Letters of Note: Music

by Shaun Usher

  Dear Girls of the World,

  I was a 12-year-old girl living in the center of Cotonou, Benin, in West Africa. Music was all around us, with the traditional singers and their drums and with the radio blasting songs from the entire world.

  Singing had always been my passion. My mom even told me I sung before I spoke. One day, I discovered an uplifting song that made everyone dance. It was called “Pata Pata.” The power and beauty of the voice singing it mesmerized me. I had to get the 45 rpm single right away. That’s when I first heard the name of Miriam Makeba, the famous South African singer. I also learned her struggle against apartheid and her success all over the planet.

  Even though at home I could see the respect that my father had for my mom, I could feel the world was unbalanced and that it was so hard for girls and women to succeed. Many of my girlfriends at school were dropping out at an early age as the social pressure was huge. Most of them could not choose their own destiny. It was as if they would always be the daughter, the wife or the mother of someone.

  But looking at Miriam’s smile on the cover, her confidence and the respect she inspired, I started to dream. If an exiled African woman born from a poor family had been able to accomplish so much, there might be a little chance for me to follow her steps. Lost in my thoughts, lying on my bed, listening to her music for hours, learning by heart the lyrics of all her songs – in my imagination, I was already traveling with her, singing with her, meeting world leaders and advocating with her for the freedom of her people.

  That dream has never left me. I grew up and I experienced much rejection, many obstacles, but Miriam’s voice was always singing in my head. I started to have some success singing on the national radio.

  One day, on the way back from school, a group of teenagers recognized me and insulted me, calling me a whore because I was a singer. I came back home, crying, and wanted to give up singing for good. Mama Congo, my maternal grandmother, happened to be home. She asked me why I was crying so much. Once I explained, she gave me a piece of advice that I have never forgotten and that I want you to remember when you feel your dreams are shattered.

  She told me: “Do you want to be a singer?”

  “Yes, Grandma”

  “Then, you can’t let the opinion of other people discourage you. Don’t give up on your dreams, don’t allow them to define who you are or they would have won!”

  Many years passed. I left my country like Miriam had done. I worked hard, listening to constructive critics and ignoring the naysayers, keeping Miriam’s songs close to my heart. Then, in a different decade, in a different country, the day finally came when I was asked to sing as the opening act of my beloved idol. I could not believe it.

  Please remember girls: Don’t let anyone define who you are!

  Angélique Kidjo

  LETTER 20

  NOT THAT ONE, DOCTOR – IT’S GOT NO RHYTHM

  Richard Strauss to Hans Diestel

  15 July 1931

  In 1931 author Hans Diestel wrote to celebrated German composer Richard Strauss in an effort to gain some expert insight into the world of orchestral music, a subject on which he was soon to publish a book, Ein Orchestermusiker über das Dirigieren. This fascinating letter, Strauss’s reply, ultimately became its preface: a perfect introduction from one of the leading composers of the twentieth century, who wrote his first composition at the age of six and never looked back.

  THE LETTER

  Dear Herr Diestel,

  When from 1886 to 1889 I first conducted operas as Royal Director of Music in the Court Theatre at Munich (such things still existed in those days with unlimited subsidies and singers without contractual holidays) my father, who was then 65, still occupied his seat as first hornplayer as he had done for 45 years, always arriving from a fabulous sense of duty one hour before the performance was due to begin, concerned not only lest he should bungle his own difficult solo passages in Così fan tutte, but also worried lest his inexperienced son at the conductor’s rostrum should make a blunder.

  It was at this time that he, who had admired Lachner and opposed Billow, remarked with some irony: “You conductors who are so proud of your power! When a new man faces the orchestra from the way he walks up the steps to the rostrum and opens his score – before he even picks up the baton we know whether he is the master or we.”

  Using this remark as a motto, as it were, for your book, I would say to my esteemed colleagues: Don’t be too proud of your three curtain calls after the third Leonora overture. Down there in the orchestra amongst the first violins, in the back amongst the horns or even at the other end of the timpani there are argus-eyed observers, who note each of your crotchets or quavers with critical regard, who groan if you wave your baton furiously in their faces conducting Tristan “alla breve” in four, or when you celebrate the movement “By the Brook” or the second variation in the adagio movement of the “Ninth” by beating twelve complete quavers. They even revolt if you constantly shout “ssh” and “piano, gentlemen” at them during the performance, whilst your right hand constantly conducts forte. They wink if you say at the beginning of a rehearsal “the woodwind is out of tune” but cannot indicate which instrument is playing too high or too low. The conductor up there may imagine that they follow reverently each movement of his baton, but in reality they go on playing without looking at him when he loses his beat and they blame his “individualist interpretation” for every false tempo when he is, let us say, conducting a symphony for the first time which they have played a hundred times before under better conductors.

  During one rehearsal when my baton had been mislaid and I was just about to pick up another, the first solo viola player of the Vienna Philharmonic called out to me, “Not that one, Doctor—it’s got no rhythm.”

  In short, the stories of how conductors have been caught out by members of the orchestra would fill volumes. And yet this malicious mob, who plod their weary way in a chronic mezzojorte, who cannot be flattered into accompanying pp or into playing chords in a recitative precisely unless the right man happens to be at the rostrum, with what enthusiasm do they not play—tortured though they be by blunderers with no idea of rehearsing, tired out as they are by giving lessons— with what self-sacrifice do they not rehearse if they know that their conductor will not worry them unnecessarily, how readily will they not obey his slightest gesture on the evening of the performance (especially if he has let them off a rehearsal), when his right hand, fully mastering the high art of conducting, conveys to them his exact intentions; when his eye surveys their playing severely yet benevolently; when his left hand does not form a fist in ff passages and does not unnecessarily restrain them in p passages.

  It is simply untrue to say that one can compose “everything,” if “composing” be defined as the translation of a sensual or emotional impression into the symbolic language of music. It is, of course, equally true that one can paint in sounds (especially certain movements), but one always runs the risk of expecting music to do too much and of lapsing into sterile imitation of nature. No matter how much intelligence and technical knowledge go into the making of such music, it will always remain second-rate.

  I am convinced that the decisive factor in dramatic effect will be a smaller orchestra, which does not drown the human voice as does a large orchestra. Many of our younger composers have already found this out for themselves. The orchestra of the opera of the future is the chamber orchestra which, by painting in the background of the action on the stage with crystalline clearness, can alone realize precisely the intention of the composer with regard to the vocal parts. It is after all an important desideratum that the audience should not only hear sounds but should also be able to follow the words closely.

  My conducting has frequently been criticized because, more especially at the beginning, people found fault with the tempi of my performances of Beethoven. But I ask, “Who would today assert dogmatically that Beethoven himself wished a tempo to be taken at a particular pace? Is there s
uch a thing as an authentic tradition in such matters?”

  There is no such tradition and that is why I hold that it must be left to the purely subjective artistic acumen of the conductor to decide what is right or wrong. I reproduce every work of Beethoven, Wagner, etc., according to my insight into these works, gained in the course of many years, in the conviction that this is the only true and right way.

  Time and again I tried to return to the symphonic literature which has absorbed and fascinated me from my youth. But to this day nothing worthwhile would come into my head. Even program music is only possible and will only be elevated to the sphere of art, if its creator is above all a musician capable of inventing and creating. Otherwise, he is a charlatan, because the quality and cogency of musical invention are the foremost factors even in program music.

  It is perhaps due to the spirit of the age that our successors, our “younger generation,” our “moderns,” can no longer accept my dramatic and symphonic work as a valid expression of the musician and the man in me, which is alive therein, although its musical and artistic problems have as far as I am concerned already been solved at the point at which they begin for “the younger generation.” We are all children of our own age and can never jump over its shadow.

  Richard Strauss

  LETTER 21

  PICTURE THE SCENE

  Rik Mayall to Bob Geldof

  26 November 1984

  On 25 November 1984 dozens of the brightest stars on the British music scene descended upon SARM West Studios in London to unite as Band Aid, a supergroup brought together by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to record the song ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ in a wildly successful effort to raise money for those suffering in the devastating famine in Ethiopia. The day after the recording session, the Young Ones’ Rik Mayall (according to his memoir, Bigger than Hitler – Better than Christ) wrote a letter of complaint to Geldof.

  THE LETTER

  Bob Geldof

  Basement Flat

  126b Kilburn High Road

  London NW8

  26th November 1984

  Dear Bob,

  Love you work – or I did until I turned up yesterday at Air Studios to do my bit for Band Aid. What in the name of sweet Fanny fucking Nightingale is going on? All I wanted to do was join my pier group of international stars from the world of pop and rock and record a simple tune which might bring much needed food and provisions to the starving in Africa. But oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely ruddy bloomin’ well not.

  Picture the scene. That’s the one. There I am walking towards Air Studios just as that Phil Collins is going in. I called to him but he pretended not to hear me. Between you and me Bob, I’ve never liked him. There’s something a bit seedy about him. Something not quite right. And those bloody awful records. Anyway, I was on my way in after him when this enormous bloke in a bomber jacket blocked my passage. Ooer I thought but figured this was probably just some sort of joke dreamt up by one of my great popstar mates like Francis Rossi or Kool from Kool and the Gang. The bloke said, “We don’t want your sort around here.” I laughed knowingly but he was deadly serious. I told him to go and tell you that I had arrived and that I had come to do my bit. When he came back a few minutes later, he lied and said that he had spoken to you and you had told him to tell me to fuck off.

  It was then that Simon Le Bon arrived with his all-girl backing band. I called across to him and told him there had been a horrible mix up but he pretended he didn’t recognise me. What is wrong with these people? So then I spoke to the big bloke in the bomber jacket again and it was then that he beat me up. Yes Bob, perhaps you should read that sentence again. That’s right, I was beaten up at a charity recording. Your charity recording. How’s that make you feel?

  So there I was lying on the pavement when a limo pulls up next to me and out climbs Boy George with George Michael and Bananarama and they all definitely recognised me as they stepped over me and went inside, even though they pretended that they didn’t. You can just tell.

  Undeterred (no offence), I went around to the back of the building where I managed to find a window that was ajar. I climbed through it and imagine my horror when I fell head first into a toilet bowl. Now you know me Bob, I’m well known for not swallowing, but on this occasion I had been taken by surprise and I managed to swallow about half a gallon of toilet water and something that I can only describe as “solid”. This made me feel sick but I decided I would press on and I managed to make my way through to the studio. I’ll say this for you Bob, you got some big stars there: Boneo, Paul Wella, Chris Cross – it was wall-to-ceiling talent and just as I was taking in the sheer enormity of it all and chatting star-to-star with various top rock legends like Paul Young, I overheard you tell the security guard to “Get that twat with the shit in his hair out of here.” All I can presume is that this was a joke on your part that backfired because the security guard in question did actually throw me out.

  Obviously if this is all a great-mates-together music biz joke that you’re all playing on me then I want you to know that I’m completely comfortable with that and love everyone as though they were my brother – or sister. But if it isn’t, then you’re all a bunch of jealous talentless fuck-holes.

  And another thing – you should seriously consider rerouting some of the funds from Ethiopia in order to get yourself some proper professional celebrity endorsement from light entertainment giants like me. You’d make much more money in the long run but you’re probably too mean and spiteful to realise it.

  Anyway Bob, get back to me. Soon. Say “hi” to Midge,

  Rik.

  ‘AND ANOTHER THING – YOU SHOULD SERIOUSLY CONSIDER REROUTING SOME OF THE FUNDS FROM ETHIOPIA IN ORDER TO GET YOURSELF SOME PROPER PROFESSIONAL CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT FROM LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT GIANTS LIKE ME.’

  – Rik Mayall

  LETTER 22

  WHO IS KAREN CARPENTER, REALLY?

  Kim Gordon to Karen Carpenter

  Date unknown

  On 4 February 1983, thirty-two-year-old Karen Carpenter passed away after suffering heart failure brought on by anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder with which she had been struggling for a long time. Her funeral, held a week later, was attended by thousands, and with good reason: for fourteen years until her tragic death, Karen had been one half of The Carpenters, a band she had formed with her brother, Richard, in 1969, and which over the years had built up an adoring fan base of millions. Thirty years after her death, Kim Gordon, co-founder of rock band Sonic Youth and a fan of Karen’s, wrote her a letter. It was reprinted, undated, in the book Sonic Youth: Sensational Fix.

  THE LETTER

  Dear Karen,

  Thru the years of The Carpenters TV specials I saw you change from the Innocent Oreo-cookie-and-milk-eyed girl next door to hollowed eyes and a lank body adrift on a candy-colored stage set. You and Richard, by the end, looked drugged—there’s so little energy. The words come out of yr mouth but yr eyes say other things, “Help me, please, I’m lost in my own passive resistance, something went wrong. I wanted to make myself disappear from their control. My parents, Richard, the writers who call me ‘hippie, fat.’ Since I was, like most girls, brought up to be polite and considerate, I figured no one would notice anything wrong—as long as, outwardly, I continued to do what was expected of me. Maybe they could control all the outward aspects of my life, but my body is all in my control. I can make myself smaller. I can disappear. I can starve myself to death and they won’t know it. My voice will never give me away. They’re not my words. No one will guess my pain. But I will make the words my own because I have to express myself somehow. Pain is not perfect so there is no place in Richard’s life for it. I have to be perfect too. I must be thin so I’m perfect. Was I a teenager once? . . . I forget. Now I look middle-aged, with a bad perm and country-western clothes.”

  I must ask you, Karen, who were your role models? Was it yr mother? What kind of books did you like to read? Did anyone ever ask you that question
—what’s it like being a girl in music? What were yr dreams? Did you have any female friends or was it just you and Richard, mom and dad, A&M? Did you ever go running along the sand, feeling the ocean rush up between yr legs? Who is Karen Carpenter, really, besides the sad girl with the extraordinarily beautiful, soulful voice?

  your fan – love,

  kim

  ‘DID ANYONE EVER ASK YOU THAT QUESTION— WHAT’S IT LIKE BEING A GIRL IN MUSIC? WHAT WERE YR DREAMS?’

  – Kim Gordon

  LETTER 23

  POPPY-COCK

  Harry S. Truman to Paul Hume

  6 December 1950

  On the evening of 5 December 1950, a carefully selected 3,500-strong audience filled Washington’s Constitution Hall to witness a singing performance by Margaret Truman, the only child of US President Harry Truman, also in attendance. Despite the generally held consensus that her singing talents were lacking, a polite wave of positive reaction greeted her after the concert, but not from one person who refused to feign delight – the Washington Post’s music critic, Paul Hume, whose honest review the next morning contained the following:

  Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality [. . .] Miss Truman cannot sing very well. She is flat a good deal of the time – more last night than at any time we have heard her in past years [. . .] There are few moments during her recital when one can relax and feel confident that she will make her goal, which is the end of the song [. . .] Miss Truman has not improved in the years we have heard her; she still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish. She communicates almost nothing of the music she presents.

  Naturally, her father was livid, and instantly fired off a letter to Hume. The next day, much to Margaret’s annoyance, it was front-page news.