1995 | 1996 | 1997

1 9 9 5 - 1 9 9 6

TECHNIQUES FROM THE NEW ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR
(or, What I've Learned from Listening to Jim Marvin for Too Long)
from Chamber Singers, Spring 1996

Kevin Leong on musical details:

• "It says larghetto, but screw that."
• "Slowing equals snoring."
• "All of the top of page 11 is noodling."
• "That's a Byrd wide-stride."
• "Byrd is asking you to go flat."
• "It crashes into the alleluia section."

Kevin Leong practices the art of mental-aural imagery:

• "It's much lighter! It's a soufflé, not a brick!"
• "There's still some desperation here."
• "It's the machine-gun diaphragm!" 4/24
• "It will remind the audience of stroganoff." 4/24

Kevin Leong instructs his choir:

• "Sit up or stand up."
• "If you had to shake your head every time that Jim would say to in this piece, your head would fall off."
• "Don't have any line at all. NO MUSICAL LINE!"
• "Back off A LOT!"
• "Let's hear the alto. You're just noodling around, but it's interesting to hear you."
• "Rely on your own musicianship for this one."
• "Crescendo til you drop."
• "Just head for the root and you'll be fine."
• "Just pretend everything is an E."
• "I don't want this sharing shit!"
• "Okay, we're going to sing now -- put the truffle witches away."
• "Let's keep the soprano I's out of this."

Kevin Leong feeds back to his choir (serving as the choral mirror...):

• "You can't make really romantic lines on pumm."
• "I'm losing control! I'm losing control!"
• "That was pretty good noodling, altos."
• "It just sounds so ... snore."
• "Thank you, Emily Kuo, you're my only friend."
• "I don't know what you guys are on tonight. It's scary."
• "This is just double choir mush."

Kevin Leong has difficulty with gender issues:

• "Julia - I think you always get to the 'men' before the women do."
• "Men, inflect it like the men."

Pretenders to the throne:

• Julia: "You looked like you were about to fly away."
  Kevin: "I wanted to."
• Emily Mitchell:"Kevin, do you lose weight while conducting?"
  Kevin: "That's my secret aim."
• Emily Mitchell: "Can we have truffle witches?"
  Kevin: "No, they're seasonal."
• "I'm perfecting the art of self-shiatsu." Michael Kim
• Michael Kim: "That's my problem! I was reading the alto part."
  Ezra Keshet: "Me? I was reading the piano part."
  Michael Kim: "We are singing the Scarlatti, right?" (it was the Sch�tz).

RETURN OF THE SON OF MARVINISMS, PART II
Spring 1996

A Festival of Chuck:

• "a hand in a slip..." Chuck, 2/28
• "We're not pulsing together." Chuck, 2/28
• "That's all right, but it sounds flaccid." Chuck, 2/28
• Chuck: "My pipe's different from your pipe."
  Jim: "It's a good pipe. Great pipe." 4/23
• "It's starting to run together, and it tastes like spilled milk." Chuck, 4/23
• "Whoop! There it is!" Chuck, 3/13
• "You've got a small butt." Chuck to Emily Kuo, 4/16

No comment...

• "I want it just as strong as come, and I want you to pulsate on me." 2/27
• "Nothing's happening when I'm beating..." 4/12
• "I'll never expose something." 4/3
• "You know, intellectually, when it's soft ... you know what I'm talking about." 4/10
• "That hole's too big." 4/1
• "I'm trying to give you points of climax and repose." 4/3
• "My bigness is not to be interpreted with strength." 4/12
• "Think what my wife has to put up with." 4/10

Jim the Giant Rorschach Test:

• "It sounds like a gymnastic exercise right now." 2/27
• "Great! It's a soft potato now! It needs to be a very large pumpkin, but a velvet one." 3/6
• "It's such a tiny little marshmallow -- though so pretty." 3/6
• "You have a marshmallow on the end of a barbecue stick." 3/6
• "You are the body -- wag that tail!" 2/27
• "It's all the flotsam, integrating with the jetsam." 4/23
• "I am an apple, noooo, I'm an orange. I'm a banana, noooo, I'm a grape." 3/6
• "I am a metronome, no, I'm not, no, I'm not, no, I'm not..." 3/12

Ouch...

• "You know, like a doopsie group. They're all proud of their little voices." 4/2
• "Thank you for being here; the five who are not are very bad people." 4/2
• "If you have a fever, don't sit in here." 4/3
• "Basses, your eighth notes were unbelievable ... like freight cars." 4/10
• "Think of your voice as the opposite of an ink blotter." 4/3
• "This is not a dart game, sopranos." 4/3
• Jim: "Where is David Won these days?"
  Answer from the crowd: "Deported!" 4/3
• "Sorry, [accompanist,] I never listen to what you're playing." 4/10
• "I want the men to crescendo into the tenors." 4/8
• "[Basses,] your part is actually a singing part." 3/6
• "Realize this will all be on your individual heads, if we get busted." 4/23
• "Is it possible for a bass to be expressive? Let's find out." 4/23
• "[Sopranos,] you're the general public's ear. They're not going to hear alto tenor bass." 4/10
• "Ack! What in the world are you singing? That's so wrong!" 4/24

Postcards from Mars and Spain

• "Don't let it go down. It's a descending bit." 4/12
• "Put your hands here, between your sternum and your ... oh there it is [belly button]. That's about an octave on me." 4/10
• "Sometimes, I hear women doing meat." 4/10
• "Mickey Müs!" 4/1
• "I mean, I'm not very good. But don't go oo-bear." 4/1
• "Doorbell -- it's a very small person's house." 4/10
• "An-swer de phone, moose." 4/1
• "No mares! No mares! This is not a farm!" 4/3
• "Those who are not breathing, don't breathe." 4/3
• "It isn't a typewriter! It's not German! It's not German!" 3/12
• "Beat two. Numero Uno two." 3/12
• "It's like you're singing in a barrel, to yourself, like Bing Crosby." 3/12
• "In the actual notch that we're in -- Franconia..." 3/6
• "Tenors, goose your billy goat gruff!" 4/3
• "It sounds like a harp in the head; such a lovely dwelling place." 2/3
• "Now, talk about misery and stuff here..." 4/2
• "How many people -- by that I mean women..." 4/2
• "And we will drink our fill of the milk of the white goat, or BEER!" 3/19
• "No, legato! It's hard to believe ... it's okay; I know I didn't tell you." 4/10
• "A lot of crap is flying around." 4/1
• "Self-image is improving at all times now." 4/10
• "How dead can we get? I mean, it's really excruciating pain." 4/10
• "Don't retard me. I want to retard you, but I'm retarded." 4/8
• "I hear a sound, but it's kind of like a secret." 3/6
• "Love the long note lovingly with lots of lung!" 3/5
• "The pitter-patter of rain when a farmer finally gets it ..." 2/23
• "You're rushing your wop." 3/19
• "Stay with me -- it's me that is important!" 4/12
• "Generally, I want everybody in the middle." 3/13
• "Don't die. Unless I do." 4/12
• "I think I know the notes. It's just hard to get them in the right place." Ezra Keshet, 4/24
• "Handel was like Mariah Carey." Kevin Yeh, 4/11

Requisite Sex Stuff:

• "Well, the men are not sterile; they're vibrato-laden. I don't know what they're doing." 3/19
• "I don't get that bite. I need the bite." 4/2
• "I'd like to rehearse your lip ..." 3/19
• "It's boiling in here. Let's strip." 4/12
• "Tenors, squirting over the bar line, alive, then squirting again ..." 4/10
• "By the way, bigger is better." 4/10
• Jim: "Say, 'SEX.'"
  Choir: "SEX."
  Jim: "Now, without it, there wouldn't be three groups." 4/10
• "If you're a tenor, get off of it so your own part comes in." 4/3
• "Here the Lord comes in every bar." 4/8
• "Let's do it with Chuck." 4/26
• "You suddenly went soft! Don't go soft!" 4/26
• "I think you can do it without doing it." 4/26
• "No, no! I'm doing the women." 4/9
• "It's here, I just can't feel it." 4/23
• "Have I pointed out the sexual aspects of consonants?" 4/16
• "See men, what they do is undulate up, and come down with you." 4/9
• "Put a mouth in there." 2/2
• "I'm just basically an incredibly romantic fellow." 4/12

Jim on Noah's Ark:

• "... in twos, in twos, and let the twos become fours ..." 4/16

Jim Predicts the NBA Finals:

• "It just isn't Knicks (nix). Nor is it East (eest)." 4/16

Justification for Anarchy:

• "You can do anything you want." 4/23

Negation of Recently-Justified Anarchy:

• "If someone thinks they're not going to do this, they're wrong." 4/23

A Taste of Kevin:

• "Inflect that noodle!" Kevin Leong, 3/3

BRAHMS UP MY ASS and other niceties
January - February 1996

Jim (and Chuck) on Sex:

• "If you're going to do it, put it together and make it as soft as it can be." 2/2
• Question: "I was just wondering if you wanted the altos to ... move as quickly as the sopranos."
  Jim: "The altos to MMPH the sopranos?" 2/2
• "61. Upper sexes" 2/2
• "Women, can you do it more than that? Men, can you not do it?" 2/2
  [addendum: "I hesitate to put a value judgement on what I just said."]
• "Oh, altos - I need it right away." 2/7
• "Get in as well as you can, but make sure you're really in." 2/22
• "I like your warm bodies! I can't wait until tonight!" 2/3
• "The basses don't have any excitement. The basses never do." Chuck, 2/13
• "For a good time, divide the choir." Chuck, 2/13
• "You just do it at a different time. It's kind of fun." 1/31
• "I hear a few people getting off." 2/6
• "Do it the way the soprano does it." 2/2
• "Start louder, do it louder, and end up louder." 2/2
• "How many people understand my finger?" 2/19
• "It isn't that I can't pick up my own, it's just ... " 2/7
• "Alto 1s, jump up to the men!" 2/3
• "Let's do a little yearning." 2/3

Focus on the lower sexes:

• "That was good, until some choking tenor began strangling." 2/2
• "Basses - the sound of very big traffic in a very big tunnel." 2/2
• "Tenor, you're crudding up the sound there." 2/3
• "Tenors are experimenting with a new tuning system." 2/3
• "Don't retard! You're retarding! Aw, basses are retarded." 2/2
• "Basses are grotesque." 2/2
• "Tenors, breathe -- just because you're tenors." 2/3
• "Tenors always interrupt hemiolas. It's part of their character." 1/31
• "Basses, you have a different idea of tempo." 2/7
• "The tenors are singing a duet with each other." 2/2
• "Basses, God's voices, enter. However, God's voice is neither slow nor flat." 2/3

From the "No Shit" Department:

• "The alto lines are very good for altos, very high for tenors." 2/19
• "I know it's high, tenors, but -- it's high." 2/2
• "I realize that we could sit down for this; it's just that then we'd have to stand up." 2/14

Hey Jim - what is it?

• "It's the giant cow. It's the largest one you could ever imagine." 2/2
• "Obviously it's the piano. It's not a turkey." 2/3
• "This is sand in the bags of the eyes in a dream." 2/3
• "It's a mournful frog." 2/3
• "It's bassoon fingers, and you've got to highlight it with corns on it." 2/1
• "It's an explosion of eight-year-olds." 2/14

Hey Jim - what are you?

• "I'm a trumpet -- I'm certainly not a serpent." 1/31
• "I'm sorry to be such an old fuddy-duddy-buttsy." 10/17

General oddities:

• "Boy, that was beautiful and incredibly unified. It's just that he didn't write it that way." 2/3
• "I don't want to set it up as some kind of retarded home run." 2/3
• "This but is the most decisive but in all of music." 2/3 & 2/14
• "Oh, hiss yourself." 2/3
• "C, as in psoriasis." 2/19
• "Bravo! That couldn't have been much better -- until we learn it." 2/2
• "If this rehearsal is strange, it's because I've been MSGed." 2/6
• "Will all the tenors who want to help the basses do, and all the altos who want to help the tenors do, and all the sopranos who want to help the altos do, and God help the sopranos." 1/31
• "This is the haze, the glaze, the unresponsive Collegium that I love." 1/31
• "I want you to ... suck a lollipop." 1/9
• "Get on top of the snert." 10/17
• "Any dipsy-doodle pop music can do that." 2/3
• "When you sustain it, it's an experience in impressionism." 2/3
• "Tonight, after the party, the altos stay up an extra hour to practice that." 2/3
• "It's all my fault, 'cause it's your fault you're flat." 2/14
• "Harvard graduates, moolah, moolah! Send it all to Harvard choirs." 2/3
• "I'm sobbing, I'm crying, I'm fainting, I'm dying!" 2/19
• "Low B flat is a cow." 2/2
• "There's nothing in it that we're trying to express other than its thereness." 2/19
• "H�lle is hell. I'm not swearing; it just means hell." 2/3
• "You can't sting me!" 2/3
• "Where is your sting, you silly goose?" 2/22
• "Give it an earthly shove there. Think of the rock-out in Holden Chapel afterwards. No, don't think of that." 2/23

Justification for Anarchy:

• "Don't respond to my saying what I'm saying." 2/3
• "My conducting has absolutely nothing to do with a thing." 2/12
• "Obviously, I have no idea, who's singing what." 2/3
• "There's nothing more boring than a choral sound." 2/12

Jim, the Giant Mad-Lib:

• "And there's little popping images of antelopes crossing the highway." 2/23
• "And altos, little armadillos ... " 2/23
• "The leap-down is as wide as a golf course." 2/3
• "One of the moons of Jupiter just came flying in." 2/19

Jim on The Meaning of Life:

• "Why are we here? For God's sake, where are we going? We're gonna DIE!" 2/3
• "What is my hope? What am I waiting for? The answer: G sharp." 2/3
• "Brahms did not bemoan mortality; he was making a case for it." 2/3
• "Nothing happened. You are dead for sure there." 2/1
• "After all we've been through in this piece, there's no question: it's better to be dead than alive." 2/12