They still call it the White House but that’s a temporary condition too

I finally got around to changing my tagline (the old one, “Because no one has a monopoly on Fair and Balanced,” was getting a little long in the tooth). The new one, “You don’t need the bullet if you’ve got the ballot,” is simultaneously a shout out to George Clinton and the P-Funk crew (the song the line comes from, “Chocolate City,” is the fondest and sharpest look ever recorded at the darkening of the Washington, DC population) and a reminder to register to vote, and then actually do it.

Because all the blogging in the world only makes a difference if it changes the ballot box. And the hearts and minds of those placing their vote there.

Never send a soprano to do a tenor’s job

Language Log (my new favorite RSS feed) points to a Physics Today article that explains why you can never understand the words an operatic soprano sings—even if she is singing in your language. The story discusses a study conducted at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, which experimentally shows through acoustics that different vowel sounds are almost impossible to differentiate.

The issue appears to be resonance frequencies. The one that helps distinguish vowel sounds is the first resonance frequency, R1. And for really high range singing, a soprano’s fundamental frequency (f0) is actually above the first resonance frequency. Vocal practice (such as forward placement through opening the mouth wide and smiling) helps raise the resonance frequency, but not enough. Fabulous experimental data rounds out the picture.

This also confirms customary directorial practice which tells sopranos just to sing “aah” on particularly high passages, and compositional practice which avoids difficult rounded vowels on high notes (unless, of course, the composer was Beethoven).

By contrast, of course, a tenor’s high range is well below his first resonant frequency pretty much all the way. Yet another reason that tenors are in demand: you can actually understand us.

Hindemith and Shaw and requiems and me

I felt a compulsion this morning to pull out the Shaw recording of Hindemith’s choral masterpiece, When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d: A Requiem for Those We Love. It occurs to me that I’ve never told my story about the piece, and how I came to meet Robert Shaw.

First a word about Lilacs. The facts: Hindemith wrote it in 1946, on a commission from a young Robert Shaw, in memory of Franklin Roosevelt who had died the previous April. Roosevelt’s death had come 80 years—very nearly to the day—after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Perhaps for that reason, Hindemith chose Walt Whitman’s great poem of mourning for Lincoln as his text.

Hindemith’s work is simultaneously a monumental and an intimate piece, forbidding and vulnerable, as it alternates choral passages of (frankly) excruciating difficulty and dissonance with melodic arias from baritone and mezzo, and choral fugues of intense rhythmic power, all supported by an orchestra heavy on woodwinds. It’s a bitch to prepare. When I sang it in 1995, we sweated the choral parts—which comprise a relatively small portion of the work—for two months, knowing what was coming.

And he came. Robert Shaw, the greatest choral conductor of the 20th century, commissioner of this masterwork, instructor of choral conductors, dropper of pearls of wisdom both sacred and profane. I remember so little of what he said during those hot rehearsals, only that he looked exhausted and that I felt both his exhaustion and his invigoration as we sang the piece.

I return to the piece these days as a comfort that grief and sorrow are not only mine, and as a reminder of my first encounter with a great musician and leader.

Bonus links: there are a few online remembrances of Shaw that include sprinklings of his wisdom, such as the following:

  • “I get a horrible picture, from the way you sing, of little bitty eighth notes running like hell all over the place to keep from being stepped on. Millions of ’em! Meek, squeaky little things. No self-respect. Standing in corners, hiding behind doors, ducking into subway stations, peering out from under rugs. Refugees. Dammit, you’re all a bunch of Whole-Note Nazis.” (to the Collegiate Chorale, 1946, as cited in the New York Times)
  • “It is the nature of music, unlike painting and most of literature, that its final creation is not its original creation. Music needs to be sounded, to be sung. In this sense, the composer literally must leave his work to be finished by others… . Can you imagine Michelangelo asking us to come in and help him finish the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Us and our dirty little daubers?.” (quoted in Religion Online)
  • “Our tenors are adolescent. Our altos have not passed puberty. Our sopranos trip their dainty ballet of coloratura decorum, and our basses woof their wittle gway woofs all the way home .. Get your backs and bellies into it! You can’t sing Beethoven from the neck up—you’ll bleed! Beethoven is not precious. He’s prodigal as hell. He tramples all over nicety. He’s ugly, heroic; he roars, he lusts after beauty, he rages after nobility. Be ye not temperate!” (on performing Beethoven’s Ninth, as quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Quick links roundup

Richard Clarke on 60 Minutes: the truth starts to emerge

After rumors and accusations, a former counterterrorist official in George W. Bush’s administration (and Reagan’s, and George H. W. Bush’s, and Clinton’s) is out in print and on 60 Minutes, laying out how the administration’s criminal neglect of its duties in 2001 laid the groundwork for 9/11. Commentary by Oliver Willis and Talking Points Memo/Joshua Micah Mitchell.

Other pointers: the relevant chapter from Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them; the first rumblings of Republican smears against Clarke, with attendant debunking

Arrivederci, Veterans Stadium: Like porno for pyros

I just watched the implosion of Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia about three times on network TV. Say what you like about network television, there is no better medium for high fidelity replays of vast deployments of explosive devices.

I love the quotes from Philadelphia residents in the San Jose Mercury News: “I’ve lived here 12 years, and it was a pain in the rear end.”

Bonus link: history of the Phillies’ stadiums at their official site. Bonus link #2 (mature audiences): Lyrics to Perry Farrell’s song “Porno for Pyros,” in which he shares similar feelings about the LA riots.

Alive

Not much posting this week. I’ve been fighting both health issues (a cough that migrated upwards into my sinuses; I could hardly hear anything at all last night during choir practice) and computer issues (my work laptop melted down) for several days now. Hope to clear the logjam shortly and get back to the rhythm of things.

In the meantime, a quick pointer to fellow Microsoft blogger and MSCOM teammate Peter Svensk, who was once an EditThisPage.com blogger like me.

MIT and Cambridge (the other Cambridge)

Good article in the Times today about MIT’s program to bring the culture of entrepreneurship to the UK via a partnership with Cambridge University. They focus on the biotech context; I know that in general the Entrepreneurship Center has been active in this effort regardless of discipline.

It is kind of funny to see an article about entrepreneurship at MIT without hearing about the Sloan School. The PR agent must be slipping. (For the record, my management track at Sloan was in New Product and Venture Development.)