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Joe HARNELL (cont.)
I
Met Joe! As I'm driving to work one day, my cell rings and as soon as I heard who it was on the other end, I almost crashed into the road's guardrail. What Joe
Harnell's Music Has Meant to Me, by Rob
Gross. So let’s fast forward. It’s 1997 or so. I’m now a graduate student at Rice University. I’ve met the woman I would eventually marry. I’m studying music composition myself and applying for doctoral programs. Becky is applying for Masters’ programs in vocal performance, and we’re trying to figure out how our lives are going to fit together. Naturally, our families come from different backgrounds and initially they don’t seem to see eye to eye. Becky and I are also deeply involved in the performance of a small-scale one-act opera I’ve written, and according to her (though I don’t remember it this way) it caused a lot of tension between us. In the midst of this pressure and insanity, night after night I am constantly having what I call “the ‘V’ dream.” The dream is about living my daily life under the oppressive fascist regime of the Visitors. It’s not (usually) a scary dream about humanoid gila monsters, but rather a depressing dream about living life in a world without hope. It was also here where I began watching episodes of The Incredible Hulk on the Sci-Fi channel every day. I was really beginning to relate to the plight of David Banner, alone, on the run, hiding a secret. I had secrets then… secret ambitions, a secret feeling of anathema with my midwestern small-town background, secret progressive views of sexual orientation, etc. I kept my real views from my family, particularly my mother, who was a guiding force in my life--- perhaps too much so. My choices for doctoral programs in composition were disappointing. I wanted a vast array of options to mull over, but it was not to be. I basically had two choices--- stay at Rice or go to New York and study at Manhattan School of Music. Thinking the time was right for a move to New York, I chose Manhattan. But while
I was there, I became severely and clinically depressed.
I kept having “the ‘V’ dream” night after night.
My fiancee and I were cramped in a much-too-small studio apartment
on 23rd street, and the first year of living together was very
stressful. I felt like I was
living a double life, where I was getting involved with progressive LGBT-rights
activism, and pursuing an agenda of compositional success but denying to
myself that I really wanted to be a success.
It took my teacher
Richard Danielpour to really make myself confront that my dreams were not
humble. I felt like my
lacking humility was an affront to my working class, midwestern roots.
What
can I say? I was cracking up.
My parents wanted me to stay in school no matter what, even if I
wasn’t getting anything out of it.
I was tired of classical concert music, but I didn’t know what
else I wanted in life. I was
tired of putting up with marathon composition concerts full of vapid,
emulative, poorly performed student works by 50 students who were little
self-important islands unto themselves.
That was the environment of Manhattan School of Music, where
everybody had a chip on their shoulder because they were constantly aware
of the long shadow cast by that other music conservatory down the road
(literally), Juilliard. My
first music teacher (not Danielpour) was pre-occupied with a new promotion
to Dean of Students and I felt he had little time for me.
The doctoral students were isolated from the composers.
And I was working a depressing job--- called a “fellowship”---
where I was doing mundane data entry, for an immediate supervisor who was
either constantly lamenting the decline of his golden opportunity to pitch
for the Yankees if only he hadn’t blown out some appendage or other, and
ridiculing Sara Davis Buechner, the Manhattan School professor of piano
who had recently undergone a sex change.
I
had strong feelings about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues
and I was appalled by my supervisor’s comments, and felt all the more
depressed because I was working for a bigot.
I felt like I was being attacked, too.
It was a hostile work environment.
I closed myself off, and I didn’t chum around with anyone in the
office, which was a vicious circle, because I became unpopular at the
office.
So
the world of Manhattan School was bleak.
I’d come there every day, doing this little crap job and
pretending to be grateful (had I stayed at Rice my doctoral fellowship
would have been teaching composition classes for non-music majors,
something that would have been an interesting challenge).
Then I’d go home to our much-too-small apartment and feel like I
didn’t have any space of my own. I
solved this dilemma by locking the bathroom, turning off the lights, and
listening to the shower, cuddled up in the fetal position, for hours on
end.
I
also made a point to be in front of the T.V. at 4 p.m. to watch the Hulk.
Every day when I walked to school, or home, I could hear Joe
Harnell’s “Lonely Man Theme” in the background.
I was so depressed I was nearly suicidal.
I would stand at subway platforms, close my eyes, and fantasize
that at the moment the train went whisking by, that I was in front of it
and my misery would be over.
I
hit rock bottom when I was being told I was losing my job at Manhattan
School. I was being told by
the resident conductor that I was the most “unmotivated,
lacking-initiative” student he ever had.
Completely coincidentally (?), this was happening the day after I
had forgotten that I left some research on LGBT issues at the office,
which was found waiting for me in my in-box.
Hm….. I think what
makes me angry to this day is that nobody ever took the time to ask me if
anything was wrong. This
esteemed professor didn’t show any compassion, and bitched about the
time I was taking to use his computer in the after hours (I was
researching depression--- in the privacy of the office--- in order to get
help).
I
felt like David Banner. I
just kept my mouth shut and took it because I didn’t want to talk about
my secrets.
I
got help. I began to take
control of my life. I left
Manhattan, both the school and the place.
I began taking anti-depression medication, and the results were
stunning. In a few short
weeks, my life was sunny, hopeful and full of promise again.
I had always been a skeptic of medication, and I didn’t believe
it could make such a difference. I
was heading off to Paris to study with Samuel Adler at the Schola Cantorum
program. Things were going
well again.
At
this program, I met a composer who had studied film music at USC.
He mentioned that he had studied with Joe Harnell.
I was obviously and immediately impressed.
I mean, here’s the man who had written the soundtrack to my
subconscious demons, right? I
had always wanted to write to Harnell, although I wasn’t really sure
what I wanted to say. I just
felt like his music had always spoken to me in a very deep, private place.
None of those television programs would have made any kind of
impact on me at all if they didn’t have a first-class soundtrack,
because I’m such an aurally oriented person.
So
my colleague encouraged me to get in touch with Harnell, saying that he
was a really cool guy and very open to students.
It was a seed planted.
I
might have acted on the seed sooner, but then the unexpected death of my
mother changed my life once again. Becky
and I moved back to my hometown, ostensibly to help comfort my dad, but
also so I could put on the brakes and re-evaluate where my life was going.
I also ran for and won a seat on the city council while I was
there, which gave me something to do that I felt was important while I was
not actually at school.
My
mother had so wanted me to stay in school, through my doctorate, no matter
what. She was scared I
wouldn’t return to school. And
as sad as it made me to lose her, I felt not only allowed for the first
time to really make my own decisions, but I felt it was an obligation.
I had to grow up, then and there, once and for all.
What
was I going to do with my life? Part
of the answer was provided for me when I received, from tape traders,
episodes of The
Third Eye, which had been a
great source of enjoyment for me as a child.
I was so impressed, now an adult, with Sidney Sager’s scores to
many of these episodes, that I felt compelled to contact him.
I began writing an analysis of his scores, and I thought…. Hey,
I could do this. Scholarly
musical analysis of television scores is an open field.
Not only that, but I also thought, hey, I could do this--- write
music for film and television. That
was the element that was missing! I
wanted to tell stories through music.
I was bored writing dissonant piano trios for student composer
concerts in front of 25 people.
My
contacting Sidney Sager went very well, and he and I developed a
correspondence and became good friends.
That went well enough… Sidney
steered me in the direction of Martin Kiszko, who was a former protégé
of Sidney’s and who was now running the film music program at the
University of Bristol. I
applied and was accepted. My
life was back on track again. Becky
and I were thrilled! We were
moving to England!
Then
I discovered that in addition to a doctoral thesis (I had been writing one
on Sidney’s music) I would have to write a Masters’ thesis for this
film music program. Obviously
I couldn’t do it on Sidney Sager, I had earmarked that for my doctoral
thesis. I was going to have
to write 10,000 words on another score.
Needless
to say, there was never any question as to what I wanted to write about---
Joe Harnell’s score to “V.” Since
my life was going well and I had learned to become an autonomous adult, I
had stopped having “the ‘V’ dream” and now I was curious to
investigate, as a grown-up, the mechanics and construction of this thing
that had frightened me so deeply as a child. Contacting
Sidney went well enough… but could lightning strike twice?
Would Joe Harnell be
willing to help me? Would he
still have a score I could analyze? How
much did I want to tell him about the personal meaning to me of his
television work?
It
doesn’t even seem like it was only this summer (2001) when we made
contact. I sent an e-mail in
care of USC, but soon found an e-mail from Joe Harnell waiting in my box.
I was thrilled! He
really was a real person and here his name was, sitting in my in-box. From
the beginning, he seemed flattered that I wanted to write about his score
and he was willing to help me from the start.
He copied his monumental score to “V” for me--- this huge,
double-side-printed score such that if you sit on it, you’re two feet
taller. I felt I wanted to
show him a little of what I could do, after having honed my analytical
skills writing about Sidney’s work, so I wrote a 20-page analysis of
music from the pilot to
The
Incredible Hulk. I
guess I also wanted to reassure Joe (“please, Rob, don’t call me
Professor Harnell, it’s Joe”) that I wasn’t a fraud. Since
then, Joe and I have steadily corresponded; I wrote another paper analyzing
the “Lonely Man” theme from the
Hulk,
and I’m preparing to submit these papers to the Journal of British
Postgraduate Musicology, with Joe’s permission.
Joe is just the kindest, sweetest and most encouraging man.
He has taken an active interest in my own music and has been very
supportive. The
only thing that I regret is that I didn’t contact Joe long ago, when I
was very much aware of his music but not aware of my own interests in film
scoring. I had no idea that
Joe in prior years had been a music director for Frank Sinatra, Judy
Garland, Pearl Bailey, Marlene Dietrich, Peggy Lee and The
Mike Douglas Show. My
mother loved all those people; that was her favorite music--- music from
that era and genre. She
idolized Judy Garland. I also
didn’t know that Joe Harnell had recorded Fly
Me To the Moon--- that was
one of my mother’s favorite songs.
I think my mother would have really loved to see the friendship
develop between me and this man who had not only touched my life, but also
her own. I
just came back from my first trip to visit Joe and his wife Alice at their
home. What can I say except
that I had the very best time. Joe
and I hung out, played music for each other, went out to lunch with
another protégé of Joe’s, had Mexican, and learned more about one
another. Alice was a
sweetheart and you can really tell that she and Joe were made for each
other. Joe has had his own
demons to conquer along the way (which he describes in his autobiography
Counterpoint:
The Journey of a Music Man)
and I imagine that on some level we relate to each other to that end.
I’m just glad that he’s found happiness in his own life, he
deserves it. Joe
played me a videotape from
The
Mike Douglas Show--- a rare
tape of him playing piano with Louis Armstrong and Pearl Bailey singing.
This side to Joe I hadn’t known about, which my mother would have
loved. My mother didn’t
like science fiction at all, though, so I imagine she would have been
quite surprised to realize that the same man that had worked with her
favorite illuminaries had also been the man who wrote music for The
Hulk and V! I’m
still working on that
V
analysis, which won’t be
done for a few months yet, but until then I hope it will continue to be a
vehicle for communication between Joe and myself.
He is truly a brilliant composer and I hope through my own
analysis, I can bring to light the fact that not only is he one of the
most emotional composers around, but he’s also one of the most
intelligent. There is a
wealth of musical intelligence in all his scores, but prejudice against
the medium of television has not given him the recognition due.
That is, of course, my opinion, not Joe’s--- Joe is at peace with
his own life and proud of his many accomplishments, and I couldn’t be
happier for him. BOOK REVIEW: "International Musician" of the American Federation of Musicians - Antoinette Follett Counterpoint: The Journey of a Music Man. The turbulent life of Grammy and Emmy award-winning pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor Joe Harnell, member of Local 47, 802, and 655, is beautifully detailed in Counterpoint: The Journey of a Music Man, by Harnell and Ira Skutch. Like any journey, the musician's life is filled with highs and lows: an immensely successful musical career tempered by unresolved personal conflicts. Fortunately for readers, this dichotomy culminates in Counterpoint, a stunningly honest account of Harnell's life. Each chapter illuminates key periods and events during Harnell's life, including his teen years, WWII, recording milestones and career stops, relationships, and his recovery from alcohol. It is in this section, perhaps, that we learn (or are allowed to learn) the most about Harnell. He eloquently describes each agonizing detail of his addiction with an acute objectivity, a tonal quality that persists throughout the entire book. This writing style works to capture Harnell's true essence; indeed, the artists soul is etched on every page. The book's honesty is supplemented by colorful anecdotes and firsthand accounts of Harnell's dealings with a who's-who of music personalities, including Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, John Lennon, Louis Armstrong, and Judy Garland, to name a few. Counterpoint is many things. It is a story about love of life, music, and those who have touched Harnell's life. It is the confession of a gifted, yet troubled artist who never abandoned his craft. Most of all, however, it is the gripping personal account of an amazing human being, and definitely worth reading. Counterpoint: The Journey of a Music Man, by Joe Harnell and Ira Skutch, 2000.
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