I’m glad that other bloggers have also been a bit uninspired recently. Myself, I’ve been to plenty of things that should have stimulated me to write something - Rossini (go Mr. Continuo Player for the inspired Pink Panther Theme when Basilio enters), student concerts, mostly excellent piano music at the Bouffes du Nord, Pascal Dusapin’s attractive new opera (though it was more of a staged monologue), Medea, Pascal Dusapin’s not-quite-right sound installation with Richard Serra’s sort of overwhelming sculpture at the Grand Palais (why do neither Serra nor Dusapin have websites???), but nothing was quite worth writing about. I even went to see J Mascis playing drums for some band called Witch, but, well, they were terrible. You get what you pay for at the Fleche d’or, which is to say, nothing, right?* (more…)

When I go running, I’ve found that the best breathing pattern for me is to breath in for 2 steps and out for 3. In other words, I jog in a 2+3 mixed meter. I don’t run with headphones, but I typically have a tune in my head, and it tends to be the same one each time, possibly because there isn’t that much 5/4 music to choose from. Back in New York, I typically ran to a distorted version of a Brahms symphonic movement. I started running again semi-regularly again here in Paris at about the same time that all my tonal writing assignments were reminding me of Tchaikovsky’s 6th. So now I’m running with the second movement, the waltz-out-of-whack, of that piece, and I’m finding that it’s the second theme, the sad one but also the more repetitive and obsessive one, where I get stuck. Because jogging is a repetitive and obsessive activity, and more than a little sad, no?

Does anyone else think about this sort of thing while exercising? I know it’s weird enough to be thinking about classical music while running (don’t most people put on heavy metal or (contemporary) dance music?) - but how about this mixed meter thing? Should I be trying to jog in 5 while listening to music in 4 in order to improve my feeling for polymeter? (as though running isn’t already enough of an “it’s good for me” activity)

I’m back from New York. It was a long trip, and a good one. Two premieres is always a good thing. I also got to give two talks about my music and came back with a litany of new projects to work on.

The first of the talks was a nearly-impromptu affair for a first-year seminar at Stony Brook. The professor, who is running Stony Brook’s big premieres festival and for whom I used to TA, wanted me to come in and talk about the creative process. So, obviously, the conversation turned largely to a discussion of humor in music. Why not?

But the most interesting thing happened after the talk, when I got an email from one of the students in the class. The student asked me if I knew any “instrumental post-rock,” particularly Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, and The Red Sparowes . Of course, I’d heard of Godspeed (how could you forget a name like that?), but I’d never delved into the genre. In fact, I didn’t really know there was a genre called post-rock. I knew there was stuff kind of like this, but I didn’t know it had a name…

So I gave each of the above a listen. The first thing that surprised me was how bright each band sounded, not including Godspeed’s spoken word material. I was expecting something little more like Judas Priest or Pantera - relentless loudness and darkness - but found that especially the latter two were producing textures more like Nico Muhly, whom, as we all know, writes too prettily for his own good. (I don’t know why precisely so much of my blog seems to involve Nico, whom I’ve never met. I find his blog very engaging, and when the New Yorker writes a feature about you, you have to expect some snarky references, but that doesn’t explain it entirely…)

The second, well, not-exactly-surprise, was the extent to which I have a hard time hearing this music as “rock.” Which I guess makes it “post-rock.” But at what point does the pendulum swing far enough to make this stuff into genre no longer affiliated with rock? It struck me that there’s a parallel between the idea of post-rock and Kyle Gann’s concept of the post-classic. (more…)

My latest spam comment, refreshingly, was not selling prescription drugs, but was instead on the subject of Ozzie Osbourne, Tool, and Pantera. I wish it hadn’t been spam - I’d love it if some metalheads were interested in either my music or my thoughts on music. Why, oh why dear spam comment need you be so spammy? Come, heavy metal fans, visit me! And listen to this, this, and and maybe even this, even try all three at the same time, it’s sort of neat - you might like it? Queensryche was my favorite band for years, so if you like them…

The music, by the way is, respectively, The Future Croulebarbe, the fourth movement of the Six Short Pieces for Piano, and the Prelude and Fantasia