mellysblog

Apple Picking

for my sins.... despite the fact that I am not Jewish.

I have just completed my third High Ho @ Hebrew Tabernacle located at 185th and Fort Washington...Dr. Ruth's Temple. She was there, I couldn't see her though because I was sitting in a room about 10 ft wide by 12 feet long, phoning in the Kedusha's via mic while clad in my usual High Ho wardrobe of jeans, a sweatshirt and studiously engrossed in the current issue of BITCH magazine in between the Kadosh Ata's and Baruch Schem's.....

Today was Yom Kippur, the day that makes me question why I do this once a year. I started singing at 9:30 AM, finished at 7:27. Yes, I kept track of the time, as I have the past three years. Jesus Christ....I have about three working brain cells and they're all screaming at me in harmonic minor... NO MORE!!!!!

I'll tell you this: High Holidays are a big deal in the Jewish church, so big that they sell tickets to them....and I guess I should count myself lucky to make some ridiculously easy cash for the time being. Decreasing attendance numbers in the temple year after year, and it's only a matter of time before they cut the choir.

In fact this year I was running late for Rosh Hashana, and as I sprinted toward the door, I was greeted by the president of the congregation holding the door for what I assumed was a late soprano. When I entered the choir crawl space and took my seat next to my mic, I was informed that there weren't enough people in the congregation for a Torah Service.... we needed a minyan (apparently 11 Jews)... which is kind of funny when one thinks of the phrase Satan and his minions...really just 11 Jews and a Satan they don't believe in...

And I'm spent......

Rock and Sand


Quick Post... I feel inclined to depart some Melly wisdom on you. Those of you who know me and love me for who I am have come to terms with my intensity for details, and organization. I've recently come across an application that's kinda awesome, so I thought I'd do a post on it. Sign up for TaDa List. Seriously.

Date it, label it, whatever. This ap helps you keep a running list of things that need to be accomplished and crossed off throughout the day. You can edit it, and e-mail yourself, or someone else the list. You can also subscribe to changes on the list in an RSS feeder, this is ideal if you're a project coordinator.

I've been keeping two lists, one for general things that I need to do and one for things that I need to do for my day job. I then take that list and break those items down based on 'sand' and 'rock' Rock is an task that can only be accomplished with a set amount of time and concentration, Sand is a task that I can chip away at while the phone is ringing off the hook, and I'm gchatting with my sister. I've learned recently that the key to getting things accomplished and staying focused is toggling back and forth between a rock task and a sand task. You're always accomplishing something, and alternating between more concentrated tasks keeps me alert. At the end of the day, I change the date, and re-email myself the list.

Writing a blog post was something on my list of things to do today...filed under 'sand'. Check.

Heading upstate today with George Steel's Vox Ensemble to perform the Tallis Spem in Allium and the Ligeti Lux Aeterna, both amazing pieces of choral lit. Joining us on the program will be the Albany Symphony and ICE, including Mafoo to open the new Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at RPI. Apparently the hall is suspended or something...


I'm just psyched to perform these two pieces. I've performed the Tallis before, and for those of you that don't know it, or have never experienced it live, it's a 40 part motet. 8 choirs of SATBB, and is traditionally performed in the round for maximum effect. It's chock full of your typical Tudor show stopper moments, imitation and false relations (which make me hot all over)... how does one write 40 independent lines of counterpoint?? God, I don't know... but he does it, simply and slowly, beginning choir by choir sometimes with two voices in duet, moving from choir to choir and then back around, some antiphonal stuff from side to side, and then finally at measure 40 (and I'll talk about the numbers cuz I'm really nerdy like that) ALL 40 voices enter, and it's HOT.

Finally, the Ligeti. Damn. My first experience with this piece. 16 lines, again one on a part, which is near impossible with the staggered phrasing.... I'm quite skeptical of sacred text settings done by contemporary composers, mainly because the text stress and rhetoric are often lost for the sake of extended technique and all that jazz. Not knowing much about Ligeti, this sort of pointillistic approach to the text was jarring at first, but he contrasts the shorter sections with sustained suspended chords that keep the overall textual ideas moving. The piece is essentially a canon, with each of the parts moving with a different microbeat, 6,5,4,3, a soundsplash of chromaticism interspersed with real sexy consonants. The result is that someone always makes it to the end first, and has to wait for the others to catch up. That moment of moving from the dissonance to the sonority of the unison pitch gets me every time. It's truly amazing stuff.

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting lately. This is for two reasons:
1. I've been insanely busy with shows.
2. I've been insanely neurotic about my writing...

Fuck that. From a review of my 8/18 - 8/23 run of the Newspeak Non Sequitur show at the Flea:

It should come as no surprise the most transportive piece was that of composer David First's adaptation of Ansel Berrigan's dark and lyrical " Let Us Sample Protection Together." David First, one of Philadelphia's founding father's of experimental ambient sound, elevates Mellissa Hughes' vocal to hallucinogenic heights. "...Protection Together" felt like the longest single performance of the evening, but may have been surpassed in length by the cheerfully disjointed closing piece, "What Remains". If there can be any complaint, it is that Hughes' Sarah Brightman-esque vocals favored operatic stylings in favor of elocution; we could not always understand Berrigan's words, which is a shame since they convey perfectly the ambivalence of the outsider artist struggling to survive:
I won't belong to this scripted conversation/Though I might play along.

I HATE Sarah Brightman....tremendously. This is HILARIOUS. I think by operatic stylings they mean I used a little bit of vib above the staff, like once or twice to get through a phrase. I don't vib if a composer specifally says not to, because the human voice is actually capable of doing both... however, la voce was really really really tired, and it's just easier up there to let her rip when I start feeling tight. But interesting because so many people commented on how they could understand every word, even when the range was extended...hmmm.

My theory: my purple dress and sparkle leggings and Aqua-Net sprayed CURE hairstyle brought this to mind?

Tonight's the last chance to catch "NYC's new music supergroup" SIGNAL performing You Are Variations and Music for 18 of Steve Reich @ LPR, my home away from home this past week. Last night was pretty magical, despite how long the set change took. There was one guy heckling about a sound issue before we began, and I admit he was really getting to me, but he was quiet once we started, and was actually one of the first up on his feet as soon as it was over. I've never performed a one hour piece of that intensity before, combine that level of concentration with literally hundreds of people standing or sitting on the floor, completely surrounding the ensemble, it was pretty freaking awesome. The music itself is not so much difficult, it's just really taxing (there are three movements where I sing the same pitch for five minutes each, not hard, just EXHAUSTING) and, even scarier, it can unravel at the slightest waver in concentration. I worked my ass off on that piece. I can't remember the last time I was left speechless after a performance, just emotionally, physically, mentally spent, and in desperate need of a beer, well several of them. I grabbed the one pic I could find on the web this morning for ya. So Percussion lays down a mean groove, and groove we do. My friend commented that it was the best performance of 18 he had seen yet, and that Europeans need to hear this type of Reich as their performances tend to be highly accurate but square. Plus, when you're playing with 18 (technically 20) of your bad ass friends, it's hard not to groove your ass off. My God, this group needs to tour!!

Tix are $25, I know, I know... And there are 27 of us playing You Are, so no comps, but come on, it's Music for 18, how often do you get to see that live?? Steve Reich will be in attendance this evening, so come on out!!!

click blog title if video doesn't show up in RSS Feeder

the new buzz word is seminal people....

If only feminism had realized 40 years ago that the struggle for equality would have over if we wore skirts and bred like stock pigs.

Elroy Riggs, esteemed op-ed writer for the Central Kentucky News Journal has unlocked the mystery of the rising divorce rate.... The Pillsbury Doughboy.

He harkens to a time when good little wifey's rose early to make homemade biscuits for their husbands.... now the saddest sound in the world is the pop-pop-pop of the perforated can as "apathetic" women allow a plump doughboy to fulfill their wifely duties.

It is time, women of America, to come to your senses. Halt the alarming increase in the divorce rate. Bring the homemade biscuit back to your breakfast table. We can all work together. You make 'em, we'll eat 'em. What could be more fair? I must insist on taking a hard line on this matter.

Fair? What could be more fair?? Hmmm.. how about Elroy making breakfast more frequently than Mother's Day? That might be the inklings of the utter beginnings of fair. He then goes on to list several cookbooks he's found that seem to have decent authentic biscuit recipes, and exclaims how inexpensive and relatively easy and quick they would be to assemble.... Only 12 minutes to bake!!

Who has 12 minutes to bake biscuits every morning? Maybe on Christmas morning, or your birthday if biscuits are your kind of thing, but every morning? Perhaps Elroy should try making them himself, and experience first hand the joys of cooking with yeast, which can be real finicky. My guess, Elroy's wife (assuming he has one) has some very good reasons for not rising early to make the biscuits...

Growing up, the toaster was my best friend at breakfast time, and my sis and I packed our own lunches as soon as we were old enough (around 9 I think). This was mainly to give my Mom a break because my father to this day *can't* fix anything for himself, so my she rises early and makes him breakfast, packs his lunch (usually leftovers in tupperware) and makes dinner when she gets home from work. I'll say that again, when SHE gets home from work.

When I'm home, I cook dinner to make things run smoother for everyone, and because I LOVE cooking in Mom's kitchen, (my vagina is agreeing with me as I type) but I would have clubbed my father over the head with a griddle a decade ago, and he knows it. He is one of many men out there who are still mystified by the kitchen. Elroy, I'm guessing, like my folks, is of the mindset that women keep the home, even if a large number of those women are also working...It's just soooo outdated, even if it is somewhat cutesy.

You make 'em, we'll eat 'em Mr. Riggs???? Dude, you want 'em, you make 'em!! Honestly, what could be more fair than that?

A Podcast with Jacob Cooper, composer of TimberBrit is up at New Amsterdam. Jacob gives a great explanation as to some of the troubles young composers have today in writing Opera, or Popera, or Indie Operas...whatever you wanna call it.

Below is an excerpt from Jacob Cooper's TimberBrit, recorded at the Tank in May of 2008, with the help of Ted Hearne, David Skidmore, Trevor Guereckis, James Moore and JJ Lind. Come check out a staged performance of it August 16th as part of the East River Music Project, in which I'll also be performing in Matt Marks' The Little Death.... that nihilistic post-Christian pop musical I'm always talking about. Very exciting times indeed....


Every time I talk about TimberBrit I feel an explanation is needed. What you are listening/viewing are time stretched samples from pop songs that have been re-orchestrated for rock band and superimposed with highly tragic lyrics. Stupid-titles, as I've always lovingly called them, are in this case very helpful!! A beautiful show/TimberBrit's melodies are derived from the choruses of Brit's Hit me baby,one more time, and The Killer's Mr. Brightside. So follow that bouncing ball everyone!!

inspiring, huh?????

Radio personality Michael Savage stated this week that Autism is 'a fraud, a racket. ... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' "

I'd like to see Michael Savage transport a five year old autistic boy on the F train on Friday evening during rush hour, and see who's screaming and crying like an idiot.... my guess, and from personal experience, it would be him. Asshole.

Full scoop here, and thanks to Gurf for the link.

While I was at Yale I participated in a project entitled El Salto, or The Leap. My co-collaborators and I chose pieces of music and literature which, when stripped from their original purposes and placed next to other forms of media resulted in a new experience for the listener.

For me, as a student of the Institute of Sacred Music, I was in constant contact with music, art, and writing which I found to be both beautiful and challenging, but I was not a firm believer in the Christian faith. I found as much aesthetic value in a Nick Drake song as I did with an aria from Bach's St. John Passion. Finally, we were working on a non-churchy non-preachy venue for experiencing 'new' music in a completely new context.

Robin McClellan, fellow composer and collaborator has uploaded a video on El Salto. The video is not of the highest quality, but he gives a great explanation into the motivation behind this idea. We're hoping to start it up again in the city, now that we've all left the ivy-league nest. I'll be sure to keep you posted. (And the singing you hear is me, including a segment of my loop pedal performance of Bjork's Desiring Constellation- which I STILL don't have a decent recording of!!! And be sure to check out Robin's El-Salto song at the end, inspired by Gaelic congretational Psalm singing.)

Psssstt..... someone remind McCain that he voted AGAINST requiring insurance providers to cover birth control costs. You can see he's kind of scratching his head there...didn't I vote on that, wait,did I even attend that vote?.....Errrr