Day 345: Avant-garde music, my thoughts
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Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
345 — Avant-garde music, my thoughts
12-Jul-1972
(Wed.)
TRANSCRIPT
First sight of the Berlin Wall
BERLIN
Decided to move out of room. Too expensive. Told
landlady. Had a pleasant conversation.
Tried to find a cheaper room. At
studentenheims—booked. Got a room in student hotel,
more expensive. Surprise—when I got back, the
landlady said that she would let me stay an extra
night “kostenlos!” [free] I couldn’t believe it.
Plus, she gave me a free breakfast, but then I paid
for it. Delicious breakfast. She was really nice and
I couldn’t believe it. This brought down the cost of
staying to a more reasonable 10 DMs. Great.
Expo
Electronique
When I walked into the hall—large, modern, good
acoustics, art displays—there were about 10 people.
Now, about one hour later there are only two of us.
Taking notes on pieces. See separate sheets. Most of
the music is typical, and for me, not so good. Some
of it (very little) is interesting.
Performers coming. Making preparations for the
concert. Already, the American groups are being a
pain. Artists are always demanding. Ha.
Did a little sightseeing. Park area. First sight of a
section of the Berlin Wall. Quite a number of guards
with rifles there.
Really interesting Neue Galerie. All of these weird ,
large, metal sculptures. One of them is a giant
sliding pond. The kids have a wild time. I’ve never
seen so much emphasis on the new and modern.
The Berlin girls are really chick and wild. I haven’t
met any but I can still look.
Subways are fast, efficient, large, clean, and safe.
Quite a change. The whole city seems clean and also
safe—in spite of the large number of hippies.
I think that the youth are in control They have it
great here. The places (diskoteks) are cheap to go
to.
Saw a computer music lecture (in German) by a guy
from Indiana. Extremely interesting.
2nd
Night—Avant-garde
Two Instrumental groups. Wildfire and
Intermodulation. As usual (see notes), most of the
music is not as good as I hoped for.
However, I’ve heard two really interesting and
meditative-type quality works by Morton Feldman for
two pianos. Uses normal notes but produces an effect.
Interesting and good.
The concerts here are well attended. Mostly by the
youth. Dress is casual. You sit on the floor. Smoke,
etc. Only thing I don’t like is the walking around. I
think that even these “way out” youths (I think I’m
still a youth) are not affected by it. (Unless it’s
the thing to do.) I think applause is “out of it.”
Most of the time when I write about the music, I say
that it’s typical. What I mean is that
it’s
typical. In other words, for
myself, it’s old and used up, perhaps also a cliché.
It can be “good typical”—a good piece, it just
happens to be in that style. “Bad typical” might mean
that it’s a bad piece or it is a newly-written thing
but in a “used-up” style (for me). Maybe I mean that
if you have written in such a category, then that is
bad. When, I say it’s typical, I basically mean that
I am tired of hearing it. Or, in other words, for
myself, I need another direction.
Example of typicals:
(a) Piano music that uses clusters, wide intervals,
typical eighth-dotted-quarter note rhythms.
(b) New ideas of extremely long “dauer klangs”.
Already a cliché.
( c ) Use of normal instruments trying to produce new
sounds. Already clichés.
Etc., etc.
A big problem in this music is perception. A similar
thing after a while becomes automatically turned off
in the mind. Examples: cluster or interval music (non
meter), sounds the same after a while because the ear
cannot discern tonal differences (except big ones) in
the clusters, and in non-metric music. The rhythms
are all meshed together because the ear cannot
discern difference. Result: so much new music always
sounds the same. The ear has no criteria or
comparison guide.
Is it conditioning? I know it’s a problem. What to
do? ??
Met John Cage and David Tudor. Nice guys. Asked them
what they thought of the audience participation. Cage
said, “Well, it wasn’t imaginative.” I said that I
thought audience participation was a great idea but I
didn’t know if it would ever work. Nice, but short,
conversation.
Maybe the biggest problem is that the music does not
say anything, most of the time. It seems to me that
the performers improvise and make sounds (sometimes
interesting) but they always seem to lack direction.
The music doesn’t go anywhere. Static. No climaxes
and releases. Maybe this is why the music usually
seems so dull. And dull is a good word.
Well, after five hours of concert, enough. To bed.
REFLECTIONS
My
landlady. It looks
like I am worried about money again. Although, I
leave to find a new room (just as expensive), the
lady of my current room, she lets me stay one night
free and gives me breakfast. How nice. I’m surprised.
I end up staying.
Expo
electronique. I go to
the hall where the electronic concerts are happening
and stay a while listening to pieces and taking
notes. Don’t know where those notes are nowadays.
Berlin Wall—First sight. A bit of
sight-seeing and I see the Berlin Wall for the first
time. (See photos.) With guards, guns, fences, and
barbed-wire. The real world is a serious place and
until you stare into its mouth, you don’t quite get
the full impact. But when you do wake up to the
world, it can be surprising and shocking. A short
while ago, I met a gentleman from Berlin and I
briefly recounted my Berlin trip to him and the Wall.
He told me that when he was a young boy, and their
family was traveling across the wall, he witnessed a
man being shot by the East German guards. Not a
pleasant world.
Modern
art. Berlin
is modern and so is its art. I’m enjoying the
emphasis on contemporary art and music in Berlin. I
enjoy modern and abstract art, as well as
traditional, and Berlin comes to the fore. Berlin is
on the cutting edge of modern music, art, and the
avant-garde. I’m at the Neue Gallerie. The kids are
having some fun on a giant sliding pond.
Berlin
girls. It looks
like the Berlin girls have caught me eye. Remember,
I’m only 22 years old. You know what this means:
bra-less. I have to leave both Montclair State and
Vienna to experience the liberation of women. Well, I
still don’t meet anyone. I’m really a shy person
(sometimes).
Avant-garde
concert and music. I talk
quite a bit today about why I am not liking the
avant-garde music in the concerts. I can say that I
know that I enjoy most music, whether traditional or
avant-garde, but as a young person, I am more
emotional about it then, than I am today. I do make
some valid points. Often, contemporary music sounds
the same. A tonal cluster banged on the piano is
going to sound similar to another, yet different,
cluster banged on another piano. I seem to think that
when you take away the patterns of our traditional
musical listening structure (motives, melodies,
rhythms, phrases, cadences, form, structure, tempo
and such), that the ear and mind thus has a harder
time finding patterns and linking things into
cohesive units. Thus, avant-garde music begins to
sound “typical.” Another way of saying this is that
the “techniques” and “style” and “melodic/rhythmic”
treatments used in many avant-garde pieces are often
similar and tend to a common consistency. There may
not be movement towards tension or climax and
resolution to offset the tension. It’s harder to
determine direction. There is truth to all of this
but it is still music that can, and should, be
listened to and enjoyed.
And I’m a guy who makes music with sound. I should be
talking.
Meeting
John Cage. I meet
John Cage and David Tudor relaxing on the floor.
Except for Vienna, this is one of the few times I’m
seeing someone famous. I actually talk to Mr. Cage
and, in my usual never-leave-things-alone-style, I
bring up the topic of audience participation. At
least he admitted it wasn’t what it should be. Thanks
for being honest, Mr. Cage. For a photo of Cage and
Tudor, see Day 351.
Plenty of photos today. Berlin’s parks and outdoor
areas, the Zoological Garden, and modern art at the
Neue Gallerie.
Park setting near Schloss
Charlottenburg
West
Berlin had a lot of parks and great outdoors
areas
West
Berlin’s Zoological Garden
Art
at the Neue Gallerie
Living
art: children enjoying the giant sliding
pond
John
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