the hole in my soul has been temporarily filled
i really enjoyed rehearsal yesterday and after of summer of living in the past (mixing the alt-classical EP) it was great to start living in the present.
it was my second time playing with guitarist jeremy keller and not only it was starting to gel musically but we were also able to get beyond our training and technique to create an incredibly visceral electronic/ folk/modular improv performance.
i have always felt it was possible as duo or trio, but finding this hasn’t been easy. while i was talking to jeremy i found out he hasn’t really played much tonal music and although our musical instincts are puling us in opposite directions, i’m finding that the space between the seams very is invigorating and satisfying.
since yesterdays rehearsal the fact that i haven’t been able to stop listening to our rehearsal probably says a lot about what has been absent than anything else. it’s like dreaming your arm was missing and waking up realizing how lucky you are that it still works.
right now the hole in my soul has been temporarily filled
Music for Controllers, Reh 082110
jeremy keller, guitar
paul bailey, korg nanokey, buddha machine, kaossilator, and ableton live
Working for the King
the mixing process has been keeping me busy every day of this summer and the main goal this time is to learn a higher level of mixing skills. for my first two albums my skills limited to mainly recreating a live performance, but this time i’m ‘the studio’ to create a unique sense of space and sound for each piece. the big change for me occurred this spring when i became more interested in photography and finally realized that photo editing programs like photoshop and aperture were just sophisticated equivalents and extensions of the traditional darkroom in which creation of a photograph didn’t end when the shutter clicked.
with that in mind i have been learning new techniques that are far beyond the limited mixing strategies i have used in the past (using mainly volume and reverb automation), and with the help of a few pros looking over my shoulder i’m learning to embrace the mixing process as an extension of each composition. please don’t think i’m attempting to create a george martin/phil spector/brian wilson production and the best way to describe my approach is that i’m using audio software (protools) as my darkroom to create a collection of music that is not a simulation of a live performance but really a ‘heightened reality’.
in the big picture i know this isn’t a new or earth shattering accomplishment (many rock bands have been doing this for years), but because all this music was created (composed, rehearsed, performed, recorded, and mixed) outside the usual channels of art-music presentation and the fact that i didn’t have to ask for ‘permission’ (through grants, commissions, and fundraising) shows that there are other ways to make art music outside the current long-running tradition of patronage and ‘working for the king’ the main example of why i’m calling the album ‘alt-classical’
making the seams disappear
didn’t get a lot of mixing done today. i have been finishing up mixing my ‘life’s too short’ track and needed a break from it so i decided to get started mixing my cover of weezer’s “sweater song”.
the arrangement pretty much evolves contrary to what you are probably expecting, swapping mandolin for electric guitar and passing the melody around through the ensemble gives it a real boho feeling and it’s been a fun way we have been ending most shows since the group started
the main problem today was that i got sidetracked worrying about whether the trombone fit well into the mix and since the the arrangement is pretty light and frothy i originally recorded it a bit away from the mic to get a more transparent sound (which i have since learned i could easily create with reverb plugin). so i spent my afternoon re-recording trombone, but now am having 2nd thoughts since the new recording that doesn’t sound much different.
so the plan for tomorrow (or monday b/c i have a few rehearsals) is to give it a fresh listen and see how things sound before i start making any big changes. right now i’m thinking i’ll probably use both tracks with one mixed low and slight delay (which will give it more stereo spread) and go from there. overall i think i the whole song is mixed too low (in the 2nd half) and need to get a better idea how to make the seams disappear (just like in counterpoint!)
until then enjoy the sweater song intro
i have been sitting in a room
this recording has been a long time in the making and i have avoided blogging much about it until i knew i was close to being able to release it. a lot has happened since i started recording it in 2007, but in many ways that is the reality of making DIY music; you go ahead one step at a time.
as i have alluded to in a previous post i’m in the final stages of mixing and in general it’s very strange to be spending so much time listening to recording sessions that are from a few years ago. i feel like i’m spending all my time hanging out with a holodeck version of my band that i start up on my macbook every morning. the other day when i was talking to scott mcintosh (clarinet) i hadn’t realized that we really hadn’t spoken for a few weeks since i have been listening to him play every day.
the most surprising thing about editing and mixing music is the strange intimacy you develop with the performances. during the process you become aware of everybody’s musical strengths and weaknesses which goes far beyond our relationship as bandmates in rehearsals. it’s a strange place to be in, repeatedly listening to a single moment of time when in reality the all of the band have moved on with their life (i have to remind myself of that in rehearsals). as for editing and mixing my playing, having that kind of self awareness is problematic and is a big reason why i need to take a 3-6 month break between each stage of the process (recording, editing, and mixing) so that i can get some emotional distance from my own performance (and in general each composition). it’s not easy and i’m not usually happy with my trombone sound, but the good news is that on this album i finally have found a ‘good enough’ trombone sound where i don’t cringe everytime i hear myself play.
at this point of the summer it feels like i have been rehearsing every day (with my holodeck band) and i’m getting pretty excited as i get closer to taking this recording from ‘rehearsal’ to ‘performance’. i’m also looking forward to finally being in a place where i feel comfortable sharing more about my DIY process and the how this album was made
Summer Updates (July 2010)
summer is going mostly well. i started by cleaning out the garage to create a makeshift studio/rehearsal space and although it’s nothing fancy it was good enough to finish the final pickup recordings of my alt-classcial album. editing is done and i’m working on the final mixes. additionally like i did on ‘retrace our steps’ [...]
pardon the mess
importing posts now. much more work than it should be. when i went to import my wordpress xml file it was too big. plan b spent an evening trying to edit php.ini files on my server to find out bluehost doesn’t allow this plan c i used a windows program (wrx file splitter) to split [...]
gone fishing!
actually the site is going to be temporarily down as i try and figure out how to clean out the recent hacker attack on my server. wish me luck and hope to be back soon! Like Unlike
OC Register Cuts Arts Blog
over the weekend the Tim Mangan (OC Register music critic) posted an oblique and epigrammatic message that the Arts Blog (classical music, dance, theatre, and visual arts) would be no more.
“Well, I can’t say that it hasn’t been a blast, because it has. But it has been decided that this blog has lived its span and that we can better serve you at www.ocregister.com/arts.”
this is depressing.
limiting the OC Register’s arts bloggers to writing reviews and color pieces is definitely a step backward.
especially in journalism the blog functions best in which thoughts, ideas, and commentary are posted that may not quite fit into the ever shrinking daily newspaper (does anybody actually read the physical kind anymore?). it also creates conversations (the “Should I review Bocelli” post is a great example of this) that help define and connect the broader arts community as a whole.
but of course if you are reading this on my blog you already “get it”
Cleaning Out the Garage
summer is here and i’m actually think it might be productive. it’s not like i don’t need the break, i’m just not that productive when i don’t have any real structure to my day. overall the last few years have been a little too much drama for me and it’s time to “get my house in order” (literally as well as figuratively).
1st up is cleaning out my garage and turning it into a rehearsal studio/performance space. over the last few years i have definitely outgrown my “office” and now that i’m teaching private students at the house i need a bigger space to work in. after editing and mixing three albums (not to mention most of the composing that i do at home)i also have to admit that i really need a change of scenery. even though i wasn’t writing that much music this past year i found it very hard to want to sit down at my desk to do anything creative so i ventured out anywhere i could think of as an alternative creative space (including different rooms in the house) and came to the conclusion that having a larger space in my garage should do the trick for now. it will also allow me to setup and properly practice with the all the gear i’m using with my “music for controllers” setup. instead making music through headphones i really have needed to spend the time figuring out how to play these pieces “live” and have come to realize it’s much more involved than when I just played trombone.
the main problem is getting a proper balance when you are mixing live acoustic instruments (trombone, voice) and controllers (kaossilator, drone/scruti box, buddha machine, ableton live, launchpad, etc…). i also have realized that mixing electric and acoustic instruments without sound reinforcement can be very a very disjointed listening experience in a live performance and in many ways my even though much of this music is not technically hard to perform my “practicing” centers around how to setup gear, mics, and amps which means that i have to pretty much be practicing/performing with a stereo/PA system to make my performances aurally make sense.
with all that being said (and after trying to mostly “practice” at other locations) the reality is that the setup and teardown of this technological spectacle (a few amps, mic/stand, laptop/keyboard stand/table, MOTU traveller(digital/audio interface), and 2 pedal boards) can take almost as long as the rehearsal so for the time being i’m going to be only performing solo or with whomever musicians that can make it to the 90042 for a weekly rehearsal.
after driving down to fullerton and back for the last 20 years for PBE and DIE rehearsals can really take it’s toll and at this point in my life i think it’s only natural to change things up and make music in a different way. to me it’s kinda funny b/c on one hand i know there are a lot of people who over the past few years have been introduced to my “Retrace Our Steps/PBE 1.0″ music who really wish i was making more music with the larger group and really like the strings/winds/rock band orchestration. there are also another group who have only seen the “PBE 2.0 rock band” (as we jokingly called it) and keep asking when that group is going to perform again. all i can say is that part of making alt-classical music is not really having the control to make those choices which leaves me to make music with the equipment and musicians that are available (and not continually banging my trying to fit a round peg in a square hole)
the good news is that if all goes well I should be performing on a regular basis soon. when and if there will be a PBE 3.0 is yet to be seen. right now one step at a time is fine with me.
Marching bands unite in tribute to Brandon Franklin, slain at 22 | – NOLA.com
i saw this video a week ago about a new orleans trombonist who was killed in an domestic dispute at his ex-girlfriends house.
Marching bands unite in tribute to Brandon Franklin, slain at 22 | – NOLA.com
it’s really sad and horrible and reading further introduced me to a whole new understanding of how the brass band culture and music education are intertwined in NOLA.
“Such large, ambitious marching bands have become a relative anomaly in a city famous for its second-lines, brass bands and musical luminaries, however. More than four years after Hurricane Katrina, band leaders say they are fighting to ensure the tradition thrives in a dramatically altered public school landscape.”
obviously Katrina has made things more difficult, but not in ways you might think
“Several forces have depleted the ranks of the city’s marching bands. First, fewer students now live in the city, as the overall population has dropped since Katrina. And several high schools with vibrant marching bands, including Kennedy High School near the lakefront, did not reopen after the storm.Moreover, the city’s public high schools tend to be much smaller than before the storm. And many remain in a state of flux as some of the low-performing schools phase out grade by grade, with new programs taking their place.”
|snip|
…”Carnival parades are required by law to feature at least seven marching bands, a tradition that has helped foster a vibrant band culture at many of the city’s schools for decades.“Hopefully, in the very, very near future we can get more students from the middle schools and junior highs to come in and help bring our programs alive,” said Keith Thomas, the new band director at John McDonogh High School.John McDonogh’s band will not march this year, giving Thomas time to recruit new members and better prepare the current musicians.“They are just not ready to be on the street yet,” he said.Thomas noted that many students lost sight of the tradition after so much personal turmoil, including the post-storm scattering of relatives, mentors and band leaders who inspired many children to pick up an instrument in the first place.“We have kids who really don’t know what they want to do,” he said. “One day they want to march and the next day they don’t. You’ve got to sell it. You’ve got to make them believe in the program.”
link: New Orleans Mardi Gras marching bands are incubators for more than music | – NOLA.com
you learn more about brandon and his TBC brass band via
http://fromthemouthpieceonback.com/
Now Playing?
Now Playing one of my favorite iPhone/iPad apps that was an easy way to check on local movie times and reviews is “currently down due to a request by a data provider”.
on one hand i think it was free, but the idea of an app becoming persona non grata without any notice from apple strikes me as unacceptable.
it seems to me that if you are going to have a walled garden software platform then you when you choose to remove something an explanation is due (especially since they have been there since the beginning). an email explaining the problem would be a good start.
granted this hasn’t happened that much with the apps i use on a regular basis. but what if this happened to one of the many music apps i use to perform with? i suppose that might be a little far fetched, but it’s giving me another reason to consider switching to an Google based smartphone after my contract expires in july.
UPDATE-060510
i just got this email from the developer, Cyrus Najmabadi.
“I had to take the app offline due to one of the data providers demanding
more money to license their data. I’m trying to work through the issue
right now.”
i hope he can come up with a solution that makes financial sense for him.
In Remembrance of the Great Recession
while i was sitting in traffic yesterday i started to think how about how much this financial disaster has changed the lives of my friends and family over the last two years. it’s one thing to get caught of the larger debate (and the spectacle of it all), but maybe the best way we can decide whether we are going in the right direction is a personal assessment of our own community. so on this memorial day weekend i’m taking a personal inventory of my community (colleagues, friends, family and neighbors) to remember how bad things have become during our “Great Recession”
In Remembrance of the Great Recession of 2008-2010
i also have realized that we also have to take some personal responsibility here and maybe we created much of these problems because our inability to live within our means and are now collectively paying the piper.
from what i see many of us are helping each other out, but where has our government been? this is biggest crisis to happen in my life and it seems that we are expected to get through this storm on our own.
where are the WPA type jobs programs? where did the stimulus money go? has the promise of an education for all disappeared for good? (at least in california)
my fear is that a few years from now we are going to look back and realize that the middle class dream of being able to work a decent job for decent pay died in the summer of 2010 and was traded for that old libertarian mantra “it’s every man for himself”
The Bigger Picture
a few nights ago i got an email from a old friend and former student about how i helped him over 20 years ago. it reminded me how it’s too easy to get caught up in the day to day successes and failures of teaching and forget about the bigger picture
“Just read your Derek Sivers post and it made me think… This guy from Kansas named Paul Bailey was my high school marching band coach my senior year, and from that he was able to get me a job at Poway HS (which he got because he marched Madison (Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps), and I ended-up working with HS marching bands for 7 years before it got to be too much while starting my now 15 year career at Accenture… Great experiences, great memories, and definitely a great part of my life. Thank you again, Paul.”
HBO’s Treme Revives Jazz On National TV – chicagotribune.com
If you haven’t been watching Treme yet, here is your introduction. so far it’s not quite matured into “the wire” i’m still very hooked into following david simon’s very unique altmanesque storytelling.
“Not everything in “Treme” serves its noble cause. Portraying one of the show’s leading characters, the fictional jazz trombonist Antoine Batiste (played by Wendell Pierce), as a chronic philanderer who’s always swindling someone taps the sorriest stereotypes about jazz life. “
“Then, again, Simon and friends aren’t trying to produce a treatise on jazz but, rather, a dramatic series about the near-death of a city. And not just any city, but one that has exported more musical culture to the rest of the country — and the world — than anyplace else on this continent.
“Treme” is sending a message about the incalculable musical value of New Orleans, why this city must be saved and what will be lost if its citizens can’t regain their footing.”
link: HBO’s Treme revives jazz on national TV – chicagotribune.com
“Despite All His Humanoid Robots…”
“But the reason Bradbury’s stories still sing on the page is that, despite all his humanoid robots, automated houses, and rocket men, his interest is not in future technologies but in people as they live now—and how the proliferation of convenient technology alters the way we think and the way we treat each other.”
link: The stories of Ray Bradbury. – By Nathaniel Rich – Slate Magazine
“Music is about the Mind and Imagination…”
“But from a friendly, loved pop face, it constitutes a thoughtful proposal that this kind of contemplation of sound, involving the pure isolation of its surface, depth and mysterious presence, can be a discreet reminder of the experimentally achieved occult electro-sonic qualities that are a key part of pop’s appeal. It’s a polite reminder that music, however it is assembled, whatever it consists of, however it is classified, is about the mind and the imagination as much as it’s about buying, swapping, listing and grading music and reminding you of your past.”
link: Paul Morley on music: why Jarvis Cocker represents the future | Music | The Observer
Music Theory: Answering “The Why”
i was at rehearsal the other night when the question came about where should somebody start who wants to know more about music theory.
fair enough, but talk about an unintentionally loaded question. if you picked up a few books from the library they would start out with the fundamentals (notes, clefs, keys, scales, intervals, chords…), but after you learned that information what would you really have learned and what could you do with it?
i think when somebody says they want to learn music theory what they really are wanting to know is really “how does music work”. on that hand i don’t think many books do a great job (although i’d encourage others to happily prove me wrong and i’ll share that info).
along the lines of my previous theory post (making the simple more complex) is that learning ‘theory’ should be synonymous with teaching how music works; the skills needed how to create music i.e. composition (and implicitly imitation) rather than teaching students how to only analyze and dissect music.
thinking about this in practical terms this would mean making some big changes on how I would teach lower level theory fundamentals, asking students to transcribe and analyze a melody and/or chord progression that they liked (pain in the ass to grade). the big point here is to figure out how intervals and chords work in the context of a real piece of music (unlike the traditional way of teaching them divorced from the actual music making experience)
to skip ahead a bit the big point I’m continually trying to make is that:
- the best way to learn music theory is to analyze music that is ‘interesting’ (to us)
- this analysis should focus on answering the question ‘why?’
- learning music fundamentals (and music theory) should be connected to answering ‘the why?’
Is there an Bubble in Higher Education? (via DIY U)
“We don’t often hear higher education talked about in such baldly commercial terms. Most faculty and campus administrators have visceral negative reactions to this kind of language. But that doesn’t mean that colleges—even not-for-profit colleges—aren’t essentially run as businesses. It just means that (a) they’re often run as businesses badly because it is considered distasteful to draw on the lessons and vocabulary of the business world, and (b) educators often fail to identify the tensions between their school’s mission and its operating model, thus making it less likely that they will be able to confront some of the system’s ethical challenges successfully. But since the heart of DIY U is an economic argument, it is worthwhile to try framing issues in the language of economics. As the title of this post suggests, the specific question I want to address is whether there is a bubble in the college education market.”
link: DIY U: Is There a Bubble in the Higher Education Market?
“the rest will take care of itself”
“don’t worry about who you are, get rid of who your not, and the rest will take care of itself”
link: Tumblr
jim earl via marc maron’s WTF Podcast, Episode 73 May 17th 2010
it looks like it’s going to work out (2010)
i have been making music on my train commute each morning to CSUF improvising and creating songs using my new iPad and looping music programs like PatternMusic. So far i’m really enjoying the fact that there is a finally a robust portable music device that you can create/improvise/compose on without a laptop/desktop/studio. yeah the sounds are cheezy, but when it comes to working on computers i have always liked it that way. i’d rather imagine what it could sound like on acoustic instruments than create something that is almost (but not quite)
for the first time it’s nice to take it with you. one one hand i like that it’s kinesthetic, and on the other i’m glad i have good ears cause playing by ear on a grid based pattern/step sequencer can be pretty awkward.
it looks like it’s going to work out: (2010)
It looks like it’s going to work out by paul bailey
improvised and performed using an iPad and PatternMusic (051810)
also pardon the sound quality. for now the only way to record is with a miniplug line out which adds a bit of noise
“Capitalism is Eating Itself”
a great summary of “Makers” one of my favorite books that i have recently read by Corey Doctorow
“The opening pages of Makers attacks the very idea of corporatism: Capitalism is eating itself. The market works, and when it works, it commodifies or obsoletes everything… money won’t come from a single, monolithic product line… the money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people. The rest of the book imagines what that post-corporate-behemoth world would look like, a world where the Disney corporation—the last flailing mammoth on the plain—will do anything, even kill, to keep from going extinct. Doctorow fires off new ideas at a staggering pace: Inventors find a way to make packs of surplus Elmo dolls salvaged from the garbage (dolls that, to meet the demands of increasingly elaborate Christmastime fads, have evolved into simplistic robots) drive cars and perform other complex tasks; tiny robots build even tinier robots that can skitter around and improvise the construction of a useful tool. In the middle of an argument about obesity, one character reframes an entire modern-day debate: “We didn’t get less willful in the last fifty years. Might as well say that all those people who died of the plague lacked the willpower to keep their houses free of rats. Fat isn’t moral, it’s epidemiological.”
link: Living in a Sci-Fi Novel by Paul Constant – Books – The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper
How the Apple iPad Was Dreamed Up — in 1988 – PCWorld
“The device was about the size of a paper notebook, and it packed a high-resolution color touchscreen with a virtual keyboard, gigabytes of solid-state storage, cellular connectivity, GPS, and a built-in microphone and speaker. Sophisticated software based on UNIX let you tap icons on a desktop and use pop-down menus to use it for note-taking, connecting to online services, driving directions, e-mail (complete with junk-mail filtering), social networking, 3D games, and both network TV shows and wacky user-generated video. Accessories included a wireless keyboard for those who preferred to touch type, and if you lost your tablet, a clever service even let you use the GPS to track it down.”
How the Apple iPad Was Dreamed Up — in 1988 – PCWorld
My Early iPad Review
so far the iPad has been a pretty interesting and although i’ve had only for a week i think it’s still to early to tell on how useful a mobile device it will become. instead of trying to read the tea leaves of what it might become, i’m going to break it down in some smaller chunks:
Things I Like
- great to read magazine length multimedia content on the interwebs
- i also prefer it as a newsreader and really a perfect couch computer
- great for viewing photo slideshows and movies
- at the end of the day it shines as a media consumption device
Limitations
- not really great for content creation
- iWork is buggy, editing rich text documents without a mouse is a pain (although it’s been shown you can easily hack a Bluetooth mouse)
- it’s a pain in the ass to type on (in relation i prefer to type much more on my iphone) i have pretty big hands and i have to peck out words one letter at a time
- using it with a bluetooth keyboard makes you miss the mouse even more
- no good Twitter client yet (twitterific is ok, wish they had echofon)
- to heavy to read comforably in bed or on the couch
- iBooks are too expensive. no reason not to continue using amazon and their very good kindle app for the Ipad
- multitasking would make many programs much more useful (textexpander, pastebot, 1password)
- screen glare is a problem, although works better in landscape
- not many must have iPad specific app yet (i assume this will change by the end of the summer once developers have adequate time to create and test their iPad specific apps)
iPad vs. iPhone
- after using it for a week i was surprised to discover that my iPhone is better for messaging and typing short notes and email. i think the form factor of the IPad makes it really a tweener mobile device. to big to do the basic mobile tasks, and not robust enough to do more than basic word processing.
- on the other hand i have found when teathering to my iPhone it makes the iPhone/iPad combination very compelling. one device for the mobile bits and a more robust device for the larger more complex tasks (reading, basic word processing, basic music composition/improvisation)
- like i said above i prefer to day most text entry on the iPhone. the iPad is too big and heavy to even write a long email.
My Favorite iPad Apps
- Instapaper i use basically as a tool to read most of the content i find interesting on the interwebs. it’s fundamental function is to strip out all the excess pictures and adverts to leave you with a text only version of whatever article/blog you were wanting to read
- simplenote is my basic plain-text word processor on the iPad and iPhone. i’m using it right now to write this article. the best thing about it is that it easily syncs between any mobile device your desktops. kinda like what google docs and pages should eventually be doing. although i used to be a big evernote user, the ease of use and the quick syncing has made simplenote my main tool to keep jot down quick notes on the go
- comiczeal is a very simple and effective pdf/comic reader. and have finally been able to enjoy reading graphic novels on my ipad
- Todo i have been using todo on the iphone for quite a while and it’s Ipad cousin is well worth the upgrade. i wish they would eventually have an OSX version (like things), but i’m very happy with the iPad and Iphone versions
iPad Case
Netflix
Kindle iPad app
- i really like that you can easily sync books and share your bookmarks and annotations publicly. i find that it’s to heavy for reading for long periods of time and think my kindle 2 overall is a better bookreader. i also noticed today that it doesn’t have the % read line at the bottom of each page, which for some strange reason i seem to prefer.
iPad apps that show promise
SkyGrid
- it’s kind of a curated newsreader. i don’t have any clear idea how it works, but if i just want to catch up on the news it’s great place to start. i wish it had instapaper support or would let me open another browser to save an article for later, but for now all you can really do is email a link to yourself.
textexpander, pastebot, and 1password
- i’m starting to use these more and more between my macbook/iphone/ipad and i can see them becoming more useful when multitasking comes to OS 4 later this summer (and they release an iPad specific app)
iPad as a Music Controller
PatternMusic
- so far it’s the most interesting music performance app. it’s a pattern based looper (similar to the session view side of ableton live) one of the great things about it is that it starts to show the possibilities of using the ipad as a stand alone musical instrument (instead of just a controller) right now its sound pallete is limited and would be great if it offered midi out and the ability to internally record it’s own performances
ChipPad
- mp3 based sequencer in which you launch your own loops. it offers an interesting alternative to the session view and arrangement views in ableton live
Electrify
- seems like a ipad specific version of the Electribe/Groovebox, andcould be useful, but still haven’t figured out how to make it sing
Eliss
- really not a music controller, but a interesting generative music game that was pretty cool on the iphone, but is much cooler (b/c of the bigger size) on the iPad
also if you haven’t tried this out for your iphone/ipad, your really should.
Everybody Can Hear It
Q. Armando Bayolo asked: What about John Adams recent cry of “the emperor has no clothes” towards Eliot Carter on his blog? Is that okay because they’re two grand old men of contemporary American music?
A. No. It’s okay because Elliott Cook Carter Jr. clearly and self-evidently lacks even the most rudimentary scintilla of musical talent. Everyone knows it. Everyone can hear it. It’s long past time someone just said it.
Comment #54 via mclaren at Rude Question of the Week–Is Nico Overrated? at Sequenza21.com
sometimes the commentary about the commentary is much more interesting. in the future if i were a musicologist i would spend my time reading the blog comments