Bookmarks from July 12th through July 19th
“What went wrong here?” is an unpopular question with the type of city fathers and civic boosters for whom convention centers and pedestrian malls are the answers to all society’s ills but Harvey captured and chronicled every day what was–and will always be–beautiful about Cleveland: the still majestic gorgeousness of what once was–the uniquely quirky charm of what remains, the delightfully offbeat attitude of those who struggle to go on in a city they love and would never dream of leaving. What a two minute overview might depict as a dying, post-industrial town, Harvey celebrated as a living, breathing, richly textured society.”
link: Anthony Bourdain’s Blog
Video by Satan’s Pearl Horses http://satanspearlhorses.com/
Featuring Matt Marks and Mellissa Hughes
More info here: http://thelittledeathvol1.com/The Little Death: Vol. 1
by Matt Marks Directed by Rafael Gallegos
July 8-11, 14-17 2010
Incubator Arts Project http://incubatorarts.org
“So to me it seems that in banning the word classical we need to have some kind of agreement as to what we think it is we do that we wish to describe differently. “Classical“ clearly fails in 2010 as an a term of aggregation. “Classical” succeeds in maintaining a now elderly participant base for concert presentation, but fails in nearly other aspect of differentiation. Is there a coherent (though divergent) ‘classical’ music practice that could be better described with a single other word/phrase? Or is the suggestion that the discrepant musical discourses and modes of presentation would be better served through the disaggregation that the abandonment of the term classical would afford? These are both deeply philosophical and deeply practical questions.”
link: Ban the word “Classical” « Elissa Milne
“The university police department — about 10 officers and 2 detectives — don’t even know what an IP address is. I even contacted the local FBI office and they said they’re ‘not interested’ in the case despite it now crossing state lines. Am I chasing my own tail here? How can I get someone to pay attention to the fact that all the police need to do is file some RIAA-style paperwork to find the name associated with this IP address and knock on the right door to nab a criminal and recover my property? How can I get my laptop back — and more importantly — stop this criminal in his tracks?”
link: Slashdot Ask Slashdot Story | Retrieving a Stolen Laptop By IP Address Alone?
“Toward the end of our conversation in Birmingham, Donohue began to talk about the challenges of leading an organization. “The CEO in a major company now, if he lasts five years, he’s a hero,” Donohue said. It was clear that he was in part talking about himself. But Donohue has already lasted twelve years as Chamber president, and at the beginning of his tenure the board amended the bylaws to extend the mandatory retirement age past sixty-five. In 2009, he traveled 166 days of the year, coaxing open checkbooks, visiting twenty-seven states, and giving seventy-five speeches. All of this bodes well for his staying power. Still, “I am not powerful,” he said at one point. “The institution is powerful. If I walked out of the Chamber tomorrow, wouldn’t anybody return my phone calls except for a couple of my friends.” Given the anti-corporate rhetoric among Republicans, and the backlash against him in other quarters, this is a contingency he should consider. But for the moment Donohue is still the undisputed master of getting corporate giants to show him the money. And in a Washington that runs on money, that show must go on.”
link: Show Him the Money – James Verini
“I still think that if something is available for sale legitimately, you should pay for it (books, music, photos, movies, sheet music). A lot of the Bach, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff in Mr. Hawley’s collection is certainly available, and handing it to friends on a flash drive is absolutely depriving the publishers of their revenue. True, the composers are long dead, but editing and publishing sheet music is still worth something. It’s those obscure, out-of-print, not-available-anywhere items in his collection that make a tougher case. How many hours are you obligated to research and dig just to find out if something is available for sale? In this case, the barriers to a legitimate purchase are ridiculously high. Isn’t digital piracy justified in that case? Let me know what you think in the comments.”
link: No Easy Answers in the Copyright Debate – Pogue’s Posts Blog – NYTimes.com
“Composition, contemporary composition, is where reviewing comes to life. Complaining about interpreters, or rooting for them, however legitimate, is just fidgeting. Criticism joins the history of its art only when it joins battle, for or against, with the music of its time.” — Virgil Thomson, 1974
“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
the freight train theory of history
the results of the my latest compositions are starting to take shape. one of these new pieces (fearless leader) represents a new direction for my music. ligeti’s death got me thinking about his famous quote:
“Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, it’s not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape.”
i think his point isn’t really about the rejection of tonality or the acceptance of the avant guard, but the idea that once you choose to follow freight train theory of history, to progress you must reject something else to move forward (ernest krenek in the ockeghem bio).
i think there is a third way. innovation for the sake of something new can lead empty art. my new works are influenced by performance considerations than by artistic innovation. not anything i’m doing is new or cutting edge, but the combinations of these ideas are a practical matter and a response to the limitations of performance and rehearsal i have faced for the past three years.
the pieces are written in c score, to be played by an indeterminate size ensemble so that we are able to adjust the orchestration for each group that gets together to play.
these pieces also have an indeterminacy of parts, form and orchestration. they can be realized in a performance in a precomposed fashion in which all the parts are assigned and the piece unfolds in a specific manner.
yet we also can create a version so that in some sections the musicians can choose which lines to play and even change the form and internal repetition structure from show to show.
somehow the idea of opening up the score for future “customization” makes more sense to me these days. i can think of many examples of similar ideas (duke ellington, charles mingus, terry riley, cornelius cardew…) but this is more an solution to a specific problem.
in rehearsal the early realizations of this have been powerful. it changes the power structure of an ensemble; for us to make music you have to go beyond just playing what is on the page. decisions are made and agreed upon with the ensemble that really matter in performance. how do we want this to unfold? what is the best way to get to the center of this music? where is this piece going? so far many of the “happy accidents” have made the music much stronger. there is such a difference when everybody is when they are given freedom to choose and interact than when they are assigned a specific role.
three years ago i created this ensemble with an idea of an specific instrumentation that i was interested in working with. now i have turned around 180 degrees. its all about having a group a people that want to get together and make music on a consistent basis because we have to express ourselves through the communal nature of rehearsal and performance. the size of the ensemble can expand and contract based on our busy schedules, a only moderately balanced quorum is needed to put on a show. in a very early review, i hope these “adjustments” to my process have freed my ensemble to create music in a more creative and collaborative way and perform in far more often in the future. fto!
