Yes, yes, I know these are freshwater beasts; in fact small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinerea) inhabit mangrove swamps and wetlands in Asia, and, at less than 5 kg, they’re world’s smallest otters. Here they play us into the weekend:
From Gawker:
The Smithsonian National Zoo’s family of Asian small-clawed otters—the smallest, cutest otter species in the world—spent some time over the weekend with one of their favorite toys: a keyboard to bang on. With their small claws, natch.
This is an exercise in animal enrichment—something the zoo says ranks with nutrition and medicine in terms of an animal’s quality of life—but it’s just as much fun for humans as it is for otters.
The small-claws get keyboard practice sessions twice a month, to “engage their sight, touch, and hearing senses.”
Perhaps some of our musician readers can assess the quality of the composition.
h/t: Hempenstein
I like how a couple of them are looking like “no way that hurts my ears” and the two gregarious fellows just look at each other like they are trying to outdo one another.
It looks like one of them is deliberately moving down the keyboard trying out the difference in sounds.
Much more listenable than Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass.
Cheers,
b&
Yep.
(Link to someone explaining how to play piano like the aforementioned.)
To truly appreciate minimalism, I can think of no better example than Four Organs by Steve Reich.
Note: I have never actually listened to more than about a minute of the fifteen-minute work, so I really have no clue if the descriptions of it are accurate.
Cheers,
b&
I managed 1m44s before I got tired of waiting for something different to happen and hit the stop button 😉
The sad thing is…according to the minimalists, lots already had happened by 1’44″…and, no, I’m not exaggerating….
b&
Minimalists are like Karen Armstrong. The key to understanding their work is paying close attention to what’s not happening. Like that spot in that one piece by Glass, where he doesn’t use that certain note.
The problem for me with respect to such apoplectic apophasis is that it inevitably leads to apathy….
b&
Glass may not be very listenable, but he sure is danceable. Choreographers love Glass, and have set many dances to his work, including Jerome Robbins’ Glass Pieces and Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room.
You sure it’s not just a case of the dancers wanting the audience to focus all their attention on the dancers rather than the music, and thus picking something only insignificantly distinguishable from white noise for accompaniment?
…or am I being too cynical…?
b&
If that’s all they wanted they could of course omit the music entirely. It’s certainly been done.
I think the fascination with minimalist music has more to do with the fact that it often features a compelling rhythmic structure and mood on which to build a series of movement variations. Hummable melodies and grand drama aren’t a requirement for this sort of abstract dance.
If you’re genuinely curious, there’s plenty of video on YouTube; just do a search on Philip Glass ballet, for instance.
And by the way, it’s not just Glass; ballets have been set to Reich, Adams, Torke, and others.
Well, the non-cynical part of my recognizes that, however incomprehensible it may be, there actually are people who like Glass and Reich and Adams and the rest, so it’s not surprising that some of them should be dancers. And I’m not sue I can imagine dancers who hear music they like and don’t start dancing to it….
You’re definitely right about the rhythmic structure.
Now, the real question: does the fact that I know of this stuff from my Bachelor of Music in Trumpet Performance demonstrate that the degree was meaningful or useless?
Cheers,
b&
Clapping Music is…well…it’s a travesty.
Obviously nothing is going on in the pitch dimension, but neither is it interesting from a rhythm perspective. There’s only one idea: shift one part over an eighth note every eighth repetition. The result from doing this is almost irrelevant. The lion’s share of what makes a piece of art impressive is the realization on the part of the consumer of how much talent, skill, intellect and work went into the piece’s creation.
Clapping Music required none of those things.
If it were Reich’s only foray into that sort of phase-shifting thing, and especially if he only repeated the phrase twice each iteration instead of eight measures, it would have had some value as an abstract example of that basic concept. It was important for Cage to write 4’33”, but that’s about the perfect length for that particular exercise and it only needed to be done once.
As academic experiments or avant-garde expressions, there is limited merit in limited executions of this sort of thing. The problem becomes when not only do people devote their entire careers to it, but an entire genre springs up devoted to it. There’s some novelty there, but damned little.
Hell, I could even put up with something like Clapping Music if it was a rhythmic ostinato underlying something more substantial. A short fugue with, say, five-measure phrases imposed on top of the two-measure ostinato might get really interesting, and any undergraduate composition major with enough talent to get accepted to a degree program should be able to take an idea like that and run with it.
But just the ostinato, nothing else?
And we’re supposed to take it seriously?
b&
“A short fugue with, say, five-measure phrases imposed on top of the two-measure ostinato”
I think the tale told by such a fugue would be a tale of color.
It’s amazing how easy it is to forget that so many “new” ideas are actually ancient….
b&
Ben may have at least a part of a point, to coin a phrase.
Minimalism is an extremely popular style for background music in TV shows and commercials. I think this is because its repetitiveness makes it a good scrim onto which whatever it is you’re really supposed to be paying attention to can be cast.
Once upon a time, ballet music was thought of as a kind of throwaway background to the dance. But that changed starting in the 1870s with Delibes and Tchaikovsky, who made a point of creating memorable ballet scores that would work hand-in-hand with the dance.
That aesthetic remains the norm today. In general, choreographers look for music that inspires movement rather than merely accompanying it. In turn, the movement itself is often designed to enhance and draw attention to the music. (Mark Morris is probably the foremost practitioner of this school.) So you’re really supposed to pay attention to both.
If you’re not a fan of minimalism, it may be hard to fathom how choreographers can find that sort of inspiration in Glass, Adams, and the rest. But some of them do, and the results are often (in my opinion) well worth watching and listening to.
Somehow I’m reminded of the time I turned the TV on (muted) while listening to a Rolling Stones compilation, and the Bolshoi was dancing Spartacus. The first dance was exactly in time to the music for its whole duration. I didn’t make a note of which song, but was surprised that substituting Stones for Khachaturian would work at all; maybe it’s a standard metronome setting and not unlikely at all.
Oh, I don’t disagree with you, and in fact I’d say music intended for ballet that can also stand on its own goes back much farther. Some of Rameau’s ballet music is quite good.
I was just pointing out that minimalism does have the use to which Ben alluded and that, for reasons I go into in my reply to Joona below, it’s well-suited for this use. Certainly it is also used in quasi-gesamtkunstwerke like ballet with the intention that it be an integral part of the consumer’s experience.
Whether I think it’s any good or not is a different question…
That’s perfectly true, and I can also see that dancers may well need a background rhythm to dance to, it doesn’t need to be particularly distinctive.
OTOH, re ‘Clapping Music’, there is currently a NZ TV ad (for paint, actually) which irritates me so much I have to hit the mute button every time it comes on. I just find something so annoying about the concept, I can’t stand to listen to it.
Ben,
That’s not incorrect, nor is it cynical. Minimalist music works quite well in combination with other art forms, such as dance, visual imagery, acting.
Working mainly in film and television, I’ve found that often the otherwise wonderful, e.g. classical symphonic music doesn’t work well in drama. A piece of concert music is intended to be enjoyed as a stand-alone composition, without other sensory stimuli. It already has the necessary details, its own structural complexity, information, variance and internal development. There is no room left for the story, dialogue, acting, cinematography, other soundscape etc. It is already the full package as it is, adding more stimuli to it only makes it all a messy chaos.
However, minimalistic concert music like Philip Glass works quite well, with its hypnotic, repetitive patterns, slow growth and lack of easily observed, overly dramatic structure. It leaves room for the other arts, other sensory stimuli. And the effect it manages to create is somehow cerebral, unlike most simple musical patterns used in e.g. popular music.
I’m not sure if Glass himself would agree, though. Probably he’d hate my take on his music.
I agree with your assessment.
But I have heard some musicians argue that because change/variation in minimalism is subtle (generally speaking), one listens even more intently, so as not to miss it. For me, however, most minimalism soon becomes an aural blind spot. I have to force myself to continue to pay attention to it, which doesn’t happen with other music – music in which the rich net of relationships and the obtaining of harmonic or contrapuntal goals compels me to hear it through to its final resolution.
At this point I’d like to say that I don’t necessarily dismiss the entire genre. It’s just that I haven’t yet heard a minimalist piece that has really captivated me. But I won’t say it’s not possible. John Adams has come close.
By that metric, grass growing in front of a freshly painted fence is the most exciting thing that could ever even theoretically be broadcast on television. Waiting for the pot to boil is downright anticlimactic in comparison.
…which might have something to do with why I’m not a minimalist….
b&
lol
I was reminded of ‘Bolero’, which is certainly not minimalist, but is the classic example of repetition of a theme. (I’ve just been listening to a good recording of it courtesy of Youtube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KgpEru9lhw – and it’s a fascinating and compelling piece of music.) Apparently it also had its roots in a commission from a dancer.
It also seems to be a favourite with musical flashmobs, which I suppose is not surprising as it starts off as a near solo and builds to a full orchestral finish – just what suits a flashmob as members of the orchestra arrive one by one.
He might, since he writes film music which is in just the same vein.
And I do like Glass, Reich, and other minimalists. I don’t have Ben’s or mb’s vocabulary do defend it technically, but I know that I do enjoy listening to it.
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A sincere question (when I try to ask this of my musician colleagues they usually get defensive, not unlike theists when you ask them a revealing question about religion):
Do you enjoy it in the same way as you enjoy any other music; ie, becoming overwhelmed, getting goosebumps, sitting in your car after arriving at home because you can’t bring yourself to turn the music off until it’s over, etc?
Well, music evokes a range of responses, and I enjoy different pieces of music in different ways for different reasons. *Spem in alium* is very different from John Miles’s *Music* but both have ***** in my iTunes Library.
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PS. My ***** *classical* playlist:
1 Lakmé ▸ The flower duet : “Sous le dôme épais” – Delibes
2 Symphony no. 3 in C minor, op. 78 “Organ” ‣ 2. (cont.)… – Saint-Saens
3 Concerto for violin and orchestra ‣ III. – Glass
4 Concerto fantasy for two timpanists and orchestra ‣ I. – Glass
5 String quartet no. 1 in B minor, op. 11 ‣ II. Adagio [Ada… – Barber
6 Spem in alium – Tallis
7 The four seasons ‣ Summer 3 – Vivaldi/Richter
That’s a tricky question. In the Upper Room is in fact one of my favorite ballets, and certainly does give me goosebumps when performed as such. So for me there’s no such thing as just listening to the music; even outside the theater, it always evokes the images and feelings of the dance.
A case could be made that this is the proper way to listen to such music. Rite of Spring is of course a musical masterpiece, but in some sense you haven’t really heard it as it was meant to be heard until you’ve seen it performed as a ballet and have those images in your head.
It’s certainly valid to suggest that multi-disciplinary works are best enjoyed in their original format. Strauss’s Salome needs the singers and the dancers and the props and lighting and all the rest to be fully appreciated.
But minimalists have also written plenty of music for the concert hall. Would you, as musical beef asked, sit in your driveway entranced listening to, say, Glass’s Third Symphony, because you just can’t get enough of it?
Cheers,
b&
Yeah, I’d want to listen to it … at least to the end of a movement.
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For me it depends more on external circumstances than on what I’m listening to.
If I’m on foot (which is most of the time), the earbuds stay in through the lobby, up the elevator, and into my apartment, until the piece is finished (whatever it may be) or until I run into someone I need to interact with.
If I’m in the car, chances are there are groceries that need to be put away. Would I be willing to let my ice cream melt for a few more moments of Glass or Adams? Unlikely. But probably not for Beethoven or Brahms either, if I’m being honest.
But in either case, if it’s a piece I know well, the music doesn’t stop when I turn the car off. It continues inside my head, and I get almost as much enjoyment from that as from the actual recording.
That’s where I, and, I think, musical beef, would differ from you and Ant. Frankly, Glass would be likely to induce road rage in me….
b&
Thanks for the thoughtful answers, all!
Ant: of course you’re right. Responses to different kinds of music will be different. The word “same” in my question was ill-chosen. Maybe I should’ve instead asked about similar degrees of impact. Does anything by Glass produce a “holy shit!” response from you the way (I assume) the last mvt of the Saint-Saëns does? Not that every piece needs to evoke that response. Every now and then I like to have a peanut butter sandwich. I do feel, though, that a lot of musicians don’t make enough of a distinction between “holy shit” and “yeah, that’s ok. I could listen to that.” Which leads to the success of (imo) charlatans like Libby Larsen or Eric Whitacre. I have a theory that some musicians, instead of genuinely enjoying the music of, say, Webern or Xenakis, try to convince themselves that they do, because they feel they’re supposed to. The way students of the language arts feel they’re supposed to revere Guattari or Lacan.
Gregory: I should’ve included a “no ice cream” stipulation. 😉
But seriously, my question was meant to elicit opinions about the music itself. I don’t think a composer should enter the canon because peoples’ assessment of their work was influenced by extra-musical factors.
I’m not familiar with Webern or Xenakis, but having listened to a few samples in the iTunes Music Store I can say that neither engaged me.
“Holy shit!”? 😀
I’m not sure that’s quite how I’d characterise my response to the Saint-Saëns! Neither Glass piece (or others) evokes quite the same response, but my response to Tallis differs, too! You also have to ask, what was the composer’s intent?
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As the Duke put it, if it sounds good, it is good. And that judgement clearly varies by person.
…which one could interpret as a questioning of your judgement….
b&
You beat me to it.
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b&
What is funny is this could probably illustrate trance music as well.
No really funny; many electronica acts clearly owe a debt to minimalism. Orbital, for example.
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I like electronics but nothing with repetition like that. My OCD brain can’t handle it.
Well, I think music preferences have to be at least partly to do with how your brain is wired.
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PS. My iPad corrected *electronica* to *electronics* too, but I caught it…
Bah! Curse you iOS!
It was under two minutes, but even still I couldn’t take it all.
But, yes. That’s pure Reich.
Actually, it’s not even as sophisticated as Reich….
b&
Pulitzer Prize material right there.
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yes, it —
Oh, fuck it.
b&
we have a winner, folks. That’s the best answer possible
I just listened to them along with the opening of Schoenbergs’s Serenade Op. 24– it sounded pretty good together!
It would be a fine accompaniment to a circus act or silent movie – maybe a Chaplin saloon scene.
They show silent films outdoors on Discovery Green in Houston accompanied by live music. Chaplin films are always favorites. maybe they can get these otters to fly in as guest musicians.
It’s much better than rap!
You left out the part where you tell them to get off your lawn.
I think I detected a little Cage in there.
😃
Much better technique than human babies usually exhibit.
I don’t know. My baby’s banging on a xylophone and it sounds pretty similar.
Also, she’s not bad at harmonica, and downright good on kazoo. She’s almost two and a half.
They’re better at that stuff then I am. And I’m a (semi-professional) musician. Mainly strings which is my excuse.
The less said the better.
I found it difficult to judge, because only one of them really seemed to know what he was doing and he was always being bothered by the ones.
I wonder what they’d do if the screen was moved to the other side of the keybord (so only the rest of the instrument was inaccessible. Would they keep playing, or start gnawing the keys?
People pay lots of money for paintings by chimps. I’m going to be rich with music by otters.
Not just chimps; elephants, too.
b&
The otters seem to have mastered the art of the improvised Fantasia in a way that Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) could have only dreamt of. As CPE says in his “Versuch über die wahre Art, das Klavier zu spielen” (first published 1753): “Aus der Seele muß man spielen und nicht wie ein abgerichteter Vogel”. (“Play from the soul. Not like a trained bird.”)
The otters got a lot of soul here! I’d gladly listen to their improv any day.
I think Data got this same soulful advice about his violin playing.
You just had me google the words “Data” and “violin”. What next? LOL.
Ok. I may have married the wrong person. Did you really just quote CPE Bach’s Versuch?
I prefer Nora, the Piano Cat, performing the difficult CATcerto to these otters.
I wonder how long it would take for 1000 otters to compose Beethoven’s 7th?
How long would it take Beethoven to compose the otter’s 7th?
Aha! That’s an excellent point. When it comes to the arts, we grant humans privilege to the point of hegemony. Where are the MacArthur Fellowships for songbirds? Whales? Otters?
This anthropocentric speciesism will not do. We must fight. Perhaps we can get Susan McClary to lead the charge.
If I knew who “Susan McClary” was, I might agree. Is she a cat with a particularly static-producing coat? (“lead the charge” … oh, I should give up the day job!)
I think that they manage to present the essence of John Cage’s seminal exposition of the hermeneutics of environmental experiencalism, “Four Minutes and Thirty three Seconds,” but do it in the relativistically accelerated time frame of smaller animals then humans, so achieving in 30-some seconds what took Cage nearly 5 minutes to attain.
(I waited about 5 minutes and got 1 second of sound. Looks cute though. But I still can’t work “quantum gravity” into it. Sokal wins.)
The thing that amazes me is that, for such small brained animals, they are able to play such difficult atonal music from memory.
Or maybe the score is out of camera range.
Beatles…The White Album…Revolution 9