Amy Stolzenbach

I know how to do a lot of things. For instance, I can make great marinara sauce. I can hear a song on a classic rock station and tell you what year that song came out. I know how to sew a button. I can spin a basketball on my finger. I can play guitar. What do these things all have in common? They are all learned skills and they are all things that feel pretty automatic at this point in my life. Right now I am trying to learn two new things. I am learning Italian and I am also learning how to use a new piece of software called Max/MSP. I've got to say I'm doing better in Italian than I am with Max/MSP, but let me whine for a second - this is HARD!! As adults, we have things pretty figured out and we go through most days on auto pilot doing things we're already good at. Adding something new and consistently making time for it every day - very difficult. I read somewhere that it takes 30-40 days in a row of doing something to create a pattern. I haven't made it to three days! No wonder I'm whining! 

As a music instructor, I tell my students all the time to practice consistently even if it's just 10 minutes a day (which is about all the attention span we can muster!). I'm going to endeavor to practice my Italian every day (I'm using Rosetta Stone) for 40 days and I'm going to take action and fire up Max/MSP every day and do some part of a tutorial for 40 days to learn what I need to do to use this software to build an VST instrument that I want to build. 

I'm already talking myself out of it as I'm typing the words. Strange little voices are saying "You're too busy in November!" "What about all of those rehearsals and shows and teaching dates at EMP?" "I might go out of town. How will I fit it in?" We'll see. 

Update on Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 2:23PM by Amy Stolzenbach

I'm doing really well at working on my Italian every day, but Max/MSP is a whole other world! The only thing I can compare it to is if you already know an instrument and you decide that you want to learn a new instrument it's fairly easy since you're applying things you already know to the new situation. Learning Max/MSP is like trying to teach yourself quantum physics when you have no background in science and then attempting to apply it to experiments you're workig on and expecting everything to come together. Not even close!!! One thing at a time! I'm getting into my pattern with Italian and then I'm going to have to take some lessons on how to use Max/MSP. I'm definitely in over my head. 

I guess the lesson learned is: Don't try to start two new things at once and know when to ask for help or you'll never reach your goal. More later.....

For those of you who didn't know, I am a huge sci-fi geek. There, I've said it! Always have been, always will be. When I found out that the Star Wars in Concert tour was coming to Seattle, I had to go. I took my husband for his birthday (who is also a geek), but it was a treat for me as well since it combines two of my favorite things: Star Wars and maybe the best soundtrack composer EVER, John Williams. If you've been living under a rock for the past 40 years, go Google him. If you've been paying attention, then you know what I'm talkin' about. He's in the top 5 inner-circle: Bernard Herrmann, Ennio Morricone, John Williams, Alan Silvestri and ________. Hard to say who holds that fifth spot. Maybe Howard Shore? Maybe Hans Zimmer? Maybe John Barry? My favorite newcomers (relatively speaking) are Jonny Greenwood and Lisa Gerrard. They break the standard mold by creating musicscapes for scenes. It makes for a compelling symbiotic relationship between the images on the screen and the imagery the music is evoking. I know for a fact that their style of scoring for film pisses off many an old-school composer because they're scoring in a linear way that helps tell the story in a different newer paradigm. (Did I really just use that word?!) I once heard an old-school guy call the score to Let There Be Blood "Garbage!". The old-school guys create a theme for each character and it returns in various instrumental arrangements, tempos, etc. In a lot of ways, it's like writing a bunch of hits songs for an album - they need to be instantly memorable, befitting the character and emotion and not get annoying every time it returns; yet unlike a pop record, the pieces must be perfectly willing to be a support role to the action or character on the screen because without it, the music doesn't exist and without the right music, the scene doesn't work. Let there Be Blood (with its Bernard Herrmann-worthy uncomfortable moments) and Whalerider are such haunting and beautiful works of art on the screen and in the headphones. I wouldn't change a thing! 

Newer directors like Wes Anderson (whom I adore) and his wanna-be disciples take existing songs and edit the scene to the music rather than the other way around - writing the music for a complete edited scene. This really makes an old-school guy's TMJ flare up something fierce! "It's blasphemy and it's taking away work from excellent composers who have made their living the old way!" They bitch and moan that it's ruining things and that these modern movies and their sub-standard (and cheaper) soundtracks won't stand the test of time. Ever see The Graduate? It's all Simon and Garfunkel pop songs and I really can't imagine that movie being the same without their music as the backdrop. That was 1967 so it's nothing new - just a different style! I think Forrest Gump is a great combination of songs from the era that Forrest's story is being told from and you've got Alan Silvestri's amazing score. I can't ever listen to Freebird the same after seeing it paired up with the near suicide scene in that movie and the character themes are perfect! I give it two thumbs up! 

I'm reading a great book right now by Ben Ratliff called Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. It's really blowing my mind. For a long time I was fascinated with Miles Davis and all of his different sounds in different eras and the route his evolution as an artist took. Coltrane's evolution isn't as sexy, but daring nonetheless. By 1961, he had his own quartet and was so bent on discovering this spiritual outlet within his music that he didn't really care if he alienated his fans or made critics scratch their heads. Those who were on the journey with him got it, but he really did it to satisfy his own quest as an artist. He got sick of himself (Giant Steps cemented his status as a composer and technician and his voice as a tenor saxophonist, but he rarely played it live and there are no publicly released live versions of it) and followed his own muse. I have to admire that.