{"id":11923,"date":"2016-12-13T05:30:22","date_gmt":"2016-12-13T10:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=11923"},"modified":"2016-12-15T17:22:56","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T22:22:56","slug":"mike-mills-bridges-the-gap-between-rock-and-classical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/13\/mike-mills-bridges-the-gap-between-rock-and-classical\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Mills Bridges the Gap Between Rock and Classical"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people know Mike Mills<\/b> as the bassist in R.E.M.<\/b>; he was a founding member of the band and remained with them until their 2011 breakup. Since that time, he’s been a key player in the series of \u201cBig Star<\/i>‘s 3rd\u201d<\/sup> concerts. But behind the scenes, Mills has been working on an even more ambitious project: working closely with his lifelong friend, virtuoso violinist Robert McDuffie<\/b>, he’s created a musical work that bridges rock music with classical orchestration. Concerto For Violin, Rock Band and String Orchestra<\/i> was released on CD October 14*<\/strong>, and Mills \u2013 joined by McDuffie, a rock band and Chicago’s 15-piece Fifth House Ensemble<\/b> \u2013 took to the road to perform the new work in concert halls across the country.<\/p>\n

The idea of combining rock and classical themes isn’t new. Producer George Martin<\/b> devised classical string arrangements for the Beatles<\/b>‘ \u201cYesterday\u201d in 1965 and \u201cEleanor Rigby\u201d in 1966. Brian Wilson’s large ensemble arrangements on the Beach Boys<\/b>‘ 1966 album Pet Sounds<\/i> have an orchestral feel to them. And in the early 1970s, Electric Light Orchestra<\/b> began as an attempt to pick up where the Beatles left off, incorporating cello, violin and orchestra into a rock idiom.<\/p>\n

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From the opposite direction, minimalist composer Philip Glass<\/b> has often directed his classically-based work toward a rock audience, and the Kronos Quartet<\/b> plays in a classical style but with the power and sensibility of a rock band.<\/p>\n

Yet what Mills is doing with Concerto For Violin, Rock Band and String Orchestra<\/i> is subtly different. The work \u2013 a roughly-30-minute piece in six movements \u2013 is built around melodic pop themes, but presented by a hybrid ensemble that takes the best from both rock and orchestral styles. \u201cI thought of it as five or six separate songs,\u201d explains Mills. \u201cI figured they would hang together, because the instrumentation would be pretty consistent throughout.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mills \u2013 a primary composer of many of R.E.M.’s most well-known songs \u2013 places a high value on melody. \u201cTo me it\u2019s the most beautiful part of music, period,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s something that I\u2019ve always striven for, whether it was R.E.M., or this Concerto<\/i>, or anything else I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Concerto<\/i> isn’t Mike Mills’ first foray into orchestration, though he downplays his earlier efforts. \u201cI did a tiny amount of work with some classical instruments with R.E.M.,\u201d he says, \u201clike a string quartet on Feeling Gravitys Pull<\/i> [released 1985] and the odd cello here and there.\u201d It’s likely, too, that he paid close attention when Led Zeppelin<\/b>‘s John Paul Jones<\/b> arranged a string section for \u201cNightswimming,\u201d a track Mills wrote for R.E.M.’s 1992 album Automatic for the People<\/i>.<\/p>\n

More recently, Mills’ experience helping create live performances of the songs from Big Star’s Third<\/i> opened his eyes to the power and versatility of classical instruments. Though he says that Carl Marsh<\/b>‘s string arrangements on Third<\/i> didn’t influence him \u201con a conscious level,\u201d Mills allows that \u201cit\u2019s possible that we share sort of the same sensibilities. Authors or composers will, even if they have never heard each other, have often come from a similar beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

In creating the Concerto<\/i>, Mills combined modern and traditional methods of composition. \u201cI used ProTools to put down ideas,\u201d he says. \u201cFor the ‘rough tracks’ I put down guitars and drums, and then wrote melodies over that.\u201d He exchanged files created on a computer synthesizer with arranger David Mallamud<\/b>, but stresses that writing the Concerto<\/i> \u201cwasn’t an overly software-type event.\u201d<\/p>\n