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. 🙂

Haha.

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.

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.

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.

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.