worse, they're dull. Benedick sings three big pieces in Act I -- a duet with Beatrice, a trio with two friends, and an aria -- and none of them is memorable. The dominant music in the act goes to the ingenue soprano, Hero, who's in love with Benedick's friend Claudio and sings a lengthy aria (complete with cabaletta) and later on a long duet with her lady in waiting. The duet -- whatever other problems Béatrice et Bénédict may have -- is one of the most wistful, tender, beautiful-in-twilight pieces that you'll hear in any opera, but it skews the emphasis away from Beatrice and Benedick, so even its strength becomes a weakness. It undermines the drama. (This might not be a problem if Berlioz had adapted Shakespeare faithfully. In Much Ado, Hero is accused falsely of infidelity, and this propels the plot, neatly forcing Beatrice and Benedick to help restore her reputation, thus bringing them together at the end. Berlioz cuts this out, but if he hadn't, his initial emphasis on Hero might make sense. And he'd also give more substance to Beatrice and Benedick, who --as the opera stands -- come together only in a feeble piece of spoken dialogue, thus further weakening the drama.) Benvenuto Cellini is a stronger piece. It starts with comedy that's truly operatic, as an aged father scrambles to get ready for an important meeting while also trying to keep his daughter more or less locked up. When Cellini, the tenor lead, appears, we hear a love duet that's both theatrical and ravishing, music that just about screams, "Put me on the stage!"
Then everything unravels. Cellini and Teresa, his beloved -- who of course is the locked-up daughter from the first scene --are going to elope, and Cellini makes some plans. He explains them in a cabaletta, which -- with Teresa echoing his plans and a hidden rival muttering -- becomes a trio, very long and wildly intricate. It's just too much, and when the repeat comes, as mandated by standard operatic form -- and especially when Cellini introduces it by asking, "Should I repeat the time and place we're going to meet?" -- I always want to cry out, "No, we've heard enough!"éèéAbove and opposite: two views of Achim Freyer's 2003 production of La Damnation de Faustat Los Angeles Opera, with Samuel Ramey
(Méphistophèlés), Paul Groves (Faust) and Denyce Graves (Marguerite)
Act II ends wonderfully, with the best operatic music Berlioz ever wrote -- a finale that depicts a carnival in Rome (it's the source of Berlioz's much more famous Roman Carnival Overture) and does this with such realism, with such a sense of crowds swirling out of anyone's control, that it sweeps me away. But then Act III falls apart. The historical Cellini was the leading goldsmith of the Renaissance, and Berlioz wants to show his triumph as an artist -- which, since Berlioz was an artist himself, you'd think he could identify with. Yet somehow he doesn't rise to the occasion. He has the Pope challenge Cellini to finish a major artwork, and while the Pope's music is unforgettable --rich, dark and strangely sensitive -- Cellini's music (when he creates the work the Pope demands from him) isn't notable at all. So Cellini never really comes to life as an artist, and the premise of the opera dies.
And now for Les Trayens -- a masterpiece that works, as I've said, in non-operatic ways. It tells two stories. First there's the story of the fall of Troy, conquered by the Greeks in the Trojan War. Then comes the story of Énéw (Aeneas), the surviving Trojan hero, who sails to Carthage and falls in love with Didon (Dido), the Carthaginian queen, then leaves her to die while he fulfills his destiny, which is to sail to Italy and found what will become the Roman empire. Heady stuff, and not just because Berlioz loved Greek and Roman literature. It hits him, I might guess, with three symbols for the kind of romantic artist that he felt he was: Cassandre (Cassandra), the Trojan prophetess whom nobody believes, might represent the artist who's rejected by society; Didon, the abandoned queen, becomes the artist whom a fickle audience abandons; Énée, the hero with a destiny, becomes an artist with a mission.
What drives Les Trayens is the same thing that drives the drama in Berlioz's symphonies and oratorios -- tableaux arranged in an order that illustrates a story, without quite telling it in any detail. That's how the best parts of Les Troyens proceed. When Dido and Aeneas fall in love, we don't see (or hear) them find each other in a love duet. Instead, they move with stylized steps. First we see them sheltering together from lightning, rain and hail, without singing a single note, during an orchestral piece, the famous "Royal Hunt and Storm." Then we hear others say that they're in love. Then we see them watching a Carthaginian ceremony (long, with lots of dancing).
Then Dido asks Aeneas to finish a story he's evidently started telling earlier, about the fall of Troy. This makes them interact for one short moment, but then they vanish in a glorious septet about the falling veils of night, which evaporates into an even more glorious (but not at all theatrical) duet about infinite ecstasy, which they sing while disappearing from the stage. They're lovers now, of course -- the music tells us that -- but we don't really see them get there. The setup, apart from Aeneas's unhappy story, unfolds like an oratorio, and not like opera.
Finally we get to La Damnation de Faust, which is an oratorio but of course hag developed a second life onstage. It's a triumph, musically and dramatically. When it starts, with a simple melody played by unaccompanied violins, it's as if the piece had no beginning, as if the melody had been playing before the music started. This is radical but feels authoritative, as if the piece couldn't start any other way. Faust very soon starts singing, and the drama has been launched, but not the way it would be in opera, at least in Berlioz's time. Any proper opera in the nineteenth century would have to have an introduction, something to set the scene -- perhaps an overture, as Benvenuto Cellini has, or an overture plus opening chorus, as in Béatrice et Bénédict. To be fair, Beatrice makes fun of the opening chorus, but it's not much of a joke, and the chorus still registers as the kind of standard operatic procedure that Berlioz doesn't bother with in Faust. He moves immediately to higher ground.
As in Troyens, there's very little music in conventional operatic forms. Faust and the Devil have two recitatives, though in a way these are anti-operatic, since they take the place of what might otherwise be long duets. Faust and Marguerite, his doomed and helpless lover, have a love scene, complete (once more) with cabaletta, but any search for opera in this work pretty much ends there. Marguerite has an aria, a famous one, "D'amour, l'ardente flamme," which she sings when -- as we eventually learn -- Faust has abandoned her. But although it sounds like opera -- offering even some of the coloratura that Hero sings in Béatrice and Teresa sings in Benvenuto Cellini -- it doesn't function like an operatic aria. We only gradually catch on that Marguerite has been abandoned, which means that there's no story leading up to this, and that the aria stands somehow out of time. It's really a tableau, placed just before tableaux that show us Faust and the Devil galloping to save Marguerite, then devils roaring, then Marguerite being welcomed into heaven.
Nothing connects these scenes. They simply happen, which is also how the start of the work unfolds. Faust is in a field at sunrise. Then peasants sing. Then, as the scene quickly shifts to another place, an army marches. All these moments show different sides of life to Faust. He then sits despairing in his study. "Je souffre!" (I'm suffering!), he cries, but this operatic outburst is the exception that proves the rule. It's not convincing, in the context of this piece, because it's too simple and too conventional; the true despair is in the orchestra. And when distant voices renew Faust's faith by singing of the Resurrection, it's the voices that convince me, not anything that Faust sings in response.
To put this differently, it's the tableaux that come alive. Faust, operatic tenor though he is, only reacts to them. This sounds entirely undramatic but in fact contains the seeds of La Damnation's reinvention as a stage piece. The tableaux, energized by music, have dramatic force and can be visualized. Put Faust and the Devil on their horses, let the demons scream, show us the glory of the heavens opening for Marguerite -- and we'll never stop to ask how the drama happens. We'll just surrender to it.
Robert Lloyd (Narbal), Elena Zaremba (Anna), Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (Didon) and Matthew Polenzani (Iopas) in Francesca Zambello's 2003 Metropolitan Opera production of Les Troyens
Are Berlioz's orchestral works and oratorios more operatic than his operas? As the Met readies a new staging of La Damnation de Faust for a November 7 opening, GREG SANDOW examines the question.
If you didn't know Hector Berlioz's operas but did know his leading non-operatic works -- the Symphonie Fantastique, of course, or the gigantic Romeéo et Juliette symphony, or the even more gigantic Requiem, or La Damnation de Faust, the oratorio that just cries out to be staged -- you'd expect the operas to be stupendous. I know I would. I know I'd expect it just from knowing La Damnation, which -- with one scene sweeping by, and then another, all of them gripping -- could hardly be more dramatic. Very few operas can equal it.
éééééSandra Piques Eddy (Béatrice) and Joseph Kaiser (Bénédict) in Nicola Raab's 2007 staging of Beatrice et Bénédict at Chicago Opera Theater
And in fact Berlioz is stupendously dramatic, stupendously theatrical, in nearly everything he wrote. Just look at the Symphonie Fantastique, his most performed and most recorded piece. It's laid out as a more or less standard orchestral symphony, but it also unfolds as the drug-addled dream of a Romantic artist. (Yes, literally drug-addled: Berlioz said so himself, specifying that the artist had been smoking opium, the drug of choice of nineteenth-century Romantics.) This artist -- who easily might be Berlioz himself -- loves a woman who's less than reliable. He thinks he kills her, and in his dream he's guillotined for his crime. He thinks he sees her dancing at a demonic orgy. None of this unfurls in story fashion, one detail at a time. Instead it's presented as a series of tableaux. But that doesn't make the work any less theatrical or any less vivid. There's even a famous moment of what we might call shock theater, when, at the guillotine, we hear the hero's head fall off.
The Requiem is overwhelming drama, with the last trumpet rendered by four separate brass ensembles, exploding from the four corners of the concert stage -- and spurred on, as if that weren't enough, by no fewer than ten convulsive timpanists. As I listen to the piece again, after not hearing it for decades, what strikes me even more than that last trumpet is the uneasiness before the catastrophe, the sense of fear that creeps into the music, as if the world had fallen into doubt and shadow just before the end. And then there's every moment of the love scene in Romeo et Juliette, where, purely by means of the orchestra, Berlioz depicts an intimate encounter as searing and detailed as anything in opera. He seems to render every sigh and every kiss, every doubt and every hesitation, every shudder in the nighttime air.
Are Berlioz's orchestral works and oratorios more operatic than his operas? As the Met readies a new staging of La Damnation de Faust for a November 7 opening, GREG SANDOW examines the question.
If you didn't know Hector Berlioz's operas but did know his leading non-operatic works -- the Symphonie Fantastique, of course, or the gigantic Romeéo et Juliette symphony, or the even more gigantic Requiem, or La Damnation de Faust, the oratorio that just cries out to be staged -- you'd expect the operas to be stupendous. I know I would. I know I'd expect it just from knowing La Damnation, which -- with one scene sweeping by, and then another, all of them gripping -- could hardly be more dramatic. Very few operas can equal it.
éééééSandra Piques Eddy (Béatrice) and Joseph Kaiser (Bénédict) in Nicola Raab's 2007 staging of Beatrice et Bénédict at Chicago Opera Theater
And in fact Berlioz is stupendously dramatic, stupendously theatrical, in nearly everything he wrote. Just look at the Symphonie Fantastique, his most performed and most recorded piece. It's laid out as a more or less standard orchestral symphony, but it also unfolds as the drug-addled dream of a Romantic artist. (Yes, literally drug-addled: Berlioz said so himself, specifying that the artist had been smoking opium, the drug of choice of nineteenth-century Romantics.) This artist -- who easily might be Berlioz himself -- loves a woman who's less than reliable. He thinks he kills her, and in his dream he's guillotined for his crime. He thinks he sees her dancing at a demonic orgy. None of this unfurls in story fashion, one detail at a time. Instead it's presented as a series of tableaux. But that doesn't make the work any less theatrical or any less vivid. There's even a famous moment of what we might call shock theater, when, at the guillotine, we hear the hero's head fall off.
The Requiem is overwhelming drama, with the last trumpet rendered by four separate brass ensembles, exploding from the four corners of the concert stage -- and spurred on, as if that weren't enough, by no fewer than ten convulsive timpanists. As I listen to the piece again, after not hearing it for decades, what strikes me even more than that last trumpet is the uneasiness before the catastrophe, the sense of fear that creeps into the music, as if the world had fallen into doubt and shadow just before the end. And then there's every moment of the love scene in Romeo et Juliette, where, purely by means of the orchestra, Berlioz depicts an intimate encounter as searing and detailed as anything in opera
He seems to render every sigh and every kiss, every doubt and every hesitation, every shudder in the nighttime air.
Marcellllo Giordani (Cellini), Isabel Bayrakdarian (Teresa) and Kristine Jepson (Ascanio) in the 2003 Net premiere of Benvenuto Cellini, staged by Andrei Serban,
How, then, can his operas be so dicey? He wrote three of them, and two -- Bétrice et Bénédict and Benvenuto Cellini --mostly don't work. While the third, Les Troyens, is one of the masterworks of the repertoire (even if it's too long and demanding to be produced very often), it succeeds because of traits that really aren't operatic. So what's the problem? Why aren't Berlioz's operas more successful? We can start to find an answer by looking hard at Romeo et Juliette, which on one hand is a symphony -- the love scene is its slow movement -- and on the other is a drama, telling Shakespeare's story (though not without some nineteenth-century adaptations, inconceivable in our time but standard then). So there's a chorus and three vocal soloists -- a tenor and contralto to introduce the story and a bass to sing Friar Laurence during a long finale, in which he makes peace between the Capulets and Montagues.
What's astounding here is the way the drama is constructed. It's just about the opposite of opera. The vocal music largely deals with plot details and other outside circumstances, while the emotional moments -- such as the love scene, or the deaths of Roméo and Juliette -- happen only in the orchestra. From an operatic point of view, that's backwards, which is not to say it doesn't work. The orchestra, we might decide, says everything that might be too powerful for words. But what's problematic in Roméo et Juliette is the finale, which might have crowned the piece, as the vocal finale does in Beethoven's Ninth. Instead, it's an anticlimax. We hear far too much from poor Friar Laurence, and the peace between the Capulets and Montagues just isn't gripping, or certainly it isn't compared to the doomed love of Roméo and Juliette. So Berlioz ends what's otherwise a masterwork with fifteen minutes of, quite frankly, boredom, and that shows us something else that causes problems in his operas: Berlioz doesn't always know which parts of the drama he should emphasize. Which brings us to the operas. We might start with Béatrice et Bénédict, another Shakespeare adaptation, and one that should be very promising, since it's taken from a brainy comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, a play that's full of zest and verbal zingers -- just the text, one might conclude, for a brainy, unconventional composer.
Sandow, Greg. "Opéra Fantastique." Oct. 2008. Academic Search Premier. 15 Nov. 2008
I grew up in Missouri, and as a high school student was very dedicated to my music. My
musical life was mostly about performing. But the longer I explored music, the more I longed to create something musical that was all my
own. And this inner yearning led to some very primitive experiments in music composition.
Fortunately, for me, I had a music teacher who recognized my struggles and interest
in composition. Not because there was a formal composition class at my school, but
because–in a happenstance conversation standing in the music hallway–I hesitantly
admitted that I had written a few things to my band director. My fears that my teacher would somehow laugh at this revelation
were of course unfounded. To the contrary it opened up a new conduit for musical learning that truthfully I don’t think either
of us expected. And while my composition aspirations never formalized into any type of
serious professional endeavor, I know I am a much stronger musician for having dabbled in
this creative writing process.
As I think back on that experience, I realize my interest did not require an arduous time
commitment on the part of my teacher. Yes, he did go ‘above and beyond’ when he programmed a percussion ensemble that I co-authored with a fellow student on a band
concert. But it was mostly about checking in on my projects every once-in-a-while; I was simply excited that someone cared,
and knowing Mr. Baldwin would eventually spend a few minutes looking over my latest
compositional or arranging experiment was all the fuel I needed to keep going. I keep my ‘outside the band rehearsal’ work with Mr. Baldwin in the back of my mind each fall when I stand in front of our school’s Wind Ensemble and spend just a few minutes of the rehearsal introducing and explaining the IMEA All-State Composition Contest. Why? Because I am confident that this short mention of the topic is going to bring a new
composer or two out of the woodwork. It never fails. Last year, on the day I talked about the
contest in front of my performance students, I had several emails with attached composition files in my in-box before I could even leave
for home and dinner. Students, who had been composing over the summer (unbeknownst to
me) had rushed home and sent me a few files in hopes I would share a reaction.
The bottom line is that we can–as teachers in this arena–support and encourage the creative composition process in our band, choir and
orchestra students. At the very least, please take a few moments as the school year begins to announce the composition contest in your
performance classes, and explain to students the ten different categories and how they may submit their music. You may be surprised
when the seventh chair clarinet player knocks on your office door the next day and hands you a CD of several compositions he/she has been working on at home in complete isolation. There are student composers in your classroom–Seize the Opportunity and Just Ask!
Sibelius Music to Sponsor
All-State Composition Contest
I extremely pleased to announce to announce that Sibelius Music, USA will again sponsor the Secondary General Music All-State Music Composition Contest. For the 2008
contest, our high school music students and their teachers may look forward to the following
prizes:
• First place winners in each of the ten
Composition Contest categories will
each receive a copy of the most recent
Sibelius composition software.
• Sibelius Music will award a 5-pack of
Sibelius software to each school that
sponsors a first-place student. This offer
will be limited to one 5-pack per school
in any given year.
I am certain you will agree that this partnership offers an incredible incentive to our students
to enter their compositions in our IMEA sponsored contest! Furthermore, I am equally
pleased that Sibelius has offered to reward the teachers in Illinois who serve as the mentors for these aspiring composers.
Preliminary Planning for
an Exciting All-State
When you do anything two years in a row, it becomes a “tradition,” right? (Just ask your students.) To that end, we are pleased to announce that, for the third year in a row, we will hold the All-State Composers Showcase Concert on Thursday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. in the Civic
Center Theatre. I am sure you will enjoy the 2009 Guest Artists and Co-Moderator, Mr. Sam Stryke of Chicago, IL. Mr. Stryke, and a small
combo of professional musicians, will perform on this program and offer perspectives on composition from the view of an accomplished
commercial composer. Wishing you a terrific fall as a new year begins!
Brayer Teague Fine Arts Department Chairperson Downers Grove North High School
4436 Main Street
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Phone: 630-795-8081
FAX: 630-795-8090
bteague@csd99.org
Seize the Opportunity to Find Your Student Composers
For online information about the
All-State Composition and
Improvisation Contest see the
Secondary General Music link on
http://ilmea.org/division.shtml
Bibliography
Teague, Brayer. "Seize the opportunity to find you student composers." Fall 2008. Musical Groups and Artists. 15 Nov. 2008
An expectant crowd filled the pews at
London's Dutch Church, Austin Friars
last June, admiring the clean, uncluttered interior, and eagerly anticipating an evening of Bach and three new pieces for organ and electronics Welcoming the sold-out audience (and the implied vindication of her uncompromising programming) was a beaming Diana Burrell, artistic director of the Spitalficlds Festival, under whose auspices the recital by James O'Donnell and the three young organists assigned to the premieres, was given. 1 joined the throng, and two hours later, we filed out again into
the fading early evening light of London's banking district, noisily discussing the journeys we'd just
madeinto the heads of the featured composers.
Among them was Burrell herself; though she doesn't think it right to overburden the Festival with her own music,'Lauds' is part of an ongoing
large-scale composition called Horae Canonicae ('The Canonical Hours'). Horae Canonicaeh a series of poems by W.H. Auden written between 1949 and
1955. The title is a reference to the canonical hours of the Christian Church, as are the titles of the seven poems constituting the series: 'PrimeVTerce',
'Sext", 'Nones','Vespers' 'Compline' and 'Lauds' each referring to a fixed time of the day for prayer As well as reflecting this ancient Catholic ritual,
BurrelJ's plan for her musical work proposes a programmatic strand dealing with issues surrounding contemporary society.
In a series of pieces, the project connects the organ with various ensembles, including percussion,
cello, keyboards and electronics. As part of this series, 'Terce', for organ and accordion, was premiered at the festival in 2005, linking the Dutch Church and its organist David Titterington with theRoyal Academy of Music, where Titterington is Head of Organ Studies and Burrell holds an Arts 8c Humanities Research Council Fellowship.
'Developing a repertoire for organ and mixed ensemble is an idea that's been in my mind for years,' says Burrell. 'But until now, 1 haven't been in a position to do anything about it.
New music ensembles can include all sorts of exotic things these days - Hardanger fiddles, 12-string electric guitars, laptops and accordions, as well as conventional instruments. But rarely an organ. And yet this instrument has technical possibilities and singular colours of sound that most composers have barely begun to explore.'
Burrell is no stranger to writing for the organ - or choirs, for that matter: in the 1950s her father was deputy organist ofthe cathedral in Norwich, where
Burrell grew up. Though steeped in the sounds of Anglican choral and organ music, her instinct has always been to break new ground with its forms.
Her first magnum opus, the Missa Sánete Endeliente 11980) was written for the St Endellion Festival at the instigation of her one-time fellow student at Cambridge, conductor Richard Hickox. The involvement
of amateur performers meant that it could be scored without constraint of resources - in this case
five soloists, double choir and a huge orchestra. It incorporated Cornish and Latin texts, and a wide range of compositional techniques fi-om micro tonality to modality. A BBC radio producer's belief in the piece led to a high-profile broadcast of the London premiere at the 1983 Spitalñelds Festival, and Burrell's work as a composer was launched. Among many milestones in Burrell's career has
been Landscape ( 1988), described as 'depicting both surprising, therefore, to discover that one of her key musical encounters, as a teenager, was with Nielsen's First Symphony: its unusual scoring was a revelation to a young mind schooled to believe that harmonically and texturally Brahms was the ne plus ultra Burreil's subsequent path to full-time composing mirrored something of the life of Nielsen, who
earned his living in the Copenhagen opera orchestra as a bedrock for his composing.
Burrell never belonged to a school of composition either; she had no specific guru or mentor, and spent years working as a freelance viola player and teacher.
She emerged from her accumulated experiences as a mature musician with a distinctive style - whatever anyone thought ofher music, she was always going to be spared going through the enfant terrible stage. In a revealing interview ten years ago Burrell
explained,'I try to find a language which doesn't disregard everything which has happened in the 20th century, that does acknowledge Stravinsky and
Schoenberg, Boulez and all these others, while being simple enough to work for the concert hall, or
church, or for young people - the wider community in some way. [A language] which acknowledges that this is where we are - we can't go back. You can't
unpick the 20th century.' Burreil's catalogue of over 80 compositions, many of them commissions, shows that her distinctive voice has found many admirers.
With a solid body of work behind her, a festival to run, and teaching at the RAM, how does she see the future? 'I feel rejuvenated!'
she declares. 'About five years ago 1 started to feel secure enough to turn things down. I now feel
freer about what I'm doing. I still want to play with form, and not be so "well-behaved"; I can afford to
think, "WTiat the hell, 1 don't care what people think about my music," so it's an exciting time. I can set my own agenda, and with so much music under my belt
I don't need to add to it unless it's work that I really want to do. For example, I honestly feel that I've said as much as I can say in the field of church music:
Herbert Howells returned again and again to writing canticles, but I couldn't do that.' When Burrell talks about 'form' it's clear that she will not be standing still. Recalling the way she preplanned
the structure of the Missa Sánete Endeliente, Burrell says,'Now it's the complete opposite-there's no structure. What links all my music now is that it's
unfinished until the end, if you see what I mean. In Piece fio.82, for example, I finished it, then thought about adding a body of percussion to it. I view the
process as being like a sculptor: with sculpture I love the rough edges you can touch. I never start at bar one and go through to the end; I'm excited by
sounds, chords, all sorts of external stimuli, so I may
end up working with ideas on various bits of paper. Eventually it's ail brought together in the music' Burrel] admits that inheriting the artistic directorship
of the Spitalfields Festival from Jonathan Dove made her feel 'like a kid in a sweet shop'. Blessed with strong administrative back-up, she has been able to concentrate her energies on luring the audience further up the path towards the more challenging end of new music. So far, the results of her calculated risk-taking are encouraging, and Burrell's radical ideas don't just extend to the music programming: 'I inherited a view that it's nice to do suitable things in suitable venues. I rather like the idea of going against that: Grand Union in Christ Church, a chamber choir in Village Underground- If people say, "I never thought of doing that there," I'm pleased.' When considering new talent to showcase in the festival, Burrell's work with composition students at the Royal Academy of Music keeps her aucourant. I take two seminars a term with the MMus students and I provide guidance and advice on what they're doing. It's a refreshingly two-way process: you see where the focus of their ideas is, and they're much less precious than in my generation, I'm a "traditional modernist"; they're much freer, and they now arrive with a broader range of prior musical experiences.
Kay, Graeme. "Making Waves." Sept. 2008. 15 Nov. 2008
Was it her contribution towards music that made her the person that she is today, and how as musicians can we eventually be in the position that she’s in right now? This article seems to omit the fact that it takes time, and learning to become a great musician. No, this article doesn’t have to be Mrs Burrell’s biography, but there should be at least some background information about this person that has done so much.
It is easy to explain pragmatic aspects of composition work but the process itself is an elusive one. Studies into the composition process per se have tended toward a consideration of stages of composition. One of the earliest studies by Graham Wallas (1926) defined four stages: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification. These have been influential in shaping academics’ views, such as those of Webster,
whose complex ‘Model of Creative Thinking Process in Music’ (2003) attempted to represent the whole process surrounding the composition itself. He suggests that four stages are Preparation, Time Away, Working Through and Verification.
Research has been carried out into composing in schools but often with a focus on composition products in the form of recordings and scores (Sloboda, 1985; Swanwick, 1988). One of the earliest investigations into the process of composition using computers was by Bamberger (1977) who researched the decision-making processes in melody writing using a computer-based composition system with untrained student participants. Their ability to think in terms of the sound was apparently shown through the various ways that they moved and ordered prerecorded blocks of melody. Folkestad suggested that the implementation of music technology influenced the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of music composition (1998, p. 84).
Our analysis of student composition work is grounded in two distinct theoretical frameworks that we believe combine to enhance our understanding of students’
interactions with the process of composition. The first is drawn from multimodality theories related to the changing nature of understanding and meaning-making within an era of expanding forms of design and production, largely brought about
by technological change and development (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001).2 The second is taken from literature on affordances (Gibson,1979: Norman, 1988, 1993; Pea, 1993; Trouche, 2003) which suggests thatconsideration must be given to both the individual’s understanding and the objective properties of any focus of human perception. By focusing on these two frameworks
we expand our understanding of the changing music composition landscape broughtabout by the use of differing composition software packages and the impact that this
has on the composition process.
We begin with a brief review of the theories of affordances and multimodality. We then present our methods of working, including a short description of the SDIs of
four music teachers developed over the course of the project. We then draw on data from the InterActive Education Project to illustrate the affordances of composing with music software and to exemplify our emerging conception of the importance of multimodal aspects of the software on the students’ working processes. We conclude
with an agenda for future research that develops further insight into multimodal aspects of musical composition using technology. 416 M. Gall and N. Breeze Affordances
The notion of affordances is generally considered as having originated from the work of Gibson (1979). This centres upon the ‘perceived and actual’ (Pea, 1993, p. 51) properties or affordances of objects, places and living beings. Gibson believes the role of perception to be central; the possibilities of what can be done with something, or someone, are unique to each individual and their situation: The medium, substances, surfaces, objects, places and other animals have affordances for a given animal. They offer benefit or injury, life or death … the human animal can alter the affordances of the environment but is still the creature of his or her situation. (Gibson, 1979, p. 143)
Norman (1988) notes that in our present day technologically driven society, many objects do not have accessibility at the core of their design, thereby restricting
perceptions of their possibilities. He notes that affordances provide strong pointers to the way things operate, suggesting ‘Affordances provide strong clues to the operation of things …’ (p. 9) and that simple things should not require further
explanation; their intended purpose should be strongly signalled in their design. Furthermore, he stresses the importance, to would-be designers, of an understanding of the psychology of people as well as of how things work (p. 12). The characteristics of affordances and constraints can be applied to items of equipment such as mixing desks (p. 93), where the grouping and mapping of controls can be
problematic; switches are often positioned for purposes of design rather than for intuitive use by the human operator.
Importantly for the theory of affordances, he believes that our interpretation of things is based on our past knowledge and experience of our perception of those things. Another key assertion is that technology can present a series of trade-offs where assets are offset by deficits (Norman, 1993, p. 112) or, in other words, technological gain is often balanced against possible unforeseen problems in its use.
Trouche (2003, p. 2) describes how deeply tools can impact on human activity. He explains how tools can have important effects on learning and notes that ‘tools shape the environment’. He goes on to make a distinction between tool and instrument and quotes Verillon and Rabardel (1995, p. 80) who posit the claim that an instrument does not exist in itself, but exists when a person has been able to appropriate a tool for him/herself and it has become integrated into his/her activity. He suggests that the process can go through various stages, including a ‘transformation’ of the tool, sometimes in directions unplanned by the designer. Kress et al. (2001, p. 2) add that the individual will shape and re-shape the resources they have available in order to enable their representations’ to match their intentions. In consideration of the above in relation to the classroom context, Pea (1993)
notes that a teacher will experience a good deal of variation in the ways in which a learner will adopt a tool to achieve a given task, dependent upon their previous experience and how they view the possibilities that the tool presents towards
achieving their aims. Therefore, ‘culture and context’ have key roles to play. Music composition lessons 417 Multimodality and music Theories of multimodality have become increasingly prevalent in contemporary society. Modes of communication, encountered in everyday life, are richer for young
people today perhaps than ever before; these include speaking and writing, gestures, sounds and images, perceived through the senses simultaneously. Multimodality embraces the view that ‘… common semiotic principles operate in and across different modes…’ (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001, p. 2). Whole meanings are
constructed through these various modes and are interpreted in relation to past histories, cultures, previous personal experiences and the individual’s sense of identity, resonating, in many ways, with Norman’s description of affordance
Recent new technologies have inevitably raised questions about the nature of the interactions that people have with them, owing to their multimodal features. In the 1990s, technological change related to the mass media and electronic hypermedia, led researchers in the field of literacy to consider other representational modes in their studies of communication and meaning-making. In Reading images: the grammar of visual design Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) suggested the need for new conceptions of communicative practice and new grammars to describe communicative modes other than language. In this work, the authors discussed the widening semiotic landscape particularly in relation to what they perceived as the increasing dominance of visual
media, but made no mention of the aural dimension of multimedia design. Cope and Kalantzis (2000, p. 211) suggest ‘audio’ as one dimension across five modes of meaning within multimodal text, the others being linguistic, visual, gestural and spatial. Jewitt also recognises the importance of the aural dimension within computer-mediated learning in school English (Jewitt, 2002, 2003) but these studies avoid detailed discussion of music semiotics. Kress (2000, p. 157) notes that ignoring aspects of all the representational and communicational modes in particular
cultures can lead to developing only partial theoretical understandings. Cope and Kalantzis (2000) suggest that modes can ‘work together’ and that there can be a process of ‘transduction or transcoding between modes’ which Kress (2000) terms
‘synaesthesia’. A number of researchers have acknowledged the difficulties of exploring the dimensions of sound within multimodal work. Ong (1982) describes the ephemeral nature of sound: taking the temporal properties away from music leaves the listener with nothing, unlike moving visual media where one can view a still frame. Nevertheless, there has been recognition of the importance of sound and music. Also comparing sound to visual images within a multimodal text, van Leeuwen (1999) describes the difficulty of ignoring sound because sound is harder to shut out. His exploration of music semiotics in Speech, music, sound (1999) provides a more detailed perspective on music largely outside the domain of multimodal texts.
He builds on the work of Murray Schafer in his division of sound into three parts—the ‘Figure’, ‘Ground’ and ‘Field’—which relate to the idea of a foreground, a midground and a background in music (1999, p. 15); depending on the ‘hierarchy’of these, the listener attends more closely to some than others. This hierarchy
provides the listener with an audio ‘perspective’. For example, in traditional jazz, the 418 M. Gall and N. Breeze. trumpet or cornet generally plays the melody therefore is the ‘Figure’ (known, in jazz, as part of the ‘front line’) and the bass plays a background part, i.e. the ‘Field’. The use of technology—recording sounds then mixing—allows the designer to make
sophisticated changes in relation to this perspective. It can subvert this acoustic ordering of sounds so that sounds formerly classified as the ‘Field’ could become the
‘Figure’. In Multimodal discourse: the modes and media of contemporary communication Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2001) sketch of a multimodal theory of communication based on an analysis of the specificities and common traits of semiotic modes is important in considering the semiotics of music in the 21st century. Their work also includes discussion of the importance of ‘provenance’ (‘where signs come from’: p. 10) describing how designs can include signs that originate in other contexts; by including these within the new work, we bring to it associations from the ‘other’ context. They also suggest that gesture is an important aspect of multimodality (p. 54). More recently, Kress (2003, p. 5) has suggested that new media has the
ability to offer users interactivity through the potentials of the different modes of communication and representation. This interactivity can be both interpersonal (responding to a ‘text’) and through the medium of ‘hypertextuality’ (where a new relationship is formed between the user and the various ‘texts’). In this brief exploration of the literature we have attempted to show that no
previous work on music semiotics has focused on technological tools for the production of music or has suggested sound as an important part of the semiotic landscape of multimedia design, studying this from the perspective of music
composition. Through work on the InterActive Education Project, we have seen that a number of the aspects of multimodal design discussed by researchers focusing on literacy and visual texts can be applied to work with music computer software.
We have further recognised that multimodal aspects are significant contributors to the affordances of composition with music software.
Methods We now turn to a discussion of the empirical work carried out as part of the
InterActive Education Project. The overall aims of this project were to understand more about the relationship between ICT and learning and to find ways of using
ICT in education to make teaching and learning more effective. Work in English, geography, history, mathematics, modern foreign languages, music and science was
carried out with 56 teachers from 10 institutions: 4 primary schools, 5 secondary schools and 1 tertiary college. The research design included five strands each of which looked at ICT in relation to a specific aspect: (i) teaching and learning (see Sutherland et al., 2004), (ii) policy and management (see Dale et al., 2004), (iii) subject cultures, (iv) professional development (see Triggs & John, 2004), and (v) learners’ out-of-school uses of technology (see Kent & Facer, 2004). Music work discussed in this paper derives from strand (i), teaching and learning. Each music teacher developed a Subject Design Initiative (SDI) that focused on
embedding ICT into an area of the curriculum; each SDI was a unit of work typically Music composition lessons 419.spanning half a term. Its design was informed by theory, research-based evidence, teacher’s craft knowledge and feedback from members of the subject design team. A key aspect of this work was the iterative process that consisted of initial exploration, pilot design, the pilot itself, reflection using the video data by teachers and researchers, modification of the SDI followed by the production and teaching of the
final design, to the same year group, a year later. This paper draws upon data from three SDIs:Subject Design Initiative 1 (School 1)—composing in ternary form with Dance eJay Pupils aged 10 and 11 were asked to work in pairs to compose a piece of music with the structure Introduction, A, B, A (with further specifications given for the A and B sections). They worked within the computer lab over a series of seven weeks using
Dance eJay software. This software allows the user to organise pre-recorded musical samples—all of which fit together harmonically—using the computer keyboard and
mouse. Pupils were also asked to add their own vocal melodies/sounds to their piece. Two staff developed the SDI together but taught different classes within the same
year group.
Subject Design Initiative 2 (School 2)—composing to a visual stimulus with Cubasis This SDI was created for students aged 12 to 13. They developed compositions inspired by art in the manner of a piece by Mussorgsky, written in 1874 called
‘Pictures at an Exhibition’, which includes sections intended to represent different pictures on show in a gallery. Using Cubasis software, they composed their own sections to given visual stimuli, created within specific musical parameters. Their
ideas were input from the MIDI music keyboard; they then selected voices and organised the sounds on the main Arrange page through moving/copying and pasting sections of music. Work took place in the music room. Since there were
insufficient computers for the class to work in pairs, some students worked on the same SDI but with acoustic instruments and keyboards.
Subject Design Initiative 3 (School 3)—composing music to an adventure film with Cubase VST This SDI was designed for students aged 13 to 14 who all worked in pairs at computers, the department having recently been equipped with a music computer suite. Students used Cubase VST to underscore a piece of film by arranging musical
phrases provided for them by the teacher in the form of a template. Scenes included a rocket taking off and a trapped person being rescued from a building overwhelmed
by fire. Data was collected in the form of digital video of classroom interactions, students’ composition products as well as transcriptions of interviews with both learners and
teachers. In each school, six students were the focus of the research: two ‘low-attaining’, two ‘average’ and two ‘high-attaining’ with a balance of ethnicity and gender. In some 420 M. Gall and N. Breeze schools there were mixed- and in others same-ability pairs, depending on the work set.Classes within SDIs 1 and 2 were using the software for the first time.The process was complicated and, like the development of the SDIs, was iterative in that we fully developed our method of collecting sound and pictures over the period of the first year, modifying and re-modifying approaches.
There were two main difficulties. The first was to be able to capture the process as shown on the computer screen, whilst also capturing the ways in which the student(s) used the musical keyboard—and to ensure that these were synchronised. The second was to
capture the sound from the computer as well as the sound of the students talking. Our final method involved using two cameras for each pair of students; one focused on the screen, the other on the music/computer keyboard. A wide-angled shot was taken with another camera, which captured the whole-class activity, such as teacher introductions and plenaries. A mixer was used to capture the sound from the students’ individual microphones as well as the sound from the computer or keyboard, since the students often wore headphones. Video footage was viewed along with the musical products that were saved in files. We also used a screen-save program or discretely named multiple-saves to capture the process of the work. Discussion
In the following section, we discuss our observations in relation to identified key issues arising from our theoretical perspectives.
The interfaces A screen shot of students’ work using Dance eJay is shown in Figure 1. Much ‘intelligence’ is apparently encoded in this interface and that of Cubasis (seeFigure 2), as it was observed in our study that many details did not need explaining to the students. In fact, the teachers did not provide the pupils with specific information about how to operate the software, but from the start, pupils were able
to work with it, competently handling the features. Occasionally pupils could not make sense of an aspect of the interface, for example in SDI 2 (See Figure 2), where the meaning of the Left and Right locators on the Transport Bar in Cubasis was unclear and the teacher needed to explain that the Left locator indicated where the recording would start and showed how it could be set. This concurs well with the views of Norman (1988) when he states that successful design should make the purpose of a thing, and how it should be operated, as transparent as possible.
In general however pupils could make sense of the Dance eJay and Cubasis interfaces owing to their use of contemporary ‘signage’. Some
examples of this are: the VCR-style transport controls that are visible in the lower part of both screens; the volume mixer-style slider at the lower right of the eJay screen; the Sample Selection Window (eJay, lower centre) shows the available
samples in the chosen Sound Group; the Play Window in eJay shows the Music composition lessons 421 arrangement of chosen samples; icons at the top of the screen in Cubasis allow the user to access many functions easily; both interfaces feature the now common format of time represented horizontally and texture vertically. If it is not known what the icon represents, fly-out text displays its purpose when the cursor is held over the object. As Norman (1988) notes, it is the past experience of things that helps shape their possibilities to the user, and the use of commonly understood symbols, as described above, allows users to apply their prior experiences of similarly fashioned icons to the current task. For example, they know, from using CD players, that by turning the volume slider upwards, the music will get louder. Also the ‘Play’, ‘Fast Forward’ and ‘Rewind’ icons are common to audio-visual technology. Consider this transcript from SDI 1:As can be seen in the screen shots of Dance eJay and Cubasis (Figures 1 and 2), the spatial arrangement of the parts and samples on the screen is clearly the focus of the work and its multimodal representation as rectangular blocks with names allows the students to use it as a basis to discuss and develop shared meanings regarding the structure of the emerging pieces.
The rectangular blocks not only represent the sections of music, but in SDI 1, during a plenary session, colour was used to help describe the structure and texture of the music: Teacher: Can you tell me about the theme A. Can someone describe to me the ‘catchy’ bit? Teacher: Can you tell me … listen [lots of quiet chatter] … shh … tell me what sound you hear that’s the tune?
[A pupil then sings the melody and the teacher indicates that the first pupil was right: the part he had seen was the ‘melody’] In another example from the same SDI, a pupil who was classified as ‘lowerattaining’ by his teacher had prepared the introduction, section A and section B of his piece. He sang along as the music progressed, then stopped singing and chanted
in time, as if conducting others. He could see the visual make-up of the ‘B’ section and was able to anticipate the start of it: One, two, three, four. Enter (three bars rest) B,e,e,e, NOW! One of proposed outcomes was that the students would understand the structure of the piece, and the visual representation afforded by Dance eJay helped the pupils achieve this. Furthermore, the above pupil, in his pre-work interview, had expressed a strong dislike for singing in school (largely because of the style and subject matter of the pieces) and here was observed solo singing a somewhat complicated pattern, Music composition lessons 423 with no concern for the many observers who heard him; testament to the motivating nature of the contemporary sounds and rhythms of the software, discussed in more
detail below. Whilst students working on SDIs 2 and 3 commonly chose to work with similar visual support as in Dance eJay (i.e. with blocks of colour representing sound), this
Arrange page is only one of the possible representations of the music within Cubasis and Cubase VST. In SDI 3, a student classified as ‘high-attaining’ by his teacher,
wishing to edit his entered music, decided to use the Score Editor (see Figure 3). This allowed him to work in a representational form that was familiar to him (stave notation), through the piano lessons he took outside of school. An additional
multimodal aspect of the software is demonstrated here: its ability to represent the same musical MIDI information in different ways. Here, the notes can be edited using various techniques. Since the action of double-clicking the relevant part opens this editor, the student was able to move frequently and quickly between the Arrange page and this editor. The work of this student is an example of the ‘instrumentalization’ process suggested by Trouche
(2003).
Here, the teacher had organised the work to be carried out within the
Arrange page and the students were not aware that within this work, the music could also be seen as a score; the student’s partner happened on the score page by chance and the boy then decided to work with this as well, thus changing the use of the computer and the working process as conceived by the teacher. Another explanation Figure 3. The Score Editor in Cubasis 424 M. Gall and N. Breeze could be provided by Kress’s notion of ‘hypertextuality’ (2003); the visual depiction of the music through parts allows the students to understand, through interaction, the structure of the music. A further example of Trouche’s ‘transformation’ within ‘instrumentalization’ was evident in the work of two boys in SDI 2 who disregarded the computer click track,
invariably used as a useful tool for keeping in time, and played in their music in free time. It seems that they used this unusual approach because they realised that they did not actually have the skills to play in time with the click track.The clear layout of the software led one boy in SDI 1 to note: Sometimes you have to like plan out what you’re gonna do but with this it’s just kind of, I want to get straight into there because I’ve got an idea and I don’t want to lose it, so you’ve got a kind of brain wave …This would appear to indicate that the transparent interface and the lack of need to develop complex technological skills allowed the pupil to compose quickly before creative ideas were lost. Saving and reviewing compositions The ability to save the work is another important affordance of the software. In more
‘traditional composition’ (where groups of students, use instruments and/or voices to create music in real time) there is always the risk of forgetting what has been composed in previous lessons, unless the work is notated on paper or recorded;
much detail of the composition can be lost in this way when students do not have appropriate notation skills or where recording is not practicable in the classroom. When asked how the computer had helped the composition, a boy working on SDI 2
replied:Helped us to remember what we did last week, ’cos otherwise we wouldn’t have remembered and so our piece was longer than most other people’s that were just doing
it at the keyboard by itself.
Whilst a longer piece of music might not necessarily be a good piece, in this SDI, there was an opportunity for students to develop a number of different sections to their piece and this pair had been able to extend their designs further than those not
working on computers. A notable advantage afforded by saving work on networked PCs in SDI 1 was the
ability of pairs to listen to other groups’ work. Pupils were able to compare their work with others, but in a much more focused manner than through audio means alone, as they also had the computer screen to see as well as hear what others had done. This transcript, from SDI 1, shows two students at their own PC accessing the work of their neighbours to the right (named F and G), by opening their file. Focus for collaboration A key feature observed was the use of the computer screen as a focus for
collaboration. As Olivero (2002) notes, such a dynamic environment facilitates the interaction between students’ internal contexts and the construction of shared knowledge. The following transcript is from SDI 2, where two students are looking
at the computer screen while ‘A’ moves the parts around with the mouse: H: Move it back to the start a minute … here it is … oh no … stop going up with it …stop … look, that is from there … play a minute … see what it sounds like. [Music plays] It’s from there … see … you move that one, that one and then put the church organ over …I: Move them all separately, that’s what you’ve got to do … that’s the next bit, isn’t it?
Here, by focusing on the screen the pupils make sense of their otherwise seemingly incomprehensible dialogue, the students’ conversation being necessarily limited to what is essential to add to the action that is being performed on screen, with the
mouse. In such a situation, the student without control of the mouse is nevertheless fully involved in the meaning making process. Meeting the students’ musical expectations. In relation to Dance eJay samples, there is evidence of the balance of the musical components and the positioning of music elements within the sound hierarchy fitting the expectations of this genre of music (dance). Van Leeuwen’s hierarchical ‘three stage plan’ of aural perspective is echoed in the way Dance eJay structures sound in
terms of balance.
His description of how in Drum ‘n’ Bass, the melody is in the background and the accompaniment is in the foreground (the Figure) and ‘The rhythm we can dance on becomes the foreground, the text’ (1999, p. 22) is apposite. Although the balance of the tracks can be altered in Dance eJay, the students in our study found the default balance of the samples generally met their expectations. Where they wanted to make sounds louder, they ‘doubled’ them, by placing more
than one simultaneously sounding sample in the Play window. This was seen clearly in the work of J, a 10-year-old pupil, identified by her
teacher as having learning difficulties. Discussing one passage of music, with her individual support teacher, she commented: because that [pointing to the ‘Waterworld’ sample, which had been placed on three tracks, simultaneously] was so quiet I had to double up on it. 426 M. Gall and N. Breeze From our observations and interviews, a common theme that has emerged is that the technology allows pupils to make music that is culturally relevant to them. In SDI 2, a number of pairs of students on the computers used drum kit sounds within their work; schools rarely own more than one drum kit and therefore, at best, only
one group can use this in ‘traditional composition’ activities. Involvement with musical sounds commonly part of pupils’ out-of-school listening/dance experiences excited those working on SDI 1, some of whom had displayed a lack of interest prior to this work: On the other hand, with the Cubasis programme when students had more control over the details of the composition (as in SDI 2), the process was sometimes
observed to be more problematic for the students: … found it difficult to mix the pieces together ’cos they’re quite different …This accords with Norman’s (1993) notion that
technology can present a series of
‘trade-offs’. Another aspect of ‘trade-off’ was to be found considering teacher observation of the work in progress; in all SDIs, without being able to hear the sound of the music (i.e. because students were using headphones), the content of the student dialogue was unclear. In all such instances, this set up an important
pedagogical dilemma as to the point at which the teacher should intervene: s/he had to ask the students to stop work to hear the sound of the music itself, but this
necessarily interrupted the students’ process of composing and might have inhibited their thoughts since extended pieces of music took some time to be heard. That said,
some of the less confident pupils enjoyed the ‘enclosed’ space for making music and the fact that only their partner generally heard the work in process: …you don’t get stressed over it and if I do something wrong it doesn’t feel bad, because
I’m trying it out. [He goes on to explain that one can erase material very quickly.] Music composition lessons 427 A further ‘trade-off’ was highly significant to the teachers’ planning of SDI 1. They became aware of the need to clarify to pupils, before they started to use the
software, that they had to select the sampled sounds and choose where to place them by making decisions based on listening. In the first trial, the teachers realised that there was a strong tendency for pupils to select sounds as a result of an interest in the name of the sample and the pupils themselves seemed to consider the visual aspect
of the screen in deciding where to place a new sound as well as—or sometimes instead of—deciding on the merits of the actual musical sound or sound combinations. Furthermore, in a number of cases, in their first lessons, pairs appeared to be placing these unheard samples on the screen to fill up the whole
space provided. In a plenary, within lesson 5, of 8, reflecting on the composition process, a girl and a boy presented their thoughts: Other multimodal affordances Multimodal modes other than visual were constantly in play whilst students
were composing using technology. In all SDIs the students moved between the range of modes suggested by Cope and Kalantzis (2000, p. 111). Beginning the
project involved listening to the teacher explaining the composition brief and, in some cases, reading the brief as explained on the student worksheet (linguistic: speaking + linguistic: reading). Students discussed their work (linguistic: speaking) but, unlike composition with acoustic instruments, once part of the piece had been
constructed, this discussion often occurred at the same time as the students listened to the music. Pointing to the screen, with a finger, to indicate the section/music/sample being discussed, was one of a number of actions that were observed within the gestural
mode. Others commonly seen, when students were listening to the music, included using the finger to point at the screen, simultaneously moving it up and down in time to the beat; nodding in agreement with the partner whilst facing them and moving in time to the music and smiling at the partner. The latter two were seen most often in situations when students were using headphones, possibly because they were aware that their voice might not be heard above the sound from the computer. The above transcript includes the timing in seconds and minutes to show the considerable time students spent listening to the music without speaking (the first
here, 16 seconds). Students almost never listened to their music without following the visual design on the screen except when they were speaking or gesturing to their
partner, or designing and playing in a part through the music keyboard. Thus the composition process appeared to rely on a synthesis of visual and aural stimuli, arguably an example of ‘synaesthesia’ (Kress, 2000). Experimentation on the musical keyboard is a mode that hitherto has not been mentioned in multimodal discourse but is crucial to the process of music composition with technology. In SDI 3, when a higher attaining boy was creating
his own ideas, he experimented on the music keyboard, sometimes separately from the computer work and sometimes in sync with it. The boy, a confident keyboard player, relied upon his aural sense when playing in sync with the music from the computer, with his gaze fixed on the keyboard. This was not the case when pupils involved in SDI 1 inputted their own vocal melodies/raps.
They continued using the screen as the focus, despite the fact that there was no musical need for this. It is quite possible that, here, the spatial set-up of the classroom had a bearing on this: the pupils worked within a computer room where the workstations were placed around
the edge of the room, with little space between each. Another changing dimension of music composition using technology is the
possibility of including film on the computer screen at the same time as the music. As used within SDI 3, this allows for a more constructive approach to composing music to fit closely with the visuals. Prior to this, students have either been asked to
note the timings to changing scenes and actions and then to create music to fit within this time line or the teacher has run a film through a projector and the students have
created music as best they could in real time. This technological affordance allows individuals or groups at the computer to take control of own time for composing.
Further reflections.The use of an artefact such as a computer is … a prerequisite for new ways of creating
music … (Folkestad, 1998, p. 83)
Work within the InterActive Education Project has allowed us to begin thinking about two separate but interrelated aspects of music technology for composition: the
Music composition lessons 429
affordances of music technology software and multimodality in relation to thecomputer itself and the processes involved in using it. What is clear is that technology opens up a very different kind of access to the composition process, one which some researchers have referred to as the ‘democratisation’ of music (Folkestad, 1998;Goddard, 1999; Airy & Parr, 2001). Students from all three SDIs were very positive
about what was, to all of them, a new way of working3 and were able to articulate ways in which composing with a computer made the process more egalitarian:
Considering the multimodal aspects inherent in the music software itself, we recognise that further research is required to gain insight into how students work within these different modes. In our studies of work with Cubasis and Cubase VST,
students were only made aware of the Arrange and Score windows. There are three others—the Key, List and Drum editors, which allow for different manipulation of
sounds and which differ visually. Students with more experience of the software are likely to work within a number or all of these windows and, in itself, a study of the
movement between the different interfaces and the implications for the composing process would open up new ground. As part of the process of composing, gesture has always been important in professional group improvisations, for example within jazz, and in student group composition. Our data suggests that the change of visual focus from the group of composers themselves to a computer screen and the use of headphones, which to some extent blocks the student voices, results in new uses of gesture. We hope to analyse further some of our data from the InterActive Education Project, to promote a deeper understanding of this mode in relation to group composition with a computer. There are only a few empirical models of music learning. More data is required on how learners learn in a wider range of contexts in order to support or revise these models. (British Educational Research Association, 2001)According with the above, we see the need for further exploration of multimodal enquiry in the field of music, particularly in relation to music and technology, as
vital, given that music plays such an important role in the lives of the current generation of young people (Tarrant et al., 2001). Recent changes in public music exams in England (Edexcel, 2002; OCR, 2002a) now allow for investigation of multimodal forms including film music and adverts and the exploration of music is
an essential part of Media Studies (Edexcel, 2005; OCR, 2002b) yet we have limited capacity to discuss music, because sound is such an under-explored semiotic terrain.
Furthermore, despite the rise in importance of music video, where creation of the sound precedes still or moving images, multimodal creative projects in schools rarely
begin with the consideration or creation of music 430 M. Gall and N. Breeze… you compose music after, generally … it’s very rare that music comes first… (Ellis & Long, 2004, p. 20)
This was also noted in the work of Matthewman, Blight & Davies (2004), one of the English researchers within our InterActive Education Project; in the context of a
literacy lesson, where students were asked to create a multimedia presentation promoting the school’s English department to be shown at an open evening for Year
6 pupils and their parents, the audio mode was the least well developed.
Alongside research we would support the development of pedagogical practices
within multimodal contexts which raise the status of music as a unique and important mode. Indeed, we emphasise the need for a pedagogical re-alignment
towards the consideration of music as a primary mode of investigation in creative multimodal classroom designs; there should be opportunities to explore music as the
principal initial focus. Acknowledgements
This work is based on the work of the project ‘InterActive Education: Teaching and Learning in the Information Age’.4 This was a four year research and development
project funded from December 2000 until August 2004 by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ref: L139251060) as part of Phase II of the Teaching and
Learning Research Programme (see http://www.tlrp.org). The project is directed by Rosamund Sutherland (University of Bristol) and co-directed by Susan Robertson (University of Bristol) and Peter John (University of Plymouth). We would like to
record our formal thanks to the music teachers who participated in the project: Natalie Butterworth and Jo Heppinstall, Colston’s Primary School, Bristol; Sven Rees, Sir Bernard Lovell School, South Gloucestershire; Paul Taylor and Helena Brazier, Cotham School, Bristol. Notes
Gall, Marina. "Music composition lessons: the multimodal affordances of technology." Nov. 2005. 15 Nov. 2008
Some say “if it’s not broke don’t fix it”, but there are more sufficient ways to do some things. It’s not that technology is hurting music, but it’s according to the student/ artist on how they want to record. It’s nice to state your opinion, but things are going to be done the way that our person want us to do. Yes, some do appreciate the lack of technology and a more real sound in there music. However some songs might seem better if they had a little more technical assistance.
lefante?,” inquires Pasquale from
the sofa. “Cavallo?” “No, tigre!” His 6-year-old daughter swiftly corrects him, peeping around the corner of the piano. Why are an Italian father and daughter discussing animals in my living room? Because Ornella and I are playing our favorite game, “Guess the Animal,” as part of her piano lesson. From her first lesson, I discovered that Ornella and I were both perfectly capable of creative improvisation at the piano. What fun to learn alongside my students! However, improvisation wasn’t always so easy for me. It was a
gradual and rewarding process of
learning and exploration. As a child learning the piano from age 5, I was never encouraged to improvise, a fact that now astounds me because my teacher gave me an otherwise
excellent piano training––technique,
style, history and an imaginative
approach to my pieces. My mother
diligently followed my teacher’s lead,
and whenever she heard me start to
improvise, would poke her head
around the door and say (in her
strictest teacher voice), “I haven’t heard any scales lately.” I was incensed. From an adult perspective, I now know that my mother was simply doing her best to make sure I practiced in the way I was supposed to––and I admit that I wasn’t the most focused student as a child. However, not being permitted to improvise (“play around” as it was called) and being compelled to play only certain scales and pieces in
a prescribed way was inhibiting and
joyless. It is no wonder that I grew to
dislike practicing and began to play
with increasing physical tension over
the years––although I loved music, was a gifted pianist and went on to become a successful professional musician. As a teacher of talented young musicians at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, I was specifically
asked to teach improvisation.
Although initially ill at ease, I was
keen to learn and to accept the assistance of the two improvisation experts who came to class and showed us some easy games and processes to get us started. Making sure to facilitate a positive attitude and offer plenty of encouragement to my class of 8–10-AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER 23 year-old students, I began to improvise at the piano alongside them, at first with embarrassment and then with increasing enthusiasm. As the years went by, I developed my own games and processes to assist my students. It took much longer, however, for me to begin to improvise alone at home for my own pleasure. Beginner Games for Improvisers First duet
The teacher picks a key, then plays a bass line, such as Pachelbel’s Canon, or simple harmonic sequence in that key. The student then plays whole notes in that key until comfortable, then half notes, quarter notes and finally eighth
notes. You can direct the process to
include rests when students become
more confident, and then encourage
the students to start to combine the
different note values to construct a
melody. This is often when they begin to understand the process of composition experientially.
Second duet First, the teacher picks a mode––Dorian (d-d on white notes) or Aeolian (a-a on white notes) are the easiest for pianists. The teacher then plays a drone, a repeated fifth or pattern of parallel fifths. The student experiments as before––then the student and teacher switch roles. Question and Answer The teacher picks a key and plays a two-bar melody (“question”) in a clear 3/4 or 4/4, making sure not to end on the tonic. The student completes the melody (“answer”) by adding another two bars, ending on the tonic (which I call the “home note”). The student and teacher then switch and experiment with different keys (black key pentatonic is fun for beginners), time signatures, rhythmic patterns and moods. The teacher should discuss with the student what worked well. This is one process where students often do not believe that they will be able to do it, but usually with encouragement they do fine. I’m frequently astonished by their ability to copy instinctively elements of the “question” when playing the “answer” and I will sometimes point this out to
them––that they already understand
the basics of how to compose. I also
ask them how it is different if the
“question” ends on the tonic or the
“answer” ends on a different note.
Guess the Animal This is a bit more adventurous––but great fun. The teacher secretly picks an animal and think about its size, shape, color, texture, character, the sounds it
makes and how fast or slowly it moves. Then represent that on the instrument, even if it’s not musically coherent. The student guesses the animal. Then the teacher and student switch, and the teacher encourages the same thought process in the student to help create her animal picture.Music to Picture Take an art book, a calendar, a children’s picture book, a postcard––whatever is at hand, and place it on the music stand to use it as a basis for improvisation. Either give the student free rein or, if he needs encouragement, ask him about the elements. Where is it situated––a tropical island, a lone tree in a barren landscape?
What sort of colors and textures do you see? Is there any movement or sound? Does the picture tell a story?
When does it take place? How do you think the artist was feeling? What sort of feelings do you have, looking at the picture? It could be done as a duet: “How about I play the part of the river, and you can be the boat/palm trees/crocodile?” Don’t over think it. Trust yourself. Be a child again. I used to be concerned about whether we’d be in the same key, but soon realized that most children will either follow aurally or decide that they’d rather be atonal anyway! Some students, however, will react to an unexpected sound as if they’ve made a mistake. Let them know that there’s no way to make a mistake in this process––we’re just having fun, and, hopefully, you are, too. The benefits for students who are able to improvise with confidence and freedom are enormous. They can be
liberated from the tyranny of the written page––the idea that only printed dots are music, and what they make up is lesser in some way. They thereby gain an appreciation of themselves as creative beings, not just as “re-creators” of other people’s music. They begin to gain an understanding of the issues
composers face––to get inside the
composer’s head––and this begins to demystify the composition process. They can focus on a particular aspect of music, for example, melody, rhythm or harmony and explore it to discover
effective patterns and motifs. They can explore different aspects of the instrument: one student loves to improvise using the extreme registers because most of her set pieces employ the middle part of the piano. They can focus more on the quality of the sound they are producing. They can be joyful,
playful and relaxed as they make
music, alone and with others. And of
course, all of this applies to the teacher as well. And then one day it happened: I was sitting at the piano “playing around” and almost before I knew what was happening, I had composed a piece––something I found beautiful, enjoyed playing and that had a cohesive structure and an individual spark. I’m still not sure how it happened. It felt as if it came through me, rather than from me. I know that I probably would never have found my creativevoice if it were not for taking risks and
playing with my students many years
ago. So. I encourage you to experiment and have fun with your instrument and your students––it’s been a wonderful
journey for me!
Kampmeier, Valerie. "Intuitive Improvisation." Dec. 2007. 15 Nov. 2008
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