Three generations of artists (one dead) make up Fantasies in Crystal.
Far Off Sounds Ep 14 - Microtonal Man
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- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
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John Schneider won a 2015 Grammy for his album performing music composed by the midcentury genius Harry Partch, an American pioneer of microtonal music. Why has Schneider, a music theory professor and radio host, devoted his entire adult life to reproducing the strange instruments and music of a man he never met? We dive in deep to learn about Partch and microtonal music, and to see John performing it on his couch and onstage.
Citation
Main credits
Hurwitz-Goodman, Jacob (filmmaker)
George, Nick (filmmaker)
George, Nick (film producer)
Schneider, John (on-screen participant)
Other credits
Camera & editing, Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman.
Distributor subjects
No distributor subjects provided.Keywords
WEBVTT
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This looks good. How does it sound?
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How\'s that sound?
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Good. We got sound,
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OK? We wanted the rain.
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Unique conditions.
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I\'m rolling VIDEO and rolling sound.
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OK, now we\'re all enjoying
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it. Let\'s go.
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The rebels.
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Or was that?
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Vice.
00:00:48.089 --> 00:00:50.717
Burns with an ecstasy.
00:00:50.717 --> 00:00:53.470
Sweet or more
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ice.
00:01:07.233 --> 00:01:09.152
Sometimes down the
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Jasper walls.
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Towards.
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Fans might.
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Campaign.
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You.
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When I ran to the music of Harry
00:02:05.834 --> 00:02:07.585
Potter, I was just blown away.
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It was the weirdest, most wonderful
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thing I\'d ever heard.
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I didn\'t even know what to do with
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it. Partridge Music, I didn\'t just
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like it. I didn\'t just love it.
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I lusted after it.
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I had to possess it.
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And that\'s what happens when you\'re
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a musician because
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you are simply a vessel.
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It doesn\'t matter if you\'re playing
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Beethoven or Schoenberg
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or a Pete Seeger
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song.
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The music comes from within
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and you let it come
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out. Everything is you become an
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instrument the same way that this is
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an instrument to me.
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Yeah, there\'s a lot of really
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fast, yeah.
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He actually came to Southern
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California to study,
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to become a piano virtuoso,
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to play concertos with orchestras.
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He studied at USC
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for one semester.
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The music wasn\'t speak.
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So he ended up teaching himself
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out of libraries, just using library
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books completely again.
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He\'s not old Dijak, and he
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ran into a most amazing
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volume by Herman involved horse
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Helmholtz. In 19th century, German
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physicists decided he wanted to find
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out everything there was about music
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and it was. He wrote a book called
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On the Sensations of Tone.
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And in that book, he explored
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concepts of tuning and scale
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and harmony from a cultural point
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of view, but from an anatomical
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point of view. Parch read that book
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and that was the door
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that opened into a whole new world.
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He had written a lot of music for
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standard string quartet
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for orchestra.
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He put it all in a pot bellied stove
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in 1929 and burned it.
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He\'s got this famous line, he said.
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First and foremost, I am a composer.
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I am a philosophic music man
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who long ago
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was seduced into musical carpentry.
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My music and my instruments are
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the expression of an ancient
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tradition in which sight
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and sound unite toward the
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achievement of a single dramatic
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purpose.
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This is not concert music.
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It finds its highest purpose
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in collaboration with other arts,
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with dance, with tragedy,
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with center, with farce,
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and in the present instance,
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with the art of film,
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he basically went back way
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back to First Principles Music.
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It\'s all about human experience.
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The human voice and
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the human voice does
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not use the skills we find on the
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piano right?
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And glides, it goes up and down.
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And for that, you need smaller
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intervals because we speak
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in tiny little increments
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are going up and down.
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If we talk like this all the time,
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it would be like an opera, wouldn\'t
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it? I mean, it\'s like fake and
00:05:00.425 --> 00:05:01.634
forget it. That\'s why the
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microphones.
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So this is a copy of Harry Purchase
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First Cromwell Audio in a
00:05:06.723 --> 00:05:08.808
Normal Piano one two three four
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five six seven eight.
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But that\'s the scale you usually
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have 12 notes one two
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three four five six seven
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eight nine 12 12.
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There is an active.
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Following on that.
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Forty three notes per octave.
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Mozart grew up listening
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to the musical instruments that were
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around him, and I\'m sure he imagined
00:05:49.390 --> 00:05:50.683
different combinations of those
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things.
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But how do you imagine something
00:05:53.227 --> 00:05:54.395
that doesn\'t exist yet?
00:06:02.070 --> 00:06:03.821
He adapted a guitar, he adapted to
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build a reed organ, and
00:06:05.782 --> 00:06:07.784
then his it was Dr.
00:06:07.784 --> 00:06:08.785
Seuss time.
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And.
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Right hand strokes this way are
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major
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and.
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And then a hack on a hex idol basis
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so far, left hand strokes are minor
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and then the head total bases
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underneath
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this section I call the garden tree.
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You go into this and you got the
00:06:50.827 --> 00:06:51.119
same
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tone as you go.
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So.
00:07:11.722 --> 00:07:13.391
Come on forward, because
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somebody has to stand in a place,
00:07:16.978 --> 00:07:18.646
oh, about foreign
00:07:20.273 --> 00:07:21.274
language and.
00:07:23.693 --> 00:07:24.694
This job,
00:07:26.070 --> 00:07:28.197
obviously, he was always single
00:07:28.197 --> 00:07:29.866
minded. That was his concept.
00:07:29.866 --> 00:07:31.701
I mean, he was stuck in a situation
00:07:31.701 --> 00:07:33.161
where nobody really understood where
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the heck he was doing Bam.
00:07:35.580 --> 00:07:36.956
Nineteen thirty four, nineteen
00:07:36.956 --> 00:07:37.874
thirty five.
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There\'s no work anywhere.
00:07:39.542 --> 00:07:41.294
I mean, he was cutting lawns.
00:07:41.294 --> 00:07:43.379
He was doing garden work.
00:07:43.379 --> 00:07:45.173
He was he was doing anything you
00:07:45.173 --> 00:07:47.091
could just to keep alive in order to
00:07:47.091 --> 00:07:48.801
keep his music alive.
00:07:48.801 --> 00:07:49.927
And at one point, he said, You know,
00:07:49.927 --> 00:07:51.262
I\'m tired of begging.
00:07:51.262 --> 00:07:53.139
I\'m just going to forget it
00:07:53.139 --> 00:07:54.474
for a while. And he grabbed his
00:07:54.474 --> 00:07:56.559
viola and he hit the road.
00:07:56.559 --> 00:07:57.393
He was an itinerant.
00:07:57.393 --> 00:07:58.227
He was homeless.
00:07:58.227 --> 00:07:59.937
He worked picking fruit.
00:07:59.937 --> 00:08:01.397
He traveled all up and down the West
00:08:01.397 --> 00:08:03.316
Coast following the crops,
00:08:03.316 --> 00:08:05.359
just like so many immigrants
00:08:05.359 --> 00:08:06.402
do now.
00:08:06.402 --> 00:08:08.237
And even then, he
00:08:08.237 --> 00:08:09.572
said, Here I am.
00:08:09.572 --> 00:08:11.574
I\'m at the fountainhead of American
00:08:11.574 --> 00:08:12.533
music.
00:08:12.533 --> 00:08:14.368
It\'s it\'s the people he
00:08:14.368 --> 00:08:16.162
was here, things like a quarrel and
00:08:16.162 --> 00:08:17.872
a potato patch, right?
00:08:17.872 --> 00:08:19.916
And he would write it down the pitch
00:08:19.916 --> 00:08:20.833
contours.
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Hey, Max, is that like a big enough
00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:23.961
to?
00:08:29.842 --> 00:08:30.843
Is.
00:08:38.684 --> 00:08:41.521
I got so
00:08:41.521 --> 00:08:43.105
many guys franchise
00:08:45.775 --> 00:08:46.984
wise, Mr.
00:08:48.236 --> 00:08:49.445
Going east, Mr.
00:08:50.488 --> 00:08:51.405
Going East.
00:08:51.405 --> 00:08:52.406
Mr.
00:08:53.658 --> 00:08:55.076
It\'s so great for you.
00:09:02.708 --> 00:09:04.669
The rest of these guards.
00:09:07.922 --> 00:09:10.716
I guess, are you
00:09:10.716 --> 00:09:12.051
guys in a jam?
00:09:15.596 --> 00:09:17.014
I\'ve never laughed at a piece of
00:09:17.014 --> 00:09:18.349
classical music before.
00:09:18.349 --> 00:09:19.475
What is this?
00:09:19.475 --> 00:09:21.644
How can serious music evoke
00:09:21.644 --> 00:09:23.020
laughter? How can it be funny?
00:09:23.020 --> 00:09:24.564
This is it. No, no, this doesn\'t
00:09:24.564 --> 00:09:25.565
work. Green
00:09:26.524 --> 00:09:27.525
River.
00:09:29.902 --> 00:09:32.029
Why, oh.
00:09:33.322 --> 00:09:34.323
Learn.
00:09:38.160 --> 00:09:40.162
I like to think of what I\'m doing
00:09:40.162 --> 00:09:42.206
is visual and corporeal, and
00:09:43.291 --> 00:09:45.376
I want the instruments on stage
00:09:45.376 --> 00:09:46.794
and I want them to be beautiful.
00:09:46.794 --> 00:09:49.880
I also want the musicians
00:09:49.922 --> 00:09:52.049
to be an
00:09:52.049 --> 00:09:54.302
active part of
00:09:54.302 --> 00:09:56.429
a very active part in the
00:09:56.429 --> 00:09:57.597
whole production.
00:09:57.597 --> 00:09:59.265
I want them to be as graceful as
00:09:59.265 --> 00:10:00.975
Muhammad Ali.
00:10:00.975 --> 00:10:02.935
And actually,
00:10:02.935 --> 00:10:04.061
maybe I don\'t give them some
00:10:04.061 --> 00:10:05.313
exercises skipping rope.
00:10:07.481 --> 00:10:09.233
And I also like them to be in
00:10:09.233 --> 00:10:11.277
costume and with
00:10:11.277 --> 00:10:13.195
with a headdress or
00:10:13.195 --> 00:10:15.031
whatever just to get away from the
00:10:15.031 --> 00:10:16.824
mundane and the pedestrian.
00:10:16.824 --> 00:10:18.993
But my direction
00:10:18.993 --> 00:10:21.037
where I\'m at is an
00:10:21.037 --> 00:10:23.748
ancient ritual in modern terms.
00:10:23.748 --> 00:10:26.125
But he even said, Look, there\'s lots
00:10:26.125 --> 00:10:27.960
of theories, there\'s lots of
00:10:27.960 --> 00:10:29.879
new musical instruments, but all
00:10:29.879 --> 00:10:32.006
the theories in the world,
00:10:32.006 --> 00:10:34.050
they\'re just without music to back
00:10:34.050 --> 00:10:36.010
them up. They\'re like so many scraps
00:10:36.010 --> 00:10:37.887
of paper in a whirlwind.
00:10:37.887 --> 00:10:39.013
And that\'s what makes parts
00:10:39.013 --> 00:10:40.890
different. It\'s not his materials,
00:10:40.890 --> 00:10:42.600
it\'s what he did with them.
00:10:42.600 --> 00:10:44.143
That\'s the exciting thing.
00:10:44.143 --> 00:10:45.978
Why else would I spend 20 years
00:10:45.978 --> 00:10:48.147
of my life spending thousands
00:10:48.147 --> 00:10:50.066
of hours and many more thousands
00:10:50.066 --> 00:10:51.859
of dollars creating something just
00:10:51.859 --> 00:10:53.444
for an idea? No, no.
00:10:53.444 --> 00:10:54.987
It\'s because the music is so damn
00:10:54.987 --> 00:10:55.988
good.
00:10:59.367 --> 00:11:00.368
And.
00:11:44.453 --> 00:11:45.579
So you say your
00:11:45.579 --> 00:11:47.623
dad is usually
00:11:47.623 --> 00:11:49.375
traveling around the world?
00:11:51.001 --> 00:11:52.002
Tell me, sir.
00:11:53.003 --> 00:11:54.630
Have you ever been arrested before?
00:12:18.237 --> 00:12:20.197
In his own life, he just complained
00:12:20.197 --> 00:12:22.241
he\'d been ignored to death
00:12:22.283 --> 00:12:23.242
his whole life.
00:12:25.161 --> 00:12:27.204
That\'s not the case anymore,
00:12:27.204 --> 00:12:29.415
and for me, what a deep
00:12:29.415 --> 00:12:31.459
pleasure to not only be
00:12:31.459 --> 00:12:32.668
able to make this music because
00:12:32.668 --> 00:12:33.919
that\'s the real treat.
00:12:33.919 --> 00:12:36.380
You know, as I\'m fond of saying,
00:12:36.380 --> 00:12:38.549
you know, I love performing, but
00:12:38.549 --> 00:12:40.384
my favorite part is being inside
00:12:40.384 --> 00:12:42.011
the music, spending hours and hours
00:12:42.011 --> 00:12:44.013
at home, recreating have.
00:12:44.013 --> 00:12:45.222
This music come off of the
00:12:45.222 --> 00:12:46.932
instruments into my face to be in
00:12:46.932 --> 00:12:48.267
that people to share it with the
00:12:48.267 --> 00:12:49.935
public is fabulous.
00:12:49.935 --> 00:12:51.645
To be able to record it and get it
00:12:51.645 --> 00:12:52.855
out there is incredible.
00:12:52.855 --> 00:12:54.774
And then to get
00:12:54.774 --> 00:12:56.567
a Grammy for that.
00:12:56.567 --> 00:12:57.943
I mean, it doesn\'t get any better
00:12:57.943 --> 00:12:58.944
than that.
00:13:06.494 --> 00:13:08.496
And to hell
00:13:08.496 --> 00:13:09.955
with it. I\'m going to walk.
00:13:18.506 --> 00:13:20.508
My appeal to.
00:13:22.259 --> 00:13:23.427
Under the cold.
00:13:27.431 --> 00:13:29.350
We were drinking heavily
00:13:29.350 --> 00:13:30.351
together.
00:13:35.439 --> 00:13:37.483
Frightened by our orgies, a wild
00:13:37.483 --> 00:13:38.943
herring slammed out of the river
00:13:38.943 --> 00:13:39.944
shallows.
00:13:47.451 --> 00:13:48.661
It was midnight.
Distributor: Means TV
Length: 14 minutes
Date: 2018
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: 10-12, College, Adults
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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