Friday Miscellanea

We haven't had a music joke for a while, have we?

That night, the drums again kept the man awake for the whole night

and in the morning he spoke with the chief. “Chief, please! I need some

sleep; couldn’t the drums cease for just one night for my health?”

The chief replied, “The drums must not stop.”

The man let the issue drop and tried to focus on the 

day at hand, but could not focus due to lack of sleep and the incessant 

pounding of the drums.

That night, the beating of the drums left the man sleepless yet again

in the morning he angrily approached the chief. “Chief, I’ve just about

had it. The drums must stop; it is impossible to get any rest with them!”

The chief replied, “The drums must not stop.”

“Why! Why can the drums not stop? What happens when the drums stop?!”

“Bass solo.”

The only good bass solo I can recall from my days in pop music was one where the bassist used the organist's Leslie cabinet as a slide substitute. He was all over the place...

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Let's have some more musical humor:

Well that was semi-lame... There is better musical humor. Take for example the rich vein of viola jokes:

What's the difference between a violin and a viola?

1. The viola burns longer.
2. The viola holds more beer.
3. You can tune the violin.

Another one:

A conductor and a violist are standing in the middle of the road. which one do you run over first, and why?

The conductor. Business before pleasure.

There are roughly 1.5 gazillion viola jokes. 

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With the exception of Jordan Peterson, most self-help books and articles are pretty much worthless. And that would include this one: 25 Things Musicians Need to do Today to Feel Better about Themselves. Depending on the circumstances, you might consider doing the opposite:

• Comparing yourself to others might be an excellent way of identifying a market niche you could fill
• If your rent is due, then that would be an excellent time to accept an engagement purely on the basis of money
• If you identify your core abilities correctly then you might want to make a project involving them central to your career
• Ok, regarding undervaluing your expertise, yes this is probably correct--you do need to have a realistic sense of your abilities
• Jumping a bit, sticking with what you know is probably a very good tactic to pursue much of the time. With the occasional experimentation, of course

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On the other hand, from the same source, this is an amusing list of rude things people say to classical musicians. One of my favorites: ‘I love listening to classical when I’m studying or trying to fall asleep.’

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Listening to music while you work I have always thought a bad idea. For one thing, due to my training, I can't NOT pay close attention. So it will always distract me from whatever I am trying to do. Here is a research study that agrees with me: Listening to Music Impairs Creativity.

Do you need to come up with a creative solution to a problem? If so, your inclination may be to close your office door, turn on some music, and hope it provides some inspiration. 

In fact, those melodious sounds may be inhibiting your imagination. 

Newly published research debunks the notion that listening to music can increase creativity. Its three studies suggest precisely the opposite, indicating that background music, with or without lyrics, "consistently disrupts creative performance in insight problems."

* * *

I'm really not sure what to think of this article about classical singers who are transgender: Does voice have a gender? For trans singers, old categories are breaking down.

For San Francisco’s Breanna Sinclairé, 29, the gender transition came earlier, and has been a central part of her development as a professional opera singer. In the process of going from male to female, she felt her naturally expansive voice grow steadily stronger in the upper register. Sinclairé began singing as a tenor, but soon shifted up to countertenor, a male singer who specializes in falsetto singing. After her transition, she established herself during studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as a mezzo-soprano, and is now developing her top notes on the way up to life as a soprano.

On New Year’s Eve, Sinclairé, became the first trans singer to appear with the San Francisco Symphony when she sang an aria by Saint-Saëns on the stage of Davies Symphony Hall.

The article tries to present all this as new news, but gender and voice in classical opera have been interestingly complex for hundreds of years. Castrati ruled the virtuoso aria for a long time and "trouser roles" have been part of opera since the 18th century.

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We have talked about the legal banning of old ivory here before, but the problem continues: Beg Your MP to Exempt Old Bows from Ivory Ban.

Musicians, music shops & auction houses are going to be severely affected by a new requirement to register bows of stringed instruments under the Ivory Act. The practicalities of doing so, along with the cost will make it very difficult – and in some cases impossible – to buy and sell antique bows.

We fully support the ethics behind this act – endangered species and ecosystems must be protected. But these legitimate goals cannot be achieved by clamping down on antique instruments & bows. Musicians now face prosecution if they buy or sell a bow that doesn’t conform to the expected registration. Many professional instrument bows will be left worthless and untradeable. This petition applauds the Ivory Act principles, but just asks for this one practicality to be changed for it to be workable.

Other bans that have caused problems have affected the use of Brazilian rosewood and ebony. Of course we want the brutal poaching of elephant tusks to stop, but the odd thing is that if we make ivory worthless through legislation then that actually takes away a reason to protect and foster elephant herds.

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 As an envoi, let's listen to trans singer Breanna Sinclairé doing "Somewhere" from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story.

I can't resist putting up another performance so we can compare them. This is a brief excerpt from a performance by Julia Bullock with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony:

Here is another performance by Nadine Sierra: