Tag: music

Movie Review: In A Star is Born, the Music Industry Culture of Fame Takes a Dark Toll on Its Artists’ Mental Health (CW: substance abuse, mental illness, suicide and spoilers)

April 4, 2019

Categories: movies

8/5/21: as I rewrote this review, I realized how many generalizations I may have made at the expense of a lot of musicians who actually work in the recording industry. A movie cannot speak for the entire industry, and as someone who has not worked in the pop music industry I can’t speak from personal experience, so a lot of what you read here take with a grain of salt.

At first I didn’t think I could watch A Star is Born in the evening, because for me, watching gut-wrenching drama films at night before I go to bed is like having me watch Paranormal Activity at two o’clock in the morning (not that I would have the confidence to go see something that scary, let alone that late at night, or let alone at all. I am squeamish to a T.) But alas, here I am writing this review, and no tear duct has been shed from my orbs.

I wanted to cry. I really did. However, I was so busy digesting all the tough-love lessons of the film that I really couldn’t elicit any emotion other than a sense of unfairness that I feel about how the music industry treats women and especially people with mental health issues. I could no longer just sit and cry because I knew my tears would do nothing to address the real issue that the film portrays: mental illness and the stigma associated with getting help. So I took to writing this review to raise awareness of the issue, to do my part for the community. Like I mentioned earlier, I was deeply curious about how the music community was addressing mental health issues, and especially in the classical music community because the business of being an orchestra musician can feel like a total nightmare when you struggle with any kind of mental health issue. When you prepare for an audition, you are literally shaking in your boots, but it’s more than just mere nervousness. It feels like that dark cloud over your mind is going to swallow you up and prevent you from performing your best, let alone living your life. So after taking a hiatus from any heavy performing or auditioning, I decided to take matters into my own hands and do my own research on the topic of mental health and musicians, because Lady Gaga, at the Grammys this year when she won for her song “Shallow” from the movie, told it like it was: a lot of artists deal with mental health issues and we need to not only support each other through our mental health issues, but also seek out help for our mental health issues as well.

I completely agree, so it’s no wonder that, when I Googled “mental health and musicians” today I came across so many stories about how singer Justin Bieber had to take a break from touring so he could spend more time with his wife Hailey Baldwin and also take care of himself, or that rapper Big Sean had to cancel touring last year to get help for his anxiety and depression. Honestly, it’s weird as a fellow musician who also struggled with mental health issues to say this, but it goes to show how the entertainment industry still has a ways to go in how it churns out musicians and then spits them out to struggle through their issues alone. Somehow this seems dangerously toxic to me, and it’s why I am glad I am not yet a professional musician. I spent the longest time trying to figure out what my mission as a musician was, and I think, more than ever, I need to use my music to address the problem of mental health stigma. Yes, more people are becoming aware of the psychological toll of fame and celebrity, but still, films such as A Star is Born clearly show that there is a long, long way to go.

The film opens with a performance by Jackson Maine, a country rock singer who has had a long career on the road. We see him pop some pills before he gets onstage, and while he gives an electrifying performance, seeing those pills presents just the beginning of a very disturbing, grim and realistic portrait of the life of an artist struggling with depression and addiction. Jackson, throughout the film, is constantly drinking, smoking and, later on, snorting cocaine. Ally, on the other hand, is a struggling singer who works as a server at a high-maintenance restaurant. When I first saw this scene, I immediately thought about the film La La Land, where we see Mia working as a barista and dealing with a boss who could care less about her dreams of becoming an actress. When her boss schedules her on a day she has an audition, Mia tries to tell her she has an audition and can’t work, but her boss tells her she doesn’t care and to skip the audition so she can cover her shifts. Jackson goes into a drag bar and watches Ally perform “La Vie En Rose.” He is so moved by the performance that he goes to her dressing room to meet her and they immediately hit it off. When they go to a bar afterwards to hang out, he shares a very important message about what it takes to be a true artist. Ally tells him she doesn’t think she will make it because everyone keeps telling her she isn’t pretty enough to be famous, and that men constantly tell her she is a good singer but that she doesn’t have the looks of a singer. This shows how women in the music industry are pressured to look a certain way and further suggests why it’s so important for young women to embrace their beauty as it is so that other people don’t try and tell them differently. But Jack tells her that she looks beautiful and even says that he struggles with tinnitus but still made it as a musician. He says a quote that really stuck with me throughout the film, and that is that “talent comes everywhere. Everybody’s talented…but having something to say, and the way to say it so that people listen to it, that’s a whole other bag. Unless you try and go out there and do it, you’ll never know.” (A Star is Born) It made me think about how, in any career, women typically wait until they have all of the qualifications before applying for a job (I’m one of those ladies) and suffer from imposter syndrome. Ally thinks she cannot be successful, but Jack thinks she can.

Update from the next day…(aka I have had more time to digest this film after pondering it day and night. It literally kept me up.)

The movie also raised some very important thoughts for me, and I’m going to just list them in bullet points because frankly, I am choking up now thinking of the film even though I wasn’t before, and I need to get these out here before I get stressed. After researching mental health and musicians more today, I decided to just take a break from research and just write my thoughts. It has been cathartic to do so, and it’s really going to keep me from thinking about how good but also how stressful this movie was:

  • What is the meaning of pop music? In the film a famous recording producer, Rez Gavron, who offers Ally several opportunities after seeing her perform. But then he has her go from doing country rock music to dancing hip-hop. While I can see why Ally would keep an open mind and go for these opportunities, it feels as if she lost a huge part of herself being on such a big label such as Interscope Records. And this is a problem, because she used to know herself pretty well enough to keep her day job while she did music, but when she went big she tried to tell Rez to not mess up her sense of self and make her something she isn’t, but Rez wants her to stick with his vision and not her own, so he tells her to dye her hair and has her live in this super extravagant living space. Which is nice at the beginning, but then Jackson loses faith in Ally and goes further into himself, telling her that all this pop fame isn’t her. Then again, the orange hair and hip-hop electronic dance moves are classic Lady Gaga.
  • Can two artists coexist? In the film La La Land, Mia is an actress and Sebastian is a jazz musician. They try to make it work, and Mia quits her job at the coffee shop to write her own plays (which is a risky move, as the film shows, because no one comes to the play she directed and she gives up.) But then Sebastian gets an opportunity to play with his friend, who tells him he needs to play other genres besides jazz because he can barely afford to pay his rent by playing jazz gigs alone. Sebastian tells Mia he’s going on tour, but then Mia tells him she wants to stay and pursue her acting career. The movie shows that if Mia and Sebastian got married, it would be really hard. And in A Star is Born, this idea is taken a step further because Jack and Ally do get married, but then as Ally becomes more famous and mainstream, Jack loses popularity and Bobby even replaces him with a younger musician at his performance. Jack soon loses faith in himself and becomes more involved with substances. When Ally wins a Grammy for Best New Artist, Jack drunkenly comes on stage and accidentally urinates on himself while she’s giving her speech. It is then that he is sent to treatment and Rez tells him to stay away from Ally because his marriage to her nearly ruined her career.
  • Women are held at very stressful standards in the pop music industry. Ariana Grande said that sporadically releasing music has proven to be more helpful for her mental health than following the incredibly structured high pressure plan that record labels expect female pop artists to adhere to. Ally, in the film, gets all these opportunities to be a star, but she never really gets to express herself anymore. At first she was very down-to-earth, but all it took was some egotistical micromanagey guy (aka Rez) to control her image for her. In one scene, Ally is recording a demo and the producers behind the screen keep telling her to start over because she is nervous, but then Jack has them bring out a piano and she just naturally becomes comfortable playing it with him. I still think it is interesting that Ally needs a man to boost her self-worth though; what if Ally had a female mentor? Would it have been a different relationship or the same? I’m not saying I hated the dynamic between Jack and Ally at all; I thought it was sweet. Also, Bradley Cooper directed this film and him and Lady Gaga wrote the songs, so I ain’t mad. 🙂 I am just thinking of other theoretical possibilities for the story line. I thought about the film Cadillac Records, and how in the film Leonard Chess controlled much of Etta James’s career, when in reality Etta James held her own in an industry that was macho. Leonard treats Etta as if she was irrational and angry all the time, and she tries to push back against all the pressure that the industry puts on her. So did she really need Leonard to make her feel accomplished? This is just a parallel I made watching A Star is Born.
  • Is suicide really the fault of musicians? Or does the overall industry play a part in it, too? At the end Jack commits suicide after breaking his sobriety and finding his old bottle of pills (this was the part that was extremely difficult to watch), and Ally is crying and Bobby tells her that it was Jack’s fault, not her or Bobby’s fault, that he committed suicide. Was it solely his fault, though? Sometimes I think people who have never gone through mental health issues assume that it’s the musician’s fault when they hurt themselves, but a huge part of me told me that the culture of the music industry, not merely Jack’s personal history with drug abuse and depression, played a more-than-significant role in his suicide. We need to stop perpetuating this idea that “oh we couldn’t control it, it just happened.” The music industry is incredibly competitive and even encourages people to party hard, do drugs and drink when they are stressed. The constant pressure of celebrity is what drove Avicii, Mac Miller, Amy Winehouse to their deaths. I’m not saying a glass of wine or two is bad. However, substance abuse is a whole nother animal, and throughout the film I couldn’t help but be pissed when Ally, Bobby, Rez and everyone else told Jack he needed to “clean up his act.” I know it’s hard to support folks when they struggle with something so subjective and deeply rooted in their personal life, but there needs to be better measures for how to address mental health issues in the music community. I just found this part incredibly frustrating as a musician who struggled with mental health issues before.
  • Hearing loss is huge in the music industry. Bobby has Jack put on a pair of earphones for this tinnitus, and Jack, under the influence of hard drugs, tells him he can go stick them somewhere else. I idealized the idea of playing at loud concerts, but because I have sensitive ears, I think I will pass on not wearing some kind of protection for my ears.
  • Being a tortured artist isn’t cute or funny. Nico Muhly talks about this in an interview he did about classical musicians and mental health, and how we need to stop perpetuating this romanticized idea of the tortured composer or musician or artist in general. While a lot of artists suffer from mental health issues, we cannot let our mental health issues try to define who we are as artists because it can lead to our self-destruction and potentially deaths. A Star is Born clearly shows how destructive it is to perpetuate the tortured artist myth.
  • Is fame worth it? I know in real life, Lady Gaga has achieved so many things, but she still gets idolized. I used to idolize all these famous people, but I realize that they are human, and this film shows how dangerous it is to deify regular human beings who just happened to pursue their passion for years and earned money from it. In one poignant scene, a heckler interrupts Ally and Jack’s conversation to tell him how he thinks Jack looks like someone he really hates, and pressures Jack to take a photo with him so he can show his ex-wife. Ally then beats the heckler up, and they escape to a grocery store so Jack can get some peas for Ally’s smashed hand. The store clerk, while checking out the peas, stealthily takes a photo of Jack and Ally while they are talking, but the lady’s not quick enough and they catch her in the act. While Jack treats it as if it was just a part of being famous for so long, Ally is, rightfully, not okay with it. This really taught me that if I meet anyone famous, such as Bradley Cooper or Lady Gaga, in any common public place, it would be more than stupid to chase them down for an autograph or take a photo of them without their consent. It would be just a straight-up invasion of privacy. Most, if not all, celebs aren’t thinking, ” Well if more people took my photo while I was out with my kids, I would feel better than I already feel.” Most, if not all, “celebs” are just human beings who love what they do and treat their music-making and film-making as a job like any other, and it is a job because it’s their profession that takes up most of their time. So it’s a waste of their creative space to ask them for autographs–they just want to live their lives. So again, I will try and be mindful of this now that I have seen this film.

As I am now emotionally exhausted from writing this review, I leave you with two clips, one of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper playing “Shallow” and another of her performing it at the Grammys. Both are performances which I will have to take a hiatus from listening to because even just thinking about them is making me quite tearful now that I have seen this incredibly tearful movie. I cried watching both of these performances when they came out and haven’t stopped crying. They put so much soul into it that it’s hard to not appreciate their hard work.

Overall, excellent film and one that will stick with me for a very, very long time. Gosh, I’m already tearing up just thinking about it. It seriously deserved all the awards that it received this year. This review, no matter how long, can never convey how amazing and heartfelt and deep this film was for me. Thank you Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. I know I should see the original versions, I was just too impatient to see this film.

A Star is Born. 2 hr 14 min. Rated R for language throughout, some sexuality/ nudity and substance abuse.

Movie Review: Inside Llewyn Davis

June 5, 2019

Categories: movies

I have been wrestling for quite some time now with whether to pursue music as a career or keep it as a hobby, and then after seeing The Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis just now, I have all these other questions coming up in my mind about having a career in music. I heard that this movie got a lot of awards and even some Oscars nominations, so I went ahead and gave it a go. The Coen Brothers’ other film, A Serious Man, was, well, okay, but I actually liked Inside Llewyn Davis.

Inside Llewyn Davis takes place in Greenwich Village, NYC, in the 1960s. The title character, Llewyn Davis, is trying to cope not only with the death of his music partner, Mike, but also not having money to pay his rent and struggling to make it as a folk musician. He gets frustrated many times when his friends and acquaintances ask him to perform for them because his last album, Inside Llewyn Davis, was a flop and he sees this as a complete failure. Even when he gets a gig playing a novelty song with Jim (Justin Timberlake) and Al (Adam Driver) he at first thinks the song is silly, but can’t afford to not take the gig because he doesn’t have any money.

Throughout the movie, I asked myself a lot of questions. Even as a classical musician, this movie really struck a cord with me because like Llewyn, I had a narrow idea of what success entailed. In one scene, when Llewyn visits his sister, Joy, she digs up his old records and he tells her he doesn’t want anything to do with them. When she suggests he give them away to people, he tells her that in the music business you’re not supposed to release music if it’s not perfectly packaged. In other words, according to Llewyn, practicing music shouldn’t sell and if you want to be a serious musician, you can’t do anything with your old records if they don’t fit your expectations. In another scene, the Gorsteins invite Llewyn over for dinner and Professor Gorstein has Llewyn perform for them and their family friends at dinner. When Mrs. Gorstein joins in with Llewyn, he blows up at her and says that he doesn’t play free gigs like this one because he is a serious musician who performs to make money, not to entertain other people. However, when Llewyn ends up meeting an actual music producer, the music producer isn’t enthused with Llewyn’s performance because he doesn’t connect with him on a deep level with the music. Llewyn waited a long time because he thought that getting signed to a record label would automatically make his life less miserable, but in fact, the guy he ended up obsessing over could care less about his performance.

The question of whether professional musicians should accept free gigs or only do paid ones is a complicated matter, because on the one hand, if it’s for a good cause, you should offer your services. However, playing free gigs isn’t in fact sustainable if you plan on making music your main source of income. But this idea that I must wait for the perfect paid gig, from my personal experience, has stifled me somewhat. Although I do want to get paid for my musical performances someday, I know that I have a day job so that I can perform for free if I wanted to because I would be making a salary that would allow me to get instrument repairs or instrument insurance. I have thought about playing for K-12 students at some point, or for animals since studies show animals enjoy classical music. It’s not because I want to make money; I do it because I love animals and younger kids. However, Llewyn can’t afford to play for free because he has to pay his rent.

I am getting a little sleepy, so I’m going to nod off to Dreamland, but just some final thoughts:

-the cat in the film is adorable.

-I really like how the film doesn’t give all these statistics about the music industry but instead, with its moments of silence and bleak but beautiful cinematography, time to reflect on the philosophy of music and what success truly means for artists.

-The same club, The Gaslight, that Llewyn performs at is in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and it’s where Midge, a comedian during the 1950s, performs her stand-up routine.

-John Goodman is an excellent actor.

-Oscar Isaac is not only good-looking (did you see The Last Jedi?) but also an incredible guitarist and singer.

-Carey Mulligan is a great actress. And a great singer as well.

-Adam Driver and Justin Timberlake are awesome. And also great singers.

-What does it take to communicate with one’s audience?

-How do musicians challenge their own arrogance? In one scene, Llewyn (dare I say it?) pulls a Kanye West on a female performer and heckles her during her performance, causing him to get kicked out of The Gaslight.

-the starving artist stereotype: does one have to “starve” to be considered a true artist?

Inside Llewyn Davis. 2013. 1 hr 50 min. Rated R for language including some sexual references.

Album Review: Stripped by Christina Aguilera

June 4, 2019

Categories: music

These past few days I listened to the entire Stripped album by Christina Aguilera. I listened to “Fighter,” “Soar,” “Beautiful,” “Can’t Hold Us Down,” and “Dirrty” before, but I hadn’t listened to her other songs on the album. So I decided to give it a go because I was nostalgic for some good old early 2000s music. I’m just going to touch on just a few of the songs on the album. I’ll probably talk more about it in the future.

First and foremost, this is the rawest album yet, next to Joss Stone’s Introducing Joss Stone (another excellent album.) As much criticism and mixed reviews as she got, Christina Aguilera, in my personal opinion, put her heart and soul into this album. I like her early album Christina Aguilera because while it’s categorized as pop, it’s also this mature lovely album about sexuality, womanhood and other things. “I Turn to You” is one of my favorite songs and makes me cry nearly every time.

In Stripped, Christina takes that maturity up to another level. She uses the piano and strings in the most symbiotic way to create this organic collection of personal lyrical narratives. In “Impossible,” her ballad with Alicia Keys on piano, she starts off with Alicia playing a simple calm piano solo and interludes with some syncopated singing. Then she dives into a chilling 3/4 blues, jazz waltz with drum tats and brass, interluding with her deep soulful voice, conveying the pain of trying to read the mind of a guy who won’t tell her how he really feels, a real feeling that happens a lot of times of everyday relationships. In “Cruz,” she opens with a chorus of resounding voices, then goes right into a beautiful rock ballad. The chords have this lovely emotional complexity that shows the versatility of her voice. “Cruz” reminded me of “The First Cut is the Deepest” by Sheryl Crow because both songs integrate country and rock music and add a powerful dash of soul. I love how in this song she goes back and forth from G major to F major to G major to F major back to G major. The song evokes a bittersweet longing to be free, a longing that Christina feels to leave a painful situation, and we hear the freedom in her unbridled voice as she belts out the end of the song in the key of G major.

Another thing that makes this album truly one of my favorites (and as a staunch music lover, that is hard for me to say because I have a lot of “favorites”) is her free use of the key E minor. The key of E minor is one of my favorite keys because it evokes this beautiful darkness that is just hard to describe in words. In “Keep on Singin’ My Song” Aguilera uses E minor to its utmost advantage, opening up with a simple introduction of humming and soft singing, then plunging into this poignant raw piece about not looking back at the past and moving forward with what you want to do with your life, even if it’s painful to do so or if other people don’t like it.

Around the 4:13 mark of the song, she slows down the tempo, giving the listener about thirteen seconds to contemplate the rough-shod ride she just took us on through the song, and then picks it back up around 4:26 with just her and the chorus, and then moves back into a rhythmic 4/4 beat with the percussion keeping the tempo. Around 5:22, the drums and the flutist bring a beautiful close to the song.

In “Walk Away” the song opens with a lone piano waltz (it reminded me of “Dangerous Woman” in a way because that song, too, is in the form of a waltz. Also “Fallin'” by Alicia Keys has the same time signature and key as “Walk Away,” so I thought about that while listening to the song), and Christina brings us into a chilling mezzo-forte first verse, and then crescendos into a gut-wrenching chorus, backed by strings, piano and percussion. Hearing this chorus each time gave me chills up and down my spine because she doesn’t try to beat around the bush or pull any punches about illustrating the pain she suffered for the longest time. Honestly, while listening to this song at work, all I could envision was myself dancing alone in an empty studio to this song, contorting my body dressed in a black long-sleeved leotard, leaping around, sliding across the dance floor, my body moving in time to Christina’s rhymes. The middle of the song she crescendos and falls into the softness of the third verse, and then crescendos back into the chorus. I would love to play this song on my cello just because even though I can’t directly relate to Aguilera’s personal struggles, it doesn’t take much for her to such me in with her mature, powerful lyrics. I mean, seriously, if the lyrics don’t strike some kind of emotion in you, then what will? Gosh, listening to this song was one thing but actually reading the lyrics just heightened the overall suspense of the album. It reminds me of “Love on the Brain” by Rihanna because both songs present gritty portrayals of emotional abuse in relationships and how it psychologically messes up the survivor of this abuse because they know deep down they need to leave the relationship, but the perpetrator’s power is so life-threatening and the trauma so enduring that it is easier said than done to “just leave” an abusive relationship.

She also uses the E minor key in one of her most famous songs “Fighter.” I first heard this song when I was around eight years old. A friend had gotten me a mix of 2003 hits and “Fighter” was one of those hits. Every time I listen to it, I want to hit a punching bag or go back to tae kwon do to finally get my black belt. Somehow when I hear songs in the key of E minor I see a portentous black cloud hovering over an empty landscape, so that’s why E minor takes on such a dark tone for me as the listener. It reminded me of “U + Ur Hand” by P!nk because both songs are in the key of E minor and they also punch us in the ears with their heavy rock beats and thematic material.

As a classical musician, hearing Stripped was like listening to a piece by a Romantic-era composer. The Romantic era of music, which emerged from the Classical music period around 1830, allowing for a great deal of freedom in composing music, and composers such as Peter Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann and Gustav Mahler embraced passion and used music as a means of expressing deep emotions, such as depression and infatuation. Composers also branched out from the traditional orchestra format and experimented with woodwinds and percussion. Beethoven helped usher in this new approach to music by referencing other aspects of life, such as nature, in his works, and making sonatas and symphonies less strict-sounding. His “Ode to Joy” is a famous example, with its grand sweeping gestures and booming majestic chorus. A lot of Romantic-era music I have noticed uses the key of E minor because it is such a brooding key. While listening to Stripped, I thought about all the Romantic-era compositions that use E minor, and the list is inexhaustible. Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 in E minor smacks you in the face with E minor; the entire symphony is passionate and the last movement is a turbulent beautiful tangled-up web of pain, grief and yearning. Schumann’s Cello Concerto is another example; it is so hard to play in part because it is so emotionally complex. Schumann suffered with mental illness and so the player must feel what Schumann was trying to convey through the movements. While practicing it, I had to read up on the piece to understand what kind of emotional expression I needed to bring to the piece.

I could talk about this album for ages. Heck, I would love to do a deeper musical analysis. But there’s only so much I can say about how much this album touched me on a personal level. This blog can’t do justice to how incredible and powerful Stripped is for me. Aguilera’s songs have lifted me, inspired me to keep going even when I don’t feel like I can. Here’s one of the songs:

Eclectic Playlist of the Week

November 28, 2019

  • “Spontaneous”- Lindsey Stirling
  • “Deed I Do”- Lena Horne
  • “Just Like You”- Three Days Grace
  • “Maybe Not”- Cat Power
  • “Besame Mucho”-Chantal Chamberland
  • “Turn It On Again”- Genesis
  • “This Head I Hold”- Electric Guest
  • “Staralfur”- Sigur Ros
  • Enigma Variations– Edward Elgar
  • “I’m Not Afraid”- Jill Scott
  • “Comatose”- Skillet
  • “I Will Not Bow”- Breaking Benjamin
  • “Help”- Papa Roach
  • “lovely”- Billie Eilish and Khalid
  • “Down”-Marian Hill
  • “Like That”- Bea Miller
  • “everything i wanted”- Billie Eilish

Eclectic Playlist

December 22, 2019

Categories: eclectic playlists, music

I haven’t posted one of these in a while (or maybe it was a few days ago, I don’t even remember, I listen to too much music to even care). So here it goes, more music from my many Pandora stations.

  • “If You Want It”: Tuxedo
  • “Volcano”: Damien Rice
  • “Qui est cette felle?”: Yelle
  • “A Walk to Remember”: Vulfpeck
  • “Special Affair”: The Internet
  • “Date La Vuelva”: Luis Fonsi, Sebastian Yatra and Nicky Jam
  • “Mob Ties”: Drake
  • “Cooties”: from the musical Hairspray
  • “Conversation Pt. 1”: Mac Miller
  • “Is It Love?”: Thundercat
  • “my boy”: Billie Eilish
  • “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall”: Coldplay
  • “Sleep Alone”: Bat for Lashes
  • “Play Dead”: Bjork
  • “So Doggone Lonesome”: Johnny Cash
  • “Pioneers”: Bloc Party
  • “Newborn Friend”: Seal
  • “The Call”: Regina Spektor
  • “Boy with Luv (ft. Halsey)”: BTS
  • “Private Eyes” (orig. by Hall and Oates): The Bird and the Bee
  • “Zi-Zi’s Journey”: Lindsey Stirling
  • “Survie”: Youssou N’Dour
  • “Decatur, or Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!”: Sufjan Stevens

More on Film Composing

April 13, 2019

Categories: movies, music, orchestra

A few weeks ago I watched an interview that composer Germaine Franco did for the YouTube channel Orchestral Tools, and in the video she talks about getting into the business and the importance of producing a lot of work while working as a film composer. I was interested to learn more about film composing so I watched another video that Orchestral Tools did in which they interviewed Jeff Russo, who composed the score for the films Fargo and Star Trek and the TV show The Umbrella Academy (all of which I have yet to see).

In the interview, Russo talks about the importance of developing your own sound as a film composer. He said that composer John Powell called on aspiring film composers to stop listening to film scores so that they could produce their own work instead of copying someone else’s style. While Russo partly agreed with this, he also said that it really does help to have a broad knowledge of different film scores and other genres of music because you get a sense of what someone’s melodies are and that helps provide inspiration for you to develop your own melodies. Also, speaking from a common sense standpoint, we’re all going to copy each other’s work anyway in one way or another. It’s especially important to listen to other film scores because you learn from the people who have more experience in film scoring and have done it for longer than you. It’s just like anything else in life; if you want to be a good employee, you need a mentor who will show you how the job is done and encourage you with their own past experiences of failures and how they bounced back from those failures. For me, I seek encouragement from musicians who are actually in the music industry and have been for quite some time. Because they have gone through the many highs and lows of the music industry, they have so much rich experience I can learn from. The last thing I want to do is walk into a professional orchestra or any music setting and just wing it without knowing what to expect. Plus, seeking out advice from more experienced musicians has helped me become more gracious over time about my progress through life as a musician and has helped me challenge my longtime battle with arrogance and thinking I was cool without accepting criticism from others.

Russo further explains that it helps to listen to a wide range of music because while music theory is important, listening to more than one genre of music helps you create a broader sound palette from which you can work off of, similar to painters getting to experiment with all these different colors and shades of colors. You also can’t predetermine where your music background is going to specifically take you; Russo says in the interview that for the first twenty years of his music career, he wrote songs for the rock band he was a part of. In addition to writing songs, he also played piano, guitar and drums, and while rehearsing with the band he would bang out chords or experiment with new sounds, and this experimenting led him to develop his own sound over time and think about the larger picture first (aka the overall melody) and then focus on the nitty-gritty details of the score.

Russo also says that when working on film scores for other people, it’s important to be yourself and that you don’t have to be a different composer for each score you write. It helps to be yourself because the whole point of film composing is to produce this music for someone else so that they can see what kind of groove you have in composing, or what kind of patterns you tend to lean towards when writing the music. When other people look at your work, they get an overall sense of your sound. The classical composers Gustav Mahler and Mozart, for instance, have different patterns from each other. Even though Mahler, like many Romantic composers, sought heavy influence from Mozart, his style is still distinct to him and the time period during which these composers wrote their music. Mahler’s music is often very cathartic and emotive; his Symphony No.5 “Adagietto” is a clear example. Unlike, let’s say, Mozart’s “Flute Quartet in D Major,” which is very sprightly and pointed, Mahler’s “Adagietto” is incredibly dramatic and will make you cry. It is a meditative piece, and even if Mahler’s pieces were the same tempo as Mozart’s there is just all this emotional complexity to Mahler’s pieces that are distinct to Mahler and other Romantic-era composers, even though they did seek influence from Mozart.

When asked about the importance of sound design for film scoring, Russo says that it really depends on the kind of work that the client wants you to do. The overall main thing to really focus on, according to Russo, is creating a sound, not just notes on a page, because some people really like just hearing the music but some want to feel the sound and not just hear it. So it’s important to think about the entire context of the score as it relates to the film so that you can develop the overall version the client wants instead of just focusing on your own ideas about the music, because the whole point of scoring for movies is so that moviegoers and producers can feel that the score relates to the characters and settings and plot. When Russo scored the music for Star Trek, he used a very definitive range of sounds, and gave the brass section loud passages, and also incorporated strings, glockenspiel and percussion into the score. He thought about the overall picture, and while he didn’t intend to change Star Trek, he still wrote from his own perspective so that he still had his own unique sound or idea of how the score would sound. This really helped encourage me to develop my own sound as a musician and be very purposeful in how I want a piece to sound, but to also bring my own interpretation and expression to the piece. Robert Schumann, for instance, is a Romantic composer like Mahler, and suffered from severe depression. His Cello Concerto in A Minor uses a wide variety of dynamics, many very sudden bursts of loud and then soft, and also doesn’t pause between movements. As someone who struggled with mental health issues, though not to the extent Schumann did, I really felt it was important to bring my own personal narrative to my performance of the piece. The constantly changing dynamics and overall flow of the piece in terms of tempo and feeling convey the tumultuous struggle that Schumann had with mental illness and life in general, and while I’m not advocating for his issues or saying that they helped his music in any way, music is a very personal means of expression, so to play the piece without keeping in mind Schumann’s dark battles with his inner demons (as well as my own inner demon battles) wouldn’t do justice to the piece.

Russo also says that you may look back at your past work and think it’s terrible, but you only develop your own sound through creating more music scores. He often looks back at his old music and thinks it’s terrible, but then he understands that he only developed his own sound by allowing himself to experiment with different styles, even though from his own perspective they weren’t that good. As artists we can be super self-critical sometimes, and I think what’s really helped me surpass my ego and really go beyond what the inner critic is telling me is just creating more music and writing not just for myself, but for other people to enjoy and feel inspired by. You only really learn to grow through hard work, and it’s very much what radio host Ira Glass told people, that creative people have high expectations for their art and get upset when they think their art is mediocre, but the key to overcoming creative block or this feeling of inferiority is to produce as much work as we consume. Like, I can listen all day to Ariana Grande, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, Keane and many other musicians (and music groups), and I recommend you totally should listen to other artists, too, to help develop as a musician and get a sense of other musicians’ flows. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to do something with your own talent and just create something that only you can freely slap a patent label on. I still need to play my instrument every day, or else I’m going to wallow in this pity where I think, “Oh, Christina Aguilera is a better musician than me. I should just not bother” when I could be more productive and support other artists while producing my own personal projects. As Germaine Franco said, you have to do a lot of work even when you think your scores belong in the trash, because to someone else they may sound genius and it may be the thing that fits perfectly with the movie. This is especially crucial when you cannot find any paid media work, so it helps, as Franco points out, to produce your own personal library, so that when someone wants to see your work, you can show them.

Overall, I’m really glad I watched this video. If you’re interested in learning more about film composing, check it out below.

My Thoughts: The 2019 Grammy Awards

Written on February 12, 2019

Uncategorized

So like many things, I’m still processing the Grammys. I’m not shooketh in a bad way, I’m shooketh in a oh-my-goodness-this-ceremony-was-dope kind of way. So this is going to be a bunch of exuberant word-jumble. Of course, I’m leaving out many moments that happened during the Grammys, so this is by no means all of my thoughts.

  • First and foremost, thank you Alicia Keys for making this ceremony so upbeat and awesome. You also wore incredible outfits. Also, Michelle Obama! 🙂 And when you jammed on those two pianos, it made my heart soar. You played “Maple Leaf Rag”, “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” and so many incredible hits, as well as your epic “Empire State of Mind.”
  • The tribute to Dolly Parton was phenomenal. Seeing Miley Cyrus and Dolly belt out “Jolene” was especially beautiful. And I loved the clocks in the background when everyone sang “9 to 5” together.
  • Lady Gaga’s speech when she won for her duo with Bradley Cooper in A Star is Born had me in tears. She also raised awareness of mental health, saying that as musicians struggling with mental health we need to support one another, and if you’re struggling with mental health issues to never be afraid to ask for help. And her performance of “Shallow” also had me in tears. She put so much raw emotion into her performance, and her sparkly bodysuit was pretty. Her stare down at the camera while rocking the mic showed the passion and hard work she put into performing the song. I haven’t yet seen A Star is Born but I want to.
  • Janelle Monae killed it, and I mean, KILLED IT tonight. I love the song “Make Me Feel” and the music video with her and Tessa Thompson (from the film Sorry to Bother You). She and the backup dancers livened everything up with their killer sweet dance moves (I saw some Michael Jackson moonwalking in there at some point), and the brilliant juxtaposition of pink, black and white in both the outfits and the set also gave the performance its eclectic fun character.
  • H.E.R. was amazing. Her performance of “A Hard Place” was beautiful, and it was so cool how the violonists (and violists. I want to acknowledge if there were also violists playing) were black women. And I loved the chorus. I was also just really happy H.E.R. won two Grammy Awards that evening.
  • Childish Gambino won for Best Record of the Year and Song of the Year for “This is America.” I’m so glad because the song and the music video were super powerful. I wish he were there, but at least Ludwig Goransson and Jeffrey Lamar Williams went up there to accept it for him. Ludwig was also the only one who gave a shout out to 21 Savage, who was arrested by ICE.
  • St. Vincent and Dua Lipa’s awesome performance of “Masseduction” was phenomenal. St. Vincent is one of my favorite artists and seeing her rock out on that electric guitar with her and Dua Lipa sporting black and white outfits and bob haircuts was classic. I noticed they also incorporated some Aretha in the song by chanting “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” to each other. And Dua Lipa won Best New Artist and gave an encouraging speech to tell other youth that their stories matter and gave a shout out to other female artists. Seeing her tear up was quite sweet and touching.
  • Can we just talk about the fierce female pianist during Cardi B’s performance of “Money?” At first I thought Cardi B was playing piano but then the camera showed who was playing it, and it wasn’t Cardi B but another incredible young woman by the name of Chloe Flower (I didn’t know who she was until the next day when all the articles emerged about who the dope pianist was during Cardi B’s performance.) Chloe and Cardi both slayed during the performance. Cardi and the backup dancers busted some extremely well-coordinated moves on a large purple sofa, while Chloe busted out those hip hop beats with the utmost passion. Seeing Chloe bust out those epic chords on that shimmery crystal-covered piano (first time I’ve ever seen a piano with this much pizzazz) made me reconsider what I want to do with my music career. At first, I was so hell-bent on being in a professional orchestra, but I don’t know. After seeing Chloe perform with Cardi B, I feel inspired to practice more contemporary music (and classical, too) so I can one day earn the honor of accompanying Beyoncé, Cardi, or any other artist at the Grammys. Oh, and I love Cardi’s black feathers at the end. 🙂
  • Yolanda Adams, Andra Day, and Fantasia both paid the most sophisticated tribute to Aretha Franklin. I also liked how they placed Aretha last in the In Memoriam montage so that it segued right into the trio’s performance of “You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman).” Like many people, I cried when I heard about Aretha’s death, and this beautiful performance by these three incredible black female artists made me cry even harder, especially seeing the montage of Aretha photos in the background.
  • Diana Ross’s grandson is everything. Diana Ross is everything. Her elegant magnificent fire-red dress sizzled with everything. Her performance was everything. I cried.
  • J. Lo, Ne-Yo, the legendary Smokey Robinson and Alicia Keys collaborating onstage to give a unique spin on a medley of Motown classics. What more could you want? 🙂
  • Brandi Carlisle’s performance of “The Joke” was incredible. I never listened to her music before, but after hearing her performance I want to listen to more of her music. I also loved seeing the string players having so much fun while accompanying her.
  • Kacey Musgraves’ speech at the end was quite moving. I also loved the neon rainbow display behind her during her performance. In her speech she acknowledged other female artists who were there during the evening and who were nominated for their albums. It was truly beautiful.

5 Erykah Badu Songs To Celebrate Black History Month

February 5, 2019

Uncategorized

Erykah Badu is one of many amazing Black musicians. But I wanted to dedicate this post to her music because I just love it so much and first started studying it in depth in my Africana Studies courses in college. Here are just a few of her many awesome songs.

“On and On”: One of my classmates showed this in an Africana Studies course I took in college. Although I have only read the novel The Color Purple and haven’t seen the movie yet, I still think Badu is a genius for alluding to Walker’s work in her music video.

“Bag Lady”: This song is so smooth and groovy to listen to, and the music video is very colorful. The babies toward the end of the video are also super adorable. 🙂

“Window Seat”: The cover art for Badu’s albums is always so beautiful. And in this song, her voice, along with the drums and piano, always brings me peace.

“Honey”: I first saw this video on MTV in high school and was immediately hooked. It’s also really cool how the album covers feature Badu in them. 🙂

“Didn’t Cha Know”: I don’t know how to say in the most comprehensive way possible, but Badu always inspires me with her unique style, especially with this video (seeing her walk through a windy desert with the coolest attire known to humankind.) The song also has a calm coffee-house rhythm to it.

Got any more epic Erykah Badu songs to add to this list? Let me know in the comments! 🙂