xylophobia

I’m so excited.  Jeff and I recorded “On a Singing Girl” on Sunday and Monday, and I love how it turned out.  We have a xylophone sampler that we used for the piano part, and we did the vocals really dry.  I’m not xylophobic like Homer Simpson, but I agree with him that it is definitely the sound of skeletons dancing.  I wanted to go for an atmosphere that would match the mood of the song (I imagine  a cemetary at nighttime).  I do want to stay faithful to Ned’s music, but we also want to do something different with each piece to make it our own.  Jeff put in a very sparse ticking of a beat every here and there that makes it just a little bit electronica.  We kept it very simple.  Oh, and I absolutely love the fact that right after I finished my last note of the song, Coda (our cat) meowed right on the very last beat.  It would be easy to edit out, but I think it adds to the whole graveyard atmosphere, don’t you think? 

I can’t wait to get on with the next song.  This is bringing the excitement right back for me.  Now I just need to figure out if I can put the music up on this site.  That would be neato.

p.s.  I just looked up the definition of xylophobia online and this is what I found: 1. A fear of wooden objects, and 2. A fear of forests.

You stabbed a horse?!

There is a passage in Ned Rorem’s Paris Diary from July of 1951 that is in quotation marks.  I find this particular passage quite disturbing, and I hope that the quotation marks mean that he is referencing someone else’s story.  This entry deals with him (if it is indeed him) as a boy spending summers on a farm where he can’t control his violent tendencies towards animals.  When kicking the chickens doesn’t satisfy him any longer, he stabs a horse between the shoulders with a birch spear.  Granted, it’s not as bad as his original plan: “my precocious intention was to thrust these (six sharp birch spears) into six parts of the horse: the two eyes, the nose, the spine, the genitals, the mouth.”  Coming from a family of horse lovers, I just can’t wrap my brain around someone taking pleasure from anything like this.

I guess I’m in this to learn about a man’s life as I learn his music.  I’m not here to gain a deeper respect for someone just for the sake of it.  His character, or what I’ll be able to gather from his writings, will have to earn that.

“On a Singing Girl”

Before I could start learning songs out of the Ned Rorem collection I bought, I wanted to put them in chronological order of when they were composed.  I scoured various sites online to find the years of composition for each song.  I put them in order and numbered them in the index of my book.  Number one was to be “Absalom.”  At first glance, I saw a note at the very bottom of the last page: “New York, December 1946.”  This would have saved me a lot of trouble if I had known! 

I re-ordered my songs because of the more specific dates, and my new number one is “On a Singing Girl,” composed April29, 1946 at 9:00 p.m.  The poem is by Elinor Wylie who had rewritten several epigrams from John William Mackail’s collection, Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology.  This poem, in its original form in the anthology reads:

XLII
On a Singing-Girl
Author Unknown

Blue-eyed Musa, the sweet-voiced nightingale, suddenly this little grave holds voiceless, and she lies like a stone who was so accomplished and so famous; fair Musa, be this dust light over thee.

Elinor Wylie’s version (and the one that inspired Ned) reads:

“On a Singing Girl”

Musa of the sea-blue eyes,
Silver nightingale alone in a little coffin lies; a stone beneath a stone.
She, whose song we loved the best,
Is voiceless in a sudden Night:
On your light limbs,
O loveliest,
May the dust be light!

I don’t know who Musa was, but considering the title, I’m assuming she is pretty anonymous.  I suppose, the anonymity makes the poem a little sadder.  The few people who knew her were the only ones who were ever able to appreciate her voice.  At least she lives on in the epigram and re-written poem.

This seems to be quite a gem of a little song at only one page in length (as are many of Ned’s songs).  The song is dedicated to Ned’s friend Daniel Pinkham, another American composer.

“a certain way”

As a young man in his Paris Diary of 1951, Ned predicts the circumstances of his own death: 

“Of course, I am convinced that it will be violent, unpleasant, and soon, either by the hand of a friend near the Boulevard Clichy (though, unfortunately, I never take chances unless drunk, and drunks are never murdered) – or in a concentration camp for vaguer reasons, and by tortures of which one does not speak (this I wouldn’t be able to avoid by will)….  Perhaps I write this from fear, knowing that what is written does not occur.  I feel that I shall die in ‘a certain way’ before I grow old; I’m not sure of it and don’t want it but I feel it.”

Ned will be turning 86 in October. 

I think all creative people get these kind of fanciful notions in their heads.  Living an extraordinary life doesn’t necessarily mean dying an extraordinary death.  It’s fun to imagine though.

art needs ego needs love

I love how Ned starts off his first diary entry of the Paris diaries in 1951:

“A stranger asks, ‘Are you Ned Rorem?’  I answer, ‘No,’ adding, however, that I’ve heard of and would like to meet him.”

When one thinks of a diary, the connotation is one of private thoughts and emotions laid out on page for the psychological benefit of the one doing the writing.  I hadn’t really thought much about the idea of making one’s diary public.  I read a couple things on the internet in reference to Ned’s diaries that called them somewhat arrogant and self-indulgent.  Before I had even started reading them myself, I wanted to say, but what diary isn’t?  If a diary, by definition is centered on its writer, is it possible to make one’s diary public without it seeming self-centered?

Blogging is the modern-day equivalent to publishing a diary.  Writing a blog or publishing a diary takes a confidence, a certain level of ego, to think that people will want to read what we write. 

The word ego has such a negative connotation, but I always think of it the way my voice teacher in college, Helene Joseph-Weil, taught me.  No performer can get up on stage and do the music justice without confidence and the belief that people will like what they hear (aka: the ego).  The same is also true of writing and any other art form that one chooses to make public.

Robert Phelps says in his preface to Paris Diary, “Could anything be more vulnerable?  More presuming, self-conscious, arrogant?  And at the same time, more humble, courageous, generous?  Even if the author were not someone I esteem as a composer and love as a friend, I would be moved and respectful.  I might flinch at the egotism, or frown at the assumption.  But I would want to remember that some of this reaction is my own doing.  ‘To have great poets,’ said Whitman, ‘there must be great audiences too.’  The same is true of vulnerable diaries.”

I have to say that Ned’s writing is far too good to have ever only existed for its own sake.  He had to have written them with the intention of publication.  I doubt one can take much satisfaction from writing so cleverly and with such symbolic language without the idea that someone somewhere will be entertained by it.

Ned is known for his hand-written responses to fans and followers of his works.  He says himself, “I permit people to think they’re ‘communicating’ with me, but they aren’t really.  I need their love, not their complicity.”  I guess it’s the same for me and singing.  I need the love.  As I said earlier, one needs ego to perform, but ego also needs love from others to remain in existence.

Ur the best n i love u lots

Okay, so even if it had taken the maximum of fourteen business days to ship my tools, I still don’t have a good excuse for not having written.  My books and cds actually came pretty quickly (buy Amazon!); I guess it just takes a lot for me to stay encouraged even at the start of something like this.  I realize that this is not a personal project though, since I put myself on display like this.  Even if I’m not motivation enough for myself, I’ve got my dad to keep me going (it feels so nice to have someone so genuinely interested even if it is my dad and he has to be).  Please don’t anybody hesitate to kick (nag) me when I’m down (not writing), it makes me feel important.

Here’s my first thought on reading the first few of Ned’s letters:

There’s not that much writing done nowadays by non-writers.  Most people get along fine now by “text”ing the bare minimum to get a message across.  Or even communicating less by saying more (like that commercial where the dad is twittering about sitting on the porch).  It’s as though people looked back at all the wonderful writers who have gone before and decided that the new artistic writing style would be completely dull-everyday-self-centered.  We don’t write letters anymore, taking the time to pen exactly what we wish to convey, then apply postage and have to wait to see what kind of response will be awarded.  Rather, everything is instant, no prep time given or care taken.  The ease that technology has given to communication has made us lazy.  When my cousin Emily and I were kids, we used to write letters to each other.  I would give lots of thought to what I wrote and was always eager for her response.  I’ve read in her blog that she too misses letter writing.  I’ve read the letters Ned wrote from 1944 to 1951, mostly to his teacher Virgil Thomson, and even though the glimpse into his life is hazy and one-sided, there’s no comparing what we come up with in our text messages of 2009.  Among my most recent outgoing messages are: “I close today,” “Si,” “Ur the best n i love u lots,” “12:30,” and “7 tellers + 0 customers = slow aileen texting.  seriously though, this has killed about 15 minutes.”  Granted I’m really not much of a texter; those that I just shared with you probably span two months.  I’d like to say that I’ll start writing all my loved ones letters now, but I’m too lazy and this blog thing is going to be hard enough for me. 

I find it very difficult to write.  I discourage myself way to easily.  However, there were several other things I wanted to mention tonight that I have yet to write, so I guess I’ll be ready to write again tomorrow. 

Good night.

Julia Child is to Ned Rorem

I now have 3-13 business days before I can officially start my Rorem project. 

Yesterday I forgot to mention what it was that inspired me to do this in the first place.  Jeff and I were visiting with my grandparents this past weekend when we decided to see a movie.  Jeff wanted to see The Orphan, but when my grandparents said they’d go with us, I thought Julie & Juliawould be more appropriate.  Amy Adams plays an aspiring writer in a dead-end job who also happens to be a big fan of Julia Child.  She decides to cook her way through Julia Child’s cook book and write about it in a blog.  I found myself relating to her character and hope to add inspiration to my life through this project like she did.  The movie was quite good, and I recommend it even though it is totally unrealistic that she didn’t gain 50 pounds by the end of the year from all that butter.  At least my project won’t leave me unhealthy.

My goal here isn’t fame or even any kind of recognition from Ned Rorem himself.  This is for self improvement.  Like Amy’s character, I will get to know a Ned Rorem that doesn’t really exist.  He will be this perfect specimen of a composer in my head.  It is a little different for me, I suppose, since I’ll have his own personal diaries to read.  So maybe the Ned in my head won’t be all that different than the real man.

First. Blog. Ever.

I have a cat named Coda, a husband named Jeff, and a job called bank teller.  This is what I am.  However, at one point I had dreamt of being an opera singer.  I look for singing ventures where I can, but I’ve decided that I can be content with a normal life.  I don’t know if this came about out of laziness, the loss of confidence, practicality, or coming to terms with reality.  Maybe it’s a combination of each of those.  This blog is a way for me to encourage myself to keep learning and practicing my craft even if it’s only in my own apartment for my cat and my husband and the neighbors to overhear.

I’m going to give myself an assignment.  I’ve neglected myself and my natural impulses to learn and to sing.  So, I chose Ned Rorem as my topic of obsession.  I just ordered some books of his diaries and letters and a collection of fifty of his songs (as well as a couple cds to study).  I’m going to work my way through his writings while I learn his songs.  I thought it might be kinda neat to do it as chronologically as possible.  I’ve sung a few of his songs and loved each experience I’ve had with them.  This American composer (who is still living) has left a plethora of varied glimpses into his life, and I want to get to know him as well as a person can without ever meeting in the physical sense.  Sadly, I must wait 4-14 business days before I can truly start this project.

I’m excited about expanding my repertoire of his songs.  If nothing else, I’ll have a larger Rorem library to run through my head as I help customers with their banking transactions.  And that, friends (if I ever do pick up any readers), will be accomplishment enough.