Peter Meckel, founder of the 54-year-old Hidden Valley Music Seminars, used to drive through the Angeles National Forest.
“I would drive by rolling hills of gorgeous green vegetation,” he says. “I thought it was lovely.”
Then he went there with an ecologist who told him that the vegetation came from seeds that contain a bit of water and can lay dormant underground for decades. When a fire comes through, it boils the moisture inside, pops open the husk, and the seed emerges into soil freshly enriched with black carbon.
That’s what he wants to do with his Carmel Valley Library First Saturday presentation “Making Music Meaningful.”
“People are often intimidated being in a situation where they’re hearing serious music,” he says. “Especially classical. They feel uncomfortable about it.”
He says music is dependent on an aesthetic experience tied to knowledge. His theory is that if people get acquainted with a work of “serious” music – its history, composer, composition or players – then it can unlock deeper complexities and a higher order of experience.
He defines serious music as music with a wider, more sophisticated breadth of language, like classical or jazz music, as opposed to folk, pop and rock.
He points to Elliott Carter’s Woodwind Quintet, a work he says others called brilliant but that he could not fathom. It wasn’t until he spoke to local composer Stephen Tosh (who died this year), that he got it.
“He told me, ‘You’re listening to them incorrectly. You’re listening horizontally. Listen to this chord change to this chord, the sound from one moment to the next, instead of a melody to carry you.’”
And that did it. He just needed a key.
“You [don’t] have to understand all the complexity,” he says. “It’s not an intellectual realm.”
(Although it sure sounds like it.)
After the presentation, attendees can go down the block to the Hidden Valley Music Seminar Theater to apply Meckel’s lessons to the Hidden Valley String Orchestra’s concert of English composers Hubert Parry, Edward Elgar, John Ireland and Vaughan Williams.
But maybe first, after Meckel’s presentation, attendees should study up – after all, they’re already at a library – on these composers to make for a richer listening experience.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.