New Found Glory

You guys! One of Magnus Lindberg's early works (that would be: Kraft) requires the percussionists to pick out materials for the performance from a local junkyard. (That way every performance is unique and locally-based, see.) So here it is - percussionists of the NYPO finding their instruments:



I wish this was an everyday occurrence. Although maybe with an expanded hunting-ground; I don't spend much time hanging out in junkyards.

(via fileunder?)
("Kraft" would be such a great piece to hear live...in the meantime, there's always NAXOS.)

Who Can Say Where The Road Goes?

This guy has so much time on his hands.



(So many videos: MysteryGuitarMan)
(via boingboing)

Drop It Like It's Hot

What's in a name? Women's Division.

Pat Benatar - Patricia Andrejewski
Dido - Florian Cloud De Bounevialle Armstrong
Macy Gray - Natalie Renee McIntyre
Wynonna Judd - Christina Claire Ciminella
Chaka Khan - Carole Yvette Marie Stevens
Peggy Lee - Norma Deloris Egstrom
Mama Cass Elliot - Ellen Naomi Cohen
Joni Mitchell - Roberta Joan Anderson
Cat Power - Charlyn Marie Marshall
Joss Stone - Joscelyn Eve Stocker
Donna Summer - LaDonna Adrian Gaines
Tina Turner - Annie Mae Bullock
Bonnie Tyler - Gaynor Hopkins


*I got these stage/original name-pairs from sources of questionable repute: who even KNOWS if they're true!
(shoutmouth and digitaldreamdoor)

Start To Push / Break Your Own Glass Ceiling

Ken Unsworth is an Australian artist who specializes in installation and sculpture works. "I'm not worried about meaning," he said in one interview. "I just like to make these strange things." Strange and often musical - turns out his late wife, an inspiration for many of his pieces, was a pianist. Examples A and B: "Rapture" (for piano, straw, burnt sheet music, and plastic mice) is a sculpture made of keyboard-stairs, and "Piano Trio (Teaching Three Pianos to Sing in Unison)" involves three grand pianos, motorized parts, three metronomes, and sheet music.

And then I give you Example C: Unsworth's 2009 exhibit "A Ringing Glass (Rilke)" includes an installation with twenty-eight toy pianos (I counted) suspended from the ceiling. The Schoenhut tinkle starts at 4:45, but the whole video is worth watching: even in the installations dealing with, oh you know, humanity and life and death and things, sound and music play a huge role:

Messing With The Flavor / Oh The Flavor That You Savor

Nico Muhly: The Next Food Network Star?
(I really hope so.)

How composing is like cooking, and so much more.



(Muhly has two new albums out: A Good Understanding, and I Drink the Air Before Me.)

Art Of Listening

I haven't been this entertained by a music video in a long time.

(Extra credit: Did you spot Alma Mahler?)

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

(via Neu Black)

Yeah, I Want To Remake The Horizon

"While [Mahler's 10th Symphony] may even today still be as powerful and evocative as ever, it has, so to speak, entered the realms of the historical, where its relevance is limited to a gone-by era outside of our physical grasp. Herbert was fascinated by the thought of being able to listen to it as though the past 100 years had never taken place, as though our ears were still capable of perceiving its grandiose architecture without having been exposed to atonality, dodecaphony and the advent of electronic sounds. His intent was to beam the score straight into the 21st century, giving new birth to it through an act of digital re-contextualisation aimed at establishing connections between the "what is" and "what was"....[U]nderneath its veil of controversy, Herbert has recorded a work that is as heartfelt as it is free from any kind of novelty gadgets. His recomposed (or, more precisely, relistened) edit is both a wordless radioplay and a meta-Symphony, incorporating the piece, its reception and potential context all in one."

(From a Taruskin-heavy but really interesting review by Tobias Fischer at tokafi)

(Mahler: Recomposed By Matthew Herbert)

(Same series!: Ravel & Mussorgsky Recomposed By Carl Craig)

Pardon Me Boys / Is That The Chattanooga Choo-Choo

You've got your Train Whistle Blues, your Train Whistle Boogie, some Different Trains, a Train Song, oooh a Train Song with Mr. Waits, the First Train Home, the Last Train Home, and I'm pretty sure we used to bet pennies on who could come closest to identifying whistle-chords as those trains rolled through Northfield during Music Theory II.

(Common train chords: A Major 6th; A7; and c# dim7. Check it out: Train Horn Chords.)

Rip Off Your Sleeves / And I'll Ditch My Socks

Trikoton is a Berlin-based label that specializes in custom clothing based on (your) voice signals. The founders created a 1970s-style interactive knitting machine; a micro-controller and 24 small engines imitate a pattern card that can be controlled by live user input (that's you!) via connected computer. You can record anything you want - your favorite poem on a scarf, a sweater inspired by sounds in the kitchen, maybe a song composed for ukulele incorporated into a pair of pants - anything! Lookbook.

Berlin wins again.


(via notcouture)

I'm Still Figuring Out What's Going To Go / In My Experimental Film

It's Experimental Music Wednesday, and today we're featuring The Friction Brothers: Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), Michael Zerang (percussion), and Michael Colligan (dry ice). Yes dry ice can I get a what(?) It doesn't replace my fondness for the acoustic cactus, but it does expand the repertoire.



(Disclaimer: it's not as though Experimental Music Wednesdays are a regular feature on this blog. So why now? Because The Friction Brothers are coming to Madtown's Project Lodge TOMORROW. Who wants to go?)


(Review of The Friction Brothers from the Chicago Reader)

Soak Up Congratulations

The names of the 2010 MacArthur Fellows have been released, and there are two musicians on the list! Jason Moran is a jazz pianist / composer, and Sebastian Ruth is a violist, violinist, and music educator. (Both men are 35 years old and live on the east coast. It's a coincidence.)

You want a list all of the music-related MacArthur Fellows who have ever existed? Okay.

Marin Alsop - Orchestra Conductor
Milton Babbitt - Composer
Ran Blake - Composer and Pianist
Anthony Braxton - Jazz Composer and Performer
Regina Carter - Jazz Violinist
Ornette Coleman - Jazz Performer and Composer
John C. Eaton - Composer
Osvaldo Golijov - Composer
John Harbison - Composer and Conductor
Corey Harris - Blues Musician
Stephen Hough - Pianist
Peter Jeffery - Musicologist
Bernice Johnson Reagon - Music Historian, Composer, and Vocalist
Leila Josefowicz - Violinist
Ali Akbar Khan - Classical Indian Music Performer
Walter Kitundu - Instrument Maker and Composer
Steve Lacy - Saxophonist and Jazz Composer
George E. Lewis - Composer, Performer, and Music Theorist
Susan McClary - Musicologist
Edgar Meyer - Bassist and Composer
Conlon Nancarrow - Composer
George Perle - Composer and Music Theorist
Max Roach - Percussionist and Jazz Composer
Reginald Robinson - Ragtime Pianist and Composer
Alex Ross - Music Critic
George Russell - Composer and Music Theorist
Gunther Schuller - Composer, Conductor, and Jazz Historian
Ralph Shapey - Composer and Conductor
Bright Sheng - Composer
Cecil Taylor - Jazz Pianist and Composer
Gary A. Tomlinson - Musicologist
Dawn Upshaw - Vocalist
Ken Vandermark - Jazz Composer and Performer
Marion Williams - Gospel Music Performer
Charles Wuorinen - Composer
Miguel Zenón - Saxophonist
John Zorn - Musician and Composer

Listen As The Wind Blows / From Across The Great Divide

I read Pauline Oliveros' book Deep Listening sometime last spring, and for awhile went through this phase where I would try her slow-walk exercise in busy spaces - on the El, in the middle of Millenium Park, at the Mother's Day-themed limerick contest I attended*. The idea is that a slow walk forces you to engage with your immediate (sonic) environment. It's very specific: you're supposed to place your heel, slowly slowly let down the outside of your sole, feel your pinkie toe make contact, and then settle the rest of your foot to balance point. (Think you're doing it? NO WAY: you can always go slower.) Busy spaces, I thought, would make for the most interesting environments - and if I was doing it right, nobody would notice I was moving anyway.

I didn't usually do it right: people noticed. (It was only a short phase.)

ANYWAY: Oliveros is one of the founders of the Deep Listening Institute. You can take classes and get certified (hey!) in what amounts to focusing on the difference between involuntary hearing and selective listening. I don't know that I buy the Institute lock, stock, and barrel - but reading her book really did make me more aware of everyday sound.

Friends: this video is not terribly entertaining. But if you want a little bit of a window into the Deep Listening method / if you want to see Oliveros do her thing: this is for you.






*Okay this one - busy: not so much.

I Just Met A Girl Named Maria

On September 26, 1957, West Side Story opened on Broadway.

Here's a Fun Fact: originally, the musical was titled "East Side Story."
And again: Bernstein wrote the song "One Hand, One Heart" for "Candide" - it got cut, and he saw an opportunity to recycle.

Best of all, this is a video of a 2007 50th anniversary tribute rehearsal featuring 22 of the original cast members performing alongside the new blood.



Multi-generational singing and dancing: sign me up!

(more at ThisDayInHistory and imdb)

I Heard It Said / You Had Come Back From The Dead

Now you can follow Cosima Wagner on Twitter.

(Or: if you don't have a twitter account, you can just check back regularly.)

Rubber Ducky / You're The One

And HOT OFF THE PRESS:



Update: Turns out Katy and her Perries never got air time thanks to some disgruntled parents. Even so: IT HAPPENED.


(So comprehensive: squidoo)

I Choose To Celebrate The First

The NPR classical music blog Deceptive Cadence just finished up a week devoted to "First Loves" - stories by famous musicians about the moment when classical music grabbed on and wouldn't let go. Tim Munro on Ives, Nico Muhly on Byrd, Zuill Bailey on Rostropovich, Nick Cords on Nadien, Jason Vieaux on Villa-Lobos, and Marian Alsop on Brahms.

That's quite a line-up - but maybe my favorite part of this feature is the invitation extended to blog readers to post their own "first loves". It'll warm the cockles of your heart.

If You Must Know... / It's The Music Of The Spheres

Doctor Who explains it all.

And Now We Pass And Just Like Glass / I See Through You

In which: Hario Glass Corporation makes some instruments.
(More pictures on the SPGRA Design Blog. They're pretty, aren't they?)

But how do they sound? Dean Shostak owns one of the glass violins made by Hario, and he's posted a sample (right here) so you can judge for yourself.



(via notcot)

All I Hear Is Noise

Turn Me Up! is a non-profit organization "campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records." There's nothing wrong with loud music, they say, but artists should have a choice - and many feel like more dynamic music will get lost in the (ipod?) shuffle.

Check out Matt Mayfield's video demonstrating the effect a loud, less dynamic aesthetic is having on the music:



Just something to think about; plus, music dynamics in the news.