我可沒有說過謊

前言: 想不到我已前的文筆可以到這個水平。這篇散文在三十多年前公司出版的內部季刋發表過一次。少說也有五千多人看過。坦白說，當時文章牽起的震撼還不少。大家都想找出誰是文章中的主角們。近日！看到一篇新詩, 也可算是流露個人感受的隨筆，其中的一段，作者是這樣寫:




總覺得世界
全都是謊話  全都是假象
..............

每晚也提醒著我
不要再天真  樂觀很幼稚



看過後，我忍不住從內心輕輕低喚，難道在這世界就沒有一句真言？ 可是，我可沒有說過謊啊! 就算是逝去很多很多年的，在從前，在現今，也沒有過謊言。難道我就是那麼天真幼稚麼？

我那篇文章是這樣開始的...............


正文: 康乃馨


有回憶，就有懷念。懷念，是回憶的伸延。


不論是甜蜜的或是痛苦的回憶，每個人都會有像春天的花，秋天的月那樣平凡的日子。

但就在這平凡裡，交織着人性的高貴與卑劣，成功與失敗; 愛與恨，喜與悲; 希望與幻滅 -- 那是人生必經的經歷。

她的影子為我創造了一份真實的回憶，一分懷念的情誼，一分永恆的悔過。


她是一個嫻靜的女孩，含蓄而半帶憂鬱，更配上她那纖細的身栽，優美的擧止，就顯得她格外惹人憐愛。
她懂得怎樣用愛心對待她那周遭的人，但她更懂得怎樣愛她的原則，堅守立場，不為世俗風雨搖動，就像她所喜愛的康乃馨一樣，有着這花獨特的純真，獨特的性格。


她曾對我說: "以我來說，我做人有一套原則，但我的思想又是另一套。我不會從書本讀物，又或是別人看法中，去學習如何了解與認識人。我的人生哲理本就很淺薄。我對待朋友的方只出於我的本意，我關懷他們只出於我的內心。我從不計較他們對我的表現懷有甚麼看法。有些人或會誤會我是一個濫交的女孩，但到他們對我有一些深厚的認識時，他們就會了解。我是不會因旁人的看法而改變我的待人原則。人，本來就是很簡單，要愛就愛，要恨就恨。但為何俗世的人卻尋出這麼多複雜的思想和看法來呢?"


很是慚愧。曾幾何時，當她將一籃充滿愛心與關懷的康乃馨送給我時，我又何嘗不是變作俗世的狂蜂浪蝶，誤將這純潔的花兒玷汚了。我可以說是罪過的。我是空無所有的。

然而，這時剩下伴我的，就只有悔罪的淚光，半弦的明月，燦爛的星光。因為世間只有它們是純潔無疵的。我要用一縷柔絲，將痛苦的淚珠兒串起，繫在半彎弦月兩端。摘下滿天閃爍的星兒盛在弦月的圓凹裡，將它們變成一籃充滿純潔愛心的康乃馨。我更願將這籃花和愛，將關懷和憐憫帶給她的所有朋友，就像陽光照耀大地一樣，使世間充滿愛的花兒都長大起來。

這樣，我就可以永願保留着她曾送我的那籃純潔無瑕的康乃馨，隨着我的回憶，我的懷念，永遠隱藏在我那永恆的悔過當中..................



全文完。





後記:

我可真的沒有說謊! 這事發生在知道澄要出國留學之前。我見到她的背影。是! 沒說謊。在茫茫人海中。為何鉛華盡洗的我內心仍悸動不已。事實是，多年的風霜，沒有人可以認得我了。

但我還是不懂。不懂為何想走另一條路。

可是，有一點可以明白的是:

望見澄詩的時候，我想問: 為何全世界都是謊言？ 我知道自已並沒有說慌。


借用張國榮的 Monica ，略作修改去表達我的感覺........


好多謝 (今) 天妳啟發了我，柔情難奉獻，時常能令我個心有愧。

Thanks , Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Monica,

誰能代替妳地位.........





theorydavid  Finished
2013-07-25 (re-published)

Charles Ives and His Philosophical Ideas of Stylistic Diversity

Forewords:

Charles Ives can be regarded as a legendary figure in the history of western music. Apart from his many compositional outputs, his philosophical ideas toward art, life, and humanity are still enchanting, worthy of reading. Below is the article about his works and his compositional ideas.






Article:

Charles Ives (1874-1954), though was bought up in European musical tradition, is the first important western composer attempts to stand essentially outside the mainstream of European musical culture. Without influenced by the progressing scientific technologies, he is the first to use the unity of the human experience as a subject matter for composing. The result is that his music is in great diversities of style, which  not only appears in different works written in different periods, but also appears in one single composition. Ives composes proto-serial and proto-aleatory music. He invents block forms and free forms and he uses tone clusters and structural densities. He also writes in collage texture and freely quoted others’ tunes whatever he likes to his work, regardless of the stylistic inconsistent issue. He, at the same time, employs polymeters, polytonals and polytempi in his work and he also composes spatial music or music that could be realized in a multiplicity of ways. Furthermore, Ives also anticipates recent improvisatory works-in-progress, assemblages, and pop music, just about every important development of the last sixty years and some of the most notable of post-World War II avant-gardism. As such, majority of Ives’s composition of various styles are written in the first two decades of the century, which anticipates the main stream of the Modern avant-grade music after the World War II.  His stylistic diversity in music, therefore, is proved to be significant and influential in the western music history. 

 

If not because of the book Essays Before a Sonata written by Ives in 1920 that provides the valuable information about his aesthetic thoughts and philosophical ideas, it is difficult for us to understand the factors that affecting Ives’s development of his musical style. In the following discussion, I am going to explore the aesthetic and philosophical ideas of Charles lves behind his compositions, as well as the external environmental factors that give incarnation of the musical diversities in his style.

 

The development of the personal musical style of Charles Ives can be traced back to his childhood. He is trained as both an organist and pianist. This standard keyboard knowledge is often reflected in his mature compositions. At the same time the vernacular music of the small Connecticut town in which Ives has grown up, including the hymns, the popular and patriotic songs, the marches and dance tunes. These various forms of music are equally important in the formation of Ives’s personal musical style. Furthermore, these precious musical experiences during childhood, albeit remaining only fragments after years, provide prodigious resources for quotations in his music. The melody of At the River, taken from a well-known hymn tune by other composer, is a typical example. Although here Ives borrows the entire melody, more commonly he quotes only fragments from the catholic hymn tunes, popular songs of the day, marches and ragtime music from the daily life of his day. Therefore, Ives’s musical training and environment in his childhood are the notable external factors that greatly influence his music, especially in developing his stylistic musical diversity.

 

Another factor that affects Ives’s musical style is his amateur identity as a composer. After Ives graduated from Yale University, he came to a decision not to take music as a profession. Instead, he began his life insurance business. This decision led him to a total isolation from the public and from other musicians from about 1895 to 1917, in which he worked intensively on composition. As a result, Ives’s music is virtually unperformed at this time, and thus has no immediate influence on other composers or vice versa. The isolation was itself proved essential for Ives to develop his own unconventional predilection. In addition, as a life insurance agent, Ives is guaranteed the financial independent that he is able to compose exactly as he wishes without worrying about pleasing the public or other musicians or other public critics, or even the performance of his works. Hence, Ives wrote strictly for himself, frequently not even bothering to put them into completely finished form. This is important for Ives’s conception of music as an ‘open’ art form. Ives could now freely encompass all types of music, including his fading memories of childhood’s sound, mingled them into a higher synthesis that eventually became his unique style of musical diversities.

 

As we have discussed before, the diversity of the music style of Charles Ives is not only shown in different works written in different period, but also reflected in one single composition. In order to understand why Ives seems to turn back from the main stream of European avant-gardism, which was centered on the exploration of the twelve-tone music or the neo-tonal music, the philosophical ideas of Ives toward music, art and even life should be considered. 

 

The important foundation of Ives’s philosophical idea is stated in the Essays Before a Sonata and most of his other writings from 1910s and 1920s. These documents ingenuously reflect Ives’s personal and social idealisms, especially his idealism in music or idealism about music. Ives believes that the main path of all social progress has been spiritual rather than intellectual in character and he has mentioned that there is a ‘universal mind’ existed in the world. It is very important to the progression of the mankind. This common ‘universal mind’, albeit developing gradually, brings forth a unity within the diversities and eventually becomes a cure of the bifurcations of human existence. Such conception, undoubtedly, is at the root of all Ives’s idealisms, in the world of his insurance business, as well as in his art. The result of this conception nurtures Ives gradually to accept his intuition as the surest and the most reliable teacher than any other tradition, authority, guiding his spiritual seeking of daily life. 

 

In order to illustrate the idealism of Ives in the conception of the intuition and the universal mind, let us take the Scherzo, Over the Pavements (1906-13), as an example.  This work is a typical example of a single composition consisting diversities of style. The music is a combination and coordination of multiple layers of conflicting rhythmic activities. Ives asserts that this piece is a kind of take-off street dancing, and it evokes the audience about the sounds of people going to and fro, all different steps, and sometimes all the same – the horses, fast trot, canter, sometimes slowing up into a walk. He asserts that he is struck with many different and changing kinds of beats, time, rhythms, not chaotic, but natural or at least not unnatural. As such, the music of the Scherzo Over the Pavement contains complex cross-rhythms and metric subdivision. The drum announces each downbeat of the notated 5/8 meter. The clarinet and trumpet are moving in imitation, dividing the measure equally into two groups of 5/16, and thus contradicting the notated 8^th note pulse. Simultaneously, the bassoon, piano and the trombones altogether play a drum-like cluster in a syncopated rhythmic figure that dividing the three measures as a whole into ten equal subunits. Therefore, this work is exemplar to reflect Ives’ universal mind that just he has mentioned: there is a unity within the diversities though it comes slow.

 

Another humorous example is found in the cadenza section of Over the Pavement. On the score there is a statement: ‘to play or not to play? If played, to be played as not a nice one – but EVENLY, precise and unmusical as possible!’ What amusing Ives’s indication! Undeniably, this indication is originated from his conception of intuition. The intuition dominates all authorities, even the practicality of music. Therefore, in the realm of music, Ives claims for the composer the right to search for new modes of expression according to his/her intuition, rather than perpetually following the rules and thus, inevitably, the diversities of Ives’s musical style is then achieved.

 

The aesthetic idea of Charles Ives toward art, toward the music, is also an essential factor that gives incarnation to his diversities of musical style. Ives views art and life is an inseparable entity. Art and life has to do with the value of a poetic idea realized as a human action or activity. Despites all his presumed impracticality, Ives think of his music as a kind of non-passive, performance activity, primarily something to do, to be actively involved with and only secondarily to be listened to. He wants his music returning to reflect some underlying realities about human activities, about human experiences, no matter these experiences are complex, contradictive and incoherent. This is a speaking kind of music, a music that could be ‘jotted down to convey fresh impressions and thoughts, that could flow with the naturalness of plain speech; a music that could somehow get across the impenetrable barrier between art and life, not to ‘express’ nature but to flow along as part of it.’ His aesthetic idea about music, thus, is the representation of human experiences and activities or perhaps in a more accurate sense, his own experiences and activities.

 

The product arouse from this aesthetic idea is a little contradictive. On the one hand, Ives write music that is difficult, which every part is a separate and individual activity; on the other, he write things that are easy, banal and popular. This is a diversity of musical style of Ives in general. However, Ives’s aim is to break down the distinction between man and nature, between art and life, and to integrate them into some all-embracing experience. As such, Ives’s aim assists to give birth to the formation of the diversities of musical style in even one single work. For example, Ives’s last unfinished piece, the Universe symphony, is an example. According to Ives’s idea, the work is to be a ‘Universe’ Symphony (its name is Universe) that should be played and sung in the field and mountains by thousands – indeed, by all of humanity.

 

In another work, Ives seeks to capture American life – the human life in his view - especially American experiences – the human experiences in his view - with music, in a more directly programmatic way. The Housatonic at Stockbridge is this extraordinary work that evokes a walk by the river Ives and his wife shares soon after their marriage. The main melody is given to second violas, horn and English horn, and it is harmonized with simple tonal triads by lower strings and brass suggesting a hymn wafting from the church across the river. At the same time, there are some repeating figures set in distant tonal and rhythmic regions (upper strings) and are subtly changing over time. The sound seems to convey a sense of the mists and rippling water. How romantic the experience of Ives is! How fantastic the experience of human life is!

 

Similar to the sonic setting of this work, most of Ives’s works about human life experiences, or his experiences, are composed in the form of various textural layers, distinguished by timbre, register, rhythm, pitch content and dynamic level. These sonic layers functions to create a sense of three-dimensional space and multiple planes of activity. For example, the Central park in the Dark, it is a work that depicts the noises and music of the city against the background sounds of nature, which are rendered as a soft series of atonal chords in parallel motion. In addition, the songs, such as The Last Reader and The Things Our Fathers Loved, suggest a similar source of memory through a patchwork of fragment from songs of the past. The music, eventually, becomes a complex collage of sounds. Collage, therefore, becomes a favorite technique of Ives, which helps Ives to develop his unique style.

 

In conclusion, the musical style of Ives is unique, innovative and diversified.  Although Ives’s music enjoyed only a few public performances in Ives’s life time, this special situation turned to become an advantage for Ives to develop his avant-garde music style. Ives is proved to be one of the earliest artists to use the human experience as a subject matter for art and thus assisting the development of his musical diversities.  His ‘amateurism’ ensures him in a unique position of his composing career that he could create whatever he likes without necessarily care about the authority. In addition, Ives’s musical background in the childhood provided him unlimited musical experiences, the resources that he could quote in his music. In fact, the most important factor contributing to his musical diversities is his idealism about the music, about the social world. Ives accepts the conception that a unity within diversities would eventually come, no matter in the social or the artistic sphere. And Ives’s strong belief of intuition, as well as his aesthetic of music as a kind of human experience or activity, leads him to enjoy writing diversities of musical style even for a single piece. Therefore, Ives’s music styles can range from the simple hymn tunes, ragtime to the most complex, atonal polyphonies, bringing him to become one of the most important 20^th century composers in the western music history. Furthermore, Ives’s idea of the totality of human experience within a personal utterance is proved to be an evocation of some Golden Age in which art and life are – or will be – naturally and inextricably woven together.

---

David Leung (theorydavid)
2013-05-10 published

In Search for Home Culture: Muzak in Chiense New Year Celebration - Part 2

前言: 本文接續前文，探討大型商場的背景音樂，對遊人，心理上，又或美學經驗上的影響。

In Search for Home Culture: Muzak in Chiense New Year Celebration - Part 2

 

 

The Sogo Department Store

        Although January 28, 2006 was a cloudy day with little rain, to most people, it was a public holiday of relaxing and enjoying.   Locals all knew that tomorrow would be the first day of the Lunar New Year.  In every Chinese’s cognitive mind and sensuous heart, New Year means a new opening.    In order to get a well preparation for its coming, people from different genders, aged groups, education backgrounds and careers, regardless of their social status or religious classes, were busy participating into their different daily life activities, such as, buying, shopping and entertaining.   As I was standing in the boisterous

Yee Woo Street

at Causeway Bay around 2:00 pm in the afternoon, a sound of rock music attracted my attention.   Just in front of the entrance of the Sogo Department Store, there was a wide screen playing a video of western rock and pop music as usual.   Although there were many people gathering and waiting outside of or passing by the department store, only a few people watched the screen, or were aware of what the video was playing.    

        As I entered Sogo, I found every corner was crowded with people.  Some of them were working, while others were selecting their favorite gifts.  Noises of cashiers’ ding-ding sound, department store’s advertising announcement, people’s chatting, children’s screaming, youths’ whispering, and the background music, the muzak, were entangled among each other in a complex, multifarious sonic web.   I then walked down to the lower floor to the superstore of Sogo, where a place offered various kinds of good for customers.   I felt little stuffy and pressured, as it was so small the space but with so many people and goods.   Wearing with a happy and contented smile, customers were queuing up for payment in front of the cashiers.   As Hong Kong people are notorious for their impatience and annoyance due to the efficiency-aimed life style, this was quite strange to see such a scene in the store.    The festive mood might be one of the magic cures for this notorious style of sickness of impatience.   However, I believe that the muzak played also assists to enhance such relaxing and enjoying environment, influencing the behaviors, practices and feelings of the local customers.  

        The rock and pop music heard from the video screen outside Sogo showed an intensive, or even ironic contrast with the muzak played inside.  I observed that the muzak played during the period of Spring Festival were merely Chinese traditional instrumental music.    There was no exception here.  When I was looking at the queue of the customers in front of the cashiers, the piece played was a Cantonese traditional instrumental music, Spring Festival Overture, reminding me of the coming of the New Year.    My memories were stirred up, thinking of my friends and relatives, whom I would like to visit in the coming days.  “Did I prepare enough presents for them?” I began to ask myself the question in my mind.   To Chinese people, visiting their relatives and friends and giving new presents to each other in the first day of the New Year is an important socio-cultural practice.  It not only means to show love care and kindness to others, but also to show a sincere respect to the Chinese traditional culture.  It is only Chinese, whether they locate in which part of the world, that perform such practice to celebrate the New Year in this particular time. 

  

        Just like the typical style of Hong Kong life that is absent of enough patience, in normal case, I would prefer not to queue up for payment, but to buy these three sets of chocolate, which were newly selected from the stand from the other stores.   To me, waiting is a waste of time, and time often means “money.”   However, at this particular moment, I did not mind to wait for the payment.   My sense has already well prepared for such environment and was told by experience that every store was also crowded with customers, which was similar to the situation of today’s Sogo, because this was the time of Chinese New Year.     I thought Roy Mak, a middle-aged property broker near forty, possessed a similar kind of thinking and feeling as me. 

        In my memories, Roy was a short figure with little fat, eyeglasses wearing, talkative and friendly, behaving just as a sort of salesman that you could easily meet in the Central everyday.  It was this “ordinary” appearance that attracted my attention.  When I talked with him in front of the restroom near the cashier, he was waiting for her girl friend.   In his hands there were a few sets of biscuit and chocolate.   

       Q: Have you finished buying the presents for the New Year?

   Roy: I thought that I have already prepared all the presents for the New Year.   But when my friend and I passed by the store (Sogo), I was reminded that I might have forgot a few customers. 

        Q:  How do you remember?  What makes you thinking of this matter?

    Roy:  I think those people crowded in the store reminds me a lot.  

        Q: How about the music in background, what do you think?

    Roy:  Oh, Yes, the Chinese music.   I have heard this before but I don’t know much about music.  But this kind of music is played everywhere now.  It is Chinese New Year.    I like this music because it creates the Chinese New Year atmosphere. 

        Q:  How do you feel in this period of time?

    Roy:  I am happy and feel much relaxed. I enjoy the Chinese New Year holidays.  Buying new things and shopping in this period of time make me feel more like a “Chinese.”   We celebrate different kinds of festival in Hong Kong, such as Christmas.  I like them too.  But only these activities (buying and shopping) make me closer to our tradition.   I really don’t mind to spend more in this period of time.  I have been doing so.

        After I have chatted to Roy, a loud crying voice was heard.  There was a little boy claiming his mother for a new toy.   Perhaps, mother will scold this kind of naughty normally.  However, I heard the mother comforting to her boy that she would buy this “present” to him a while later.   But the mother emphasized that she only did it this time because of the New Year.  The tiny matter reminded me of some Chinese traditional practices.   Apart from having all things new, Chinese do not like crying or any other unhappy things happened in the New Year.  But on this occasion, be it the unexplainable power of the Chinese music in background, the New Year milieu was a crucial factor to influence people’s behavior to a certain extent.   This might be why the mother did not want to scold her child, even when he showed greatly naughty.  

        The music played in the background now was called Rosy Clouds Chasing the Moon when I went upstairs to the other departments.   It is a well-known Cantonese instrumental piece, which is often played in the Mid-Autumn Festival. The title and contents of this piece seems to have no direct connection, or otherwise, to the Spring Festival.   It is selected only because it contains Chinese traditional melodies, playing with ethnic instruments.  In my opinion, the muzak used for the so-called Chinese New Year Celebration is a shorthand-like selection.   I knew that Vivian Cheung has absolutely agreed with me.

        When I met Vivian, a fashioned young girl below thirty, she was drinking a bottle of cola near the escalator.  She looked nice and pleasant, half-leaning against the wall and looking at the surroundings.  It is quite interesting that when many people were carrying bags of present, she got none in her hand, except that cola.

 

        Q:  How are you?

Vivian: I am fine, thank you.  I am taking a rest.  I have been shopping for more than an hour here.

        Q:  Do you always enjoy shopping?

Vivian:  Absolutely!  I love shopping.  It is one of my habits every week. 

        Q:  Is there any difference between today and previous shopping?

Vivian:  Of course!  Tomorrow will be the New Year.  I enjoy the festive mood here.  You see people are celebrating the festival.  They are busy for preparing the New Year, buying goods and presents for themselves and for their friends and relatives. 

        Q:  How can you feel the so-called “festive mood” you have just mentioned?

Vivian:  Can you hear the music?  When you are in the shopping malls or even in the street, you can hear this kind of Chinese music playing.  I played Gu Zheng in my secondary school, but I stopped after I came to work after graduation.  Chinese New Year, of course, needs Chinese music for celebration. 

        Q:  But this is Rosy Clouds Chasing the Moon!

Vivian:   Who cares!  It is Chinese music (she emphasized the second time).

        Q:  As a Hong Kong local, do you enjoy or celebrate other kinds of festival? 

Vivian:  I enjoy all festivals.  For example, I like Christmas.  But I also like traditional festival, such as the New Year.  I celebrate all festivals no matter they are Western or Chinese.  

Q: Owing to many different forms of festival existed in our daily life, do you think the traditional one will soon disappear?

Vivian:  I don’t think so.  You see we are keeping our New Year practice under this festive mood.  I do not always prefer traditions, but Chinese New Year is an exception.  The atmosphere makes me feel a “Chinese” more. 

        After talking with Vivian, the muzak was changed to another piece, A Night Gathering, which is not a Cantonese music, but a symphonic repertoire that is always heard in CCTV 4 at all kinds of celebratory programs.[1]   The shorthand form of muzak now seems to be accepted by many local Chinese as a musical representation of “Chineseness.”   Whenever there are traditional cultural occasions, regardless of its natures, the traditional instrumental music is the necessary repertoire.   As I was much fascinated by the functions of this shorthand version of music, I also bought one piece of CD, which, according to the salesgirl, contained the music that was playing at the current time in the store.  The CD is labeled as “Chinese Celebration Music,” not only indicating its multi-purpose nature, but also acting as a representation which contains traditional values of our ancestral cultures.

Conclusion

         

I have spent more than one hour’s time in Sogo.   Through immersing myself in the festival atmosphere and participating the activities of shopping and buying, just as Roy has commented, I seem to be more attached to our Chinese traditional culture, and to behave more like a “Chinese.”   Indeed, there is not always a chance for an ordinary Hong Kong people to act like a Chinese.  Not only do we have too many multicultural choices in our everyday life, but also we are brought up from the so-called colonial political environment that no traditional cultures have been emphasized.   However, our ancestral culture will never disappear.  It can be preserved, albeit displaying in guises, through the continuation of a particular social activity.

 

At present, increasing numbers of local Hong Kong are realizing the importance of Spring Festival to their culture, and enjoy doing things in the traditional ways.   Viewed from this traditional aspect, great importance is attached to the New Year festive activity with its many cultural connotations.   It is essential for both the spiritual and material demands of the people, as it is traditionally a time when the best foods and best new clothes are worn.   While many locals do their New Year house cleaning or “preparing new things,” others go out together with family, shopping and buying presents for the New Year visits, as well as for their family.   This celebratory activity offers a chance for them to maintain relationships with family members and friends, to show their love for their family, to establish more harmonious interpersonal relationships, to relax and to leave behind the stresses of modern life for the moment.   And, the shorthand form of the background Chinese music played in department stores can function as a process that affects one’s sensuous feeling from tense to relax, from serious to happy, opening up a wider aesthetical dimension for one to conform to the Chinese New Year tradition.  

In short, the shorthand-like muzak for Chinese New Year celebration not only affects the customers’ consuming behavior and sensation, but also creates a metaphor of the Chinese identity for the locals under this particular moment of a relaxed and happy festive atmosphere.  Although all the time there are more and more new fashionable things to do, and may be they do replace traditional customs, I believe that our home identity and traditional culture can be found through this shopping and buying activity year-by-year in the Chinese New Year period, which is enhanced by this particular muzak played in the shopping malls and department stores.  


全文完
Completed


David Leung (theorydavid)
2011-05-12 (published)

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[1] CCTV4 is the Government TV channel of the Mainland China.

Film Music Criticism: Croaching tiger, Hidden Dragon

Foreword:

The previous essay of the film scoring analysis of Croaching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is revised for reference.



Article:

Film Music Criticism: The Croaching Tiger and Hidden Dragon

 

    Music is the heart of a film. A film without music is just like a man without a heart, only a body of no feelings. From this sense, if the film only contains story-line carried out by characters’ dialogues, though it works, it hardly touches audiences’ hearts. Indeed, music is essential to trigger audience’s feelings and emotions, creating the overall atmosphere ready for them to immerse into an alien world of imagination.

 

    Try to imagine the popular film in the 70s, “Jaws”. If this film has not used the driving two-note percussive motive to anticipate the approach of the huge white shark, or the film “Star Wars” without the now-famous noble trumpet fanfare theme to represent the princess’s lofty and majestic disposition, would the audience be so exciting and shocking? The top-selling of film soundtracks in the commercial market always evidences the important role of music in a film. Instead of the top-selling billboard that reflects the commercial value of the music in a film, its artistic value can be largely lies on the attribute of expressivity. Film music likens to the program music of western music in the 19th century. Program music can be story telling, attempting to describe a scene, a person, a subject, creating a related mood and atmosphere through sonic images. Similarly, Film music also can easily steps in an audience's soul so as to express what neither pictures nor words can, creating a new meaning to the audience. Furthermore, music adds extra-dimension to a given scene, not only to emphasize but also to provide more body and depth to the story, to the characters, to the dialogues, and to the actions. To demonstrate the power of music in a film, let us discuss  three scenes in The Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon.

 

    In most action films, such as martial art film or Kung Fu film, the music always parallels and underscores actions. For example, in the scenario of ‘Catching the thief’, the plot is about the night fight between Jen and Shu Lien. Jen, because of her wild arrogance, she steals the precious antique sword which belongs to Li Mu Bai, the famous swordman of Wudong. Shu Lien attempts to catch her. The fighting occurs after Shu chases her for a period of time. Tan Dun, the composer, skillfully employs percussive sonority to create an exciting atmosphere by employing Chinese traditional percussions in this fighting scene. Doubtless a pair of Chinese drums can easily conjure audience up an imagination of a battlefield with the violent fight, since drum is always used in the real battlefield, so as to give signal to, and raise the valor of soldiers. Hollywood film music composers are without exception to exploit this handy, ready-made timbre, in many of the film scorings.

 

    In the scene of ‘Catching Thief’, the two Chinese drums are used to enhance the both characters’ vigorous chasing on the roof. Shu Lien tries her best to catch Jen to get back the Li’s sword. By employing the musical devices of repeated rhythmic pattern (ostinato) and accelerando to speed up the tempo, the climax of this chasing scene is gradually built up. Furthermore, a pair of Chinese drums creates a contrapuntal texture so as to increase the intensity of the actions of two fighters. Hit points are multiplied because of the vivid percussive sonority. The pace of the fighting is thus intensified. And the audiences can easily be caught up with the lively actions and the violence of the fighting that made by the contrapuntal hit points of the heavy beating drums. However, is the violent mood the only purpose that Tan Dun wanted to create in this scene? Not really. Times Magazine once said that this ‘flying-running’ fighting was a fantastic exemplar of a Ballet dance, somewhat a Chinese style. Undoubtedly, Tan Dun successfully imbues the fighting percussive music with the noble, yet graceful, elements that the dance music should have possessed. Accompanying with the slow motion, the two fighters' elegant gestures of “flying’ and “chasing” on the rooftop just looks like a pair of dancers swinging to and fro, and up and down, on the dancing stage. In the climax of the fighting scene, the volume is gradually increased, locking the audiences in a hysterical abyss, seemingly to transport them to participate to the fighting world, as it were, letting them to share the glory of win and the loss of failure with the fighters. To be sure, without music, nothing can be experienced indeed.

 
    The scenario about how Jen loves at first sight with ‘Dark Cloud' is also worth of considering. In this scene, the somewhat exotic style of music is played by yun, a Chinese ethnic plucked instrument, supported by the western strings at the background. This is a typical example of how music can locate a geographical location. The plot is about the leader of the gang of robbers, Lo, an local Xian Jiang whose nickname is called ‘Black Cloud’, comes to rob Jen’s troupe in the journey to Xian Jiang, an area of minority ethnic group. After Lo has taken Jen’s comb, Jen chases Lo, endeavoring to get it back. It is Jen’s arrogance and self-centered personality that forced her to do so. When Jen is fighting with Lo, the lively Xian Jiang dancing folk music enters. The fast tempo Xian Jiang dancing tune played by yun not only intensifies the pace of their fighting, but also creates an aura of Xian Jiang territory. The fighting between Lo and Jen, in this sense, is thus romanticized, seemingly to utter to audience that a romantic love story replete with exotic feeling just begins. The exotic feeling of the tune largely relies on the use of Arabic scale, or the Xian Jiang scale, which contains a distinctive feature of augmented second interval. Undoubtedly, the dance rhythm, together with the exotic style melody disperses the exotic, however romantic, aura. Afterward, while Jen stayed in the house of Lo for rest, the low-tone, quasi-murmuring cello stealthily steps in. The cello thematic melody easily reminds audience of the song ‘Love Before Time’, which elicits the endless sorrow of love, since their love of each other is not in the right place, as well as not in the right time. True, the romantic love, however ‘genuine’, is doomed to be a tragedy since Lo and Jen belong to different social status and backgrounds. No matter how deep is their loves, such ‘distance’, social status gap, still cannot be filled. The use of thematic song melody here not only enhances the coherence of the story-line, but also tells the audience that this ‘unequal’ love between Lo and Jen, which is emphasized by the conflicts aroused from Jen’s personal arrogance, as well as her deep longing for liberty, against with a generation of strict moral standard, is destined to be a tragedy, even in the very beginning as they firstly met.

 

     One of a remarkable example that uses music playing against actions can be found in the scene about Li fighting Jen in the bamboo bush. In this scene, the swordman master Li is eager to convert Jen’s wild temperament by his skillful martial art. He is likely to accept Jen as his disciple of Wudong. So Li fight with Jen in order to give her a moral lesson. As they are “flying-running” on the top of the bamboo trees, the theme song murmured by cello enters alternately with a group of discursive glissando wind gestures. Such evocative wind gesture seems to be made from the reed-like artificial timbres, recurring irregularly in a strict repeated pattern, and searching for a rest but it fails. Unlike the fighting between Shu Lin and Jen in the previous scene, the music, at this moment, cannot match the fighting actions perfectly. The glissando reed-like gesture, together with the slow tempo of the moving ostinato strings, functions to enhance the ‘flying-fighting’ of Li and Jen on the tree top moving under the support of the slow motion shot. The overall effect is that the violent fighting between them has been transformed into an elegant ballet with two figures dancing to and fro on the bamboo trees, however, dispersing drop by drop of melancholy. The brutal excitement, thus, is softened because of the music, which is so sparse, tender with a little restless and agitated. Under the aegis of the supporting music, everything in this particular scene, no matter it is the visual images or the aural perception, is romanticised, so unattainable, so distant, and so uncertain that deeply interlocks audiences' hearts. Furthermore, the occasional murmuring thematic cello of 'Love Before Time' seems to tell audience that whether it is the teaching lessons given by Li to Jen, or the unwilling regrets of Jen in her unsatisfied life, the future of Jen is destined to be dark and gloom without bright sunshine. When Jen jumps into the river, the volume of music increases, again, intensifying the feelings and the restless agitated emotions of Jen. Her wildness and arrogance have not yet been surmounted. She continues to step to the road of no return.

    From the above analysis, it is clear that music written for film is not merely an accompaniment to the film, just for the purpose of bringing a nice melody for audience. On the contrary, music sounded behind each moving images requires composers' unlimited imaginations and ingenuity, adding immeasurable artistic value to the film. This value inextricably links to music's own expressive power. New meaning of each scene is generated because of this expressive power. Therefore, film alone cannot exists as a form of art without music. As a form of elite art, just like the traditional classical art music, film music can be regarded as an individual genre worthy of further scholarship in the advance academic horizon.

 

Finished.....
David Leung (theorydavid)

2013-03-10 (revisied)

Music Is and Always Must Be A Vital Part of Film Art

Foreword:

The more I teach the film music analysis in AMus course, the more I find student's poor English in their answers of the paper question. Undoubtedly, the standard of English of the present Hong Kong students is increasingly worse than the previous generations. Perhaps, this is why I use one of the questions in the past paper as the issue to write the following essay. This writing is not a model answer but an essay, reflecting my viewpoints on the use of leit motives in two scenes of the Lord of the Ring II. As such, it is good for students to treat this essay as a reference, rather than a model answer for the examination.

Article:

Firstly, I would like to introduce part of a student's writing for the Novemeber 2011 AMus Examination question. Readers can grasp a rough idea of the English standard of the present university student.

Student's writing:

One of a remarkable example of  “Music against action” can be found in the scene about “Treat to Hornburg”. The scene is about the Rohan army could not keep the enemy outside Helm’s deep, and retreating to the keep, enemies were everywhere,  Haldir was ambushed while protecting his last retreating troops. The scene slowed down when Haldir took the first hit. Then the camera changed to his Point of view in slow motion while he fell and looking at his dead fellow, suggesting his own death. There was no music in the battle, building up an agitating feel for audience due to they won’t know what to expect. The enlogy of medieval solo female singing came in when Haldir receive the lethal hit, mourning the lamentation of Haldir. The enlogy was sing in recitative style, including melisma, along with the slow tempo to support the slow motion shot, expressing the endless sorrow which deeply interlock audience’s heart. Music against action is widely used in expressing death, for example, in the Hong Kong movie “Internal affair 1in the scene of Anothny Wong felling from the roof of the building to a car, Tony Leung was shocked and the enlogy sang by solo female in medieval style representing his inner emotion. The used melody and style is alluding to funeral music, telling audience the death of Anthony Wong is a huge impact to Tony Leung as his true identity will never be recover.

 

My essay:

 

“Music is and always must be a vital part of film art.”

                          Discuss this statement. (AMusTCL Nov. 2011)
 

Music is an inseparable part of film art. If there is only dialogue in the film, audiences may understand the story, but may not be able to experience the drama of the plots, or to grasp the true meaning behind. In addition, music can create a proper atmosphere, which cannot be expressed by the characters’ dialogues alone, in accordance with the scene. As such, music is a useful tool to equip audience to prepare for, as it were, anticipating and experiencing the enchantments created from the particular scene, and even to share part in this fantastic imagined world. This is how a successful film penetrates into the deepest side of the audiences’ hearts, stirring up their emotions. If music is absent from the moving images, the film art is said to be incomplete.

For example, in the scene of the “Riders of Rohan” of The Lord of the Ring II, the leit motive of ‘fellowship bond’, which is a recurring melodic unit functioning to represent the union fellowship formed by Aragon, Lagolas, and Gimili, is used to act not only as an essential coherent element to the series of similar battle related scenes (fighting in battlefields), but also as a sparkling catalyst aiming to stirring up the audiences’ emotional response to the fellowship union’s courageous, yet heroic spirits shown in the times of danger. In this scene, our three heroes attempt to rescue the two hobbits, Merry and Pippin, from the custody of the fierce Uruk-hal, a brutal mob of half-beast, half-man. They chase the enemy behind, climbing up the steep mountains and hills, running across the ample plains and rivers.  Facing hundreds and thousands of wild beast barbarians without fearing to put their lives in jeopardy, our three heroes show incredible valor and boldness that above any ordinary man can possess.  At this very moment, audiences never fail to be caught up in the series of escalating crisis under the sonic support of the leit motive, which establishes the overall mood of the bravery, yet daring, of our heroes' fearlessness of death, filling up every theatrical spaces. 

To the more or less, the magic power of the ‘fellowship bond” motive is originated from its complex mixture of multifarious timbres. It is created by the usual battlefield timbres of horns and trumpets (horn call), sometimes going along with the wordless choir (vowels only) singing in an unusual style under the ageis of agitated strings in the background.This strange timbre, with a little exotic, is heard as if coming from a pious religious music such as the Mass or Passion. The effect is that the music sounds somewhat like a narrator occasionally dramatizing the heroic story to the audiences. The diffusive ‘distant’ sonority not only creates to audiences a sense of ‘being alienated’, but also seem to force them to wander off from the reality to the imagined world of the scenario, fighting together with the three heroes, sharing their tears, their laughter, their exultation, their anxiety, and even their desperation. Whenever our heroes face the similar predicaments, this overwhelming leit motive (fellowship bond) never fails to linger unnoticeably. Try to imagine, if the film is absent from the support of music, not only every dramatic battle may become mundane, but also every related scenarios may lose the coherence. Conceivably, audience will hardly follow up the story-line and feel indifferent to the dramas.

     Another exemplar of using leit motive to replace the dialogues of the characters, bringing a full meaning of the scene to audience, is in the final scene of Ring II. The motive is a pastoral style folk tune played with shepherd pan-flute, half improvisatory, half cantabile, floating above the tender strings, which is firstly heard in the Lord of the Ring I - The Fellowship of the Ring. In the beginning scene, while Frodo (hobbit) is sitting on the greenish meadow and reading book pleasantly, this haunting “Frodo Fellowship” motive appears and disperses an aura of serenity, so placid, so peaceful. However, the peacefulness of Frodo, all human of Middle Earth in particular, is not lasting long, since all creatures in the Middle Earth are doomed to face the coming greatest tribulation. Frodo, though unwillingly, is forced to bear the seemingly impossible mission—destroying the evil ring by throwing it into the Mount of Mordor. He starts his journey with his full companions, fights side by side with them, and even watches one of them dead. In the final scene of Ring I, Frodo intends to leave Sam and takes the boat to set off the mission alone, for the purpose of avoiding the further blood shedding of his faithful friends. However, without giving up his companion, Sam, even though he cannot swim, struggles to follow Frodo. Before sinking down to the river bed, Frodo rescues Sam to the boat. Replete with all hearty thanks, even tears, Frodo gazes at Sam wordlessly. All dialogues become excessive at this very touching , yet placid moment. The serene “Frodo Fellowship” pan-flute folk tune recurs, expressing the profound affection of both Frodo and Sam, recalling audience of their unshakable friendship. Without music, audience may understand the story but will hardly be moved.

Similar use of this “Frodo Fellowship” motive can be found in The Lord of the Ring II when the scene is describing Frodo’s deep affection of his intimate fellow companions, Sam in particular, and the remembrance of his lovely homeland. As we have pointed out in the previous discussion, the re-appearance of the “Frodo fellowship” leit motive in the final scene is remarkable among all other occasions. Here, Frodo is eager to give up his mission because he feels that he is too small, too weak, too fragile to accomplish the formidable mission, especially at the time he almost loses his life after the Night-rider’s attack. Sam, the faithful servant as well as the true friend, genuinely encourages Frodo to face boldly all daunting challenges and menaces that lie ahead, and to carry on this seemingly unfeasible, but meaningful mission. Sam uses the continual existence of the great heroes in all great tales as the illustration to reason with Frodo. He emphasizes that those heroes, in the history, might have chance to turn back but they did not. The reason is that they are holding on something worthy of fighting for. When Frodo asks Sam what this is, Sam gazes tenderly at Frodo without giving a single word. Again, the recurring leit motive functions amazingly as it did in Ring I. To audiences, the answer is clear, albeit without  any verbal expression. The comforting, yet peaceful, pan-flute folk tune (Frodo Fellowship motive) seems to undertone that the ‘thing’ worth fighting for is the precious brotherly affection among Frodo and his fellowship companions, and of course, the deep love of his homeland – Shire. In this very moment, music speaks of all things.

From the above discussion, it is clear that music is a vital part of film art. Numerous examples can demonstrate this. Music is the spirit whereas the film story is the body. Music is capable of expressing all meanings, replacing the function of dialogues in the most important moment. Furthermore, the recurring leit motive enhances the coherence of the story line, connecting each similar scene, and preparing an atmosphere for the audience ready to immerse into the movie world. This is how the effective film music works, evoking audiences’ emotions and touch the deepest side of their hearts. As such, music never fails to add immeasurable artistic value to the film, always completing film as a form of art to the fullest.

 

Finished

David Leung (theorydavid)
2013-03-08 (Published)

The "Minimalistic Setting" in Wagner's Das Rheingold

Foreword:

Historians always seek the first. If they examine a style, they try to locate the first artwork that reflects such style, or the first artist to create such style. Quite interestingly, after the  so-called the 'first' is found, not lasting for a long time, another  the 'first' appears. For the now-famous minimal style which has swept through many of the 20th century musical works, we always speak of Terry Rily's "In C" or Philip Glass's many minimal pieces. But could you think of Richard Wagner's music dramas?
The following discussion may lead you to a new terrain of understanding of the so-called musical minimalism. Be it a style of 20th century music only, or through broadening its definition, that we can also find some extraordinary works which may also be called minimal music before the 20th century.


Article:

The “Minimalistic Setting” in Wagner’s Das Rheingold

       Wagner’s four minutes length prelude Das Rheingold unquestioningly shows three significant Romantic traits: 1. sublime orchestral sonority; 2. kaleidoscopic timbres; 3. prolonged melodic line. The overall mood portrayed in this grand passage is extensively dramatic, yet profoundly poetic and sensationally touching, rather than only elegantly classical under the aegis of well-proportional and symmetrical. Apart from the apparent Romantic appearances, however, this inspiring passage is not without having other novel features that invite further scrutiny. 

       Although the entire passage lasts almost four minutes, the musical motion merely depends on the projection of one single element, the Eb major tonic triad. The thematic melody, the sustaining pedal and the orchestral accompaniment are all derived from this lonely Eb major chord, continuously repeated again and again throughout the prelude section until the tenor vocal enters. Doubtless the monothematic setting here is extremely minimal. This unreasonable economical use of materials probably reminds us of Maurice Ravel’s Bolero (1928), which could be regarded as one of the precursors of the Postmodern Minimalism in the years sixty. Bolero only consists of a single Spanish dance theme and a snare drum rhythmic ostinato unfolding throughout the whole piece. Similarly, Das Rheingold also reflects such conspicuous feature. 

Another significance that is worth considering is the restless subtle changes within each repetition. By adding different instruments to the texture and changing the accompanimental pattern in the inner parts, the musical tension is built up gradually. These nuances of change not only enhance manifold timbres so as to avoid monotonous, but also thicken the orchestral sonority step by step, providing a gradual increase of dynamic from the soft to the climatic loud tutti near the ending. The effect is that musical tension is held for the entire passage. As a result, neither a single repetition of the melodic nor a harmonic pattern generates the same sonic sound.   Such small-scale continuous changes within each repeated pattern is very similar to the art painting work, Coca Cola, drawn by Andy Warhol in minimal style in 1962. In Coca Cola, a matrix of numerous coca cola bottles of the same size is orderly displayed on the canvas, but in fact no single bottle is exactly identical. Doubtless the subtle shift within similarity is one of the most salient attributes of Minimal Arts. Das Rheingold, in this regard, can be understood as an embryonic minimal work. 

 

 

    In short, Wagner’s prophetic setting comprises much novelty and innovation, despite its apparent Romantic outlook. The single Eb tonic triad successfully maintains the entire musical motion and tension. In order to retain audience’s interest within a monothematic background, the orchestration, timbre, dynamic, harmonic pattern and texture are altered incessantly. This restless small-scale change is the key factor for the gradual growth of musical tension, building up a more complex texture and bombarding sonority until the climatic conclusion. Das Rheingold, therefore, can be regarded as an extraordinary example of hybridization of Romanticism and somewhat nascent Minimalism.

David Leung (theorydavid)
2013-03-02 Published