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Today I happened to notice something I wrote back in 2010 at the end of a post about perfect pitch: “… perfect pitch is a tool which, depending on one’s perspective, may or may not be a benefit or liability to musicians and music in general, but is most likely irrelevant either way in the grand scheme of musical [...]
Back in October, Marnie Stern’s dense guitar, frenetic energy, and songcraft grabbed my attention. While sounding of her time, she also sounded unique and fresh. I made a mental note of her, but didn’t investigate further until coming across a recent article by Sasha Frere-Jones in the New Yorker (Jan 3, 2011). The article introduces [...]
In the arts and entertainment world, you often heard it said, “If you can’t take criticism, you shouldn’t be in the business.” This is largely true, but is often abused or misconstrued as a means of justifying outright mean behavior. To clarify, insightful critical analysis delivered in a *nonthreatening environment, generally as a feature of an [...]
“Callin’ it your job don’t make it right, boss.” –Cool Hand Luke I. Overview: Philip Pettit on Group Agency The other day, I heard a fascinating interview with philosopher Philip Pettit on the Philosophy Bites podcast. The topic was group agency (the subject and title of Pettit’s as-yet unreleased new book), described thus on the podcast’s [...]
Earlier today I posted Milton Babbitt’s “Who Cares if You Listen?” as an example of an avant-garde attitude that I don’t care for. As an antidote to that, here is a beautiful article by the visionary avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse (often referred to as the Father of Electronic Music). To me, this writing is an expression of [...]
In 1958, High Fidelity magazine published the following article by avant-garde composer Milton Babbitt. Babbitt is known for taking serialism to the extreme and for being an active proponent of the modernist movement. This isn’t as cool as it might sound. Fortunately, the sort of attitude in which he took so much pride is increasingly [...]
The other day I was listening to an online lecture in which the following scenerio occurred (I’m paraphrasing in spots, but the salients remain intact): British Lecturer: Suppose a student comes in late to class the fifth day in a row and I say to her, “Early again are we?” What have I really said? Class of [...]
We have a tendency to categorize and, in doing so, create hierarchies. This tendency leads to systems that confer a status of seemingly tangible reality to our ideas about the world, thereby confirming the hierarchy. For example, if we are given a collection of 20 randomly chosen rocks and asked to put them in some [...]
I have recently begun listening to Marc Maron’s smart and funny WTF podcast. Yesterday I heard an episode in which comedian Janeane Garofalo was his guest (also smart and funny). Near the end of the conversation, Garofalo brought up the question, “What is an artist?” Maron responded by saying, “To me, an artist is somebody [...]
The other day I was listening to a podcast where they had a chicken that sounded to me like a man. Then later in the day I was walking around and overheard a man talking who sounded like a chicken.
