Recently in Music Category

On Christmas Day my wife, kids, and I watched the 1965 film "Sound of Music". It was a lovely movie and uplifting. I remember it being broadcast on television annually; it was a huge event for me along with the "Wizard of Oz".

I identified with the story on a number of levels. And only this past year did I know why. I was sure that it had parallels to my own life, with the multiple children each with their own "quirks", the nanny trying to get control and manage them, the father who was unaware of what was going on, and the threat of the German's and the fear that came with that.

Ultimately, as many of you know, the father protected his children and the story had a happy ending. I'd like to think my life will have a happy ending. Maybe I'm being too naive and too idealistic. But, who knows, maybe that's exactly how it will turn out!

It's all rather interesting because both of my daughters are playing and singing songs from the musical now. My youngest and I have been playing "My Favorite Things" together with her on violin and me on piano for about a month. My oldest is playing a medley of songs with her school band and chorus.

I took a particular liking to "Edelweiss" because the father, Georg von Trapp, sang that song to his children. It was a delightful scene in which he first became "aware", with the help of Maria, that he had not been paying much attention to them. There was another touching scene towards the end of the movie where he began to sing it to the large audience at the Salzburg music festival, could not get through it, Maria had to help him and then all the audience joined in as a statement of solidarity.

I've changed one word in the lyrics, next to last word, to make the song have meaning to both my inside and outside families:

I have been singing this to my kids and quite like the way it "fits". I recorded this song along with a vocal track and published it here a couple of weeks ago. But I had to take it down because there was a visceral reaction. So, a couple of weeks removed from that experience, I just recorded an ever-so-simple piano track. I wanted to play the song very simply because it's kind of like a lullaby.

I think it's perfectly appropriate to make this song my personal anthem.

I know Christmas is a complicated time for many of us. For some, it's about getting through. For others, it's about enjoying the time. For most, it's a little bit of both. Whatever the case is for you, remember there is a "next week".

I know this song, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", is wishful thinking. Sometimes wishing and pretending for a little while can be okay. We know that our troubles will be with us. But for a time, perhaps, they can be to the side a bit.

Here are the lyrics:

It's interesting that the original version, written in the 40s, had very different lyrics which were dismissed by Judy Garland and ultimately changed. They are:

Use whichever version works for you!

These are the lyrics to a blues song I wrote when my daughter was just a couple years old. I wrote it with my little cousin who we were babysitting for a weekend. Thought people here may enjoy it.

My last post talked about music's role in my life and in my healing, with particular emphasis on Beethoven and his Eroica symphony.

What I want to do here is a bit more provocative and focussed. In that last post, I mentioned Beethoven's Große Fugue. In my opinion, that piece is in a class all by itself and has the power to have an unfathomable impact on those of us who live with complex mental issues, and dissociative disorders in particular.

The fugue was written along with Beethoven's five late quartets from 1825-26 (he died in 1827). I'll give a small musical analysis of this piece only so that readers can see why this piece would mean something to someone who deals with a dissociative disorder.

There are countless works of art and music which grapple with complexity. In the music world, the quartets of Bartók and Schoenberg are in that extreme. Michael Jackson's "This is It" movie reviews are fawning over the glimpses into his musical creativity, but (and I'm showing extreme bias here) can you imagine the disparity if a similar documentary were made showing live footage of Beethoven creating some of his master works?

For me, the Große Fugue is a journey into complexity which mirrors the complexity of my inner workings. If I can manage to actually pay attention to it for its entirety, I find it incredibly soothing and validating (which is probably a bit counter-intuitive). What's amazing is that it is a marriage between the pleasing sonata and abstract musical constructs. There are myriad changing keys, rhythms, and tempi. Musical concepts which stop and start unexpectedly and, some would say, and correctly so, violently. There's an incredible amount of dissonance (notes which sound "unpleasant") and counterpoint which makes sense of distinct melodies, causing notes to work against other notes.

The piece starts out with several broad strokes of clear musical ideas in several fits and starts. Each one of these ideas could be taken by itself and go on its own and present a perfectly pleasing piece. But Beethoven doesn't do that. Instead, he throws all these ideas out there, almost like he's saying "I could do this, or that, or this other." But then he launches into what could be perceived as chaos; a first fugue in B-flat that is nearly impossible to follow. Objectively, most people would hear this and say it's "quite unpleasant". In fact, when it debuted in 1826 as the last movement to the quartet in B-flat, the response was so uncomprehending that Beethoven was forced to change the ending by his publisher and issue the Große Fugue as a standalone work. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Beethoven go that news from his publisher!

Eric Lewis, violinist in the Manhattan String Quartet, described this piece by saying: That piece is beyond all analogy in art, and so I reach for this image; a cosmic storm where the laws of the universe are transmuted in gravitational tides so strong they destroy the known laws of harmony. The G-flat section is a reprise between the two event horizons where time is non-existent. Paradoxical states of consciousness are made understandable and prepare one for the final journey through the A-flat fugue to a vision of a parallel universe in another dimension. I am sure Beethoven took that journey and left his impressions of that universe.

So, I ask: Who knows more about parallel universes than the dissociative?

For those of us who struggle with dissociation or internal parts of our personality that gets in the way of our functioning, we are constantly trying to explain our internal world to ourselves and to others in order to make sense of it and heal. To my ears (and heart and mind), the Große Fugue is Beethoven making sense of my experience. Thank you Herr Beethoven!

For an interesting article, see: Alex Ross' Great Fugue, The New Yorker, Feb. 6, 2006.

For video of this piece, see: Alban Berg Quartet on YouTube, Part I (and also Part II); it's no substitute for a quality audio recording.

Finally, a friend of mine shared with me a TED talk on music which you may find enjoyable. See: Benjamin Zander on Music and Passion; albeit he speaks of a different type of classical music from the one discussed here.

Ludwig van Beethoven is unquestionably the world's most famous composer. And he is so for good reason. He is a "universal" composer, with an unprecedented ability to translate the extreme range of human emotion into musical form that can appeal to the casual listener as well as present huge challenges to even the most savvy musicians. He is extremely original, yet practically anyone can recognize a piece as being written by him. There are some exceptions, most notably the Große Fugue, written only a couple years before his death when he was completely deaf.

I was exposed to Beethoven through my paternal grandfather who owned the complete symphonies on vinyl recorded by Herbert von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic for Deutsche Grammophon. For some reason, probably due to my musical non-sophistication, I was fixated on the most popular 5th symphony, never appreciating any of his others. At the time, back in the 70s, that was pretty much my whole musical world. Nothing much else existed. I would "conduct" to that recording of that one symphony in private, pretending I was signaling to the violin section or the horn section to sing louder or softer or with more expression. This piece gave me strength; strength I did not have in real life.

When I started to play classical piano, I immediately turned to Beethoven. I played many of his easier early student pieces (e.g., minuets and German dances) found in my student compilations, but quickly fell in love with his sonatas even though much was beyond my technical capabilities. They were insanely difficult for me, especially since I was not taught for very long. But I really couldn't stand having a teacher. I wanted to be left alone with the music. It was personal. I wanted to play the real emotional and difficult pieces, figure them out for myself, make them my own, and then feel the emotion as I was playing. Not surprisingly, I started with the first movement to the Moonlight Sonata (no. 14), and then learned the first movements to the Pathetique (no. 8), Appassionata (no. 23), and Funeral March (no. 12).

I focussed on memorizing the notes so I could play without having to think, but rather by purely pouring myself into the music from an emotional place; people say I often bite my lower lip and make contorted facial expressions when I play. Luckily I don't have to see myself! Eventually, I learned some of the other movements from these sonatas, with the only one I truly mastered being the adagio cantabile second movement to the Pathetique, which I believe to be one of the most beautiful melodies ever written for any instrument. When I was young and didn't have words to express what was happening to me, I would play these and other pieces. It was my subconscious way, I believe, of talking—of crying out—even though nobody, even me, understood what I was really trying to say or what was really happening to me.

I discovered Beethoven's Third Symphony (Eroica) when I was a bit older and listened to it incessantly, especially the second "death" movement or funeral fugue. Whenever I needed to feel I would listen to it. Eventually, when I got a job and had money, I started to venture to record stores and discovered that there was more to classical music than what I was exposed to. I started to build a CD collection. There was Mozart, Casals, Pärt, Bach, Brahms, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Faure, Schubert, and Haydn, to name but a few. And there were other periods of music for me. Somehow I was absent from any knowledge of 70s rock. I was into Journey and the anthem bands of the 80s. Then Nirvana and Green Day in the 90s. Classic blues in the late 90s. I amassed hundreds of CDs.

In the 90s, I started going to concerts of all types. And about two or three years ago, with a new iPod and great headphones, I started seriously listening to classical and choral music once again.

I listen a lot to Beethoven's String Quartets, String Trios, and Symphonies nos. 3, 6 (especially the fourth movement), 7, and 9 (especially the last movement). I've returned to choral music (e.g., Mozart's glorious Requiem). I tend not to like light baroque music, but rather intricate, rich, and deep choral without soloists that seems to explore the subconscious much like Beethoven does for me in his Eroica. After a long search including Allegri, Bach, Casals, Pallestrina, Purcell, Tallis, Tavener, and many others, I have settled on a short list. Barber's Agnus Dei is simple, but evokes emotion. Faure's Requiem is incredible, and Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine is one of the most sublime choral works I have ever heard. There are some Masses I like: Mozart's Mass in C-minor and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis in D-major. Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is a master at combining simple and uncluttered melodies that are unpredictable, called minimalist. Like Beethoven's Eroica, Pärt sends me on an exhilarating journey of self discovery.

And, over the past couple years, I fell in love again with Beethoven's Eroica. Eventually, as I began to get better mental health-wise, I heard more in it. I started understanding it. Listening to this piece is like exploring my inner landscape extreme emotions and realities.

I have talked before about how recovering from dissociation is about being aware of, coming to terms with, and learning to navigate around extreme experiences. There is perhaps no other piece of music which captures this better than Beethoven's Eroica. When I listen to this symphony, I hear the messages buried not at all subtly within it. To get the most out of it, you have to listen to what it's saying.

The symphony starts out with two almost obnoxious E-flat chords that scream out to pay attention. Then it soars majestically. The cellos begin, then the violas and second violins provide the inner voices and rhythm. It's pure intimacy. Melodies get passed from section to section, changing a little each time, just like a healing journey. There's an entire incomprehensible landscape of emotional extremes. There's meandering, conflict through harmonic dissonance and "switching" keys. It goes from one end of the human experience to the other end in a very short time. This quickly going from one extreme to another spoke to me profoundly. This was precisely my experience!

But the most meaningful part of the piece for me is the fugue that comes in the middle of the second movement (at Bar 113) with an amazing use of counterpoint, and at Bar 145 he attains heavenly heights. The movement is all about death. It starts off almost in a whisper and this enormously sad melody gets passed from the strings to the oboe. Back and forth. Suddenly the fugue begins. It's the most beautiful two minutes of music I have ever heard. The fugue builds and builds seemingly without end. It cries out with sad strings and then blaring horns. But then it hangs up in the air with unbelievable tension before it collapses. Suddenly, the horns come in and there's power. How is this possible? There's a march. Trumpets provide the melody and strings provide the background. Then the melody from the beginning returns. Who would have guessed? It meanders again, like it has lost its way. And the movement ends like it begins, in a mere whisper. Was everything in between merely an illusion? Did it really happen? Sad. Indeed, even after this emotional journey, this is not the end of this grand symphony. There's more to come. More sadness. And more triumph.

I ground myself to Beethoven's music. Listening to him makes me feel authentic and it makes me realize that the complexity inside my head is all right. The complexity in Beethoven's music is like a kindred spirit. And I can literally look inside myself. What a great gift this man who lived 200 years ago has given me!

Some of you may be wondering what's happened since my last post. Another piece that is equally as amazing as the Eroica is the Große Fugue. It's not, however, easy listening music. This piece is almost a direct mapping of the internal chaos I felt over the last week or more. When I'm in the midst of that chaos, I feel like I'm in a bottomless pit. I can't make sense of anything. Somehow the other night I had the good sense to play the Große Fugue, and almost immediately everything made sense in my head. It was like taking a magic pill!

For a related writing on music on this site, see Music and Heart Healing; if you have not seen this post and have any sort of interest in music, you should check it out.

Two excellent books on Beethoven are "Beethoven: The Universal Composer" by Edmund Morris and "Beethoven: His Spiritual Development" by J. W. N. Sullivan.

For a wonderful explanation of Beethoven's Eroica, you may find PBS' Keeping Score with Michael Tilson Thomas a very worthwhile watch.

For a musical analysis of Eroica, see W. A. Dewitt's Beethoven's Eroica site.

This is a rather quickly put together second piano recording. I used to play this for my children when they were very young. A friend mentioned the song the other day and that reminded me of the wonderful memories of playing it. I hope you find it peaceful.

The lyrics are:

Of course, since the song was recorded in the early 60s by Peter, Paul and Mary, many assumed it was about smoking marijuana. The lyrics were written by Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow who were students at Cornell and who have said this is not what the song is about at all.

It is what the lyrics say. One of the authors, Yarrow, sings the lyrics as modified above to make it gender neutral (as opposed to just about a "little boy"). It's about growing up and losing interest in imagination, leaving a dragon playmate lonely and depressed.

For me, it's about lamenting the loss of innocence.

A few years ago, Karl Paulnack from The Boston Conservatory gave the following speech to parents of incoming students. Please feel free to read the entire speech as it's well worth the read. I'll post here some excerpts and then some brief commentary.

Music has been rather absent from my own life as of late and I want, and need, to change that. But it's been an integral part of who I am and it's been an important part of my healing. One of the changes in my therapy and healing work over the past year or more is that I've not relied solely on talk and thinking. Sometimes there are no words and it's not about intellectual understanding and staying in my head.

Sometimes what I really need is to listen to Beethoven's "Grosse Fugue", Mozart's "Mass in C Minor", a Bach Cello Suite, Green Day or Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, Sarah McLachlan or Journey.

Music not only grounds me on some fundamental level, it allows me to feel. And, in particular, it allows me to feel what I need to feel. This is true of both listening and playing music on my piano. It allows me to heal my heart, or at least attend to my heart.

I'll write much more about music in future posts. I just wanted to dip my toes in the music waters for now. And I will write about the process of doing art (e.g., drawing and painting) and how it is also heart healing.

I finally got my computer to record from my piano. I knew I was going to get this done for the summer, because I record every summer. I haven't been able to get the computer to talk to the piano for months, and what was in the way proved to be nothing more than the press of a single button. I suppose you can guess that my music setup has lots of buttons.

Anyway, I wanted to just put up something fast. So, I recorded just a few measures of Sarah McLachlan's Angel with me on piano. This is a "hard grand" patch from my Kurzweil PC2R. I purposely didn't embellish much at all and played it really simple.

I'll do better takes in the future for this and other pieces with the mistakes cleaned up and lay down some genuine Steinway-sampled tracks.