7-27-2013
Part 3. This one is dedicated to my partner’s uncle, Jim Sullivan, who passed away just last week. He was an amazing person, and I feel so lucky I was able to get to know him a little bit over the past couple years.
Month: July 2013
7-13-2013
Before we left my grandparents’ house to drive across the state to Seattle, I sat down and played one more time on the baby grand. This started with the UU hymn, “Spirit of Life.”
7-12-2013
From GranMarie’s Memorial Service: Claude Debussy’s “Estampes: Pagodes”
A little back-story: this is the piece that brought my grandparents together. Conceivably, if it weren’t for this piece, I wouldn’t have ever been born! PapaJim had just come back from being stationed in Okinawa during WWII, and he and GranMarie were both studying at the same college. He overheard her playing this piece in the practice building, and was reminded of some of the Japanese music he had heard. As I remember the story, he snuck into her room to listen to her, only to see another boy also sitting on the floor listening. Apparently PapaJim stayed, and returned other times to hear her play. The other boy didn’t last! Whether or not he had been dating my grandmother, I can’t remember.
This piece is by a French composer who had been inspired after attending the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, where he heard a performance by a Javanese Gamelan. I wonder about the repercussions of his choice to reference musical styles from Southeast Asia and East Asia. Did this piece influence how European classical music audiences thought of people living in countries with pagodas? Were people more likely to sponsor East Asian and Southeast Asian musicians now that they had had this oblique introduction? Did they even consider this? What were peoples’ stereotypes of Southeast Asian and East Asian people in France around the turn of the century? Why do people like this piece, if they do? Is the piece more intriguing, and therefore more successful, because of the overt exoticism? How do musical exoticization and cultural appropriation eventually have serious repercussions for real people’s lives? Is this even a thing?
I’m sure Debussy didn’t have any sort of malicious overtly racist intent when he wrote this piece, yet I can’t help but wonder about the implications and consequences. That said, I still learned it and played it for my grandfather’s sake, and I found it to be beautiful. I haven’t yet worked out if I’m making too much of a big deal in my head about it, but I wanted to share my thoughts in the interest of honest disclosure.
7-12-2013
This is what I played warming up for GranMarie’s memorial service. It was held in a performance hall in the music building at Whitman College, and the setting was really perfect. This recording was made a couple hours before the service started, with just a couple people in the audience.
7-11-2013
I made this recording the night that we arrived in Washington State for GranMarie’s memorial service. It had been a really long day of traveling, but I needed a way to calm down from the stress of the day. This was a baby grand piano that she and my grandfather, PapaJim, bought when my dad and his three siblings were growing up. My grandmother was a professional organist and piano teacher, and she used to play in the evenings at home if she wasn’t too worn out from the work of her days.
They had it re-voiced many years later, and it is a beautiful instrument to play. This particular improvisation turned into “Over the Rainbow.” I was thinking about her soul, and wondering where it is now – has she dissolved and become a part of everything? Is she still herself? Did she believe in God?