February 18, 1964 ••••• It's terribly difficult to write. Rhythm is at once the most physical and vulgar of music's architectures, and the most subtle and extrasensory. It's muscular and it's intuitive - and words are of little help to either. But these things come to mind: It should be our commonalways-present understanding, it seems to me, that Music I s untouched canvas is Time. Everytime we sing -- every time, rehearsal or performance, we work on Time. Music is from Now to Somewhen. It has not mass, substance, dimension, shape, weight. It has Time. Sculpture is a Space-Art; it has mass and propor ·tion. Painting is a Space-Art; it has height, breadth, and by the illusion of perspective, depth; it has design and proportion; it has color and light (and this may introduce a qualification, for the quantum and relativity theories may make Light and Time pretty close neighbors -- for all I lmow). Ballet deals principally with movement through space. Drama and literature have strong Spatial preoccupations. But Music has Time 1 Now Time has dual implications. On the one hand it has Eternality. And for all we know forever may be of instant's duration. At any rate, Eternality must be One-ness. There can be no last-time or this-time in Forever. There can be only Now. In one there cannot be Two. Eternality is indivisable. Now and Forever are one and the same. On the other hand Time has -- by all our experiences -- the implication of Change and of Recurrency, of Cycle and Growth. Tomorrow is a very real thing to most of us. All of man's moral and religious systems are built upon it. We fight wars so that there will be a Time when no wars will be fought. We ascribe to Time periodicity: we say we have high-tide twice a day, thirteen full moons a year; we say it takes nine months to mature the human embryo; and from there on man still has a 11 traditional Seven Ages11. We believe we can 11shapen Time, change it, give it form. It seems to me that without a very sure awareness to Form in Time (aspects of which are Recurrency and Growth) and without a very strong faith in the power of men to change and determine their own Life-Time, we're in no position to give Time-Form to Music. "Form11 is not too fortunate a word, for it suggests the static and set. That isn't at all what we mean by Time-Form. Time-Form is heartbeat, ~ulse; Time-Form is yesterday, today, tomorrow; Time-Form is Rhythm. And within Rhythm, Time-Form is movement, going somewhere, growth. This issues
in a lot of very practical
procedures
for us.
At the head of the list is the absolute inviolability of the pulse of great music. Any tampering or insensitivity here will crip9le or kill. Music has a right to its own life. It has its own pulse, its own heart-beat. It has its own growth, its own 11Seven Ages11• ( In a paradoxical, but not contradictory sense, Drama resides in the inevitable, in the thing everybody knows is going to happen, in mustness. And most of the mustness in Music is the beat, the beat.) Any great artist
-2phrases within the rhythm; he does not distort He lets music live its own life.
rhythm to fit
his phrase.
There is, of course, some music (most of it badly written) which is enhanced by a free rhythmic and dynamic play upon the emotional content (most of it is shallow) of words and ideas. That is a valid style for a particular type of music -- and for no other • Second is the integrity and importance of the 'tweak" beat. In all dance and march rhythms it is this poor little weak-beat that does the work. It has the vitality. It keeps people moving. It gets things done. It lifts. It's the up-beat. -And in all sustained melody this is the beat of unrest, of growth. It moves. It is not the beat of repose. It is not the beat upon which the music stands still. It is the searching bear:- Everything happens here. The "strong" beat offers refuge -- but it is only temporary refuge. Within the instant in all great rrelody is restlessness, yearning, intensification, accent. No one can fail to sense this quest and remain an artist. The third application of rhythmic singing is rhythmic speech. It is imperative in choral song that compound vowels and pitch-consonants have rhythmic proportion. Their duration is only definable in terms of rhythm. Rhythm offers the only basis for coordination of 200 people, and it alone insures the listener of intelligibility. It is not enough merely to sing M's, N1 s, NG1 s and the disappearing vowel sounds of diphthongs and triphthongs. They must be sung rhythmically. R.
s. (c.c.
10/3/44)
ANNOUNCEMENTS: If there are still some who are interested in Mr. Shaw's performances in either Bowling Green or Cuyahoga Falls please let me know by the end of this week. I'm afraid we already have too many people who want to go to Elyria -- so if you can possibly change it would help to know. I call your attention to the rehearsal of Sunday, March 8, ALL MEN the date of Mr. Shaw's Cuyahoga Falls concert.
Saturday
February
22
1130 p.m.
All - Di.do & Aeneas
Sunday
February
23
4:00 p.m.
Perf.
Sunday
February
23
5:30 p.m.
Basses
Monday
February
24
8:00 p.m.
Everyone
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- Di.do & Aeneas
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