“He learned to practice by changing the rhythm of the piece. He learned to play one note at a time with a tuner. He learned to play each measure with a different metronome timing, and then he played the piece so slowly it took 20 minutes instead of just four. During these insane lessons where Amy and my son spent one hour on five notes, the more we worked on the art of practicing the more I saw that practice is a method to do anything ambitious and difficult. He learned to create a system and process instead of just focusing on the goal itself.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Gary Ginstling Named Executive Director Of The National Symphony
“Ginstling arrives at a time of significant transition for the NSO. He will start his tenure at the same time as Gianandrea Noseda, who will officially be welcomed as the NSO’s music director at a free concert on the Mall on July 29.”
Richard Cohen: Cultural Appropriation? Absolutely!
“The concept of cultural appropriation is nothing less than an intellectual fence: Keep out. If it had been adhered to, then Richard Fariña would not have written “Birmingham Sunday” after the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 that took the lives of four girls. (The song was recorded by Joan Baez.) Bob Dylan could not have written about Hattie Carroll, the black barmaid who was killed by a drunk white patron in 1963. “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” speaks to both race and class. It is as much “An American Tragedy” as Theodore Dreiser’s classic novel.”
The Internet Has Made Us Arrogant (And That’s Making Us Stupider)
“The defining trait of the age seems to be arrogance — in particular, the kind of arrogance personified by our tweeter in chief; the arrogance of thinking that you know it all and that you don’t need to improve because you are just so great already. But our culture’s infatuation with this kind of arrogance doesn’t come out of the blue.”
The Problem With Experts (And Why We Need Them)
“Democracy cannot function when every citizen is an expert. Yes, it is unbridled ego for experts to believe they can run a democracy while ignoring its voters; it is also, however, ignorant narcissism for laypeople to believe that they can maintain a large and advanced nation without listening to the voices of those more educated and experienced than themselves.”
Will A Hard Brexit Damage UK Museums?
The outgoing director of the Tate, Nicholas Serota, the director of the British Museum, Hartwig Fischer, and the new director of the V&A, Tristram Hunt, a former Labour Party shadow minister, are all concerned that these institutions will find it harder to retain and recruit expert staff from across Europe, potentially damaging their world-class status.
Why Has Performance Suddenly Become A Big Deal In Visual Art?
“In the past, time-based, intangible work requiring an actively-engaged audience was typically left in the shadow of the more easily-accessed, traditional art object. So, what is it about performance that has suddenly become so alluring now?”
Markus Lüpertz: Why The Public Doesn’t Get What Artists Do
“In this moment—if everyone painted, and if everyone was more intelligent—we could all paint the greatest pictures, because we have unparalleled freedom. But nobody accepts it. Only us old sacks of shit live with it. But the youth isn’t interested. They’d rather save the world from extinction, or stop the poles from melting—that’s all nonsense.”
Report: Enrollment In Humanities At American Universities Is Significantly Down
The trend is likely to alarm humanities professors and many others in academe. Many humanities departments have found themselves struggling to maintain tenure-track faculty lines and, in some cases, to continue departments. Humanities professors are quick to note that their departments play crucial roles in general education for students from a range of majors.
Going To The Movies Used To Be A Cultural Experience. It’s Losing That Resonance
“Going to the movies” is a Proustian madeleine, a series of pencil marks on a doorjamb, a solution to crises ranging from heartbreak to parental exhaustion, a way of being separate but together, present yet adrift. It’s also something people don’t do as often as they once did.