An Update

I'm pleased to be back curating this blog for Roscoe; my work was abruptly interrupted several months ago when I was accepted for a tenure-track position at City College of Outer Hartford (South Dakota, not Connecticut). However, some early suspicions of mine were confirmed last week when I discovered that the tenure track I was on actually led to a permanent post as the Glee Club pianist and not a teaching position, per say.

The Student Union Building at CCOH

Now, make no mistake, the Outer Hartford Harmoniers occupy a place of great prominence not only in the city college, but also in the town of Hartford, and indeed, the surrounding farmland for hundreds of miles in every direction. Hundreds of empty, frozen, desolate miles. The administration was even prepared to convert a custodial closet into an office for me and Dr. Ardvigrunssen, the shape-note singing instructor. However, as tempting as this future was, I cannot abandon my long-held commitment to teaching a new generation of musicologists and guiding them on their path into this bright musical world we inhabit. So, with a heavy heart, I took up my previous residence New York City. My mother had even kept the sheets fresh while I was gone.

Of course the first thing I did when I got off the bus was come and visit Roscoe; I found him up on the roof of his building chasing butterflies with a pointed stick. Once I had him safely back in his apartment, he gladly accepted me back as his technological advisor. I'm still working towards amanuensis status.

Just like my hero, Robby C.

In the meantime, I will begin posting Roscoe's thoughts shortly; for his next entry I've requested that he provide some details of his decades-long friendship with that well-known composer, musical philosopher, and mycologist: John Cage.

Masterclasses

Owing to the current structure of the compositional profession, even the most distinguished among us must sometimes condescend to take on a teaching post. I am no exception -- some have been temporary, some more permanent. These positions were at a number of institutions; including universities, conservatories, and on one occasion, at a state penitentiary.

The last example was the result of an ill-advised social welfare program that sought to rehabilitate Nebraska's most hardened criminals by teaching them the fundamentals of serial composition. It ended when Eight-Fingered Charlie put a crude, handmade shiv through the back of Pauly the Snitch in the middle of a performance of Schoenberg's Violin Phantasy. Later, when asked about the motive for the crime, he simply stated "I'd already heard that one."

Perhaps they should be taught to express violence through symbolist poetry

Teaching is hardly my first love -- it ranks fourteenth on my list, actually -- but I still enjoy it sometimes.

Private lessons have always been a disappointment for me because the maximum possible audience for my experienced and insightful counsel is one; or two, if I include myself. And I ought to include myself, because some of the greatest bits of musical wisdom I've ever heard came out of my own mouth.

Most of all, I take particular pleasure in presiding over masterclasses. Here is a rare opportunity to dissect the music of young composers and expose its flaws in the proper setting -- a large auditorium full of their friends, colleagues, lovers, and members of the public. I've discovered that on the whole, students receive more than enough praise from other sources, so when it's my turn to comment on their work, I feel free to concentrate on more useful criticism.

Still a bit too intimate of a space for my tastes

In general, I like to consider the following questions while I listen to a student piece:

• Does it respond appropriately to the current musical trends and attitudes that I find important?
• If my present attitude about music requires it, does the piece adequately address contemporary political and social issues? otherwise, is the piece sufficiently abstract?
• Is it too short? Not long enough?
• Are the performers able to present the music properly or is it as difficult to play as it should be?
• Can the composer justify every note and articulation found in the score, preferably in writing?
• Did any members of the audience whose musical opinions I do not respect appear to enjoy the piece?
• Does the piece sound too much like my own music? Too little?
• Did the piece result in general applause, a more appropriate stunned/confused silence, or, ideally, a riot?

Very few students are able to meet all of these criteria. That hardly surprises me; it requires careful attention to many factors, and the standards of what constitutes good music are mercurial at best. At Columbia in 1952, a student brought to me a piece including a number of major triads in root position. I encouraged him to find alternative employment in the accounting profession. At Brevard in 2004, a young woman proudly pointed out a 12-tone row around which she had built a piece in Webernian fashion. I suggested that perhaps the fashion she ought to be pursuing was fashion design.

The above instances demonstrate one of my signature teaching methods, which is to suggest a more suitable career path for people that are clearly going to fail as composers. As the old saying goes, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," or in this case "an ounce of directness towards an incompetent student is worth a pound of scathing reviews once he's left school and 'found his voice.'" The best way to combat bad music is to ensure it never gets written, and that is my duty every bit as much as the cultivation of actual talent. I never hesitate to burn my own music when it fails to please me, and why should I hold to any different standard with my students? I'm speaking metaphorically, of course; most fire codes prohibit open flames in public spaces, as I was informed after a particular incident in Berlin in 1992.

It had to be done

Electronic Justice

As usual, Ed has the facts right, but is not giving the complete story. The events that led to the destruction of his computer are straightforward enough. Some months ago, my piece for Euphonium Duodecad Perfect Counterpoint had its premier before an audience of forty-four middle-school students at PS117. I assure you, the response was nothing if not rapturous to the extreme. I have seen it written that today's young people are unable to appreciate the subtleties of modern serious music, but these bright students were hanging on every retrograde inversion. In fact, some of them were so transported by the music, that they pulled out those tiny telephones people carry with them these days and spent the entire concert taking down notes about the music.

However, all truly revolutionary music finds resistance among the ranks of small-minded critics, and this piece was no exception. The next day's edition of the The Green Gopher Gazette, included a slanderous hit piece by that thirteen-year old harpy, Jenny Blankstein, who described it as "a chromatically saturated mess of a piece that pretends to great profundities -- while in fact revealing itself as the desperate ramblings of a composer who has long since depleted his limited stable of ideas."

Blog Restored

It has been a few months since we've heard from Roscoe; I'm not entirely sure why, but a few weeks after his last post he had the unusual idea of shoving his computer out of his sixth-story window -- monitor, tower, keyboard, and all. And when I say "his" computer, I really mean "my" computer, since it technically belonged to me, or rather, to be extra-technical, my mother, since it was her name on the warranty (which did not cover defenestration, by the way). Luckily, no one was harmed, although the repairs to the hot dog cart it landed on were distressingly expensive. Then Roscoe refused to collaborate with me on this blog until I could show him in person what I was going to post, and with no computer between the two of us and with him banned from the public library for various historical reasons, there just wasn't much of a way to keep the blog going.

At any rate, I managed to assemble the funds for a new computer -- this time a laptop that I don't have to leave unsupervised -- and we are back in business. Roscoe's working on a new post as we speak and you, the lucky reading public, should be able to enjoy it shortly.

Hard at Work

Ed reminded me yesterday that I had not added any new material to this web-log for some time. Many of you might feel yourselves owed an apology. Please take a moment and consider how remarkably selfish that attitude is. My time is my own to spend as I please, and any writings of mine that appear on this web site ought to be considered a rare privilege. While I feel as hearty as a seventy-five year-old, there is no firm evidence but that I am mortal. So soak up the wisdom while you can.

All that aside, these past few weeks have been particularly busy for me. Now and then I enjoy setting for myself a difficult compositional challenge, and the most recent turned out to be one of the greatest of my career. In late January, I received an unexpected phone call from one Horace Bertelmann, director of the Greater New York Area Euphonium Ensemble, a 12-member group whose name is self-explanatory.

Their concerts are surprisingly well-attended

A Christmas Miracle

I can't say how lucky it was that I found the Thornbys. They turned out to be incredibly gracious hosts to Roscoe, and provided him with what I imagine to be his best Christmas in years. Roscoe, of course, is doing his best to be aloof and distant about it, as always, but he came home looking at least three years younger and yelled a lot more politely when I came to see him the next day.

The fire really wasn't such a problem; the Thornbys were fully insured and are using it as an opportunity to add that third bedroom they've always wanted. And the kids are already asking when their "Uncle Woscoe" is coming to visit again.

No Hope for the Future

I despise children. In all likelihood there are many, many others who feel precisely as I do on the subject but are too constrained by social mores to make the confession. Since I make my living defying the expectations and hopes of those around me, I am in a unique position to admit this fact.

How repulsive!

I do not know if children are inherently evil, although that is entirely possible. What I do know is that contemporary standard parenthood practice is woefully inadequate to the task of molding them into respectful and productive members of society. Without meaning to sound like a cantankerous old man, I have to say that television, video games, sugary drinks, superhero comics, and possibly those tasteless matching sheets and wallpaper with images of some pre-adolescent pop star on them have done nothing but produce a generation of hyperactive, shrill, and obnoxious brats who, among other things, simply will not let a man have five quiet minutes to lie on the floor and hear the opening to his next opera.

I think I know what the plot will be, though

Such was my experience last month as I spent the winter solstice and New Year's with my alleged relatives, the Thornby family. Ed clearly had good intentions in connecting me with them, just like he had good intentions when he threw out my collection of priceless and irreplaceable pawn shop receipts from the golden age of 1947-1961. However, good intentions do not a truly valuable service make. Despite their friendly exteriors and welcoming (gasp!) embraces, I was quick to notice some signs of trouble ahead:

1. David Thornby works as an entry level analyst at Merril Lynch.  Not only are they totally out of line with my socialist principles, but they once promised to sponsor a concert series featuring some of my pieces, only to pull out in a show of total cowardice when they discovered I was going to use live ammunition.
2. Phyllis owns a large collection of "relaxing" "new age" "music" and listens to it religiously each night from the hours of 10pm-11pm as a way of going to sleep.  She often neglects to turn it off.
3. Taggert and Jennyfer, ages five and seven respectively, subsist mainly on a diet of chocolate cake and coca-cola, and have invented a nefarious method of torture known as "cuddle attacks," which as often as not leave me at the point of nervous exhaustion.
4. The dog, Bruno, is six months old, and, as it was determined after he discovered my pair of Zellis, not entirely house trained.

And they were my favorite pair, too

As far as the fire is concerned however, I can take no responsibility. It is certainly true that Taggert did ask me if it was all right for him to throw his army men into the fireplace, and that I said it was. I imagine he was playing some sort of ridiculous game with them, and as far as I am concerned, the fewer toys he has to trouble the world with, the better.  How was I to know that they were painted with some sort of flammable substance that would spark flames on the Christmas tree and then the curtains?  I wasn't of course, and I can at least say that the living room was not a total loss, and that despite any secret hopes on my parts, the boy escaped unscathed -- though perhaps a little bit wiser for the wear.  I expect next year I will be free to practice my One-legged King Pigeon in peace.

Holiday Plans

In anticipation of a bunch of calls from well-meaning friends and colleagues wondering if Roscoe has people to spend Christmas and New Year's with, I'm glad to say I was able to put him in touch with a great-nephew named Dave Thornby who lives over in Middle Village in Queens and does something with finance, I believe. Unbelievably, he and his wife Phyllis didn't even know who Roscoe was, but they're excited to meet him. They have two cute little kids, a dog, and a couple fish, and just seem like really nice people. Roscoe says that last year he spent Christmas meditating in some uncomfortable position and had back cramps for weeks, so hopefully this will go better for him.

Not the Thornbys, but it might as well be

A Salute to Forward Thinking

One drawback of achieving recognition as one of the old masters in your own time is that people often falsely assume that you are fully up-to-date with all the trends and ideas circulating in the contemporary musical scene.  The sad reality, of course, is that even though my mental faculties have not diminished one whit to this point, I am still far from clairvoyant.   A great deal of discourse about aesthetics and theory has moved onto the Internet and out of my easy reach.

Film Scoring

Yesterday morning, Ed was helping me sort through some old papers that we found in a compartment hidden behind a false brick panel in my study.  Apparently I've lived in the place so long, I'd forgotten all about it.

They're quire realistic

Safe and Sound

It is with great relief that I let you know we located Roscoe today in an old cabin in western Connecticut and that he's safely home again resting. At 100 years of age, even a man of such enormous intellect as Roscoe starts to have days now and then when he's just not himself. I guess he got it in his head to go commune with nature and forgot that Leopold Steinwitz's guest cabin, where Roscoe used to occasionally spend summers in the 1950s, has been basically abandoned for forty years.

Fortunately still structurally sound

I'm reluctant to share these details, but I know at least one of the Danbury police has already posted them all on his blog, so an official account here minus some of the more, well, subjective comments is in order. We found him sans clothing and apparently trying to catch and eat birds with some chloroform he found somewhere. Anything else you might hear is simple exaggeration.

Insufferable Meddling

The very idea that a grown man can't be allowed to take some time off to be alone with nature is utterly preposterous!

Clearly a trespasser

Where Did He Go?

Oh dear. It looks like Roscoe has wandered off somewhere. I found the previous entry on his typewriter, and apparently he was true to his word and has left for who knows where. This can only be trouble, particularly since I don't own a car to go look for him in at the moment.  That means I'll have to start calling around to some police stations in Connecticut asking if they've picked up a disoriented hundred-year old man at the bus station lately.

Dogs might be overkill for this

Fall Weather

Autumn has once again arrived, and by happy coincidence my enforced (but unnecessary) bed rest ended yesterday.  If I had to stay recumbent for one more day I likely would have abandoned all pretense at good-humor and destroyed some of the various valuable knick-knacks I have lying around the place.

I can see why they say tiger is an aphrodisiac   

Ed has done his best to be helpful, but the poor man just couldn't figure out the right mix of tea leaves for my daily Himalayan 茶. Also he could never figure out which were my morning slippers and which were my evening slippers, even though there's a clear difference on the tread if you look carefully in the right light.

Early Music

That buffoon of a doctor at the VA hospital ordered me to stay in bed for a few days after I got home, so I haven't had much of a chance to get anything useful accomplished.  All I have to show for the past week is a set of short piano pieces written to explore a musical system based on algebraic quotient rings, and the results are far from ideal.

It seemed like it would work in principal

However, all this time off my feet has given me a chance to thumb through some old journals of mine, and I think it would be worthwhile to share some of the more interesting passages I find with the world at large.  Of course, if I ever happen to pass away -- which is by no means a foregone conclusion -- these writings will be available to biographers, but in the meantime, here is an entry from back in the seventies:

A Brief Side Note

In his last posting, Ed seemed to imply that I bit him when he tried to help me up.  That is exactly what I did.  The thought that I would need helping standing up from anyone is utterly preposterous, although the paramedics made it difficult for me to do otherwise.  My residency in this hospital is purely cautionary.

These things have multiple uses

In the Navy, You Can...

Spending the last few days at the VA Hospital has brought back some long-repressed memories of my military days.

Also repressed memories of bad modernist architecture

"What's that?"  you ask, in that obnoxious, shocked tone of voice I'm sure you use in such cases, "Roscoe Willis, masterful composer, humanitarian, and committed socialist, spent time in the Navy?"

Why, yes, of course I did.  I daresay I'm even proud of it.  (Excellent guess about it being the Navy, by the way.  The Army wound up with Sam Barber, much to their disappointment, I'm sure.)  After all, this was during the Second World War, when for one brief moment, all of us, regardless of political background, were united in the common cause of killing Nazis.  I did my part by writing some music designed to increase our boys' enthusiasm for said killing.  My oratorio "Let Freedom Ring," while perhaps not up to the level of some of my later masterpieces, received a number of stirring performances, including one on the deck of the USS Yorktown accompanied by the Marine Band and several rounds of anti-aircraft fire when a Japanese Kamikaze attempted to interrupt the concert.

Luckily I decided not to wear my good tuxedo

Minor Fall, Everything OK

I figured news of this would probably get out sooner or later, so I'll go ahead and let everyone know that Roscoe is just fine; this evening he tripped over a five-pound weight he'd left lying by the bed and took a nasty little fall.

These things can be deadly

Fortunately I came by about a half hour later on my way back from the New York Public Library, where I often spend my day when I've got research to do for an article, and sometimes when I don't. I tried to help him up, but he seemed a bit delirious, so I decided just to go ahead and call 911. He didn't suffer any serious injuries and is resting for a day before he goes back home. Meanwhile I've been treated for some shallow bite wounds in my calf and ankles, but likewise it appears that I'll be fine.

In fact, I think I saw him writing something down for the blog, so hopefully we won't go too long without another Roscoe Willis gem. Meanwhile, it might be time to get him something to press to get help if this happens again.

Can't remember what the thing is called, though

On Setting Texts

Recently, as I have been working on my latest piece, a Biblical oratorio for unmixed voices and four antiphonal Balinese Gamelan ensembles (the provisional title is Oombayahamanasqotsi, which is a composite word I derived from several native languages of the aforementioned island -- the meaning of which I will leave for any competent linguist to decipher), I have been forced to grapple with one of music's most challenging elements: text-setting.

Simply writing music to fit a text is fairly trivial, of course, but I expect more of myself than a mere illustration or accompaniment to the words of some other individual -- in this case, King David, or as biblical historians now generally acknowledge, some underpaid hack that was forced to ghostwrite psalms for him while he carried on with vulnerable foreign immigrants' women.

Administrative

Hello, all.

My name is Ed MacMillan and I thought I might as well introduce myself as well. I graduated in '08 with my PhD in Musicology from Wesleyan University, with the dissertation "Elements of Aleatory Procedure via Graphical Ambiguity in Roscoe Willis's 'Ink Blot' Compositions 1959-1961."

Before that I did my Masters at Princeton and my undergraduate, which was actually in construction management, at Case Western Reserve. That's a long story, so Roscoe asked me not to take up any space here with it.

Above all, I just want to say that I'm honored to have the opportunity to moderate this blog for Mr. Willis. I came to know and love his music about a decade ago when our university orchestra took a stab at playing "Knifewerk"; it certainly proved to be beyond their abilities, but I for one was hooked, and tracked down a recording at the nearest Tower Records. The rest, as they say, is history.  Meeting him this past April was particularly exciting.  Since I graduated from Wesleyan, I've been doing itinerant freelance writing for some musical journals and looking for a professorial post somewhere -- preferably tenure track, but -- well, again, let's not forget who's blog this is. I hope you all get as much out of Roscoe's wit and wisdom as I have.