by Benjamin Williams ⋅ July 15th, 2009 ⋅
I’m always fascinated by reports of current trends in music consumption. An article in The Atlantic, “Why Aren’t Kids These Days Downloading Music?” by Derek Thompson was cited by Frank J. Oteri in “You Can’t Take That Away From Me” remarking on the latest trend: moving away from downloading and keeping tracks toward visiting streaming sites such as Pandora and YouTube where you listen in a less committal way.
This new structure is changing the economy of music as noted by Alexandra Topping:
Even though users of streaming services are not necessarily buying more music, the industry benefits by learning more about fans’ tastes. Steve Purdham, CEO and founder of We7, a music streaming service and download store, said: “They may not buy an album, though they have that opportunity, but you can sell them tour tickets and a T-shirt of their favourite band.”
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by Benjamin Williams ⋅ June 16th, 2009 ⋅
No matter how much composers wish to be noted for their tendency to think outside-of-the-box or to be on the cutting-edge, it is apparent that composers are also unlikely to compose without drawing on some form of external (whether intentionally imposed or not) inspiration.
One likely source of inspiration is that a similar generator; in the case of composers, another composer. One composer with whom I studied, Nikola Resanovic, made it evident that he drew some of his inspiration from other musicians; namely, The Beatles. He made no attempts to hide such inspiration, but rather made it evident with occasional titles such as “Igor’s Pet Walrus” alluding to the source of a harmonic progression (as well as components from Stravinsky). It became apparent, however, that such preferences leaked into his music even when he hadn’t necessarily consciously intended to do so, e.g. preferences for particular progressions typical of pop music, and became part of a wonderfully engaging personal style.
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by Benjamin Williams ⋅ February 14th, 2009 ⋅
Whereas I have written before in defense of live performers (“Who Needs Performers?“), I found the recent attacks on performers who used pre-recorded music rather lacking in substance. In particular, the 2009 inauguration performance and the national anthem at the 2009 Super Bowl were written about by Eric Felten in the Wall Street Journal in an article titled “That Synching Feeling.”
Here are some of the reasons offered by performers as to why they would use pre-recorded music:
- This occasion’s got to be perfect. You can’t have any slip-ups.
- The slightest glitch would devastate the performance.
- There are too many variables to go live.
- The performers care too much about their art to risk presenting something substandard.
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by Benjamin Williams ⋅ December 9th, 2008 ⋅
I worked with guitarist/composer/conductor Dennis Roden for around 10 years at a church in Canton, OH where he was music director and I was pianist/organist (musicians wear so many hats, don’t they?). He recently earned the name Master Roden with his writings on the Stravinsky Mass. The research provided some interesting insights into the compositional process of Stravinsky (odd text accentuation, musical form that does not directly follow the form of the text, etc.), but I was most struck by Stravinsky’s thoughts about composers and spirituality.
Two quotes, in particular, stood out to me as calls to composers in regards to their work:
I regard my talents as God-given, and I have always prayed to Him for strength to use them. When in early childhood I discovered that I had been made the custodian of musical aptitudes, I pledged myself to God to be worthy of their development, though, of course, I have broken the pledge and received uncovenanted mercies all my life, and though the custodian has too often kept faith on his own all-too-worldly terms.
-Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Dialogues and a Diary, (London: Faber, 1968), 125.
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by Benjamin Williams ⋅ December 8th, 2008 ⋅
A true gem of a thought that I can not resist periodically shows up on Orchestralist, the international forum for orchestra professionals. One such post recently came up that contained such good points that I am still mentally working my way through my own thoughts regarding the questions posed.
The author paraphrased Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs and Steel with a list of factors that may be the most important factors in whether an orchestra will present a new work.
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