In physics, a standing wave – also known as a stationary wave – is a wave which at each point in its medium has a constant amplitude. The amplitude of the wave's oscillations may vary at different points in space, but are constant in time. The locations at which the amplitude is minimum are called nodes, and the locations where the amplitude is maximum are called antinodes.

Standing waves were first noticed by Michael Faraday in 1831. Faraday observed standing waves on the surface of a liquid in a vibrating container. Franz Melde coined the term "standing wave" (German: stehende Welle or Stehwelle) around 1860 and demonstrated the phenomenon in his classic experiment with vibrating strings.

This phenomenon can occur because the medium is moving in the opposite direction to the wave, or it can arise in a stationary medium as a result of interference between two waves traveling in opposite directions. The most common cause of standing waves is the phenomenon of resonance, in which standing waves occur inside a resonator due to interference between waves reflected back and forth at the resonator's resonant frequency.

For waves of equal amplitude traveling in opposing directions, there is on average no net propagation of energy.

Wikipedia

In many respects I may be out to lunch in any topic about music and culture.I am not a critic. When I arrived with my wife Rosemary and two daughters from Mexico City in Vancouver in 1975 I noticed two salient differences to our former abode. One was that all bread at Safeway tasted like cardboard and with the exception of the Vancouver Symphony, Vancouver was a provincial city in all the negative connotations of the word.

As a former high school teacher who wanted to be a “portraitist” (I applied at London Drugs and the managert told me that he had gone to Ryerson and he did not dareccall himself by that term. He told me to get lost). So I rented cars at Tilden-Rent-A-Car on Alberni. My Sunday cultural activity was to drink beer with my manager at the Ritz Hotel.

It was on a slow winter Sunday that I observed two cars across the street that had their four-way lights going. I noticed that every once in a while both cars coincided but then there would be periods when the lights would not. I knew enough of mathematics that there was a formula involving sine ways that could have predicted when those lights would coincide. I thought that the phenomenon in a way was a visual explanation on two people falling in love and how rare that can be.

                                 

Today, September 27, 2017 my friend Ian Bateson and I attended a Wednesday Noon Hours Concert at the UBC School of Music at Barnett Hall which featured Standing Wave. The group is made up of Christy Reside, flute, Ak Coope, clarinets, Rebecca Whitling, violin, Olivia Blander, cello (subbing for the usual member Peggy Lee), Allen Stiles, Piano and Vern Griffiths on percussion.

I wondered about the origin of the name.

The local group Standing Wave was founded in 1992 and at last our city with the help of Expo 86 was no longer a culturally deprived wasteland. By 2002 I was assigned to photograph this stellar group that specializes in music of the 20^th and (now) 21^st century.

I never did ask the members of the group why they were called Standing Wave.

I should have suspected that somehow the two cars with simultaneous four-way flashers may at the very least explain the concept.

During the height of cassette tapes, around 1986, I bought Steve Reich Sextet – 6 Marimbas and I was soon attracted to the idea of instruments playing in unison and little by little going out of phase. I was hooked.

In today’s concert there were two works (there were six in all) that featured this out of phase idea. The first was Guilty Pleasures (based on China Gates by John Adams adapted (arranged) by Jared Miller (born in 1988) and John Korsrud’s (born 1963) Two Tastes of the Hague which was inspired by the music of his mentor Louis Adriessen. Guilty Pleasures featured some soft and alluring vibraphone playing by Griffiths.

The latter work was most satisfying in that its very long and winding ending reminded me of the Terminator who would not die! It was full of almost fake endings with lots of wonderful noise that followed the beginning in phase and out phase period that lulls one into a peaceful state of flotation (that state of flotation began for me with Reich). For a good noise there is nothing like Vern Griffiths on percussion and AK Coope on that fab bass clarinet.

I asked Jeremy Berkman, present at the concert, the co-artistic director of Turning Point Ensemble and trombonist if one of the instruments for Kosrud’s piece was the Balinese tronbong. He wasn’t sure. I asked Griffiths who told me it was a Thai gong.

The second piece on the program, Des pied sur la neige Claude Debussy (1862-1918) arranged by Jordan Nobles (born in 1969), a very beautiful and soft piece came to me at a very special time as it was only a few weeks ago that I listened to CBC Ideas with Paul Kennedy in a program called Nine Minutes that Changed the World which was all about Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon at the Faun and how those first few notes ushered in Modernism and the 20^th century.

But the best (because it was the funniest) was Louie Louie Variations – Richard Berry (1935-1997) as arranged by violinist/composer Cameron Wilson who is the funniest musician in Vancouver. I can now state here that my favourite version of Louie Louie, this one by Johnny Thunders now shares a space with the Wilson version.

While Olivia Blander on cello was very good I missed the presence of Peggy Lee for one special reason. I did not above mention Le Merle Noir by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) arranged by Jennifer Butler (born in 1976). With AK Coop's clarinet and Christie Reside's flute the piece began with those birdsounds that Messiaen liked so much (and so did I ). In 1962 I attended a concert at the University of Mexico. One of the featured works involved a soprano singing some Messiean. I hated it! But it was Peggy Lee, with Janet Hayes, Marc Destrubé and François Houle who with Messiaen's Quartet For the End of Time brought me into the fold to appreciate one of the most wonderful works of the 20th century.

Peggy Lee

The last work, Half Wolf Dances Mad in the Moonlight by Terry Riley (born in 1935) and arranged by Marcus Goddard (born 1973) was just right for the last ten minutes of that short hour. It was a nice contrast in listening to Griffiths play the marimba after hearing him in the similar (but electric) vibraphone he played in the first work. Because we were sitting on the front row, in front of violinist Whitling we were able to listen to those almost inaudible quiet moments that many of the works featured for her violin.

All in all the concert was an hour of sheer delight, with music that challenged me to action and to glory of the fact that not only is bread at Safeway wonderful but also thanks to Standing Wave and the UBC School of Music it is never boring to live in this city that is and no longer is the city that was.

Trombonist Jeremy Berkman looking at the very large and young crowd wondered if any of them knew the significance of Louie Louie.