Rhythm and Death 2

I keep almost writing a blog post about this idea, ever since the New Music Festival this past October, when I unleashed my Twitterstorm Apocalypse. I really meant to post this on November 3rd, to commemorate the original.

Here's something that has been an occasional fantasy of mine, for far longer than that, even.

I keep rejecting this as a blog post, because there's not a lot of substance here. It's really more of a spite-based hors d'oeuvre than an entree. A blend of humor, frivolity, and malice. But hey. Why not?

First, a little background.

Thursday, November 3rd, 2005. I was a member of the New Music Ensemble at BGSU, and that night we put on a concert called "Rhythm and Death," the brainchild of Professor Per Broman. And I published a blog post of that same title immediately afterwards.

Dr. Broman's intentions for the concert were to punish the audience. He wanted to test their limits, the threshold of their tolerance for harsh, abrasive, repetitive, cacophonous bullshit. He expressed this on multiple occasions throughout the group's initial planning sessions and subsequent rehearsals. It was almost as though he meant to troll them, before "trolling" was even a term.

He was an odd professor, a Swede with a mischievous streak, and I never quite knew what to make of him, be he friend or foe. On one hand, there was this awful concert. On the other hand, his wife was my lovable boss for my Aural Skills teaching assistanceship. And he did teach the only film music class, such as it was, at the whole rotten institution (the faculty and students of which routinely discriminated against me for my open love of film music and my interest in composing it), so that counts for something. After all, he did not only give the green light to but give me an excellent grade on my obsessively in-depth analysis and presentation of the music from Black Hawk Down as my final project. That might have been one of my greatest moments at BGSU.

Ultimately, though, I should point out that he of all people "favorited" one of the tweets in my October NMAF 2018 Twitterstorm revenge, raging against the university. It was amazing that he would support my tell-all proverbial lighting of the Molotov cocktail. That blew my mind. Friend or foe?

So anyway,

Rhythm and Death was one of the worst travesties of my time at BGSU, and it took all my restraint and professionalism to not speak my mind when my disgruntled, victimized, mostly-Freshmen Aural Skills students discussed it in class the next morning and grilled me on it. Oh, yes, Dr. Broman succeeded, all right: those kids hated the experience, were angry at me for being involved, and wanted to know if that was what passed for "art music" there. I gave only a hint of my true feelngs, for the sake of integrity, but damn, I wanted to rant the whole hour about it. Again, my supervisor was Broman's wife.

Yeah. I fucking remember. I never felt like such a whore.

Sometimes, I think about pulling some strings, reaching from afar, to stage a concert at BGSU. Going over the faculty's heads, a sneak attack. A little something called Rhythm and Death 2.

Imagine. Some former colleagues and I put on a concert in Bryan Recital Hall with that title, and program notes to explain. The program consists largely of my own alter ego Mittens' satirical works. The faculty attend out of curiosity, falling into my trap. After all, who could resist? They are mortally offended, and storm off. At the reception in the Green Room afterwards, the War of Perception turns in my favor on their own turf, and the faculty realize that my infiltration of dissent has taken root. Then, we do a victory lap at Grumpy Dave's or Beckett's, or whatever bar is still around these days.

Funny, when you can rub their backs, you're an esteemed alumnus. But when you don't, you're an outcast. And yet they still mail me their damned periodicals and requests for donations. No, BGSU, I will bang this ugly drum every time your trash shows up in my fucking mailbox.

Ahhhhh, the portfolio of Mittens is strong.

Around the time of the blog post "The War of Perception" (March 2016), I started a placeholder outline for a big project. I have had multiple online conversations about it. I intend on someday completing it...

Someday, I will get around to composing an electroacoustic opera--or at least an oratorio--about my experiences there. An allegorical, epic tragedy of betrayal and revenge.

The beauty of making the opera EA is that I could actually put on a concert of it myself. Just hire a few live performers... the vocalists, and maybe a few instrumentalists, since the rest is computer-based, and appropriately a satire on Burton Beerman's similarly unbearable Jesus' Daughter. Oh, my God, I could totally pull this off, too. Yeah, it could actually happen, if only I prioritized it above all this other, uh, Actual Stuff that matters so much more. But this realization makes me feel powerful indeed... the logistics... Ohhh, it could be. And it wouldn't be the first opera libretto I've written. Yeah, I could do it, but the main thing holding me back is perfectionism. I don't know how I want to tell the story I want to tell in the style I of music I want to compose it in, and make it interesting enough to sit through, and still make it clear enough that it's autobiographical.

But someday I will.

Until then, it's Rhythm and Death 2, a concert of punishment on the senses... Something that could actually come to pass, if I really wanted it to. Alternatively, another idea for a "revenge concert" would be to put on a full program of traditionally tonal, film-music-inspired music--the kind of music my professors loathed, but I wanted to write. It would be taking the high road, the healthier option for flipping them the bird while putting on a recital of good music that people would actually enjoy. I have notes for that, too: a sort of "what if" concert of music I should have composed while I was a grad student there.

So, with the opera, that's three ideas for "revenge concerts" I have.

Think of what I could accomplish if I were focused... Now, watch tomorrow abruptly jerk my attention in the direction of a 2007 Kansas City nostalgia. Chronologically, that would be the natural, evolutionary next step of this flight of fancy.