The death of classical music

The prevailing wisdom among stuffy critics and patrons looking to shower their largess is that classical music is an art to be appreciated like fine wine, with a discerning palette to augur through its complexities. To them, any addition beyond oscillating frequencies will kill the form. But they're wrong.

In his piece "When Histrionics Undermine the Music and the Pianist," Bernard Holland of the New York Times posits that the physical "histrionics" -- the performing tics -- of musicians have nothing to do with the music of the composer. That, in fact, those gestures out of the theater are laughable to the eyes of younger listeners eager to discover yet soon to be estranged from the majesty of art music.

Holland's argument fails because he neglects several facts:

1. The score is NOT sacred. As music notation matured, it became more and more exact, but the nuances of its performance remain impossible to accurately delineate. (And that is not including the grid and chance notations of Cage disciples.) To say that a performer acts merely as a middleman -- as a bridge between audience and composer -- does violence to the idea of interpretation. If a performer can elevate their performance from the rote, mechanical and cliche to the fresh and exciting, then it must be new, not some return to some totemic paragon, which must be familiar by definition.

2. The pseudo-avuncular tone of the piece is condescending in its assumption that younger listeners will be so caught in the tableau of performative histrionics that they miss the substance. What an insult to the intelligence! If the performer makes some non-musical gesture as a natural result of their intense concentration, I think the young listener -- and the audience in general -- will be further moved.

And for a smarter response, go to Henry Fogel's blog On the Record.

Week no. 2 Sketch no. 1: "My Own Teeth"

Don't tell my newspaper colleagues, but only one entry into my project of releasing a new song every other week, I've already blown my deadline. So, let me introduce a new series of sketches of unfinished music.

Here I am with hat in hand. A song every other week used to be laughably easy for me. I mean, I used to make a record a week. Granted, they were uniformly awful, but still it's fascinating how much slower the whole process is for me.

With that said, I don't present to you a completed song. This is a sketch of "My Own Teeth," which began as an acoustic guitar ditty. The lyric conceit is from a Fela Kuti song ("Only a fool eats his own teeth"), which made me think about a fool and then a cuckold. Musically, I wanted to sound like the Beatles, but the prolonged Fmaj9 vamp as an intro pushed it in a different direction with the almost classical piano melody leading into big Who-style suspended chords, a verse out of Motown and a pre-chorus stolen from the Band. So where's the song going? Who knows!

What the sketch doesn't have is any live instrumentation overdubs, and I didn't really mix it at all. This is as is. Enjoy.

Looking forward and "Week no. 1: 'Finlandia Cried'"

Sounding off on the future of the Chatterbox and introducing a new feature: a song release every other week.

As I said in my first post on this site, I never intended this blog to be about culture. Rather, I was planning to do simple, "Here's what I'm doing" posts. Even with the launch completed, there were a couple of nagging thoughts in my head about what I really wanted to be doing.

With that said, I'd like to turn the Chatterbox into a small-circulation magazine someday -- perhaps two years down the road -- with a separate, integrated Internet component and contributors from the ranks of all the talented folks I know.

You're yelling, "Why?" I can't blame you. Surely such an ambition is ripe for emotional, physical and financial breakdowns. But I'm tied to the idea of doing something small scale, bold and personally fulfilling. I also want both the print and Web product to be a place of experimentation for the kind of work one does personally and for the work itself.

Now you're asking about the kicker because there's always a kicker. Well, with this post, I'd like to launch the first in a series of songs every other week in the spirit of the Chatterbox experiment. The challenge: Write , arrange, record, produce and post a song every other week for public comment. It's a watered down version of what Michael Zapruder did.

Interlude:

I never met Zapruder, but I covered him during my brief sojourn as a music writer. At the time I was writing about the Mission Creek Music Festival for the San Francisco Bay Guardian. I stumbled across his name, Google-d him and discovered a fine songwriter whose work anticipated the recent crush of literate, hyper-orchestrated adult contemporary* that people are considering indie these days. What really caught my attention was a project he did called 52 Songs, in which he challenged himself to write one song a week. He put it out as a 3-CDR -- I think -- set. I couldn't afford it then, so I didn't buy it. I regret that decision now because it's out of print. I did a brief e-mail interview with him and gushed about 52 Songs. I made his show one of my picks for the festival but couldn't make it myself. Another missed opportunity.

* Feist anyone? I personally don't get why she's so popular. I might just have to buy her album The Reminderto find out. Future blog post?

End interlude.

So I kick it off with "Finlandia Cried," which is just a pop song. Nothing much to recommend the words beyond the allusion to the death of Baldur. But there's a backwards guitar solo! I just like saying that -- makes me feel like Jimi Hendrix. If you don't know my music, it is, as usual, performed by my lonesome with an assortment of guitars, sequencers, synths and drum machines.

"Finlandia Cried"
By Alex K. Fong

Finlandia cried
I was struck down by
mistletoe
launched by some Nordic cripple

And I don't care how far you are
'Cause we were meant for so much more

I will wait for you
I will waste for you
On and on and on and on

Finlandia cried
I was trapped under black ice
You weren't there
You were in the atmosphere

Music nerd alert: It's written in G major, built on a I-IV progression (voiced as add9's) for the verses, a V-II (with 7ths added) on the pre-chorus and a VI-IV-II-IV (again with the 7ths). The guitar solo is mostly over a one-chord, Gadd9 vamp except for a bar or two of Amin7, which leads back into the out chorus. Again, not a particularly complex tune.

More Peter Gabriel-era Genesis

Glam or performance art? Who cares! "I Know What I Like in Your Wardrobe" is catchy as hell.

One of the most awesome scenes in The Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is when Will Ferrell hops on stage to play jazz flute. The ending of this song always makes me think of that wonderful moment, and sometimes I imagine a quote of "Aqualung" for kicks. Regardless, this song is a wonderful pop nugget, especially with that great synth line on the chorus.

Peter Gabriel-era Genesis

Everyone loves the English -- they of the balmy handshakes and dulcet tones. But the island nation really outdid itself when they produced Genesis, one of the most bizarre prog-rock bands in existence.

Unlike the terrifyingly pretentious Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Genesis never left the rock and pop element out of their songwriting. Instead of the ridiculous practice of rewriting classical themes (Mussorgsky never had it so bad), Genesis slipped sly hints of the Bee Gees and the Beatles into their Walton-influenced chord progressions.

But the best part about the early version of this band is the loopy performances of Peter Gabriel. Get more information at Night after Night. Or just watch the clip above. Here's the conversation I had with my brother, Chris, as I introduced him to the joy of prog-rock theatrics:

Me: Wait, wait for it. He's going to start dancing.

Chris: This is so weird, but it's so funky.

Wait, there he goes. That's so creepy. That creeps me out. That would creep me out if I saw that live.

This is Genesis? This isn't the Genesis I know.

Now he's doing his tamborine dance. This is awesome!

What the fuck!

Mission statement

At first, I conceived this blog as an online journal of sorts. But faced with the prospect of airing my daily trivialities so nakedly, I reconsidered -- and unfortunately left this space neglected.

With the new year coming, I decided to begin anew.

The revised idea began inauspiciously. It coalesced in my head during a conversation with a colleague over beers and cigarettes at no more (or no less) than Al's Garage in Las Vegas, Nev.

This blog will, however, be about subjects I do enjoy writing about: music, books and journalism. So get ready for posts ranging from my current fascination with Peter Gabriel-era Genesis to my battles with reading Charles Dickens' Bleak House (a grueling three months as of this post, with no foreseeable end in sight).