Listening as a Non-Musician

[Gargoyle]

....It is worth looking at Eno's wiki page - lucky chap had a very nice start/ early life : interesting by the sound of it

I don't need to look on his wiki page - a privileged person for sure and what a name!? But he's very talented

[eighthobstruction]

I don't need to look on his wiki page - a privileged person for sure and what a name!? But he's very talented

....I think you do need to look at his wiki page....it will not take long........go on it's the weekend....he is only priviledged really because he came from gentle stock as might be called....dad a postman...mum an immigrant....grandfather some sort of musican and organ builder (not monied at all as far as I can see).... But he was White....Rural....lucky to go to really good school on the face of it because of where he lived....

[Bryn]

....I think you do need to look at his wiki page....it will not take long........go on it's the weekend....he is only priviledged really because he came from gentle stock as might be called....dad a postman...mum an immigrant....grandfather some sort of musican and organ builder (not monied at all as far as I can see).... But he was White....Rural....lucky to go to really good school on the face of it because of where he lived....

And the fancy name is of his own construction, not what's on his birth certificate.

[Gargoyle]

And the fancy name is of his own construction, not what's on his birth certificate.

'Brian' is a fancy construction?

[eighthobstruction]

'Brian' is a fancy construction?

...yes that is funny....that he kept that....but did you read the wiki page G to see the rest...

[Gargoyle]

...yes that is funny....that he kept that....but did you read the wiki page G to see the rest...

you're insisting so I suppose I will have to

[eighthobstruction]

you're insisting so I suppose I will have to

....personally I would have gone for George....nice to see you and retune taking the plunge....new posters excellent....

[Bryn]

'Brian' is a fancy construction?

"Brian Peter George" was given him by his parents, it's the "St John le Baptiste de la Salle" that he constructed. Elsewhere he claims to have been a member of the Scratch Orchestra (and was cited, along with Michael Nyman, as being an instigator and participant in the Year 2000 Union Chapel performance of Paragraphs 1, 2, 6 and 7 performance of Cardew's The Great Learning, though I don't recall him being active in either case (though Nyman was). He is also cited as being involved in the DG recording of extracts from Paragraphs 2 and 7 of the the same work. From what I recall, that involvement consisted of his assisting in liaising with the engineer and studio hired by DG for the recording session. He certainly attended arts school with an active member of the orchestra, and may possibly have attended one or two of the very few Scratch Orchestra events I had to miss for one reason or another. That said, he was a very active member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, as, again, was Michael Nyman. (I was but an honorary member, though played in a few events shared between the Portsmouth Sinfonia and the Scratch Orchestra.)

[eighthobstruction]

....is that you talking about yourself bryn???....how marvellous if so....

[Bryn]

....is that you talking about yourself bryn???....how marvellous if so....

Only as reporter. The person who attended art school with him was a friend with whom I lost contact after she and another Scratch orchestra member divorced and she got remarried to a local farmer in West Wales where she and her first husband moved to in the 1970s. I would visit their hill farm yearly, prior to the divorce. The name of the farm roughly translated as cultivated black hill (Bryn Arau Duon).

[eighthobstruction]

....is there a post from Gargoyle that is no longer available ??

[Gargoyle]

....is there a post from Gargoyle that is no longer available ??

yes

I tried to amend a typo and in my incompetence I lost the whole thing

[Nick Armstrong]

I agree. On a first listen anyway. But recordings, however high in quality, sometimes cause details to be obscured, which can then be resolved and indeed heard by reference to the score.

Yes absolutely - glad I checked back before making a similar point. I’ve often been intrigued why certain moments in certain pieces affect me deeply (a moment in the first movement of Shostakovich 10 was the first instance I can remember, from my adolescence) - going to the score to find out precisely how this alchemy is achieved has been illuminating over the years.

I had a second thought too, and haven’t found it previously addressed on this thread unless I’ve missed something. I’m not at all a musical theorist - I’m very bad at hearing chords and recognising them in any technical way, for example. I just appreciate what effect they, modulations, etc etc have on me. However I do in my bumbling amateur way participate in orchestral music, as a trombonist, and to that extent I am I guess ‘a musician’ - and I find that practising and playing a piece can definitely affect one’s appreciation… not necessarily for the better. It can take away the mystique, the spell of a piece.

A case in point is Brahms 1. In the last movement, the 1st trombone has an exposed quiet entry on a top A as part of the chorale which is a key moment in the piece. I absolutely loved this moment before I played the piece - stunningly beautiful playing by Berlin or Vienna trombonists etc etc. But it’s one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever had to play - a split or mis-pitched note and you’ve single-handedly trashed the movement. And top A is my least-favourite note on the instrument.

Since those rehearsals and that performance, I can’t now hear the piece in the same way - the palms go sweaty, the stomach tightens…

[Footnote: I actually did manage to nail The Note in the concert… so the mental scar is one of tension, not horror, fortunately]

.

[smittims]

I think Brahms may have been writing for the alto trombone. There are some pretty high notes in his second symphony too. I suspect he one day heard a very good trombonist in the 'Pastoral ' symphony, where the frst trombone part is an alto (I've seen it played on one) and it stayed in his subconscious. Similarly, Alban Berg may have heard that or the Brahms , and remembered it when he scored his Three Pieces, which has a cruelly high exposed solo.

I often hear passages in one composer which sound as if they had been listening to an earlier work by someone else and something stuck in the memory. There are many such moments in Benjamin Britten's music , curiously unacknowledged by his loyal fans.