Roger Miller, 1972!

[Robert Stanzel <apollo!rps>]

[ Reproduced sans permission.  With amazing photo of Roger (looking like Zappa)
  taken by Jim Rees (rees@apollo), who went to high school with RM. ]

`Magnetic Fields' Documents Space Music
by Rich Quackenbush, Ann Arbor News, 9/4/72

Rock music is not dying.  Nor is it dead.

While music scholars -- either through wishful thinking or oversight --
virtually ignored revolutionary rock developments in the past decade,
they're suddenly realizing there are few records, except plastic discs,
of what's been happening.

Like children who miss the circus and wistfully smell the lingering aroma
of roasted peanuts after the big top is gone, some scholars regret what
they've missed.

And they're making some attempt not to miss the present and the future.

One indication of this turnabout is the recent publication of "With Magnetic
Fields Divided", a 12-episode space music epic of destruction and rebirth by
19-year old Ann Arbor composer Roger Miller, with commentary by noted
ethmomusicologist Gertrude Kurath.

Publication and scoring of the work were financed through a grant from the
Werner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research after Mrs. Kurath --
noted for her works on American Indian dance, music and traditions --
presented apparently convincing arguments that Miller's space music has
meaningful implications for those scholars seeking cultural and musical
meanings and changes in the rock field.

Miller scored the music, borrowing on his classical piano and French horn
background, from a tape recorded by his now-defunct group, Sproton Layer.

Before he wrote from the recording, Miller said the music "was all in my head."
Miller's situation was similar to various rock groups whose only records are
the final product of a recording studio.

Mrs. Kurath noted there are few complete manuscripts for rock scores and that
is it is significant that a grant was given to document a work from rock's
newest "species";  space music.

As Miller defines it, space music is a philosophy and a definite musical form.

As philosophy, space or cosmos reflects and narrates man's growing awareness
of his relationship and dependence on every living creature and the actions
of every object and force in nature on earth and in space.

As music, the score for trumpet, percussion, and two guitars, with vocals,
indicates an enormous swing away from amplification for the sake of clamor,
noise, and loudness to amplification for its ability to create different
sounds and images which can carry out the themes of Miller's lyrics.

For instance, in "Tidal Wave" -- part six of the epic -- the lyrics tell
of a group of casket bearers taking a body to a burial ground at the end of a
canyon.  An observer tries to tell them of a coming tidal wave, but they do not
hear.  The lyrics end and the song depends on heavy, ominous and dreading
musical tones to complete the story; devastation.

Miller is pleased that he could score "With Magnetic Fields Divided," but
admitted he would never use the manuscript in performance, even with a future
group.

"The book is for students," he stressed. "I don't like to be hemmed in by a
score.  Improvisation is necessary for development and experimentation.
In fact, I wrote the score from a tape of a performance where we were still
improvising."

The composer emphasized this need for freedom and compares it to the early
days of American jazz and blues development, and the European balladeers'
changing their songs as they were passed from one country to another.

Improvisation, he explained, also allows the musician to filter themes
through personality, reflecting his view of the cosmos.

Listening to the Sproton Layer recording and following Miller's score tempts
the listener to compare the style with other groups.  But which ones?

Somehow Miller has developed an original style while borrowing from rock,
folk and classical music and the most distinctive trademarks developed by
Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and various other groups that continually work for
innovation.

"We've been told our music sounded from Pink Floyd to Jethro Tull to the
Mothers of Invention," Miller worte in his introduction to the score.
"We don't try to sound like any of these groups but we can't help reflecting
every group we've ever heard from Captain Beefheart, the Beatles, Paul
Butterfield and the New York Philharmonic."

The most obvious classical borrowing in "With Magnetic Fields Divided" is a
theme from Dvorak's "New World Symphony" which introductes Miller's
"The Blessing of the Dawn Source."

"The Blessing" is the second part of two-part epic whose six introductory songs
alternate moods of freedom and destruction.  The second half builds to life
renewal which begins in part seven, "Up," with the music lyrics:  "It's a new
sun coming out today, to show me the way up."

"With Magnetic Fields Divided" relies on the potential of rock equipment to
create the special effects Miller included in the score.  For instance,
intense vibrato and fuzz distortion describe a lost girl running to the sun
and "shimmering" of all instruments respresent rotation of the planets.

As Mrs. Kurath accurately describes the sound and total effect, lagato guitars
superimposed on staccato percussions, contrasting with vertical and horizontal
movements at the same time, "lend the music a strong yet light forward movement,
with the bass guitar an anchor."
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