I visited/attended a composition seminar down at Yale in New Haven, CT this past Thursday, and the guest lecturer for that day was Matthias Pintscher, a well-reputed composer and conductor from Europe who spends a lot of time in the U.S. It was a fascinating discussion of his music and artistic views, which incorporated some […]
Read MoreMonth: October 2011
Concert Comments – David Macbride’s 60th Birthday Celebration Concert
I’m not going to title this post a “review”–I have very few comments here that would make for a critical review. However, I have some comments that I’d like to share regarding yesterday’s concert held by David Macbride. David Macbride is a professor of Composition and Theory at The Hartt School. I have worked closely […]
Read MoreTool #19: Silence
Silence is an integral component of sound. Without silence, there would be less contrast in the realm of sound, and music would be a completely different thing. I’m not looking to get into a Cageian discussion of what music is compared to sound or the virtues of having silence in today’s world, but I’d like […]
Read MoreOpinion: Classical Concerts are Better Than Classical Recordings
Concerts! What about them? I took them for granted while in music school–let’s put that out there. With the hundreds of annual performances, I missed a multitude of evenings because I had my head in a textbook, with some headphones on in the library, or writing notes on paper. And I’m glad I studied, listened, […]
Read MoreTool #18: Make Music When You Write Music
Here’s a quick tip for when you’re in the process of composing, that helps no matter how your composing habit usually goes: Make music when you write music. What do I mean? When you’re at your instrument and you’re composing, make music on that instrument. When you’re at the computer plugging in notes, hum and […]
Read MoreContext in the Concert Setting
My seventh grade English teacher told us one day that she thought all books should have black covers, with just the title and author on it. Why? Because the imagery provided by a cover defines the inception of what we think the book is about. How can you judge a book by its cover, or […]
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