Beck Song Reader Turns Ten!

For those eternally floating between the worlds of rock and classical music, life can be strange. While society has been experiencing a latter-day awareness of this variety of stylistic fluidity (thanks to the plethora of working composers whose origins — like mine — took form in clubs rather than conservatories), but one needs not to look far to find instances of the hard-to-kill biases we have encountered over the years. If a punk rock musician is exposed to also be an orchestral conductor, a certain lack of “edge” is suddenly detected by some. If a conductor is exposed as an on-the-side art-noise musician, negative opinions surface regarding said conductor’s lack of finesse and subtly.

The picture can become further convoluted when it comes to the concept of printed sheet music (that whole “reading the little black dots” thing). Play-by-ear musicians find themselves branded as illiterates by schooled musicians, while those fluent in playing off the page are presumed to lack spontaneity, ability to improvise, etc.

I call bullshit on all that.

In the wide-ranging world of rock, a premium is placed on energy, spontaneity, and the cultivation of unique styles and sounds. On the classical side, precision, consistency, fluidity, and virtuosity on one’s instrument/voice are heavily emphasized. While one can easily find advocates/denouncers of either approach, I’ll testify that my own musicality has immensely benefited by incorporating elements of both realms. I strongly believe that orchestral musicians playing a written line as if it were being improvised can give an otherwise pedestrian-sounding phrase the extra “spark” it needs to truly shine, while rock musicians may similarly benefit from a deeper knowledge of music theory, ear-training, and technique refinement.

And yes: they might also benefit from learning how to read those damned little black dots.

I entered the house of music through the classical “proper” front door (see: childhood piano lessons) as quickly as I left (see: quitting childhood piano lessons). My re-entry into the world of music came in my teens when the electric guitar grabbed my imagination and refused to let go. Once I began my art studies at university, I randomly signed up for an elective piano class (after having forgotten nearly everything about it), and I began to tap back into an existence of revolving around printed pitches on the page.

Determined to give the “proper” route the old-fashioned college try (heh), I registered for even more music electives. These included classical guitar lessons, chorus, and major-level music theory classes taught by a notoriously tough professor (when the movie Whiplash came out some years back, a former classmate jokingly surmised that Dr. Dougherty would likely witness J.K. Simmons’ portrayal of a sadistic jazz band director and respond “what a pansy”). Terror being a great motivator, through hours of daily sight-reading practice/ear-training, I was able to hold my own with the music majors and — because I eventually amassed more music credits than those racked up for my art major — I ended up auditioning to become a music major. Changing my path forever.

Once upon a time, popular music was written by music writers like those found in the famous Brill Building, big band leaders and their arrangers, and countless other varieties of creators of organized sound. Many of these creations could be bought in sheet music form, which were purchased for families to gather around the piano to sing the latest hits of the day (a household tradition my mother sustained throughout my childhood — thank you for that, Ma, and sorry again for quitting my piano lessons!). This practice was substantially sidelined with the birth of rock and roll: a cultural upheaval which popularized the sounds based in aural-based folk and blues idioms. Over the past seventy years, popular artists who can read/write musical notation have remained the exception rather than the rule (though here’s looking at you, Van Dyke Parks, George Martin, John Paul Jones, etc. etc. etc.).

With this bygone era of widespread music literacy in mind, Beck released Song Reader on this very date in 2012. An artist who has spent much of his career creating musical amalgamations drawn from disparate retro inspirations, it only made sense that he might take the next logical step and produce an old-school, sheet-music-only album, complete with illustrations harkening back to a time long gone. In the DIY indie-rock heyday, it seemed the ultimate invitation (dare?) to take the songs therein and make them one’s own.

I picked up the book shortly after its release, and began scheming a performance. Convergence wasn’t the first in Austin to accept that invitation (our friends in the brilliant Mother Falcon gang beat us to it), but we knew we wanted to put our own indie-rock-meets-contemporary-classical spin on it. Through my composer friend/colleague Peter Stopschinski, I booked a Beck Song Reader event at the Blanton Museum of Art, featuring vocalists from Convergence on lead vocals whilst backed by Texas Choral Consort and my indie rock outfit The Normans.

It was immense fun digging into these wonderful tunes, taking artistic liberties as we filtered them through my noise rock, space-country, indie rock and acid jazz arrangements. With the multi-Grammy Award-winning Conspirare also on the bill for the evening, we packed the galleries to the gills with a standing-room-only sea of beautiful listeners.

Had the invitation from Peter arrived in absence of Beck’s “album,” we simply would have done another one of our events filled with cool contemporary music and premieres. I’m glad the stars aligned the way they did though, as this music is truly brilliant and was such a joy to share.

Thank you for the music, Beck Hansen!