As both a composer and avid musician, I am disappointed with the new artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Salonen is leaving in 2009, and Gustavo Dudamel will be taking over. He was mainly chosen for his background story (the whole underdog concept.) Well, listen to him yourself...
Humility - the most important attribute to a conductor? No. What do you guys think about this new leadership?
People who passionately want a possition will try to sell themselves the best they can. When victimhood is the standard, some people will play that part. Whether one will lie to fools is a personal choice.
I am curious.
What do you think of his artistic skill, all play acting put aside?
Oh, and Louis, welcome, and could you fill out your extended profile to the extent with which you are comfortable?
It's really hard to put his acting aside, because of his conducting style. The primary job of a conductor is to realize the tempo and mark it with his body for all orchestra members to see. The ichthus - motion of the hand hitting an imaginary point and bouncing back - achieves this time-setting effect. That's where his biggest downfall lies - his ichthus is difficult for the musician to follow.
Throughout, you can notice that I'm not the only one having a hard time seeing his pulse. The double basses lag in multiple spots because they can't see that the conductor is speeding up - primarily because Dudamel chooses to speed up exactly at their entrance, but also because the new tempo is difficult to see with an epileptic baton giving the pulse. He's very passionate, but it harms his effectiveness at accomplishing his first job, giving the tempo.
By "acting" I had meant his pretending to be the victim to get the job. But it is interesting to learn that the motion the director makes is called a fish! I would be the last person in the world to judge his tempo - I can't keep a beat at all. But it seems you have reasons to think he is not the best qualified for the job.
I see from your profile you like non-tempered music? Could you point out an example from youtube? I enjoyed hearing the Bulgarian choral group Cosmic Voices on a documentary on traditional music. I understand that they use an untempered scale?
It's not so much that the music is non-tempered; just that it's tempered differently. There are several different methods that can be used, and today in U.S. we use equal temperament. There's a long, difficult story behind why different temperaments exist. If you do all of the math to calculate where a pitch should be away from middle C, then you end up with an infinite amount of answers depending on what series of intervals used to achieve the pitch. The math doesn't line up. Equal temperament is a method for cleaning this mess up by finding what distance an octave should be and dividing the 12 pitches evenly throughout. This method didn't become standard until the 1900's, though we're told that equal temperament was always the standard. (We're told that Bach meant to accept equal temperament with his set of pieces "The Well-Tempered Clavier." Bach actually thought that equal temperament destroyed the colors of scales. The "Well-Tempered Clavier" was actually written to demonstrate the colors found in a different tuning system; probably a mean-tone system. Bach's favorite keyboard was one with something like 20 keys to an octave.) With equal temperament, the idea of enharmonics is also thrown in. This theory basically states that G#=Ab. If you look on a keyboard, you'll see that this is actually true. Both pitches G# and Ab are the same black key, but before equal temperament was standard, composers were writing with the idea that G# was slightly higher or lower than Ab. This was done to lead into notes.
Different cultures took off in different directions with tuning. Most don't follow equal temperament or enharmonics. I'm not so familiar with the Bulgarian methods, though I do know that they have the same diatonic basis as we do. Their music branched off from the greeks, as did ours, but may have been influenced by eastern techniques. The song you posted is still diatonic, but it makes wide use of modes (related to a scale). It makes use of switching between dorian and ionian modes. A good example of really strange temperament and scale would be balkan music.
Composers have battled equal temperament. John Adams' "Dharma at Big Sur" uses a different tuning system. It isn't entirely noticeable to an untrained ear, but it does achieve an effect. I recommend listening to the whole piece, as it demonstrates a fantastic build up in shape.
Other composers would include Berg and Ligeti. Ligeti used the quarter-tones and eighth-tones for various effects. This piece, Atmospheres, is music entirely based on texture. Around 4:10 you can hear the slight different in the two piccolos, which is created by quarter tones.
