Lyrics with esoteric leanings, a fair amount of techno, and a female lead with the airiness of Emmy Rossum and the edge of Regina Spektor makes THROAT a unique a cappella experience. Their new music is a demanding experience; no checking out or half-listening options available. Several tunes are definite toe-tappers (my favorites are “On and On” and “180″). Some of them are strange enough to leave you in a stupor (”ala Floyd” being one of them. Of course, that might be the point of the homage in that particular tune). But all of them are worth listening to. Check ‘em out!

For Part One of this interview click here. For more about Mister Tim go to mistertimdotcom.com Or you can look him up on facebook.

LHC: How does your religion intersect with your music? Does being Mormon influence your creative process?

Mr. T: These things drive everything I do: I want it to be clean, I want it to be inspiring, and I want it to MATTER.

I cut my teeth as a professional performer, and in the a cappella world, with my comedy quartet moosebutter. moosebutter was an outgrowth of many of my musical influences, but also, as it turns out, of my odd sense of humor. Comedy group, singing silly songs, and yet I always felt that moosebutter was a spiritual group. In fact the initial inspiration for the group, and every significant event that lead to the development and progression of the group, was very spiritual. As a group, and now by extension as I incorporate comedy into my solo act, comedy has always served to break down doors and open minds to the gospel, or at the very least to the idea that Mormons are real people. moosebutter did a lot of touring, and I now travel all over the country, and Mormonism ALWAYS comes up. With moosebutter it usually came up because we were from Utah or from the fact that Weston spent a section of the show jumping around and shrieking in Spanish. When asked about the language, he would always tell people that he had served a Spanish-speaking mission for the church.

What about not-comedy music?

When I am inspired. . .when I am moved by the Spirit . . .I write music. I usually carry my own hymn book to church, because in the middle of singing hymns I get song ideas and the easiest place to write is in the book I’m holding. When I am at peace, when I feel a connection to the divine, I write music. I do not write overtly religious music. I, personally, do not enjoy listening to “inspirational” LDS music. Nothing against those musicians, and nothing against those who listen to it, I just don’t enjoy it. And I certainly don’t need to write that kind of music, because there are lots of people doing it better than I ever would. But beyond me not enjoying it, that’s simply not what comes out when I write.

[Laura's note: Go here and check out some of Mr. Tim's hymn arrangements. He says they are works in progress and would welcome any feedback. I really like "Silent Night".]

I write about some very heady subjects, some very dark subjects: addiction, human brutality, frustration, depression. I feel that I have a responsibility to at least try to share messages of hope and redemption with audiences that are typically not LDS. That requires a different kind of delivery. I still write a lot of comedic songs, or I think more accurately still find comedic or quirky elements emerging in songs: sometimes to soften the delivery of the material, but sometimes just because I tend toward a slightly-twisted delivery. I think it’s a good mix: a song like “Cupcakes Can Kill You” is straight up silly… but, if you ask my English-degreed wife, it’s also a biting satire. Even if I’m not trying to be funny, the goofy creeps in, because that’s who I am. But,
that’s not all I am, and it can be difficult getting people to even listen to my songs that don’t have punchlines.

[There is also a real] burden of fear: fear that I’m wasting my time, fear that my life and my work will not be of consequence, fear that in trying to make music that has popular appeal that I will make it shallow, or morally compromised; fear of working in a service industry, and that I’ll not be able to make a living.

Even if I am inspired to write something, does not mean it will be successful. The process, the work, the editing is mine to do. It is not uncommon to have tangible bursts of spiritual inspiration, and to have the resulting work fail miserably. Why? Leading to something more? Just because something is inspirational to me, if it feels directed or touched by the spirit, does not mean it will necessarily be inspiring to someone else. To expect that it will be, that my inspiration will equate to commercial success, or a publishing deal, or mainstream attention, that kind of sells short the diversity of workings of the spirit, doesn’t it? Who am I to limit what inspiration is intended for?

Some of my most successful work was not inspired in a powerful or notable way, but just happened; in fact, I think most of my best work did not feel bosom-burny at the time of conception, did not have Ensign article-worthy experiences, but just… happened. They came out like they were the most natural thing in the world, just made sense, just worked. If I look back on them, most of those probably came from progress made from other projects, and probably are connected to some of the inspired work that failed.

As I travel as a solo act, I always mention that I have (as of two months ago) 6 children. Not hard for people to figure out (“are you Catholic or Mormon?”), and then all of a sudden they know a Mormon, and he’s this guy they saw on stage who did this cool thing, and maybe he was funny, and … well. Once they think I’m “cool” I can talk about anything and it has the chance to get through. When I tell college kids in North Carolina that I don’t drink, some of them look at me like it has literally never crossed their mind that someone can not drink… but now it has crossed their mind. I spend a lot of time working with students, and usually all I want is for them to see clean, uplifting art. And if not art, then at least clean and uplifting. There is a lot of entertainment out there, and not much is clean. The best experiences I’ve had as a performer is when families come up after a show and tell me (or us) that everyone in the family loved what I/we did. Something fun, memorable, and clean that a whole family can do together: not a bad days work.

I feel very strongly about moral questions, political questions, and ideological issues that I see as vital to the health of society and the health of individuals. The problem with important issues like these is that the artist cannot be obvious when trying to speak about these issues. The audience will tune out if you are overt. The art is finding a way to speak truth without being preachy.

Be sure to check out Mr. Tim’s online calendar to see about upcoming performances. He’ll be in Utah March 9-11. He is also available for school assemblies, work as artist in residence, and workshops. Also check out his mp3 store where you can purchase music or listen to tracks in their entirety. Also, his work is available at the Plumbers of Rome and Vocality Singers websites.

I’ve known Mister Tim for more than 5 years and witnessed many artistic incarnations. The earliest (for me) was as our ward choir director. Intense, focused, squinting with the effort of tweaking our voices into a semblance of harmony and with one ear always turned toward the choir Mister Tim–er, I mean, Brother Tim–did his own arrangements of hymns and sang all the music as if it were being performed for the first time every time. Ward members still talk about his performance of “O, Holy Night.”

The next incarnation, which he had been inhabiting since college, was Moosebutter. Like most college a cappella bands Moosebutter focused on and perfected the silliness inherent in singing “classic” music, like “Popcorn Popping”, with that characteristic BYU-comedy flair. They were big with the ten year olds and all their parents for being able to comically riff on everything from Harry Potter to Spam to Jon Williams (who is most definitely the man), for which they were nominated for a People’s Choice Award.

From there Mister Tim went on to work on the Vegas Strip and put together, manage, and perform in many other a cappella groups. When his stint in Vegas ended and he and his family rolled back into Colorado he came with yet another incarnation: Vocal Magic.

Vocal Magic is a multifaceted one man show that hinges on Mister Tim’s prodigious vocal textures, far-reaching vocal range, and his ability to work three sound effect pedals that enable to sing with himself and mix his voice in real time–a process called live looping. Part stand-up comedy, part poetry slam, and part performance art, Vocal Magic was like nothing I had ever seen before. My first thought: If T.S. Eliot could have sang and Allan Ginsberg had known how to beatbox and been stuck in one body, they could have been reincarnated as Mister Tim. Vocal Magic was like nothing I’d ever seen but it was definitely something I wished to see again.

Mr. Tim graciously agreed to be interviewed. His answers were thorough enough and thought-provoking enough that I split the interview into two parts. Here’s part one.

LHC: How are you feeling today? (Fuzzy, spacey, ???)

Mr. T: Perpendicular.

LHC: Tell me about the modern a cappella scene. Until I saw your show whenever I thought of a cappella I always thought of those guys from “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?” How has a cappella grown and changed?

Mr. T:There is a great deal of detail and nuance to this answer. “A Cappella” to most people, I think, means Rockapella (Carmen San Diego), or a barbershop quartet, or a college group like BYU’s Vocal Point, or, more and more frequently, “GLEE” (even though there has only been one actual a cappella song on that show). But, even Rockapella, still touring the world 15 years after Carmen San Diego went off the air, is nothing like they were on that show: [now] they are a technology-dependent pop act. There are groups that use stacks and stacks of expensive sound gear, like Naturally 7 who are touring with Michael Buble.

Really there are three ways to define “a cappella”: 1) the most basic– meaning any music performed without
instruments, regardless of style (including when rock bands sing a section of their song without instruments, like the beginning of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”); 2) what seems to be the popular interpretation of a cappella, which is the Rockapella version, or the college a cappella version, or even the barbershop version, which carries a fragrance of dorkiness; 3) and “contemporary” a cappella, which is a movement of modern musicians doing modern music at a very high level, usually incorporating vocal percussion, and usually depending on technology to create the same auditory punch as a ‘real’ band.

My history in a cappella really follows the progression of contemporary a cappella. I listened to The King’s Singers (classical) in high school, saw BYU’s Vocal Point at one of BYU’s very first a cappella jams; I had friends bootlegging a cappella radio programs onto cassette tapes and passing them around; I was introduced, through rumor at first, to The House Jacks, and then by the late 90’s to m*pact. I started attending a cappella conferences, and growing less satisfied with the traditional a cappella standard and wanting… more. And there were groups doing more, and I gravitated to them. Then I started making my own groups, and have been skewing further and further from “traditional” a cappella since then, although I still keep the traditional stuff around because it makes $.

When most people call me wanting to hire “an a cappella group,” they want something like early 90’s Rockapella, or like a college group. Recognizable covers, bare-bones vocal sound, oftenthey want something a little corny (which is part of that old-school a cappella… thing).

LHC: What attracted you to live looping? How is it different from traditional a cappella?

Mr. T: My wife and I used to joke that I was constantly disappointed with the other singers in my groups because what I really wanted was for all the singers in my group to be me. Well, looping lets me do that! I get to sing everything just the way I want it sung, and I don’t have to wait for other people to learn their parts.

Other reasons I started live-looping: a) I want to go out and perform as often as possible, but couldn’t get the other people in my groups to go all the time; b) There are lots of paid shows that come up that don’t pay enough for a whole group, but are good money for just one person; c) I saw other people do it, and it looked like fun.

But, one of the biggest factors: I love teaching. I love teaching. The problem with the kind of teaching I do, where I drop in and talk to kids in their regular music classes, or in assemblies, or at music festivals, is that if they don’t know who I am, they don’t care about what I have to say. If I’m there with a group, they hear the group sing, they think it’s cool, then they’ll listen. But I want to be teaching as often as possible, visiting classes, flying out to music festivals, showing up at concerts. I can’t afford to fly a whole group out to these kinds of things for free, which most of them demand (even the big a cappella festivals where I teach I have to pay my own way there unless I’m one of the headline performers). But now that I’ve got a solo act, I can drop in on a class with my small sound system that takes less than 5 minutes to set up, sing a couple of songs,
the kids think it’s cool, and then when I speak, my words matter. It’s a pedagogical thing.

Artistically, what attracts me now to continue live-looping is that it really is rare to have one person doing looping with just the voice. Novelty factor, and if done well and if we find the market I’ve got a corner on the market. I do enjoy the constraints: a lot of my material has developed to address specific issues of how to keep the show from being boring, dealing with the repetitive nature of the loop, not being able to change the music once it’s laid down without completely starting over. Limiting, yes, but has forced me to adapt in ways and to develop new approaches to my performing that I think have greatly improved the overall impact of my
performance.

LHC: I know you’re a fan of all types of music, but what musicians and songs/works have stuck with you over the years?

Mr. T: The 3 B’s: Bach, Beethoven, Barenaked Ladies (I don’t like Brahms); Midnight Oil; Kingston Trio; Manheim Steamroller; Spike Jones; Weird Al Yankovic; Alan Sherman; Smothers Brothers; Brandon Flowers; John Adams

To be continued, but while you are waiting feel free to enjoy this:

Neon Trees had a big 2010. After getting plucked from the Provo music scene to tour with The Killers in 2008, they finally dropped their first studio album Habits (Amazon) with plenty of buzz and exposure. First single “Animal” went platinum, and after hearing it a zillion times I grew to quite like it and bought the album which spent weeks in our car on repeat. Second single “1983″ has not done as well (speaking sales; it’s on San Francisco radio nonstop), but every song on Habits sounds like a hit and I imagine we’ll be hearing more from Neon Trees at busstops and clubs around the world for years to come.

In case you’re not hip to their jive, man, here’s what they sound like, both album and live:

Animal video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM7Hlg75Mlo

Animal live: www.youtube.com/watch?v=05sL30VqSIs

1983 video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=j51LRUjIdnE

1983 live: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-B1HbUBZ6Q

I haven’t heard any rumors yet so maybe they don’t exist yet, but I can predict them for you right now. You can’t be a successful rocker with hair like that and not have Certain People saying nasty things about you and your relationship to the faith. But let’s help prevent such rumors now. Here’s a good place to start: quote this.

But mohawks aside, their songs’ subject matter is what might make those Certain People most skittish. Their songs are, dare I say, pretty typical pop fair about love and clubs and good times. They’re good enough lyrics I suppose, but making an argument that they’re “holy” will be rather tough. Yet we seem to have this idea—and by “we” I don’t mean Mormons but Americans in general and perhaps moderns in general—that song lyrics are inherently autobiographical. We’re enlightened enough to never accuse a novelist of living as he writes, but we’re perfectly happy to do it to songwriters. Silly, I know, but we all do it. Admit it. When a songster writes about Activity X, we all assume they engage in Activity X.

So let’s start a new trend and give Neon Trees the same leeway we give, say, Orson Scott Card, and not accuse them of really hitting on girls who talk cheap in a bathroom stall.

That said, Habits is still hardly great art. What’s it saying, anyway? I mean, yeah, you can host a party with this album and a bag of pretzels, but is there much going on under the surface? I’m gonna say no.

But, as I said, 2010 was great for Neon Trees and I have a lot of faith in their ability to stay on the charts with their next album and the one after that. Sure, times may change and they may prove inflexible, and yes I may be getting waaay ahead of things here, but I really think Neon Trees have a shot to be one of those bands that lasts. I hope this proves to be the case, because I have a dream for the future of Mormon arts and that dream is Neon Tree’s 2025 album. This album will get stellar reviews from Rolling Stone and junior high girls. It will be called “thoughtful” and “smart” and “deep and moving”, and it will rock just as hard as what they did way back in 2010, and it will say profound things from a distinctly Mormon vantage point without alienating their broad fanbase. They might still have hair that makes them want to wear a hat to sacrament meeting, but we’ll all feel proud that they’ve come out of our shared cultural and spiritual tradition—we’ll be happy to own them and they’ll be happy to own us.

And who knows. It may not even take that long. Brandon Flowers has already gone from “she’s touching his chest now / He takes off her dress now” to an entirely and intentionally spiritual album (Amazon).

2025.

By then we should be well represented by artists at the top of all fields, don’t you think? Even rock and roll.

Man. I can’t wait to hear that album.

In yesterday’s post, I introduced Song/Cycles from New York’s Mormon Artists Group. Today we will read an excerpt from a roundtable discussion from the contributing composers (available in full at the front of the book).

But before we get to that however, residents of Utah should remind themselves that “on Monday, November 8, a performance of all six works from . . .  Song/Cycles . . . is free at 7pm at the Orem Public Library. Performers include Darrell Babidge, Clara Hurtado Lee, Ruth Ellis, Brian Stucki, Doris Brunatti, and Marilyn Reid Smith. For additional information, contact 801.229.7050. Works to be performed are: Mary Keeps All These Things (Harriet Petherick Bushman/Susan Howe), Notes (David H. Sargent/Elaine M. Craig), Seven Sisters (Murray Boren/Glen Nelson), Sudden Music (Lansing McLoskey/Javen Tanner), The Dead Praying for Me (Daniel Bradshaw/Lance Larsen), and Töchterliebe (Charis Bean Duke/Will Reger).”

*  *  *  *  *

How did you come to select the poetry for your composition? Tell us the story behind the collaboration with your poet.

David H. Sargent: Elaine M. Craig is a long-time friend and sister-in-law. My first real acquaintance with her poetry was in 1983 when she wrote the lyrics for a choral work Dr. Ronald J. Staheli commissioned for his elite choir, the Brigham Young University Singers, entitled “Quarterly Report”—dealing with the four seasons. It was my first experience composing with lyrics of a living poet.

I enjoyed the creative nature of her writing and the kinds of imagery and ideas of musical gesture and nuance it provided. It suggested a different direction in the uses of harmony, line, form and expression from the music I had previously composed, and I very much enjoyed the challenges it presented.

Harriet Petherick Bushman: Susan Howe and I have collaborated on several projects. The first was Discoveries: Two Centuries of Poems by Mormon Women. I set a cycle of these to music and the opening poem/lyric was Susan’s.

The first year of this project we performed the cycle of songs interspersed with spoken poems; the following year it was filmed and a DVD was created. I particularly loved Susan’s work for its passion and energy, and it was then that I knew she was a poetic force to be reckoned with. After Discoveries, I invited Susan to write some of the lyrics for 1856: Long Walk Home—a concert opera about the Martin and Willie handcart company trek across the plains.

She is always innovative and pushing the boundaries because that is the sort of brave and shining soul that she is. There is an innate rhythm—however free-style the poem—which lends itself to music and this, coupled with proper research into the subject, makes her a first-class collaborator. Her artistic integrity is absolute, and she never gives in to self-indulgence or crowd-pleasing. Her work inspires everyone around her to reach for their own true voice.

Mary Keeps All These Things was part of a group of poems that Susan sent me for consideration when I told her of the song cycle project. All the poems were excellent but Mary, as this song has become affectionately known, stood out to me. Never sacrilegious, I think it was the rawness and honesty, the getting under the skin of our Lord’s mother, the depiction of Mary as a woman living a woman’s role as it really happened, no longer hidden and sanitized behind the doors of scripture. Mary alive.

Lansing McLoskey: Poetry: I absolutely love Javen’s work. I settled on the four-poem set, “Sudden Music.” I mean, how could you not want to set a collection of poems with such a title?

Charis Bean Duke: I believe years of composing operas for children has substantially changed the way I look at poetry and music. In graduate school I was setting poems of Rilke and Thomas Merton, the more layers of meaning, the better. But I’ve become more open over the years, and as I approached this project I found myselfseeking very simple poems that didn’t need much interpretation or nuance. I wanted something cheerful, uncomplicated, and honest, more like the music I have to write every year for the children’s operas. I looked in published books of poetry, I looked online, I even read some of my great-grandmother’s poetry (nice, but too quaint!).

Then I remembered from two decades ago that an old friend from grad school, William Reger (Will is his “poet’s name”) had written some poetry that I had never read. I contacted him, he sent me to his blog, and after reading the first one, which I believe was “Seeds,” I knew I had found my poet.

The fact that I knew him and his daughters well (he later had a son) and he knew me and my children well provided an immediate connection with and comprehension of what he was expressing in his poems. I liked their brevity. I tend to be a miniaturist. I liked their imagery, the references to nature appeal to me. He guessed in advance which poems I might select, but left the choice to me. He guessed most of them correctly!

Most interesting, I think, is that William provided the title. When the cycle was nearly done, I asked him what he thought we should call it. I had no idea. I mentioned we could use a line from one of the poems, or one of the poem’s titles, or come up with our own title. I told him that my favorite song cycle is Schumann’s Dichterliebe. Not only am I passionate about the music but I have always loved the title. It’s amazing to me how that one word so beautifully conveys the meaning of the songs. William emailed me back, “Töchterliebe.” Perfect!

Murray Boren: Temple Square had a concert series in the fall of 2000 called “Families Making Music.” The people who ran the series are friends of ours, and we were asked to do one of the concerts. My wife Susan Alexander Boren is a soprano. I wanted to write new music for her to perform; that was the genesis of the concert. We ended up with three premieres of song cycles for soprano and orchestra. Looking back at it, I’m surprised how ambitious it was, but at the time we were eager to do it.

I asked Glen Nelson to write new poetry for the concert. He and I met in New York years earlier. We were at a party once, and the price of admission, so to speak, was a song or poem or something. Glen read some poetry that he’d written called “Coney Island Hymn.” Susan leaned over and told me I had to set them to music. That’s how we started working together.

For the concert, Glen wrote three groups of poetry: Afterwards which was a group of three songs, each started with a short scripture from the New Testament and then imagined what might have happened afterwards; My Children the texts of which he wrote with Susan, each poem is about one of our children, Levi, Emma, and Noah; and the big work on the program was Seven Sisters. Seven Sisters is based on seven women in Glen’s life, his mother, sister-in-law, niece, and so on. Each one is a little story. I remember that some of them immediately suggested music and others were a struggle. At this point in our collaboration, we had already written two operas, a cantata or two, and some song cycles together. So I guess, to answer the question, I didn’t really select the poetry. I merely asked for help from a poet I trusted.

Daniel Bradshaw: First, I read a lot of poetry. I found a few things online, talked to friends and family about their favorite Mormon poets, and consulted a couple of collections of Mormon poetry: Harvest, compiled by Eugene England and Dennis Clark, and Discoveries: Two Centuries of Poems by Mormon Women, compiled by Susan Elizabeth Howe and Sheree Maxwell Bench. This initial stage was a lot of fun. I discovered names I’d never known before, and some poems I will come back to in the future. There is a wealth of well-crafted, interesting, wonderfully artistic poetry by LDS authors.

The difficulty I had was finding a set of poems that would work well together for a cycle. I debated about using poems from different authors all around a central theme, but decided in the end to work with a single poet. Lance Larsen’s name had come from several different directions and I was really taken with his work.

My only hesitancy with Lance’s poetry was that it is so well-crafted and intelligent, often with a multiplicity of images and meanings. His poetry also has its own music, with careful attention to vowels, the very sounds of words and phrases, and their counterpoint with meaning. I didn’t want to harm his poetry with my music, and I wasn’t sure I could fashion my music to match the density and depth of his poetry without the music sounding schizophrenic. The best poetry does not always make the best lyrics, and I was worried that Lance’s poetry might be too strong for a meaningful marriage to music.

Taking these thoughts to Glen Nelson was the right thing to do. He urged me to “wrestle it to the ground and use it.” I agreed, and once I settled on using Lance’s poetry, things started to fall into place. Lance was very gracious about letting me use his work, and as I had time to live with his poems, I found that the multiplicity of meanings generally gave way to some core idea or theme. I had to wait for this idea to emerge before the music started to come for me.

David: After I accepted the commission to write this particular song cycle, I asked Elaine about the possibility of using some of the poems she had already written, and if I could set some of them to music for this occasion. I found them to be approachable, intimate, sensitive and delightful. I had her talk to me about the poems in order to find out if my interpretations were accurate, and to help me with my decisions of which poems to use. In so doing, she was very helpful, gracious, and enthusiastic.

She discussed and presented these poems in different orderings—which might come first, second and so on—to help me see different sequencing possibilities from which to choose. Elaine also let me know that these were suggestions only, that she felt good about any choices I would make. I thank her for this opportunity.

Can you tell us how you started composing the work? Take the first page of your score and walk us through the mental decisions that led to the notes on paper.

Charis: It is very difficult for me to discuss how I compose, because I’m not sure I know! I never proceed with a plan. I never map anything out in advance. I never have any idea of form, structure, direction, etc. I simply write and let the piece unfold itself. To begin this cycle I read through the poems I had chosen, and picked the one that sang out to me first. When I’m reading a poem, if I can hear the music in my head while I’m reading, that’s a good sign. So I started with “Love Undaunted.”

Since I’m a pianist, when I compose piano or vocal music, I always do it at the piano. I literally sat at the piano and thought, “It’s windy. Short, blustery gestures, but not ugly. It’s not a storm, and the day turns out nicely in the end.” Then I began to play. I liked it, so I wrote it down. I simply extended the opening gesture into longer phrases until it could support the entrance of the voice, which had it’s own short, blustery gestures to begin with. Then I let both parts grow into longer, lyrical lines, but the wind always returns to chop things up a bit. That’s all there is to it. I simply tried to portray the day.

Daniel: Rather than walk through the prologue, I’d like to talk about the first page of “Old Masters.” My challenge with this piece was to write music that had nothing new in it. I wanted to personify the “hopping way of staying hungry” in the music, where the writer seems unable to come up with anything new because of the old masters bouncing around in his mind. This phenomenon is not foreign to me in my own writing—sometimes musical ideas I think are original turn out to be something I heard days, months or years ago. I thought that, instead of avoiding these associations, it would be fun to embrace all those voices that resonate in my mind when a simple melody is played, to allow some old musical masters to haunt my music as the song progressed.

So this song is constructed entirely out of the music of Old Masters: Bach, Josquin, and Isaac, as well as Mahler, Crumb and Ravel. Furthermore, every piece that I chose is united by a single 4-note motive: C-D-E-F, the first four notes of J.S. Bach’s first Fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier. By playing these four notes in different keys, turning them upside down and/or backwards, I was able to give the piece some continuity, a thread through this maze of musical quotations. After  the opening glissando, these four notes begin the piece as grace notes, taking us inside the poet’s head, as it were, into a giant echo chamber. This “echo chamber” becomes a fabric uniting the entire piece, from which musical quotations emerge and fade. When the voice enters, we get the first real melody, which is also stolen (with a little tweaking) from Ravel’s “Scarbo.” “Scarbo,” a piano solo based on a poem about a ghost, becomes a specter itself in this piece. For me, it was an inescapable musical reference for the image of these haunting magpies in Larsen’s poem, so “Scarbo” returns in the music whenever the magpies return in the text. I find it interesting that Ravel said of “Scarbo,” “I wanted to make a caricature of romanticism. Perhaps it got the better of me.” In this song, I wanted to allow the Old Masters to get the better of me, so that the piece would itself signify “not flight, not song, but this hopping way of staying hungry.”

Lansing: Here is an email I wrote to Glen about the experience of writing: “But now for the good news: I’ve nearly finished the song cycle. Just finishing up the last song (hopefully in the next few days). I must say, I am really happy with it! And I have God to thank—really. This piece was one of those [rare!] instances where the music just seemed to flow from outside my body onto the paper. Not to get too ‘testimony meeting’ on you, but I just had no time whatsoever to work on it, and when I finally did I had complete writer’s block. As in, totally blank. Brick wall.

“Knowing that there was no time to ‘wait around for The Muse to show up,’ after a week of nothing I knelt down and prayed to God—something along the lines of ‘Heavenly Father, if you don’t help me this isn’t going to happen. I need it NOW.’

“Within 24 hours I had two of the four songs done. I’m telling you, Glen, it was a mystical experience.”

Harriet: The first page is the first of the five parts of the song: it is called “Necessity.” “I stir the inn-keeper’s sympathy only when my water breaks and runs down my leg soaking the blue robe and I have to lean against his shabby door.” These words brought the whole scene alive and I have tried to create the sound of a donkey’s hooves, gentle and light but insistent as Mary, shielded from the sun and fellow-travellers by the blue-robe, is borne towards the inn.

Bar 8/9 could be understood as the sound of knocking at the door of the inn or just growing anxiety, starting soft but increasing in intensity, as Mary perceives how close she is to her time. Bar 10 is meant to suggest to us how Mary suddenly realizes that her water is breaking and these are the first astonishing moments of realization that nature is overtaking human control.

I remember sitting in my studio thinking how do you depict this? And I would see myself in exactly that situation and say, hesitantly and full of wonder mixed with dread, the words: “Oh….no…. what’s happening” (it was Mary’s first baby after all). Bar 12 concludes this with the triumphant gush of water heralding labour and the ensuing chromaticism suggests the confusion of Mary’s feelings. “What am I going to do? This baby, the Son of God, is coming and we have nowhere to go except….” And there is the greasy-bearded inn-keeper—sizing them up. Just another lot of free-loaders, he thinks.

Murray: I have a hard time remembering how this music came about. It was ten years ago. For me, it’s like it happened in a separate lifetime. I took out the score, dusted it off, and made some adjustments including reordering the songs and preparing the piano accompaniment.

The last song of the cycle, “Three Elizabeths,” is the story of a woman who loses her husband at a young age and in her grief discovers the written history of her ancestors. The stories of their strength renew her life. I wanted to incoporate the sounds of the first six movements of the cycle but also find a new sound for this Elizabeth that was cathartic. I knew I wanted to use the pitch set from the entire work but present it in a new way. Ultimately the interlocking triads of E major and a second major triad built on its third (enharmonically A-flat major) presented as arpeggios provided the sonic richness I wanted, two major chords, two minor seconds, for an ending of affirmation tinged with pathos.

Currently, I feel like Prospero at the end of The Tempest who breaks his staff and says, I’m done. I’ve put down my composer’s pen. I’m not composing now. Maybe that will change and maybe it won’t, but the experience of music is painful to me these days. I can’t allow myself to be emotionally attached to it.

At the time, I didn’t realize how rare it is to have an excuse to write big, bold, new music. Imagine, all of that work—three premieres for singer and orchestra—for a free concert, heard only once, and even then by just the number of people that can fit into the Assembly Hall. It sounds crazy now, but I loved the doing of it. To be honest, I never expected it to be heard again.

David: After carefully reading the text to “to John” and discussing it with Elaine, I decided to approach it as a reminiscence, trying to express the suggested feelings of love it depicted. I then had to make decisions concerning
qualities of line, harmony, form, sound suggested by the text, freedom of direction, process and coloration.

When I first began composing this piece, my intention was to write for Soprano and Piano. About halfway through “Circus,” I realized the vocal range was more suited for Mezzo-soprano. I love the richness and depth of color of the Mezzo-soprano voice, and am delighted it turned out this way.

to John

I used to read
the gentle caress of the breeze
the winking of the sun through the trees
the tender kiss of dawn
fanciful metaphors.
I thought them odd,
backwards,
somehow.
When you slip your arm around me
I feel the breath of a summer evening
your eyes illumine like the morning sun,
and your kiss removes the night.

I started to think of ways to let the text shape the music, rather than the music shape the text. Also, I needed to identify specific places to occasionally repeat a “reminiscent” short motive or two—not often, but just here and there—whose occurrence would provide cohesion and brief remembrance and connection in the mind of the listener so the music would not have the feeling of meandering.

Because of the delicacy, tenderness and supple nature in each line of the text, I decided for the most part, to use a linear and sometimes contrapuntal approach to form the harmonic content of the piece.

Also, for harmonic interest, I have employed the use of poly-chords, implied poly-chords, tall tertian chords, and implied tall tertian chords to add increased levels of depth and color to the overall harmonic landscape of the piece which cannot be achieved by traditionally used triads and chords alone. This allows opportunities to utilize word painting to match phrases in the text. Some of the word painting seems to have the opposite mood of the text due to the musical function of the phrase—those moving toward cadences, etc.

Examples of word painting are as follows:

1. “I used to read the gentle caress of the breeze . . .” The breeze is represented by the triplet eighth-notes which, at this slow tempo (quarter-note equals 60) add a gentle increase in the motion suggesting breeze. The ascending vocal line combined with the triplet eight-notes also suggests motion of the breeze.

2. “ . . . the winking of the sun through the trees . . .” is represented by the repeated F#-D# 16th notes in the vocal part, followed by the repeated eighth-notes E-D and C#-B in the accompaniment in measure 12. To me, this idea represents an image of the sun behind moving tree branches.

For the most part, the harmonies are linearly derived. Tall Tertian chords, Dominant 13th chords, are unfolded one note at a time and not in order from bottom to top while depressing the sustaining pedal in order to “collect” the sound of that certain chord. Examples of this procedure are found in the following measures:

1. In Measures 1-2, a linear unfolding of a G Dominant 13th chord while depressing the Sustaining Pedal occurs. Notice the notes are not unfolded in order from bottom to top—G, B, D, F, A (missing), C-sharp (raised 11th) and E. The resulting sound is that of a static, sustained, inverted G13th chord with noncommittal resolution tendencies.

2. In Measures 3-4, a similar linear unfolding occurs on an F Dominant 13th chord. In both the G and F 13th chords, the 9ths are missing and the 11ths are raised 1/2 step respectively.

3. Measures 5-8, Sustaining Pedal depressed, is the same concept. The same F13th chord from measures 3-4 is again sustained but this time includes the missing 9th (G). Again, notice the different ordering of the notes in these measures. These are all examples of linearly produced harmonies.

4. Measures 11-12 are examples of implied linear harmony. These chords–played one note at a time and not in order from bottom to top—are considered to be implied because the pedal does not sustain the sounds.

The first use of poly-chords in “to John”—in this case, three different chords sounding at the same time—is found in measures 13-15. In measure 13, an A major-minor 7th chord is played in the Bass Clef and sustained until beat three of measure 15. Above it in measure 13 (Treble Clef ) are two chords—the three upper notes form a D Major chord and the lower two notes imply a C Major chord. On beat three of measure 13, the upper three notes (D Major) move stepwise downward to a C Major Chord, and the lower two notes to an implied Bb Major chord which are restated in measure 14 and tied over to beat three in measure 15. They also provide the triplet motive for the text in the voice part of measure 15—“fanciful metaphors . . . ”

Mormon Artists Group is at it again. In case you didn’t hear about their latest release, it is poetry set to music. The poetry is of high quality (some of them, I will admit, are among the best poems I’ve read in the last few years) and the music also ranges from the good to the excellent. The fancy limited goose-eggshell edition has sold out but the $19.95 paperback is still available.

(Sadly, the paperback does not come with a cd and so you can only read the scores.  If you are someone like me, this is simply inadequate. Fortunately MAG gave me the opportunity to listen to the music anyway and while the current recordings are blemished by coughs and suchlike, the inherent loveliness is generally intact. If you live in Utah, you will have the opportunity to hear the songs live NEXT WEEK. [See below.] In the meantime, I highly recommend that you inform your potential purchase by listening to the samples available at mormonartistgroup.com.)

MAG, for those who may not know, are a group of New York artists “unaffiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints except for the fact that our participants are past or present members of the Church.” The quality of their output is generally very high indeed, including works from Casey Jex Smith, Annie Poon and Jeremy Grimshaw.

Unlike most of MAG’s publications, the paperback edition of Song/Cycles is not flawless as you can see if you glance at a blown up excerpt from the book compared to a previous book, Mormoniana:

Mormoniana

Glen Nelson, MAG’s director, tells me that  ”The paperback’s quality issues aren’t printer’s issues. Unfortunately, the composers couldn’t get high resolution PDFs to me for it. So we had to go with what we had for the paperback. ”

While such physical issues do not detract from the quality of the book’s actual content, it is something to keep in mind before making a purchase. (And it’s not unprecedented either; the only copy of Smith’s MAG-published book which I have ever examined, though lovely and well printed, was yet imperfect—the paper label on the spine was peeling off. A shame really as the book was otherwise a joy to hold and to look through.)

To those interested in the Mormon arts generally and how this book came to be specifically, it begins with a roundtable discussion with the composers. The final question of the discussion is available online (”Is there a Mormon school of composition?“), and I have received permission to publish here, online for the first time, the first question, about how these world-class composers chose their poets. Watch for it tomorrow.

But before we get to that, note also that “on Monday, November 8, a performance of all six works from . . . Song/Cycles . . . is free at 7pm at the Orem Public Library. Performers include Darrell Babidge, Clara Hurtado Lee, Ruth Ellis, Brian Stucki, Doris Brunatti, and Marilyn Reid Smith. For additional information, contact 801.229.7050. Works to be performed are: Mary Keeps All These Things (Harriet Petherick Bushman/Susan Howe), Notes (David H. Sargent/Elaine M. Craig), Seven Sisters (Murray Boren/Glen Nelson), Sudden Music (Lansing McLoskey/Javen Tanner), The Dead Praying for Me (Daniel Bradshaw/Lance Larsen), and Töchterliebe (Charis Bean Duke/Will Reger).”

None the less, last year he told the Tribune newspaper in Salt Lake City – the Mormon faith’s heart, the capital city of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – ‘my faith influences the songs I don’t write’.

What did he mean by that? ‘Yes!’ That gasp-laugh again. ‘Uh, I’ve often, I do, you know, we’ve all got our … hah…’ He’s squirming. ‘I definitely have a darker side. And a more sinister, maybe more sexual, being inside me that I think everybody’s got.

‘And I believe that because of what I believe, and because of the way that I was raised, and as I’ve got older, I’ve leant towards – I’ve pushed towards being that positive force that I always talk about. That’s kind of where I’d rather be. I know that it’s not…’ He stops and gathers his thoughts. ‘I know it’s frowned upon in art to put a muzzle on something. But I definitely do it.’

This harks back to Flowers’ most famous line and one of the Killers’ most famous songs. Crowds around the world have roared along to the declamatory high point of All These Things That I Have Done: ‘I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier’. In writing it the singer was acknowledging the struggles he had sticking to the strictures of his faith. But now it seems he’s resolved that on one level. Whereas many musicians use songs for exactly this purpose, Flowers won’t give vent to his baser feelings in song.

‘Yes,’ he nods. ‘So it’s a struggle. I wonder if it’s legit. But I can’t help but go for the good I guess. Especially after having children – I think, what kind of mark do I wanna leave? For the most part, that’s the person that I am. I think I’m a positive and optimistic person.’

I find this idea utterly fascinating and completely defensible. Brother Flowers may not be quite the role model for orthodox Mormons (nor would he claim to be), but in a world where the notion of self-censorship is anathema for most artists (even as they — we — all do it on some level), I find his honesty about all this to be rather radical middle.

Much depends on exactly how you define Mormon Literature. Excluding the Book of Mormon, however, the first literary works were first published in June of 1832, in the first number of the Evening and Morning Star. That first LDS newspaper included several poems in its first issue, two of which were by LDS authors W.W. Phelps (the newspaper’s editor) and Parley P. Pratt.

Of course, these were the first published. We may never know for sure exactly what was the first work written, since not everything has survived in a dated manuscript form. But I did learn recently, from early Mormon document collector Jon Hajicek, that another Parley P. Pratt poem was written well before the first issue of the Evening and Morning Star was published. Hajicek says he has a manuscript copy of Pratt’s A Song of Zion, a poem he dedicated “To Mrs Clarisa Chapen of Independence Jacson County Misourie” (evidently Miss Clarissa Melissa Chapin, the daughter of Adolphus Chapin, a Mormon identified from the Whitmer settlement in Jackson County, Missouri ). The poem was later included in Pratt’s first book, The Millennium (1835), as “Historical Sketch from the Creation to the Present Day. In Three Parts.” and appears as “Song 1. (Common Metre)” in the collection.

From what I can tell, Pratt was in Missouri twice during 1831, once early in the year, and a second time from December into 1832. Whether this poem was written during the earlier or the later visit, I can’t tell. Regardless, it was written at least 6 months before the publication of the first issue of the Evening and Morning Star.

Like A Song of Zion, both of the poems in that first published issue in 1832 were later included in a book — Emma Smith’s A Collection of Sacred Hymns, the first LDS hymnal. But unlike the poem included in The Millennium, these two were much longer lived. Both also appeared in the Manchester LDS hymnal, first published in 1840, and in subsequent editions of hymnals until as recently as 1912. Of the two, Pratt’s seems to have been the more popular, since it is mentioned as having been sung on several different occasions in LDS publications, while Phelp’s hymn isn’t mentioned, although it seems likely that it was sung at least occasionally over the years.

After describing all this and emphasizing their place as the first of Mormon literary efforts, I should probably let you read the poems. Here then are the first two published works of Mormon literature (except scripture):

What fair one is this, in the wilderness traveling

By W. W. Phelps

What fair one is this, in the wilderness trav’ling,
Looking for Christ, the belov’d of her heart?
O this is the Church, the fair bride of the Savior,
Which with every idol is willing to part.
While men in contention, are constantly howling,
And Babylon’s bells are continually tolling,
As though all the craft of her merchants was failing,
And Jesus was coming to reign on the earth.

There is a sweet sound in the gospel of heaven,
And people are joyful when they understand;
The saints on their way home to glory, are even
Determin’d, by goodness, to reach the blest land.
Old formal professers [professors] are crying “delusion,”
And high minded hypocrites day, “’tis confusion,”
While grace is pour’d out in a blessed effusion,
And saints are rejoicing to see priest-craft fall.

A blessing a blessing, the Savior is coming,
As prophets and pilgrims of old have declar’d;
And Israel, the favor’d of God, is beginning
To come to the feast for the righteous prepar’d.
In the desert are fountains continually springing,
The heavenly music of Zion is ringing;
The saints all their tithes and offerings are bringing;
They thus prove the Lord and his blessing receive.

The name of Jehovah is worthy of praising,
And so is the Savior an excellent theme:
The Elders of Israel a standard are raising,
And call on all nations to come to the same:
These Elders go forth and the gospel are preaching,
And all that will hear them, they freely are teaching,
And thus is the vision of Daniel fulfilling [fulfilling];
The Stone of the mountains will soon fill the earth.

THE time is nigh, that happy time

By Parley P. Pratt

THE time is nigh, that happy time,
That great, expected, blessed day,
When countless thousands of our race,
Shall dwell with Christ and him obey.

The prophecies must be fulfil’d
Though earth and hell should dare oppose;
The stone out of the mountain cut,
Though unobserved, a Kingdom grows.

Soon shall the blended Image fall,
Brass, silver, iron, gold and clay;
And superstition’s dreadful reign,
To light and liberty give way.

In one sweet symphony of praise,
The Jews and Gentiles will unite;
And infidelity, o’er come,
Return again to endless night.

From east to west, from north to south,
The Savior’s Kingdom shall extend,
And every man in every place,
Shall meet a brother and a friend.

I hesitated for a few weeks before reading The Island of Bali Is Littered With Prayers (Amazon) by Jeremy Grimshaw (which is now out in paperback). I already knew Jeremy could write, and, in fact, I have tried to recruit him to AMV over the years. I knew that we shared a certain sensibility that could perhaps be described as a interest in melding, or at least co-locating, the core of Mormon praxis with the avant garde, post-whatever, and insistently yet calmly artistic. And I knew that I very much liked the excerpt I had posted at AMV when the limited edition hard bound copy of the book was published late last year by Mormon Artists Group (also see my interview with Jeremy about the book).

But all that somehow fades when faced with the book itself, the slim paperback volume with the vibrant red cover that arrived with a handwritten return address. What if it isn’t good? What if it is good, but I have nothing to say about it? Silly considerations, of course, especially when you get the book for free without committing to a formal review. And once the hesitation slid away, all there was to do was just read the thing. Which I did.

So here’s the deal: The Island of Bali Is Littered With Prayers is a marvelous case study in how to capture in a piece of creative nonfiction a meaningful cross-cultural experience. It’s also a lovely book to read.

There are a few reasons for that:

1. The goal of the experience itself was not manufactured for the purpose of writing the book. Jeremy goes to Bali because he has been charged with starting a gamelan group at BYU. That goal supplies the narrative with a forward movement, which then frees him from the need to indulge in travelogue and chronology. Although the book does proceed roughly chronologically, Jeremy loops back and forth in places to explain what needs to be explained or to share an anecdote that needs to be shared and it doesn’t seem like digression because it’s all serving the larger narrative.

2. Jeremy is less of a tourist and more of a student, but as a student he’s both a novice (at gamelan) and an expert (a PhD-ed musicologist), which means that he can approach his writing with authority, but also wonder and humility. That leads to a very pleasant tone to the prose. Unlike many travel writes he is not preening or pretentiously keening or trying to chock full us with insights and breathy observations derived from the exotic.

3. There is a lightness yet sincerity to the cultural observations fueled by the genuine camraderie of the endevaor. And yet, for all the felicitious coming together over the joy of music and performance, Jeremy doesn’t gloss over the points where the cross-cultural joy turns foreign, even puzzling. This is the importance of the chapter that relates the funeral and cremation of the King of Ubud.

4. Jeremy writes well about music — about sound, instruments, rehearsal, performance — and does so in a way that helps readers sink in to both the theoretical and metaphorical explorations of sound (and the physics of it) and the physicality that goes in to the actions that create music. Add in the socio-cultural dynamics of both acquiring the skills to lead a gamelan group and then the actual starting of one at BYU and it’s obvious that there’s a real command there of writing about music. I very much look forward to his forthcoming book on La Monte Young.

5. Finally, I very much enjoyed the deft touch Jeremy takes with the cross-cultural Bali/Mormon moments. He doesn’t lay it on too thick. He doesn’t try to extrapolate out any grand conclusions (although he does have moments where he tries to explain to the reader and himself how the Balinese really understand art as it relates to ways of living). The focus really is on creating a Wasatch Front-based gamelan. That there are a few felicitous moments of Mormon intrusion in to the endeavor is almost incidental, but also enriches the whole thing. Good stuff.

FTC Note: this review is based on a gratis review copy of the paperback sent to me by the author.

1. The band is both much darker and a bit more funnier than I had previously realized.
2. Alan Sparhawk is rather a bluesman, isn’t he? Watching him sit with a guitar in his lap and hearing it and his vocals — Alan is singing the blues.
3. The harmonies sound even better in person.
4. There is a lot of talk about blood and deserts and flowers and bodies of water and bodies.
5. When Low gets written about, it’s always about Alan. When it is about Mimi, it’s about her in relation to Alan. When it’s about the bassist (Low has had 4; the current bassist is Steve Barrington), it’s about his relationship to Alan and to Alana and Mimi. In performance, yes, Alan is clearly the front man, but in some ways all 3 members are in their own world. There’s little interaction except through each of what they contribute to the music, but, you know, that’s what you want, I think, from a band like this. I guess what I’m getting at here is that the band doesn’t work without the bassist or any of the other members — the way the music is built just really works and when you can see every note being played and song, it really hits that point home.
6. All three members of the band close their eyes much of the time while they are playing. Like prayer or meditation or simply intense focus. And it makes sense, not just because of the emotional intensity of the songs, but also because so much of  the music require precise hitting of and timing of notes (and of getting the silences right).
7. Alan is one intense dude. I don’t know whether it’s an act or whether it was an off night (it sure didn’t seem like), but he was struggling in parts. Or maybe just really feeling it. Near the final 1/3 of the first set he deliberately pulled out four or five guitar strings at the end of a song that ends with the repeated lyric “I am nothing but heart.” He then mumbled a joke about it and casually got another guitar.
8. There’s nothing explicitly Mormon in the music of Low. I mean, yes, you can pull out phrases and images. But it’s all rather oblique. However, what is clear is that Alan is grappling with faith and violence and love and humanity in his lyrics. And some of them give you chills — Murderer and Cue the Strings, in particular got to me last night. But really, that’s only the beginning. I mean, they must have played more than 20 songs.

LINKS

Low: Official site, MySpace, Wikipedia

YouTube: Murderer, Monkey, In Silence, Belarus, Breaker

AMV: Alan Sparhawk on God’s language; Low’s “maudlin Mormon message”

Linescratchers: Q&A with Alan Sparhawk

Kulturblog: Susan M reviews a Low concert