Unlike most every other part of the music world, taping has not only thrived in the 21st century but come into its own, from advanced cell phone gadgetry (like DPA’s iPhone-ready d:vice MMA-A digital audio interface) to compact handheld recorders (like Zoom’s varied line of products), from high-speed distribution to metadata organization. Despite constant radical change, taping has never been disrupted. Rather, it has positively flowered.
Category: music
Jean Tinguely’s Extravagantly Odd Music Machine Is Back In Action
“A year after it was silenced [from decades of wear and tear], Jean Tinguely’s beloved clanging, banging, creaking, groaning music machine Méta-Harmonie II is ready to go back into action at the Museum Tinguely in Basel following a laborious year-long restoration of many of its parts.”
Ravel’s Heirs Sue To Pull ‘Bolero’ Back Under Copyright
The composer’s heirs raked in up to €100 million from his greatest hit before Ravel’s music went into the public domain in 2016. Now those (rather distant) heirs have filed a lawsuit against SACEM (France’s ASCAP) arguing that Alexandre Nikolaievitch Benois, the set designer for the ballet for which Bolero was composed, should legally be considered a co-creator of the score. (Why? Because Benois didn’t die until 1960.)
Last Classical Record Store In Vancouver To Close
Sikora’s Classical Records has been operating for 40 years, but it’s now succumbing to what co-owner Ed Savenye says are “‘the five dirty D’s’: digitization (downloading and streaming), downsizing (people no longer have room for record collections), distribution (getting access to imports is increasingly challenging), desertion (people leaving for Amazon and other online sellers), and the saddest, demise — that is, the deaths of classical music lovers who continued to buy CDs and LPs.”
‘We Want To Use Music To Create Better People’ — Philadelphia’s Project 440
“Project 440 is the brainchild of Joseph Conyers, assistant principal bassist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, who often explains to people that yes, he does operate a music organization that doesn’t teach music.” Says Conyers, “The arts can play a pivotal role in underserved communities, giving kids opportunities, giving them things that they keep for the rest of their lives.”
At Work With The Ushers At The Metropolitan Opera
“As a shift begins, they pass into the cloakroom to put on their uniforms — tuxedos with burgundy lapels, worn shiny from use. Forty-two work any given performance, each at once a rule keeper, hand holder, problem solver, diplomat.”
Study: Trained Musicians Score Higher On Tests Of Thinking
Combining the results of all the tests, “musicians with extensive experience scored significantly higher than non-musicians and less-trained musicians,” the researchers write in the journal Psychology of Music. Specifically, they did better on four of the five cognitive skills that the tests measured.
100 Years Later: Debussy’s Legacy
The better we get to know Debussy, the stronger the contrast between the richness of his musical world and the sordidness of his personal life—and yet, in both music and life, he liked things to be beautiful, rich, and sensually pleasing, and he wanted these things without having to work too hard or too regularly. (Debussy admits that he suffered from a “sickness of delay…and this curious need to never finish” his pieces.)
The Optics Of A Music Problem
New music has done very little to change the expected optics of classical music, which is why new music’s identity problem is what it is today. Moreover, despite the recent increase in conversation about female, non-binary, transgender, and BAME/ALAANA/diverse composers, the programming of these composers has not significantly increased.
When Puccini Visited New York
He visited twice, and though he shaped New York opera, he was also shaped by the city. “Puccini’s New York visits were filled with incident and intrigue, success and frustration. They are reminders that golden ages may not always sparkle as brightly to those who live through them.”