Fireworks! - or - Fireworks

So you're right. I was in Durango for the Fourth of July this year. That was the day my car got stuck, and I passed the day at the parade and the Bar-B-Q thing.

By the end of the day I was still in town, so I saw the first fireworks go up. It got me thinking.

The first thing was that part of me was still actually excited to see them. The second thing was that I was bored out of my mind. After that I berated myself (only the slightest bit) for not getting more out of this unique experience, then I got bored again and wanted to go, but then I stuck around a bit to see if maybe it would get interesting, then it would almost, but I couldn't really justify the rest of the time I was spending waiting around for a few big moments, and then. . .

I remembered what it was like to be at the Symphony.

Soon I would discover many similarities between modern Fireworks and modern Classical Music performance, and this made my time there a whole lot more useful

First of all they both used to be kinda cool but are now somewhat outdated - both largely due to technology, the electric guitar and the tape recorder on the one hand, and digtitally enhanced visual effects that one sees everywhere in the movies and on TV on the other. But it was the kind of thing folks go to once or twice a year, mostly out of a sense of tradition or habit but not for genuine in-the-moment enjoyment.

As far as the actual performance, in the execution of fireworks and of a classical symphony (performed by a modern orchestra) there are even more stunning similarities: there seemed to be no dramatic 'arc' in the presentation of the fireworks - it was simply one pretty firework popping up after another one, no particular time, no particular order, no particular drive to the top, just bang bang bang, one after the other. Maybe it would be a big one, maybe it would be a little one. Maybe it would be green maybe it would be orange and yellow. Maybe there would be one, maybe there would be a bunch of little ones. Maybe it wouldn't even go off at all. Either way, there was no basic structure holding the thing together - as in an atonal composition, it could have ended at any point and the audience would be equally unsure whether or not it was really over or if they were just reloading for next round.

Similarly, in a modern day classical music performance, there is virtually no phrasing. There is no overall direction to any particular series of notes. They are executed in the most even, undifferentiated manner possible. There is no building up to a climax, nor is there any descent to a nadir. The natural pauses and breaths that separate sentences and ideas in spoken language find no place in the musical renderings. Each note is played exactly after the next with phrases and natural pauses all rammed together like a run-on sentence. The audience’s experience is therefore pretty dull. Occasionally a loud, majestic section might emerge from the orchestra which they can enjoy and participate in emotionally. But those big moments have no real context, no lead in from the preceding material—they are not part of any sort of dramatic unfolding. They’re just shots in the dark, leaving the whole piece to be experienced as just a random string of big moments. If people were permitted to talk at classical concerts (as they once were) they would ooh and aah at the same big moments they do at the fireworks display – and then they would carry on with their casseroles.

Maybe people would prefer just a condensed series of big, big fireworks, skipping past the frilly stuff- like an excerpt CD from "The Ring". But then, I suppose, people would just make bigger fireworks, making the old big ones look small – like some kind of arms race in the sky.

I am not sure I'm making myself clear on this vis a vis the musical stuff.

I am still a pretty convicted Schenkarian, and I do believe that a piece of music unfolds through time in a particular way that requires a certain respect for dramatic direction. Like a story, you have a beginning, usually stable enough, that turns into conflict, keeping your interest all the way through, then growing to a high point of tension with some sort of denoument and a coming down to round the thing out. While you might not know it from hearing a performance, musical compositions (until the early 20th century) follow a very similar template. There is a grounding in a key followed by various twists and turns away from that key, then finally a return to the key with all of the deviations resolved satisfactorily. Along the way there are mini side-plots and adventures, and if you pay close enough attention each and every phrase declaims itself in a certain way and demands its own special 'turning.' (not tuning, turning)

This is all written into the composition, but it is incumbent on the performer to 're-creatively' hear, organize, and inflect the meanings that are implied by the musical text. This happens so infrequently in modern performance that it is almost unheard (of) - it is a Rumsfeldian unknown unknown - that conservatory trained musicians don't even know that they don't know they aren't delivering the message of the piece.

If you're not understanding what I'm getting at (and it would be easier to demonstrate aurally), I can draw a parallel with speech delivery for actors. Good actors tend to deliver a line with an understanding of the context of the line, where the peak of tension and emphasis is in each sentence and how several sentences can build together to make up a complete idea. If there are several lines in a scene, a good director will build them into a climactic moment, perhaps moving the camera in for each successive line until the most intense moment. But the director will also know not to give away the goods in each scene. He knows that the overall film has an arc of its own and that the most intense photography will have to wait for the most intense moments. Without this, one would generally be bored to tears during an otherwise engaging drama. It would be flat - just the way people tend to hear symphonies- or everything would be an 'event' making the thing equally unbearable. One friend of mine described a trip to the symphony as the feeling of waves of sound running over him. While that was no doubt what he felt, I hesitate to believe that that is what Beethoven & Co. had in mind when they wrote those pieces- they had a story in mind, an arc, a building to a climax through the medium of time and sound, not the endless lapping of waves on the shore (even the shore builds towards a climax at high tide). But you are unlikely to have any such experience in the modern rendering of classical works. Just bring your swim trunks and let the waves roll by.

Or just go watch the fireworks.

I had a teacher in Conservatory who used to play with Eugene Ormandy in the Philadelphia Orchestra. When things weren't going well at rehearsal, Ormandy would say to the orchestra, "The important thing is to begin together and to end together. What happens in between- the audience will be none the wiser."

I have never liked Ormandy very much, and with a musical ethic like that, it's really no wonder. But that's about what you get with a modern performance (although these days the middle is usually together too). It's enough to play the correct sequence of pitches and rhythms and that's it. If you 're ever flipping through the TV dial and you see the TV Guide channel, you might sometimes hear what it's like to hear "actors" delivering lines (off of the teleprompter) and having absolutely no idea what they're saying. They're just phonating, randomly emphasizing certain words (usually words like "exciting" or "amazing") even if they have no importance to the meaning of the sentence. When it's in English, we can often get the meaning after the fact if all of the words are delivered (this is hardly ideal - and what, after all is art without ideals? Just spectacle). With music, though, the audience generally needs more security from the performer in terms of knowing what he/she is talking about.

To literally be carried away by the tide of the drama is what performance is all about. A master artist will be able to guide the audience through the events of the storyline, and the audience can let go and experience the meaning in an emotionally logical way - but this requires the performer know where he is going before he gets there. One can not simply sight-read word after word or note after note and hope to arrive at a greater understanding of the whole piece. Like a sherpa in the mountains, one must know the route before one can bring somebody else (the audience) along, otherwise, without this leadership, there is deep discomfort and uncertainty in the public, and they can not enjoy their experience.

This is where art becomes transportive. But not so much on the TV Guide channel, the Symphony, or the Durango Fireworks display.

For a moment I thought, maybe regionally it’s ok, like here in Durango to have a ho-hum fireworks display, kind of like having a ho-hum regional orchestra. You might be impressed for the few moments when the brass plays loud or the violins play something fast, but the rest of the time you just kind of sit there, waiting for something special to happen.

You spend a lot of time waiting. But perhaps in New York it’s better (though if the orchestra analogy remains, that’s not very likely), although really it will probably be just bigger and more expensive, still formless and devoid of feeling, direction, and passion.