Category: music

“In the last few months, trade groups representing music publishers have used the threat of copyright lawsuits to shut down guitar tablature sites, where users exchange tips on how to play songs like ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,’ ‘Highway to Hell’ and thousands of others.”

“A program developed in Vienna mimics human musicians in the performance of greats such as Bach, Beethoven and Mozart so convincingly that a casual listener to Classic FM would be unable to tell the difference. Perhaps more importantly, it allows notes – 1.5 million different sounds, to be precise – to be combined in new ways, so that composers can make new music on their laptop without needing to hire an orchestra.”

A decision to attach a political statement about the Israeli/Lebanese war to programs by Daniel Barenboim’s West Eastern Divan Orchestra made up or Palestinians and Israelies provokes a debate among the musicians.

“Gone are the days when we could search in jazz dealers for those sumptuous cardboard squares that always seemed to promise so much, even if that promise was sometimes disappointed when you actually played the contents. The cult of labels has a lot to do with packaging: the yummy colour photographs in the case of Impulse and luxurious folding sleeves, the more austere Bauhaus look of Blue Note. It all comes down to shopping. And that’s something that, with the advent of iPods and downloading, is changing out of recognition.”

Daniel Levitin, “who now runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University in Montreal, has immersed himself in music about as deeply as is humanly possible. He began asking scientific questions about the nature of his beloved obsession — Where does creativity come from? What goes into making a song memorable? — in the late 1980s. He began asking his peers and role models in the music business and publishing those conversations in magazines such as Billboard and Mix.”

While little if nothing has been gleaned from the Mozart birthday celebrations this year, Shostakovich’s 100th birthday celebrations have been an opportunity for deep reflection…

People who don’t actually play a musical instrument love to refer to highly skilled players as having a “gift from God,” or just a boundless supply of natural talent. The reality is usually far more pedestrian: more important than natural aptitude is a willingness to work long, hard hours in the practice room. For decades now, the art of intensive practicing has had a summer home in upstate New York, and it’s called Meadowmount. “Part summer camp, part music school, and part boot camp, the Meadowmount School of Music is strict, austere, and responsible for creating some of the top string players in the world.”

Mark Swed says that the downloading revolution is nothing to be afraid of, and that all we stand to lose is our space-hogging collection of plastic jewel cases. Still, “how the iPod and the Internet will affect music cannot be predicted. We have yet to make the required paradigm shifts in our thinking. At this early stage, you could be forgiven for believing that nothing more than another step on the evolutionary ladder of music reproduction has been taken, and only for the sake of convenience.”

The Bayreuth Festival is still the toughest ticket in Europe during the summer, and the Wagner family have kept the music coming even through their endless (and often embarrassingly public) spats. But critics have not been terribly kind to Bayreuth’s new Ring cycle, and some are suggesting that the “stultifying weight of this dreary new [production]” is merely a symptom of a larger malaise afflicting the festival.

Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society was once little more than a struggling concert organization in a city jam packed with music and musicians. Then Mary Deissler came along. 24 years later, H&H, as it’s known, has become one of Boston’s premier musical organizations, and supports itself with help from a $3 million endowment. Deissler is stepping down from her position as H&H’s CEO this week, and she leaves an important legacy for her successor to follow.