Comments on: Birdies

By: Jack Curtis Dubowsky

Jack Curtis Dubowsky — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:50:48 +0000

I recall the 8bb “minor scandal” did provoke this amusing response:
http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/competition2010.html

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 04:33:10 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvN9YwiveXc

thought I’d expand on the topics above

By: Pratik

Pratik — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:29:17 +0000

According to the style guide I use (vaguely Chicago), Sextet shouldn’t be capitalized. But then how to different between the Reich Sextet, the piece, and a putative Reich Sextet, the eponymous ensemble?

By: Pete Yelding

Pete Yelding — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:05:52 +0000

I had a master-class recently with Irish composer David Fennessy (currently teaching at the Royal Scottish). He spoke briefly about this issue by suggesting what is in my opinion quite an obvious but nonetheless sometimes overlooked perspective: much new music (in the concert situation) is working best in a particular space, it is written for live absorption and the recording is retrospective, a memoir of the performance (which differs to the band’s artistry coming through most strong in the studio and the performance being in some ways retrospective of the studio work). He was saying that when he came to terms with this, not only was his listening approach altered but also how he approached writing (as he like many others including myself comes from the ‘originally in a band before discovering new music and trying to recreate that aesthetic in the concert hall’ approach). Perhaps this simple eventuality can be exemplified by 2 x 5…

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 10:10:32 +0000

“With Reich, though, I am so addicted to the rush I got when I first listened to Different Trains and Electric Counterpoint in order that I make it almost a tradition to experience his music in album-sequence.”

I completely agree with you. I have this issue with Music for Eighteen Musicians… It was the first Reich piece I listened to and now every time I press play on my ipod I’m in it for the long haul. My is it worth it though…

By: Ross

Ross — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:49:21 +0000

My favorite part of your blog has been the music clips….then I bought an iPad.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 05:04:39 +0000

Then again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fapq0H–lME

Maybe Reich just liked that Nintendo sound (or never imagined it otherwise).

By: Tyler

Tyler — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 04:42:46 +0000

“Has anybody else ever felt a divorce between the quality of music and the sound quality of the recording? The performance sounds quite nuanced and precise, but either the production or the mastering is…awkward here? Everybody buy it. It’s good. And then let’s all think about it.”

As someone who listened to pop and rock OR WHAT EVER music all his life and only within the past few years started caring about jazz and classical and new music or WHAT EVER, this is still pretty much the infuriating thing: that sense that what you’re hearing is a bastardization of what you would have heard if you’d been in the room. There are so many recordings of so many great pieces and unless you’re Nico Muhly or Alex Ross or somebody you don’t want every single recording of whatever piece. You want the best-sounding version. I remember you (Nico) wrote something about how in pop, the producer is like the composer, or something to that effect, and I remember feeling that summed it up for me.

Also, it’s weird that my computer (or your website?) thinks Muhly is a typo. Just sayin’.

By: Your Grandfather

Your Grandfather — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 15:43:32 +0000

Thank you for sending me searching for colimaçon. I need to hear it in more contexts, though. Is it idiomatic?