Meeting Minutes III

February 8, 2007

I am writing these notes while sitting in a café, SOMA. I like it here, but really, this place is a glorified basement with baristas. I keep waiting for one of my drunk uncles to walk down the steps and start talking to me about the glories of Off Track Betting, and what a “trifecta” means and how difficult they are to come by. As I try to focus my attention on writing this, I cannot help but focus on the layers of noise I hear. Clattering coffee machines, caffeinated intellectuals buzzed on coffee and using the word “penultimate.” The music is being pumped through a stereo somebody stole to pay off their bookie after too many days at the OTB. We are living in a “Muzak Nation” my friends. Music is selling cars and coffee these days. Part of my motivation for these little get-togethers is to try to get the music out of this coffee house basement so to speak. Music carries a lot of different meanings to a lot of people. I think it is important . This is my motivation but it most certainly does not have to be yours. I appreciate you all coming to these.

OPENING SILENCE

=Ian=
Artist: Patience and Prudence
Album: A Date with John Waters
Title: Tonight You Belong To Me

I would like to introduce our first satellite member of this group. He’s a good friend for quite a long time that I used to live with in Brooklyn. Ian is a writer who moonlights at Shakespeare & Company, a book store in Manhattan. I will quote him directly:

“You could explain to the group that I'm not a satellite member because I live in Brooklyn, but because I'm a recluse, and that I would be a satellite member even if I lived in Bloomington. Even, in fact, if I lived at 417 N. Indiana Avenue. Here's my first selection: "Tonight You Belong to Me," by Patience and Prudence, two sisters (a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old) who went top-ten with this lost classic in 1956. I first heard it a couple of years ago over the closing credits of a film called Birth (with Nicole Kidman) that I thought was really underrated. (Put it in your queue. It's mystical Zaretsky all the way. It's about a little boy who thinks he's the reincarnation of Kidman's dead husband. It's about the idea of the soul-mate.) But the song's now on Rhapsody on a compilation selected by John Waters called A Date with John Waters. (Waters shops at Shakespeare, incidentally, and he's a surprisingly nice guy. But I've never been a fan of his movies. Though my mom--bizarrely--took me, my older brother, and my little sister into Manhattan--like entering a foreign country if you were from the Bronx--to see one that he did in smell-o-vision. I think I was about eight. I didn't know what the hell was going on. They gave you a scratch-and-sniff card as you entered the theater. True story. I should tell Waters that story the next time I see him.)”

=Arianna=
Artist: Metallica w/ San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (Michael Kamen cond.)
Album: S&M
Title: No Leaf Clover

Speaking of caffeine, this song manages to “pump” Arianna up. A self-proclaimed “headbanger,” this song motivates Arianna to go out and “dance in the snow.” On this track, Metallica is accompanied by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra with Michael Kamen. Our resident music theorist, John Reef, pointed out the “triple hyper-meter” found within this song. We played it back to try to experience this triple hypermeter and I emailed Jon to save me from giving a horrific explanation of it for these minutes. The response I received did not disappoint:

Chris: Hi John, could you please give a brief explanation of triple hypermeter pleas?:

John: So to define triple hypermeter (or hypermeter in general), we must first define meter. When music presents us with a stream of equidistant "pulses," our tendency as listeners is to perceive regular patterns of strong and weak downbeats. If we hear every third beat as strong, we call that triple meter; if we hear every second beat (or fourth beat) as strong, then we call it duple meter. Once we have infered a pattern of strong and weak beats, we can impose similar orderings on just the strong beats -- this is hypermeter.

If every fourth beat were strong, we could represent the meter as follows:

X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . etc (with Xs representing the strong beats).

Now if we grouped those strong beats into fours, hypermetrically, we would have:

4/4 meter---X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . etc.

hypermeter: X ----. ----. ---- . ----X-----. ----. -----. --- X etc.

This is the most common hypermetric structure in Classical-era music, and in much rock&roll.

For a brief period, the Metallica song we listened to was organized as follows:

4/4 meter X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . . etc.

hypermeter: X . . X . . X . . etc.

this is triple hypermeter. Not as common. I think that Kashmir by Led Zepplin also exhibits this phenomenon, but I know other people who don't hear it that way -- check it out.....the drums and the guitars play in different time signatures

=Elise=
Artist: Tower of Power
Album: What Is Hip? The Tower of Power Anthology
Title: I Like Your Style

Prior to Elise Anderson’s interest (read obsession) with the Jyghr’s of Xiangjiang, she wanted to play jazz music. She wanted to be a baritone saxophonist, and ended up playing clarinet. She used to drive around listening to this song in Oklahoma. One day, Elise will be cruising around Xiangjiang, blasting The TOP, thinking about playing in a jazz band.

=Kristiana=
Artist: The Velvet Underground
Album: The Velvet Underground
Title: After Hours

I am not extremely familiar with The Velvet Underground. I do know that they were once managed by Andy Warhol and spent their time in NYC around the late 60’s and 70’s. Kristy talked about the VU and their mixture of art and music. I just read a bit about them on the wikipedia. I thought this was a good line:

“A famous remark, often attributed to Brian Eno, is that while only a few thousand people bought a Velvet Underground record upon their initial release, almost every single one of them was inspired to start a band.”

=Selina=
Artist:Caetana Veloso
Album: Talk to her (Hable Con Ella) soundtrack
Title: “Cucurucuru Paloma”

This song is taken from Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s film, “Talk to Her” and is an illustration of the director’s ongoing collaboration with musical director Alberto Iglesias. The soundtrack covers a wide array of genres from Spanish flamenco to Latin and classical. The consensus from the audience was that the song was a bit “blue.” This seems appropriate as the film profiles the friendship of two men who care for their girlfriends who are in deep comas. The music of Iglesias can also be found on the highly acclaimed Pedro Almodovar film, Volver. Is enough credit given to the musicians who provide the soundtrack to film? What is a soundtrack?

Soundtrack: Consists of dialogue, sound effects and music. Should reveal something about the scene that visual images don't.

=Maria=
Artist: Ted Strauss
Album: Supplement to Montage Literary Journal
Title: Montage

This piece was a supplement to a literary journal named “Montage.” It illustrates the sound aspect of poetry by a linguist named Ted Strauss. Maria was exposed to this when she was in school at McGill University. I honestly did not have to many notes on this piece so I decided to give the “information superhighway.” I found a question Mr.Strauss submitted to a listserv:

Date:  Fri, 1 Feb 2002 15:28:01 -0500

From:  "Ted Strauss" <[log in to unmask]>

Subject:  seeking phonological data for metrical stress research

Hello LINGUIST,

I am a McGill University student doing an undergraduate research project.

The aim of the project is to implement several neural network

algorithms for solving metrical stress assignment.  To claim success,

the network will need to learn at least 3 language systems, preferably

5-10.  Thus, I need to gain access to language data in IPA form which

already has stress assigned to it.  Alternatively, I can use data

which has been parsed into syllables and bears stress.  The key is to

have stressed data.  I am seeking any source which has data of these

forms.  The results, as w ell as an interactive java applet, will be

posted online and made availab le to anyone interested.  I thank you

for any help you can provide.  Sincerely, Ted Strauss

Huh?

=Gabi=
Artist: Of Montreal
Album:
Title: The Sunlandic Twins

Torn between two different types of music, Gabi played a tune from “Of Montreal.” The song brought her back to her time in Boston. Stuck in an awful job, this music functioned as an escape mechanism. I think I mentioned that this band hails from Montreal. I thought that because of their name, do you get it? These episodes of brilliance come knocking at my door daily. Unfortunately, I am wrong. The lead singer is from Athens, Georgia. These guys are extremely popular at this moment in time. When that happens, this happens.

=Aaron=
Artist: Björk Guðmundsdóttir & Tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar
Album: Gling- Glo
Title: Pabbi Minn

This song was played on the record player. The “record player” is an ancient “machine” that produces analog sound by reading the grooves on a “vinyl” plate with a stylus. This album was given to Aaron as a gift. The entire album is sung by the infamous Bjork in Icelandic. It was recorded back in 1990. The English equivalent to “Gling-Glo” is “ding-dong” in reference to the sound of a bell. Aaron enjoyed the escapism he was able to find in this song. Bjork is one of my favorite artists. My friend Lina works in “PR” and used to work for Miramax back when they were producing the Lars von Trier film “Dancer in the Dark.” Lina, a fearless New Yorker, was orchestrating a photo session with Bjork. She ordered Bjork to “walk over there.” To which Bjork replied, “I don’t walk, I float.” Lina’s response? “Ok, so float over there.”

=John Reef=
Artist: Toumani Diabete’s Symmetric Orchaestra
Album: Boulevard de l'independence
Title: Taphia Niang

I am very happy to have John Reef among us. He is a music theorist in the very prestigious music department here at IU. I was lucky enough to have class with him. My favorite line of his usually occurred after he brought a profound question to the table. He would follow it up with, “so yeah…what’s up with that?” Aside from studying the text, Jon has an interest in music that may not be written but does have structure. Toumani Diabate is a world renowned “kora” player from Mali. This song caught Jon’s attention because of its influence from an array of genres. This song has a new age feel to it. For more information on what a “kora” is click here.

=Jim=
Artist: Annie Lennox
Album: Bare
Title: Pavement Cracks

Jim introduced this song as something that reminds him of how it feels when “disappointment and maturity collide.” It is definitely wintertime here in Indiana. Annie Lennox is some kind of singer/songwriter. I think we have all been there. Here are some lyrics:

The city streets are wet again with rain
But I'm walkin' just the same
Skies turn to the usual grey
When you turn to face the day
And love don't show up in the pavement cracks
All my water colours fade to black
I'm goin' nowhere and I'm ten steps back
All my dreams have fallen flat

=Ben Schreiner=
Artist: Frank Zappa
Album: Hot Rats
Title: Peaches En Regalia

A new member of the scene, Ben Schreiner brought us some great music out of the gate. Zappa’s “Hot Rats” is interesting for a variety of reasons. It consists of six tracks, five of which are instrumentals. It was Zappa's first recording project after his former band, Mothers of Invention disbanded. The album was recorded on what Zappa described as a "homemade sixteen track" recorder and is thought by some to be the first sixteen-track recording ever commercially released. For the late 1960’s this is pretty amazing being that most recordings were made with four and eight track recording devices. Zappa was also a voice of reason over the PMRC/censorship back in the 1980’s.

=Kelly=
Artist: Portishead
Album: Dummy
Title: It Could Be Sweet

Another new member of the group, Kelly brought us some Portishead. The song he played was chosen by Kelly because he felt it “addresses the potentials.” Portishead is from Bristol, England. They are known for using jazz samples and lo-fi sound elements.

=Chui Wa=
Artist: Oasis
Album: The Importance of Being Idle
Title: The Importance of Being Idle

The introduction to this song by Chi-Wa was pretty simple; she played it because “she likes to be idle.” Instead of playing the song, we downloaded the video via you tube. We all gathered around the computer that sat on the mantle of the fireplace and watched. Our obsession with screens continues.