Comments on: Making Arrangements

By: Alexi

Alexi — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:19:06 +0000

I stumbled upon this page through an image search of Paul Bettany and found this entry to be very enlightening!
I enjoyed your metaphoric descriptions paired with the images (and audio examples). I especially liked the visual comparisons because I am a visual artist and I inherently translate things and understand everything visually, so it was very helpful!

My favorite part, though, was your criticism of criticism. I completely agree with you, and I didn’t know why I hated many reviews until I read this. So thanks!

Keep up the good work. I’d never heard of you before and now I’m keeping a look out for your work! So hurray for you, have a cookie, and keep writing.

By: Bruce Tutcher

Bruce Tutcher — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:11:02 +0000

Hello, Mr. Muhly, I only heard your name for the first time, today (associated with the song for The National) and was pleased to find this site. I’ll be checking out your work. I enjoyed your comment about influence. That it’s a bad thing to show an influence is absurd. Would they complain to Mozart that the Mass in C had parts derived from Bach? Dear Lord.

By: phillip larrimore

phillip larrimore — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:41:39 +0000

a very good point; I recently reviewed
a concert that Ursula Oppens did in
North Carolina and I found myself
trying to straitjacket a very interesting
work with comparisons–why? The
urge to make familiar the unfamiliar,
to control perception rather perceive;
unfortunately, almost everything must
go through a filter of a defense mechanism, given the informational
overload in daily life, and the preponderance of work which turns out
in good conscience to be merely epigonic.Which brings up the
the vexing question:when does a work
betray its sources? Is a parody mass
“derivative”?

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:42:57 +0000

I’m very much struck by how different your music is from that of Reich and Glass, and indeed I don’t really think of you as a minimalist composer; but that’s not to say you don’t have their techniques in your toolbox.

By: Emmanuel

Emmanuel — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:57:06 +0000

I thought from the title and the first sentences that someone had died and you were ‘making arrangements’ for their remains. And therefore you had to decide how to dress them.

Haha.

By: schimmel

schimmel — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:05:56 +0000

personally i love smelling influence.
and i think it is useful info.
but you’re right on about how stupid it is to believe that music should be fragrance-free.
no cult-of-originality for me, thank you.

By: ben frost

ben frost — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:48:05 +0000

and so the cycle continues.

Xaxaxaxa. An officemate just asked me, “Hey, Nick, what’s up with your Project Runway post? Is that intentional? Is that a spoof?”

There is something rather Adrian Ryan- and Nico Muhly-esque about this post, but it’s all me, completely intentional, and 100% How I Do on the internet.

By: AHB

AHB — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:37:24 +0000

Does it move you? (Whoever the you is.) In music, that’s the only thing…

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:15:13 +0000

Most excellent review of the review. May I quote?

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:55:45 +0000

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/tnlpix/PaulBettany.jpg

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:10:41 +0000

Brilliant post.

By: Galen H. Brown

Galen H. Brown — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:05:12 +0000

Part of the issue here is the purpose of a review and the job of the critic. If the critic’s job is to provide a sort of thumbs-up-or-thumbs-down assessment from a presumed expert position, then certainly a review which merely names influences doesn’t do the trick. But if it’s acceptable for a review to be primarily descriptive, then drawing comparisons to other better-known work seems fair. And I’m inclined to think that straight description is a reasonable approach some of the time, especially in cases where the reviewer wants to avoid letting personal biases interfere, or cases where the main value of the review to the audience will be to give them a sense of whether they themselves might be interested.

That said, I still agree that the review of your piece was problematic, just not for the same reason. One of the problems is that minimalists tend to be “accused” of being derivative a lot more often than our modernist pals. The implicit message of “derived from Schoenberg” is “this dude knows his Schoenberg and is Very Serious.” The implicit message of “derived from Glass” is “he stole from a guy who writes the same thing over and over, how dull.” It’s a ridiculous double standard. And “derived from” rather than “inspired by” or “reminiscent of” is also clearly barbed. The implication of the whole review is crystalized by the parting shot about resyncing the iPod–an iPod holds music by other people, and the reviewer is suggesting that you ripped off Reich and Glass but it didn’t get you far enough so you should have ripped off somebody else too. If your inspiration were Carter and Babbitt would the same insinuations have been made? I doubt it.

Congratulations on the performance. I’d love to hear the piece.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:42:43 +0000

The whole â€œthis band sounds like this band plus this band with a touch of this bandâ€ thing seems like a new, even worse take on the ‘criticism’ of a few years ago that used descriptions like “electro-funk-jazz-rock-country-metal-blues.” Pitchfork seems to be the worst for this kind of crap.

On an entirely related note, I just finished marking a stack of first year Music History papers and it seems like people are finding more and more elaborate ways of saying nothing about music.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:35:29 +0000

The reviewer provided very little opinion at all, which has very little entertainment value, reading-wise. I like the “But…” before the zing he gives your piece, even though it doesn’t follow something that’s able to be disagreed with.

And the violin line! I’d probably pull a Robert Schumann trying to stretch my hand for that Ab group in the third bar, but I’d do it gladly.

By: Steven

Steven — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:17:15 +0000

Hear, hear!