one word - in 684 of them

Recently the Maestros paid an overnight visit to Victoria Street. At supper, the conversation inevitably turned to the subject of music. Mr Maestro is a classical conductor (a sort of formal Günther Schuller); Mrs Maestro plays one of those funny instruments tucked under the chin and played with cat’s intestines (Joe Venuti played something similar).

With us were the Teachers. Mr Teacher plays a brass horn where the hand is stuck down the bowl (per Julius Watkins) and Mrs Teacher sings in choirs (she’s a sort of diminutive pastoral Bessie Smith). All four guests are deeply immersed in classical music, not necessarily to the exclusion of all other genres but they’ll physically wince if Arlo Guthrie comes on the radio singing “City of New Orleans” and they share the opinion that Chris Barber should be an example of nominative determinism.

During the rhubarb crumble, Mr Maestro used the words “a piece of music.” In my usual simplistic way, I asked if he knew of a single word to replace the phrase “a piece of music.” Now - the Maestros are erudite. They have a vocabulary which would be respected by Samuel Johnson. Yet The Maestro’s response surprised. “There is no word for it,” he asseverated.

In this vast lexicon of linguistic delight known as the English language surely we must afford ourselves the brevity of a single word, I pondered. The answer seems to be no. I ventured several possibilities, but each was politely declined for one reason or another – too specific; too general; also covering other branches of the liberal arts. My favourite was “composition” but that could equally apply to verbal essays, art and digital photography. Next came “opus” but apparently any artisan can lay claim to the word. “Melody” was greeted with derision; “Tune” with disdain.

Later, I flicked through Roget’s with no success and vainly perused lists in the Reader’s Digest Reverse Dictionary (1st Edition – 1989 - £6.50 Oxfam – inscribed with pencil “in print @ £24.95”). Even after surfing the net (is that an obsolete term now – surfing the net?) I remain ignorant of any singular verbal counter-point to “piece of music.”

The search is on. I need a single word meaning “a piece of music.”

While mulling over the problem, I found a Fats Waller album in my favourite charity shop in Boston (Lincolnshire). I’ve never been a fan of Waller. Everything I heard of him as a youth seemed to be novelty music and I could never quite take him seriously. My aversion was compounded by the fact that the piece of music entitled “Sheik of Araby” became my bête noir of jazz. I hated it then and I hate it now.

I noticed with an instinctive chill down my spine that the first track on the album was the black beast. However, I decided extempore that now is the time to give old Fats a second chance. My tastes are changing. I’m older now and perhaps even a little more mature, so… who knows? I bought the album: The Real Fats Waller – RCA Camden – Mono CDN-131, with unusually readable and pragmatic liner notes by Peter Clayton, 1959. Tracks were recorded between 1929 and 1943.

These recording details are given in full because somebody out there has the actual LP. Inside the Waller sleeve I found a pristine copy of Django – HMV – CLP 1249. I mean of course Reinhardt, not the mystifying Bates. I’m not bereft, because the pieces of music are electrifying, but I have them already on CD. They are not what I wanted, but I’m happy enough. At least it’s not Klaus Wunderlich or The Sound of Music.

Presumably someone has my Waller album enclosed in a Django Reinhardt sleeve. I’d like to repatriate the LP with the correct sleeve. Perhaps we can do a swap, either the album or the sleeve; which one matters not. But I think how nice it would be to reunite mother with daughter, especially if at the same time I can solve the problem of finding a single word for “piece of music.” All comments welcome, even in Chinese.

paradox

Surprising myself, I found a new hobby. In recent weeks I’ve taken up painting with acrylics. I can’t draw, so all my efforts are geometrical abstractions. For example, one I’ve just finished is my Grande Opus IV.

The term “Grande Opus” by the way is a portmanteau phrase. I think I’ve invented it because I can’t imagine anyone else combining French and Latin in such a blatantly disrespectful manner. But the alternative term “magnum opus” suggests that greatness is in some way involved and that would be risible when applied to me or any of my exasperated liberal arts.

Yesterday I painted. The Maestros stayed the night before, inevitably encouraging the imbibing of excessive quantities of wine and I was feeling jeune-eyed as we waved them off along Victoria Street in the morning. To recover, I decided to spend a relaxing day waving desultory bristles at a canvas.

My Grande Opus IV is entitled “Infinity.” Throughout the day I worked assiduously on the schematic. The principle of “Infinity” is that I divided the canvas into two halves, painting one half in a single colour and then dividing the other half into two equal portions again. One half of that is painted in a single but different colour and the remainder is then again divided into half… and so on. Thus the picture can never be finished. Repeatedly halving the remainder takes us into infinity. It’s a funny feeling, infinity. In a way it’s like being crapulent.

The problem with my “Infinity” is that I entered a microscopic world. At the last, I was using extra strong reading spectacles augmented by a magnifying glass to allow me to see where the paint was bound. This was now micro-painting, the nanophase of my Grande Opus IV, quantum art. Finally, the image disappeared up its own rectum in the middle of the canvas; I could physically divide the squares no more. They are too small for my fading eyesight and quaking hands. So I declared the painting to be finished apart from where I’ve daubed blue acrylic on yellow during a moment of tremor. I’ll repair that later. Come to think of it, that’s an end to infinity. A paradox - I’ll have to consider the philosophical implications over a glass of Montana.

Then I had another surprise. If my painting is a fair depiction of reality, with each sector representing one year, I’ve discovered that infinity is four years, perhaps five if I am generous to myself and assume the splodgy anal pinprick at the centre is somehow symbolic of one more. I’m not quite sure how that correlates with the Biblical conceit of eternity, or the scientific concept of infinite space. Even Aesop would be surprised to discover that infinity is only 5 years. And I thought I’d manage at least ten.

While I was struggling through my moments of artistic epiphany, I listened to Charles Mingus, or more precisely Danny Richmond, his long-suffering drummer. When I listen to jazz, I’m forced by nature to tap my feet. It’s something in my DNA I think. Dad was the same with Bill Hailey. With most drummers, I keep time reasonably well. Danny Richmond tips me all over the place; I constantly have to adjust the pattern of my taps, sometimes needing to stop, listen and pick up the beat at a later point.

In my Polyhymnian naivety, I’ve always considered Danny Richmond to be a bit of a rubbish drummer. But I knew that I had to be wrong, because Mingus never suffered fools at all. He wanted perfection and he demanded it from his colleagues or he sacked them. And Richmond lasted as the Mingus drummer for over twenty years. I’ve often puzzled this apparent contradiction.

The second epiphany of the day came – Mingus (the leader of the band) was constantly changing tempo. Someone a little less adoring and more cynical might suggest he was erratic. But in most of the tracks he repeatedly and deliberately changed rhythms and beats and tempi, challenging his sidemen to keep up. And good old Danny did, matching his maestro to the nano-second of shifting beat. He worked his percussion with unerring precision, riding the tumult in total synchronisation with the bass man. Mingus & Richmond; Richmond & Mingus – they should be linked by ampersands so well are they musically matched.

So Danny Richmond was not a crap drummer. He was a bloody genius. Why hadn’t I realised this before? I’ve been listening to Mingus for over 50 years. Where has my brain been all that time? I want to make amends so I’m going to dedicate Grande Opus VII to the pair. But that’s in the future. I’m now making a start on Grande Opus V. I’m feeling in a Sonny Rollins mood. “Paradox” I think, a 1955 recording with Max Roach on drums. He keeps good time with my toes.