Chapter 7: Ithaca

Well, now that I'm in the part of Maine that actually has internet (Portland), I can keep working on this blog thingy.

Let me be clear: when I say "Sorry for being so late updating," I'm not actually apologizing to anyone except myself. I'm fully aware that this is My Trip and there are no rules. I don't have to update with frequency, I don't have to update at all, unless I want to.

But I want to keep up with this, so sorry for being so late updating.

(Also, this was going to be a large and emotional post, so I didn't want to half-ass it.)

Last Sunday

Ithaca. 

The one in New York, not the one in Greece – you can tell, because there's no crowd of drunk guys at the bar fighting over some chick named Penelope. (Classics joke!)

For just under the past 150 years, Ithaca, NY has been home to Cornell University (in varying forms). That, by itself, is a good reason to visit (not to mention the many fun little shops and cafés downtown).

But for a while in the 1970s, Ithaca was also where my dad was working on his Doctorate of Musical Arts. And that's really why I wanted to visit. Having just finished college myself, I wanted to see what it was like for my parents. So Sunday morning, I woke up and got myself over to downtown, had a bagel, and went for a walk around the campus.

I spent a bunch of time in the library's reference section with old Cornell University Student Rosters, trying to find mention of my dad. I was really confused, because the internet was telling me he finished his doctorate in 1990, but that sounded much too late to me. So I looked through all the books from 1980 through 1990, and found no reference there. (I tried calling my mom, but I forgot she was in the middle of performing at the Opera in the Park concert, so I muddled around on my own for a while.)

Of course, he ended his official study at Cornell just before those dates, and finished his doctorate years later, which is why he wasn't showing up in those books. As soon as I had the right dates (1986-) I found him easily!

HELLER Duane Lynn

152 Seven Mile Dr

PO Bx 1497 Cody WY 82414

This was in the Olin Library on Cornell campus; to find more cool things, I went over to the Lincoln Building, home of the music department.

The music library is up on the second floor, and it's huge and awesome. I worked in the music section at Lawrence all four years I attended, and I'm really glad our collection is smaller than Cornell's because I would never keep that place organized, ever. 

They do have a few scores we don't, though. Including:

"Bagatelles"

"The Ghost Child"

"Ballad: Reading Gaol"

"A shore so distant"

"Pieces in Various Styles"

"Pieces in Various Styles (selections)"

Those are all pieces that my dad wrote. In print. With Library of Congress call numbers.

I can't even handle the awesome.

Seriously, I sat there for a solid 10 minutes with each score, just thinking, "This is SO COOL."

(In case anyone wasn't already aware – which is fine – my dad died about four and a half years ago, so you can imagine the mixed emotions that I got by seeing things that he'd accomplished in his life.)

He was in good company on the shelves, too:

Dad liked Hindemith :)

I spent a couple of hours just going from one score to the next, looking through the pages. They were all self-published, and the bindings were just the ones the library put on, so there were some real gems when I opened them up.

Including this one, where the first page has his address written in what I'm pretty sure is his handwriting, but it also looks like mine (but it can't possibly be). Also the zip code is wrong. Which is odd. 

The second part of the text is definitely his writing, and reads: 

"The ghost child":

concerto for piano (Julia)

and chamber ensemble

(players with just 3 or 4 years experience)

That was really weird to see written down, since I'm pretty sure he started "Ghost Child" in the '80s and finished it in 1990. I wasn't born until July of 1991. Weirdness! And also coolness.

Because on the title page, there's a post-it note. From 1990. 

You'd need years of practice to read my dad's writing, but it says:

I'm really un-

committed to this

title, but haven't

found a better as yet

D

I almost took it down to show the music librarian – look, the composer left a post-it note! – but I didn't know if he'd be required to take it off, and I think it should stay there. Shh, don't tell anyone.

It was neat reading all the notes in the margins, and the prefaces to each piece. Since so many of them were self-published, sometimes the notes were just taped to the inside cover:

And sometimes they were neatly typed up:

For anyone who is musically-inclined and interested, this is what aleatory notation can look like.  

Some pieces also had notes at the end, like this one:

(Ithaca / over on Atlantic / West Hendred 10/23/84)

Basically, it was a really fun afternoon spending time thinking about my dad, and about music. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, it occurred to me how glad I am that both my parents happened to be professional musicians. Growing up in a house full of music is, I think, a really neat thing.

Oh, and there was poetry, too. Gene Patterson-Black, one of my dad's very best friends, is a poet whose work was the inspiration/partner to some of my dad's pieces. Orpheus and Euridice is one such piece.

Title page (text follows)

"Orpheus' singing was said to have the power to calm storms, to make rivers change their course, to make trees uproot and follow him. When his wife Eurydice died, Orpheus descended into Hades, and through his singing convinced Pluto, the King of the Underworld, to allow Eurydice to return to life. He was granted his request, provided he did not look back at Eurydice until they had reached the upper world. As they ascended, Orpheus turned to be certain Eurydice was following him, and she was lost a second time, forever. Orpheus' grief was inconsolable, and he wandered lamenting through the forests of Thrace. There are various endings given to the tale, including Apollo restoring Eurydice's life yet again. In this ending, the maenads, wild women from Thrace, attempted to console Orpheus, but he refused to cease his laments, and this insult aroused such fury in them that they fell upon him, tearing him to pieces.

The concerto was inspired by a version of the tale by poet Gene Patterson-Black. In this insightful poem, Eurydice in death perceives the patterns and order that connect all things, patterns which Orpheus destroys by bringing her back to life. Her horror at this disruption of existence causes her to cry out, and when Orpheus turns to discover why, she is lost again. His lament after her second death is so powerful that only when his song ends in his death is the world free to return to its natural order."

The poem, reproduced as faithfully as I can in terms of format:

-----

Orpheus and Eurydice

   by Gene Patterson-Black

I. The Death of Eurydice

Into the music of the garden

Death

glided

a snake just like the snake in the other garden

She no longer sang with him

her harmony turned agony

and ceased

He was alone.

II. The Plea of Orpheus

No longer choired

his song

grew thin

No art informed it

yet its nature was

what art would imitate

Grown thin

but single in its aim

"Eternal Soul

return my soul  --  

reunite us."

III. Pluto's Domain

She saw in every leaf

its green and brown

the first breath and the last

in every creature

Time

the maze

we walk

from light to light

When the song finished

and she was told to go with the creature

the patterns of existence 

showed broken through

her tears.

IV. The Exile to Reunion

As they climbed his song

prepared the garden

they again would enter

She too sang

the same first wonder

which sang her first discovery

of their garden

But the rose was shadowed

by remembrance of the patterns

that entranced her more than music

patterns each step trampled

When she screamed 

he turned

and she was lost.

V. Orpheus Laments

Circling a center I can never reach

unbalanced by my singleness

Not you, you rocks

nor you, you trees

nor you, you beasts

will satisfy

All rocks are dark

all trees are sere

all beasts are lame

that dance to music mirroring

this crippled garden

Alone

there is no harmony

alone

no hope to resurrect dead roses

Weeping not creating

is alone our comfort

Weep

oh weep, weep, weep

alas

VI. The Death of Orpheus

All wept who heard

No joy sowed the seed

no nurture tilled

no celebration harvested

the pattern of the seasons came to nothing

Through tears

he saw all nature's disarrangement and sensed

the power

coiled to spring when

his song's power

no longer compassed it

His song became an echo

of her broken scream

dismembered limbs linked

patterns

the wind breathed through the grass

-----

Go ahead and let that sit for a minute. It deserves it.

-----

Anyway. The other cool things my dad did that are in that library are the CD recordings of people performing his work:

(Not ALL of these, only about 10)

And also the fancy-schmancy bound copy of his doctoral dissertation!

Part I is a symphony:

Part II is called "A Consideration of Musical Perception: A Composer's Experiment in Perceptual Heirarchy"

. . . I mean, if you're going to write a dissertation, y'might as well pick a boring name for it . . . 

It's a neat thing, though. I skimmed it (it's dissertation-length); a brief summary is that my dad was wondering what parts of music are "more important" to our brains. Rhythm? Pitch? So he "conducted" (haha) some experiments where he'd play examples for people and ask them which ones were different, and why.

Like so:

Play Example A

Play Example B

Q: Is A different from B? How? 

(a) They are the same.

(b) A≠B because of pitch

(c) A≠B because of rhythm

(d) A≠B because of both pitch and rhythm

He took his subjects from a variety of musical backgrounds, because he wanted to see if musical experience had anything to do with how "well" you performed on the test. 

Turns out that most people, regardless of musical experience, can recognize differences in rhythm before they recognize differences in pitch. The more you know!

After hanging out in the music library, I went to find dinner in Ithaca. I ended up at  Moosewood Restaurant, because that's just sort of a good thing to do if you're in the area. We've had a copy of their first cookbook since my parents lived a few blocks away, so it was neat to actually go there.

I had very tasty salmon, green beans, and sweet potatoes, and a super yummy ginger ale made locally.

The only sad bit was that I was developing a cold, so I ended up going straight back to the hotel and going to sleep, instead of going to the concert I wanted to hear (a professor Emeritus who my mom worked for as secretary one year).

But on my way out of town, I saw the house my parents lived in! I think! If I got the address right!

And that was Ithaca. 

I'm typing this up from a Starbucks in Portland, Maine, which is technically open until 11 but I want to get settled for the night. So I'm going to go to my hotel and then see if I can get one more post done tonight.

From Portland, ME . . . 

Julia

(Screw maps, baby sloths are much cuter.)