Charles Ives

I’m most often moved by words. No, that’s not right. I’m most often moved by music. No.

A conundrum. I guess it’s more that I’m moved by either or both. I have an amateur’s ear for both music and words; perhaps if I had ever mastered either I could discuss what all this means.

To go back to the beginning, to what most recently moved me: a piece in The New York Review about a book recently published by Stephen Budiansky about Charles Ives. I’ve never been a fan of Ives’s music, and apparently I’m not alone in that. What caught me in this review was the first sentence: “Charles Ives, the crazy and brilliant patriarch of American music, loved a good cacophony.” What I remember of Ives’s music is just that: cacophony. I find most modern music difficult, with a few exceptions such as the work of Aaron Copeland and others who have written for the movies. Perhaps, I thought, I can get something from this.

I assume that Jeremy Denk, the author of the review, was reporting more or less what the book’s author said about Ives, but Budiansky is actually quoted very little; indeed, his name is not included very often in the piece. But no matter. What I read was the first clear description I’ve seen of what Ives thought and felt and composed. He was considered naïve and amateurish by some of his more well-known contemporary composers, and a genius by others. The core of the controversy, it seems, stems from his use of traditional and easy melodies juxtaposed against dissonant crashes and conflicting themes. It’s difficult music to understand.

Ordinarily, such esoterica would have caused me to turn the page and look for something I could follow more easily (my amateur’s ear). But I found myself hooked. Denk obviously admires Ives. He explains what all the dissonance and conflicting passages mean, and at the end I realized “I got it!”

Throughout the review, I wished I could hear the passages he describes. If I had recordings of Ives’s music I would have been tempted to put them on and listen, even though I’d have to wade through a lot of music just to find the examples, and I know from experience that the distraction of that process spoils the curiosity that has led me there. I get lost. But what was amazing to me, just reading Denk’s words gave me a sense of Ives that I’ve never experienced before. Now I need to hear some of that music while I’m still in the thrall of the prose. I’ll be looking for those little things that he says represents what Ives meant in his music. I suppose that’s what reviews are for: to expand one’s curiosity.

Would I ever get to the point where I’d choose to listen to Ives more than to Rachmaninoff? Not likely. I’m a romantic about a lot of things. Still, I have curiosity about the rest of the world; that’s why I read things like the New York Review. At my age, my neurons are disappearing faster than I can build them, so there’s no way I can become who I always thought was my destiny. (Welcome to the club, my father would say if he were still around.) I have to be content to occasionally feeling moved.

I Am My Grandfather

Friday, May 23, 2014

4:31 AM

I've been tinkering lately with gadgets. The most recent one is a photo lamp made from an array of LEDs, those ubiquitous little lights that have become the next big thing in household and automotive lighting, promising to replace the incandescent light bulbs and even the fluorescent tubes that have been standard for many years. My homemade lamp, constructed from a brownie cake pan, a few pieces of hardware and strips of LEDs pasted onto a sheet of plastic, nearly 500 of them, powered by a surplus 12-volt power supply salvaged from an old laptop computer. Mounted on a tripod, it throws a respectable flood of light for portraiture. I understand the professionals are using such LED-powered lights, but this one cost only a few dollars and gave me the opportunity to build something again. Forty or fifty years ago, I was obsessed with tinkering, having built my own music systems and cobbled-together photographic gear, and my first three or four computers.

My grandfather was like that. I remember visiting him once after he had retired, and marveling at his gadgets. He happened to have been a watchmaker for a while during the depression, and had built a little projector for examining the gears in women's watches. Discovering a burr on a gear tooth, he could smooth the tiny part so that it would function properly.

Before he retired, he installed giant hydroelectric turbines for General Electric all over the world. Self-taught, he had attended school only through the fourth grade, learning algebra from books and eventually becoming a licensed engineer.

I was about twenty when I had some time to get to know him. By then he was past his prime, trying to be useful with the knowledge he had accumulated over the years but no longer sharp enough to compete in a changing industrial milieu.

I wonder now what he thought about, sitting in his little retirement cabin in the woods, watching the world go on without him, tinkering with watches and other gadgets. No, I guess I don't have to wonder, because I'm caught up in the same old age, remembering the curiosities and occasional successes of a long life, feeling pride in accomplishing but knowing at the same time that none of it has changed the world; none of it will be known by anyone in another decade. The people who knew his work are mostly dead themselves. The relics of his life's efforts are now rusting in abandoned power plants and junk yards. It reminds me of some of the episodes of Star Trek.

Maybe it's an age thing, to dwell on the past. We old guys don't have much future to contemplate, no plans, few dreams. It just seems a shame that those little contributions we've made to the progress of the world would soon disappear so completely. They seemed too important at the time to become like sand paintings, done only to be erased on completion.

At least I know that I'm not alone.My grandfather must have gone through this. I remember him, but few others do, and in another generation no one will. And the same thing will happen to me.