My Composition “Flowing Forth” for Piano Solo to be Premiered by Wan-Chin Chang, June 14th, Tustin, CA
If These Knishes Could Talk — My next documentary score!
If These Knishes Could Talk — IndieGoGo.
If These Knishes Could Talk Trailer
Above is the link for my next documentary scoring project, a sure-to-be-awesome doc, “If These Knishes Could Talk.” The film is about “the New York accent—what it is, how it’s evolved and if it’s disappearing as the city changes.” The link is to the indieGoGo fundraising page. If you can contribute, great, obviously, but even if not, click the link to see the awesome trailer. Heather Quinlan, the director, is currently finishing up shooting and is scheduled to start post-production in June. I’m psyched!
The Music of Elliott Goldkind » Scores
The Music of Elliott Goldkind » Scores.
New score added, at top of list: “God’s Grandeur” for Soprano & Piano. Setting of that wonderful G.M. Hopkins poem. Download, sing, play, record, perform…
Website for “No Look Pass” is up!
The website for “No Look Pass” is now up. This documentary is a great story about Emily Tay, a first-generation Burmese-American Harvard grad, professional basketball player, etc. I say “etc.” because there’s so much more to her and to the documentary. A fine film, directed by Melissa Johnson and scored by yours truly. Check out the site here: No Look Pass.
Trailer is here.
Music, Philosophy and Time in Java and Ancient China: A Comparison
Music, Philosophy and Time in Java and Ancient China: A Comparison.
An ethnomusicological study of time and cosmology as they manifest themselves in and by the musics of Java and Ancient China.
MUSIC, PHILOSOPHY, AND TIME
IN JAVA AND ANCIENT CHINA:
a comparison
Elliott Goldkind
This paper was originally conceived as a comparison of time as it functions in the musics of Java and ancient China. Time can be interpreted as a staggeringly broad topic when understood in its most general sense. In conjunction with its extreme multiplicity of meaning, there is, even within a culturally non-comparative domain, the possibility of a lack of precision regarding this concept and its usage. While perhaps not immediately ameliorating the issue of vagueness, I will at the onset put forth that the following discussion will pertain to time as it functions musically, philosophically and cosmologically. … (clink link above for complete paper)
Come hear the premiere of my “Silver Lake Nocturne” for violin and contrabass
Sonatasia premieres my new work, played by Wan-Chin Chang and Chris Hornung, 1/27/11 at Mandarin Fine Arts in Laguna Beach, CA.
God’s Grandeur (for Tenor & Orchestra)
http://ornette.com/God%20s%20Grandeur-ORCH-9-5-10.pdf
Here’s a pdf of my score of the setting of G.M. Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur” for Tenor & Orchestra.
Counterpoint, The Inscrutible Arnold Schoenberg, and His Mystifying Pierrot Lunaire
Counterpoint,
The Inscrutible Arnold Schoenberg,
and His Mystifying Pierrot Lunaire
(or Why I’m Not Smart Enough to be a Theorist)
Counterpoint: the study of the art of voice leading with respect to motivic combination (and ultimately the study of the ‘contrapuntal forms’). Schoenberg, Harmonielehre.
To say that there are only two types of music theory would not only be rhetorically reductive in the extreme, but would also be an excellent example of falsehood. This issue of falsehood aside, let me at least make a categorical distinction, however general (or trivial), between the following:
i. a music theory which derives its substance from the recognition or construction of note-related complexes, and thus a labelling or contextualization of these complexes according to a pre-existing schema (e.g., labeling triads; this one the tonic, this the dominant, etc.); and
ii. a music theory which may admit such complexes as found in the “theory” above but assigns such complexes a secondary stature, i.e., understands such complexes as tools or manifestations of an extra-musical ontology.
Even were I more adept with Type I above, I would like to think that I would understand the comparative greater worth of Type II. In the context of Pierrot Lunaire, Schoenberg provides the listener and/or theorist with enough material to be treated in either fashion. However, such a work as this is also fraught with enigma, if not contradictions.
Indeed, Schoenberg — even after Pierrot, when he embraces such a lucid, explicitly-principled system as his Composition with Twelve Tones — is a rather tough nut to crack. Pierrot, with its shifting instrumental forces, variety of textures, unconventional vocal treatment (at least in its day) and other “modernisms” is as confounding a work as any. It bears mention that Pierrot is not only accorded the often-dubious title of “masterpiece” but it is in fact genuinely appreciated, if not admired and even liked. What is even more significant is that this work is looked upon favorably even by many who otherwise have little desire to hear Schoenberg’s other offerings. It was two works in particular, Pierrot and Schoenberg’s harmony text, Harmonielehre, which finally garnered him some acceptance and critical acclaim. “Until then,” Schoenberg writes,