Xenakis - Psappha

Xenakis - Psappha
Steven Schick

[@elitefighter15035]

I had the honor of studying under Schick at Fresno State University in the mid 80’s. He was a professor that his students were fortunate enough to have. Steve also put the travel bug in me. “ The best way to spend money is to travel”. His idea sent me out of my comfort zone. His almost religious belief in the power of music transcended every one of his live performances. These many years later I still feel and live his influences.

[@benjaminopie]

Even if it wasn't intended, one of my favorite parts of this performance is the sympathetic ringing of the tam tam in the background during the long silences.

[@MajorBilly]

It's as good today as it was when I first heard it thirty years ago!

[@scubasylph]

Phenomenal performance by the world's VIRTUOSO percussionist

[@LJO_Hurts_Pianos]

Before this performance, he was merely a Distinguished Professor of Music at UC San Diego; after this performance, he became a god.

[@slumsquirrel21]

If you've ever heard of Bone Alphabet, Schick memorizes that as well as all of his music. Its amazing

[@badazzpresidents23]

This is seriously one of my favorite pieces of music of all time. Not just in the avant-garde classical category, in ANY category.

[@Rhythm825]

What the fuck is wrong with you?

[@ValzainLumivix]

Nice

[@benjamin9901]

Fantastic! Xenakis' percussion works seem so powerful and primordial to me. I imagine this as the first sounds of the universe inflating from the singularity

[@i_am_a_music_maker5212]

As the name suggests, this piece is based on the poetry of Sappho. It is not meant to represent it emotionally or dynamically, as Sappho wrote mainly romantic poems, but following the rhythmic meter she used, which I think is very creative. Xenakis was truly a genius.

[@TheRealLordRama]

Absolutely stunning music.

[@SweetSweetWaldo]

Superb! Schick might be my favorite living percussionist, and Xenakis is definitely in my top 5 composers!

[@mshakhz]

Incredible! Such a piece and he plays it by heart!

[@unwrinkledear]

i love how nonchalant the body language is despite the intense violence and thrusts that the performer is making to achieve to achieve the correct velocity of sound = it all comes out in the music.

[@AlexPetcu]

Also I really think a piece like this has to be experienced live rather than listened to (or even watched on youtube). I saw this performed live when I was 15 and I didn't understand a thing of what was going on but was quaking in my boots for the entire thing. It's definitely a really powerful piece and the feeling you get is like being in a cinema watching a thriller as opposed to a musical.

[@CaseyCangelosi]

awsome! thanks very much for posting this

[@unwrinkledear]

sure, nowadays a performance of this piece becomes about a certain kind of virtuosity, but what this particular kind of virtuosity makes shine through, in this instance, is some absolutely incredible music.

[@elitefighter15035]

A true artist.

[@lukasfcv]

Great musician.

[@lucaslambers5315]

The portion right before the end with the big drum slaps and the new elephant like craziness going is quite climactic.

[@keebr]

richtomes, i think you are dismissing this because all you're hearing is "play rhythm on a bunch of drums." You have to very carefully follow the rhythm, not just notice that it is there. Listen to this carefully and ask yourself questions. Where do rhythmic elements recur, and where does he introduce new ones? Which ones recur and which ones keep changing? How fast do they change? Where does the music get faster and where does it slow down? Where does it get dense and where is it very open?

[@mjollner23]

As a musician, percussionist even, I am extremely passionate about pleasing a crowd. It's expressing something and making other people feel it that gets me going. As a musician I see a decrease in concert-attendance(atleast in sweden), I see cuts in funding(long before the "crisis) and I see more and more debate about why contemporary music should even be supported.

[@Ted_Swayinghill]

Wow I'm just simply amazed!

[@keebr]

The rhythmic structures in the piece are based on Sapphic meter (hence the name - "Psappha" is an archaic spelling if "Sappha"). The instruments themselves are left for the performer to choose because timbre only serves to punctuate the time. This piece is like poetry stripped of words. Whether you like that idea or not, it is definitely not random nor pathetic.

[@ibanezmonsterg]

love it...... what's interesting is how some ideas in Xenakis' percussion pieces can even be related to his thought process for orchestra- for example, the repeated note section not too far from the ending...

[@madderbass]

This is an amazing piece! I LOVE the ending!

[@egrieg]

se ha aprendido esa obra de multipercusion de memoria, solo me queda una cosa por decir: FRIKIIII!!!! (con todos los repetos)

[@MicoAquinoComposer]

Great performance!

[@crowe]

GOLD!

[@heteronomyisthecondition]

really excellent editing...

[@kakofatus]

You shouldn't worry about it... Just let people do the music they want to do.

[@slumsquirrel21]

The beauty of Xenakis' pieces is that they were all constructed mathematically. He never even picked up an instrument. Sure, maybe after hearing it you could compose it, but suppose you had to create a piece from scratch based off a building you designed, without touching an instrument.

[@donna30044]

A challenge: open two windows with this piece in both. Play both with about 1 second delay between channels. AWESOME!

[@eucezinha]

Complexity and the dificulty for the interpreter is not an issue when the piece is dam good!

[@aekengren]

Yes, it is worth the work.

[@playswithpassion]

Bone Alphabet is insane...did you know that nobody has ever actually played the full score 100% accurately...Schick got about 85% of it and that's the most anyone's ever gotten from it so far...incredible.

[@Adelaidis]

Wow, you have to be quite great musician to play something like that perfectly. Very well.

[@karoloandria]

awesome

[@AlexPetcu]

I remember the part where there is silence except for a really strong bass drum note every now and again. The silence is long enough so that you lose track of the timing so there's almost a fear of when the next note strike will occur.

[@nadavnaz2]

Wow!

[@victorcolosio]

As long as u manage to express the desired idea, objective or sentiment, everythings cool.. it doesnt matter by which means u do so... so.. he could have stayed there hitting just one of those pans with just one stick during 10 minutes and im sure u wouldve recieved a certain feeling much different from the one u recieved watching and hearing the video. What i mean, there are thousands of combinations and expresssions, this is the

[@frookoofrookoo]

I don't If this Music Is Good but this guy got soul

[@victorcolosio]

xenakis lived during the war, much of his music is influenced by gunshots and the sound of horror, nevertheless this is pure beauty of mathematics people, and i believe it doesnt matter by which means u obtain to express the right sentiment or idea.

[@matteomaida6972]

MERAVIGLIA

[@badazzpresidents23]

And all of a sudden I have a new favorite composition

[@playswithpassion]

i dig what you have to say...you definitely know your stuff which is refreshing. Exactly...writing complex for the sake of complexity is kind of ridiculous really. It really is a fine line with music that dense in reading as to whether or not it is well crafted and technically pushing the boundaries or if it's really a series of shredding exercises made with no real musical idea to tie it all together. Interesting stuff...

[@ReneNikolaou]

well done to the percussionist !!!

[@ZachHale8]

this piece only makes sense if played this well...in hommage to Xenakis, what a great composer

[@intervalkid]

Wow. That's trivial.

[@cephalopod]

I don't remember the exact details, but I read an essay connecting time relationships in this piece to Jean Piaget's findings on the limits of time-based pattern perception. I.e. after a certain length of silence it is impossible for the human mind to perceive the next event as part of a pattern.. there is much more to it then that but that is the basic concept, and should show you that the long rests are a deliberate structural and perceptual consideration.

[@PerroneKayser]

sounds like girl on girl loving to me

[@cskillet2003]

Nice!... Played this one before and gave up on trying to memorize it. Hard to do especially with the interesting notation!

[@noddymoran]

@charlesreid1 them three people are Steve Tyler, Randy Jackson and Jennifer Lopez!

[@TheWONGEDAN7]

remember when I was studied percussion at Institut Kesenian Jakarta, instructured by Ron reeves :) where are u now ron. saya, danar :) txs so must :)

[@AlexPetcu]

@noddymoran He plays, just like anyone else would. Nobody plays music and solves partial differential equations every second or something. He has his own interpretation though and another person playing this will make it sound different (same order of notes, etc, but different character). I personally prefer a much more dramatic interpretation but everyone has their own. You should listen to "Rebonds" as well by the same composer

[@Jack458111]

yeah man youre totally right, lets hang out and listen to fall out boy.

[@TallFastLoud]

@intervalkid define: "so much better". Or do you just mean you would like it more? Here's a hint, stop trying to make "objective" criticisms of things when the real problem is that, at the end of the day, you just happen to not enjoy it but are afraid to be so forthcoming (i.e. that your criticism is subjective). You don't like it. That's okay. Just quit trying to justify it.

[@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist]

Spot -on

[@Berliozboy]

@intervalkid the Descartes refutation train left like awhile ago...

[@intervalkid]

@Berliozboy What I mean by Descartes refutation is that nobody has been able to prove the existence of the outside world philisophically, only the thinker. It's been 400 years and nobody's done it.

[@linnekss]

La música contemporanea no es para todo el mundo; es dificil entenderla, y mucho más la música estocástica de Xenakis

[@grandexandi]

damn

[@richtomes]

I do have some authentic tribal drumming recordings picked up in South Africa and though they are considerably more powerful than this the language is extremely similar.

[@pastrychef1985]

This guy looks like Johnathan Meades, but at least has a modicum of talent...in fact a lot of talent.

[@richtomes]

I always make time for intelligent conversation about music - you should too if music interests you - you might expand your knowledge.

[@AlexPetcu]

Yes that's right, the ears just need to be opened a little. Also I don't think the average person can't get something from this, same with other good contemporary music. You don't need to understand or be able to analyse what's going on to get something from it (which unfortunately is what many people think). All you need is an open mind and an attention span longer than 5 seconds (which many people don't have).

[@papavereus]

It IS great performace. The music great as well. georgesman33, if you could play sth like that, I am interested to listen to it.

[@Bartkei]

I know what you mean moiliryc. But I would still argue that he actually did write it. In this case, the algorithm is what he wrote.

[@DanielRock]

WHAT.... WHAT!!!

[@badazzpresidents23]

If you like this, you should also check out his performance of Zyklus by Stockhausen :)

[@victorcolosio]

new music. numbers.. infinite... and the same as the coinception of einsteins time and space.. everything is different now

[@playswithpassion]

I know what you mean but I've always been sentimental towards the aspect of personality from humans playing the music...sure a computer could hit every note perfectly without any flaws as written...but it's what is in between the notes on the page that real musicianship is made from...I guess that's just how I see it though.

[@dammitpeterable]

shhoo agressive

[@JohnRSamples]

@audiotheaudio. I am sorry I missed these celebrations. My plane was delayed because of snow.

[@mjollner23]

Be stubborn, passionate, artsy all you want but we need to please a (larger) crowd... Or this downward spiral will only continue until all the smaller institutions have all died from lack of funding. This in turn, in the long run, will result in fewer and fewer kids actually ever hearing classical music and learning an instrument. I hope I'm wrong, time will tell... I rest my case...

[@WilliamBeuche]

Does anyone know what the instruments he's playing at the end of the piece? They sound amazing and I have never seen or heard of them before. They appear to be square shaped, hollow metal tubes cut to various lengths.

[@WilliamBeuche]

Can you link to a Rhianna video? I searched and all I found was an artist named Rihanna...

[@deadinapark]

What is wrong with computers playing music? Why can't computers and humans both play music with out there being some sort of competition? Computers are like extensions of the human experience. I doubt there are many composers who actively seek to write unplayable music. If so, I'd love to hear their stuff.

[@WilliamBeuche]

Thanks for the reply, at least I have a name now! Does anyone know where I can get my hands on some Sixxen (sometimes spelled "Six-Xen") bars? Or what they are made from? Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

[@papavereus]

Schick needed 800 hours to play this piece like this. Now, do you know what genius means?

[@intervalkid]

@intervalkid Listen to some Gamelan rummng from Indonesia to see where he really came up with most of these ideas.

[@richtomes]

Be accurate - I haven't denigrated any culture. What I have denigrated is an art movement which ever since the late 20th century has been trying to take the consonant harmony, melody and wide emotional range out of serious music, to replace it with just about anything which avoids these fundamentals.

[@richtomes]

Understand what ? That it has become fashionable to accept shoddy minimalist ga ga as a substitute for the incredible richness, invention and sophistication of a great tradition ? Great composers are turning in their graves.

[@pixarbuff]

The edit cuts out the "slow" part . . .

[@supernovasky]

Its Xenakis thats pretty much expected and there are a few patterns throughout but thats not the purpose of his music.

[@icydarkness]

were can i get the notes from?

[@ryanseyedian1586]

what's with the edit at 3:52 ??? WHY?

[@intervalkid]

@ohlordbabyjesus I wasn't talking about the music sounding intellectual but rather the explanation of how he wrote it. Don't tell me that his process of writing this isn't intellectualized when he bases most of his work on oriental folk music, using mathematical and philisophical explanations to gain peoples interest and hide the sources.

[@papavereus]

@xguitarxchan Well, if you had known Schick's job, you would have called this drum set pretty normal. Schick used to play... on everything, what can make a good sound. On your empty head probably too...

[@jeffreyrk]

there's like a minute cut out at 3:52

[@richtomes]

The term "minimalist" is often applied colloquially to designate anything which is spare or stripped to its essentials. This might not be minimilist music Glass style, but when compared to the richness of harmonic and rhymic invention of the great composers it is pretty poor fare. Tribal drumming is really better left to the native people of 3rd world countries - they do it far better than we do. Rather assimilate and develop the rich music tradition we created over centuries along with clothes.

[@papavereus]

@ohlordbabyjesus don't think so. just very busy ;-)

[@egw15]

he plays it whithout reading a partion?

[@Faaip0de0oiad]

Yes, I was being ironic about the "second tier" comment from taskmg3

[@suzielovesmusic]

wow, leather pants.....

[@nelgstrebor]

i don't understand the long rests, im assuming they are on beat. It seems like its forcing me to click in my head. nice bd accents though id like to see him do that while playing those metal things with his hands.haha.

[@heidegger1777]

@WildcatDrummer8 sin ánimo de ofender, creo que no tiene usted cultura musical contemporanea, por lo que no puede disfrutar de piezas como esta que son, hoy día, clásicas. Abra su mente, busque la belleza más allá de los estereotipos culturales tópicos de nuestros días; contemple las referencias a otras edades y otras culturas, y si no posee la cultura histórica y etnólogica necesaria, dejese sugerir un viaje a otras civilizaciones y otros tiempos que también pueden ser suyos.

[@Faaip0de0oiad]

Not all of Xenakis pieces were constructed with mathematics. I don't think thats the "beauty" of them either, just as the sonata form isn't the beauty of Mozart's music.

[@OktoPlasm]

you are probably missing something. Schick is superman.

[@intervalkid]

Though I don't like this piece I have found that Xanakis did in fact give credit to his folk influences at other times so I don't find him to be a bullshitter anymore.

[@katamiaennoia]

ok, he is good [maybe the recording isn't so good], but i thing he just played the difficult piece. This piece is more powerful than this! He couldn't help braking the work into smaller pieces in his mind. [i think, dramatourgy staff...]

[@KhagarBalugrak]

Its