Karl Miller wrote:
>Mary Powers wrote:
>
>>Hello, I hear that one time, Tori Amos did a concert in Baltimore and it is
>>alleged that she said something like "the way to achieve success is to get
>>kicked out of Peabody". many of her former professors and fellow students
>>were in attendance. thoughts?
>
>Based upon my interpretation of her lyrics...I am not surprised that she
>would make such a comment. To me, her persona is that of victim.
I just might agree almost completely with Karl on the subject of the
culture of victimhood, but in this particular case I think Tori's has some
reason to look on the world, and Peabody, with a somewhat jaundiced eye.
I'm no expert, but as I understand it Tori (born 1963; given name Myra
Ellen Amos) was displaying unusual musical ability by the age of two, and
the age of three she could pickup popular songs and play them by ear on the
piano. At age five she was accepted with a full scholarship to Peabody,
and at the time she was the youngest student ever admitted to that school.
By all accounts her teachers were often amazed at her musical sense and
artistic abilities, but by the age of 11 she lost her scholarship,
ostensibly because she preferred to play popular music in defiance of
her teachers. She may have played transcriptions of popular music for
her audition the following year, rather than what was required, and was
subsequently refused re-admission. Her family was not wealthy enough to
send her to private school without a scholarship, and so she entered the
public school system for the first time at the age of 12. That must have
been a considerable shock. For the next eight years she went to school,
and played as much professionally as she could with her parents chaperoning
her to more adult venues. At the age of 19 or 20, after finding only
modest local success in Baltimore, she moved to L.A. Soon after her
arrival, and following a club date one night, she was brutally raped at
knife point by a deranged stalker (to call him a "fan" is to give him far
to much credit).
She went on to help organize RAINN (Rape and Incest National Network), and
has been extremely active in setting up national hot lines and rape support
groups, and getting other celebrities involved. So, when it comes to hard
times, she at least knows what she is talking about, and I have to respect
what she has done about her situation.
>Perhaps formal music education might have inhibited her expression.
I think the correct question to ask is "did it?" As far as I'm concerned,
she's had formal music education. I believe it has fundamentally enhanced
her musical expression greatly.
>>Tori is one of the few popular musicians that I really like.
>
>While I haven't heard her first discs (more hard core rock) I have enjoyed
>several of her albums. The most recent seem to be rehashing the victim
>persona too much. To my ears she seems stuck in a rut. ...
I too have enjoyed some of Tori's music greatly. She is extremely
talented, but I also agree she has not managed to grow her expressive
palette very quickly. I still see a lot of potential in her. For those
not familiar, she doesn't have anything like a traditional rock band.
The instrumentation of her songs is often sparse, and sometimes quite
unusual. As a result, she's never been particularly popular in the
mainstream, though her 1996 "Boys for Pele" album rose as high as number
two on the alternative rock album charts. In my opinion, one of the more
interesting songs from that album, and a minor hit (I remember seeing her
perform this on some of the talk shows such as Letterman and Leno), is
"Caught A Lite Sneeze", which has Tori singing and switching between
Bosendorfer piano and harpsichord, along with bass guitar, drum
programming, and timpani. For those at all interested, you can hear
a probably-too-brief-to-tell-anything excerpt at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/clipserve/B000002J88001007/
Dave
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http://www.classical.net/
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