Sometimes it is extremely difficult to honestly critique music. It may be because you’ve developed a friendship with the people involved, compromising any attempt at a more distant critical view. You may hate the genre, the gimmick or have just heard one song too many times. But this may be tough because I don’t know thing one about what I experienced Saturday night.
“Change Over Time 2,” a series of compositions by Peter Sloan and Colin Brogan, took place Saturday night at a humble house on 6th Street. The compositions were stark opposites despite both deserving the sub-label of “challenging music.” Sloan’s composition “The Problem of Evil” is bombastic with cellos, flutes, clarinets and a tenor reciting David Hume’s paraphrasing of Epicurus. Meanwhile, Brogan’s set held two brief pieces whose sole means of communication were piano and computer.
The improvisational aspect, the purpose of the name “Change Over Time,” closed the show when a fascinating interchange between Sloan on the piano/trombone, Brogan on a drum set and Jack Thomason on guitar. But again, I feel confused. I suppose it’s redundant to say I felt challenged, but it’s probably true. Talking with Sloan, Brogan and Thomason post-show does give a little more understanding to what I heard, however.
“If you look at the conversation we’re having now, you can see the musical form in it,” Sloan said. “You established a framework in which Jack responded freely because he didn’t plan his remarks prior to being asked. And Colin had something to add to that, and it went back and forth for a while. This is very much how we operate as a musical trio.”
All three were quick to point out this idea of musical improv as a conversation.
“It’s just a different voice rather than vocal chords,” Thomason said. “You’ve still got to learn words to have a conversation and you have to learn music to do improvisation.”
It’s still extremely tough to explain what exactly this music sounds like, although I did like that I would overhear that studying and appreciating this form is akin to figuring out how to ride a bicycle or a similar human development. It’s not a natural development to understand atonal music and the work being produced by composers.
“To explain, atonal would be music that lacks a tonal center,” Brogan said. “In music, we have a point where we reference all the harmonies and the melodies and we assume these things exist on a subconscious level.”
The comparison is to pop music and the idea of work that requires brain processing being noticeably different. Again, I’m a beginner at this process, so I hope someone comments or sends a nice letter explaining this process better than I can in 600 words. My critical analysis beam must be broken.
“I’ll hear some melodic moment,” Sloan said. “I’ll hear an oboe and think that it would be very nice if it made a certain sound. And then I’ll write that note down and put it aside and not think about it. When I come back to it, I’ll think as critically and as analytically about that moment that I witnessed in a nonanalytic way.”
Perhaps “Change Over Time” hits at something about us that never forces ourselves to be challenged. I will tell you challenge is actually a good thing once I figure out what that is.
