“Composition”
August 13, 2011
It’s a word that can have many different applications, but they all marshal details in the service of a structure:
The other two videos from the same trip can be seen here.
An Advisory from the Library of Congress
August 10, 2011
ACE OF BASE MUST BE STOPPED! And who else? The Library of Congress is currently accepting public nominations for its annual National Recording Registry.
Each year since 2002 the National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB) and members of the public have nominated recordings to the National Registry. The breadth and depth of nominations received highlights the richness of the nation’s audio legacy and underscores the importance of assuring the long-term preservation of that legacy for future generations.
Recordings so far selected by the Library of Congress include: Sophie Tucker, De La Soul, Loretta Lynn, Bill Cosby, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, the Velvet Underground, Cole Porter and Bing Crosby, among others.
But not voting risks unfortunate choices (i.e. “I saw the sign…” or maybe “Feelings, trying to forget my feelings….”)
To nominate a recording to the Registry, e-mail: recregistry@loc.gov
To learn more about the Registry, go to: http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb
— from Cary O’Dell of the Library of Congress, via Mariana Whitmer of the Society for American Music
Improvisation, cont.
July 28, 2011
If you’re as interested in the art of musical improvisation as I am, you may enjoy this link to something I just posted at Thornwillow.
Norway: Coming Together
July 28, 2011
Friends and loved ones gather at the Oslo cathedral to mourn 93 victims killed in twin terror attacks from a bombing in downtown Oslo and a mass shooting on Utoya island on July 24, 2011 in Oslo, Norway. By Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
The Musical Equivalent of Fusion Cuisine
July 26, 2011
Dave Brubeck gave a solo to his drummer; here it goes to a tabla:
(Tip of the hat to Gary Bloore)
Stonecutters Are Paid By the Word
July 20, 2011
I believe we can build a better world. Of course it’ll take a lot of rock, water, and dirt. Also not sure where to put it.
That little piece of wit, ladies and gentlemen, was conveyed by Twitter. There has been a lot said on the subject of decline of language lately, and much of what was said laid the responsibility on newer ways of communicating. Twitter has taken a beating in some quarters for its confining each communication to 144 characters, thus limiting discourse in a severe way; but an effusion like the one above shows that carefully chosen words can convey some degree of subtlety in even fewer characters.
Traditional correspondence has always had an honored place for economy of language. Even before the rise of telegraph and cables with their by-the-word charges, there were pressing reasons to think carefully about leanness of expression. (P.G. Wodehouse delightfully lampoons the idiotic telegrams of young men endowed with more dollars than sense.) Consider the note left on calling cards. The scribbled abbreviation P.P.C., for pour prendre congé, was once used in leaving one’s card before leaving town; and there were cognate abbreviations for calls of condolence (pour condoler), congratulation (pour feliciter), and thanks (pour remercier).
Invitations are still a locus classicus of carefully selected words — of course reflected in our retaining the handy abbreviation R.S.V.P. And the care with which we write our more ceremonious, obligatorily handwritten messages make them in some ways the higher-born relatives of the “tweet.”
In his BBC series English Delight, Stephen Fry has a characteristically brilliant 30-minute commentary on virtues of brevity that are as valid for rowdy new media as for the more venerable ones. It can be heard at this link for five more days.
So it’s not yet time to scrawl R.I.P. on good English yet.
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Please note: Some will have noticed, I hope, that I have long had a link, at the bottom of the page, to the wonderful company called Thornwillow. I am now also blogging for their site and will sometimes link to something there. This cross-post is the last time I will duplicate (or cross-post, as we say these days) between the sites, but this one will serve as a notification of my split blogging activities.
Don’t Curse Cursive
July 18, 2011
Are young brains being damaged because they are not being taught cursive script? There are implications that I hadn’t thought of before.
A Musical Life in Eventful Times
July 18, 2011
The composer with his wife and Victoria de los Angeles
In preparation for the centenary of his birth next year, there is a new trilingual site for the brilliant Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge. You’ll be seeing a lot more about the celebration in this space.
RogerEvansOnline.com 