Milton Babbitt 5/10/16 – 1/29/11

I just read about Milton Babbitt passing away. When I was in school, Babbitt was often brought up as an quintessential 20th Century composer. While much of his music didn’t appeal to me, his idea and concepts of music have stuck in my craw. He may be best know for a well-referenced essay, “Who Cares If You Listen”.

For some reason, his thoughts on how series music need not appeal to the general public didn’t seem to register with many composer that I met in school. They were often embittered at how little acclaim they received for their efforts and were unyielding in their need for approval while rarely giving the audience worthy material.

I was very fond of the idea of smaller, concentrated groups performing whatever arts they enjoyed to those who also enjoyed it. This allows those who wish such activities to continue to do so without cluttering or reducing their work for easier consumption. The great thing about any art is how the finest ideas eventually leak through and those willing to listen/absorb or consume, will discover them on their own time. But

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“Admittedly, if this music is not supported, the whistling repertory of the man in the street will be little affected, the concert-going activity of the conspicuous consumer of musical culture will be little disturbed.

But music will cease to evolve, and, in that important sense, will cease to live.”

– M. Babbitt

January 29, 2011 | Filed Under music | Comments Off 

Thinking about Sonny

When I was a music student, I read biographies of pretty much any musician I could grab from the library: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Pablo Casals, etc. The story of Sonny Rollins and The Bridge is one of the few that has stuck with me.

In 1959, Sonny Rollins took a break from music. Although he was one of the finest sax players at the time, he felt pressure from other musicians such as John Coltrane (who emerged from working with Thelonius Monk and a second stint with Miles Davis a reinvented musician) and Ornette Colman who were changing jazz in significant ways.

For three years, Sonny Rollins walked to the Williamsburg Bridge to practice. He was living in a small apartment with neighbors surrounding him so he took to the bridge to rehearse. The traffic noise forced him to develop his breathing strength to be heard and he spent hours there, occasionally working with Jackie McLean. He emerged with a new command of his instrument and formed a new quartet that recorded ‘The Bridge’.

The only thing I miss about being a grad student, was having the time (and not being able to afford any distractions) to focus. One of my favorite times in school was the summer I spent living my myself on ~$450/month. I paid rent, utilities, gas and put $20-40/wk aside for food. The rest went into the bank. I spent all my time at the library or the studio and ramped up my work for nearly three months.

January 22, 2011 | Filed Under music, personal | Comments Off 

2011 Kickoff

After finishing the last music project, I was starting off the year wallowing with a lack of plans. From all the time spent in school, I seem to work better with a plan that involves projects ramping up and down. Without it, it just feels like one endless stream of days and I end up like David Byrne, “My god, how did I get here?”. I need the list of tasks checked off and projects complete to assure myself that I’m not wasting time.

Getting my crap together generally involves one very long text file of all the books I want to read and projects I want to do. These get pared down into reasonable tasks that go into whatever I’m using to track work (so for ‘Things.app’ has held that place for two years, but I’m positive I’ll just go back to a todo.txt).

It was good to have a bit of break over the holidays and spend time with Jen. I feel like I got a nice bit of inertia going with the last music project and I to take advantage of that and work on some projects that I need a lot more motivation to get myself to do.

January 15, 2011 | Filed Under personal | Comments Off 

X-mas Vacation 2010

1. Trip to Indianapolis to hit bookstores and see downtown. Decent hotel right on the circle. We checked out the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library which had some great photos of Vonnegut. We also did a quick drive-by of the Fountain Square district which is probably much better nicer when it’s warm enough to actually walk around.

2. Trip to Louisville to visit the brother. We hit a few bookstores and ate very well as always.

3. Lots of cooking: rib-eye steaks, deep dish pizza, spaghetti sauce, shoulder roast, stroganoff. Lots of heavy, cold-weather comfort foods.

4. Checked out the Chicago Botanical Gardens to test out some camera stuff.

5. Got Jen to sit through Season One of The Wire. It’s easy to forget just how tremendous that show is.

6. Spent too many hours finishing up the last music project and zero hours thinking about work.

January 2, 2011 | Filed Under personal | Comments Off 

DT8

I finished DT8 over vacation. It was written in fits and starts over the last three/four months in quick chunks whenever I could grab some time. Mostly written in the early morning hours when I couldn’t sleep (2:30-5am mostly and a few rushed lunch hours at home).

This was the first time I spend the cash and starting adding live instruments to the recordings.

Tech Notes
Software: Logic 9, Komplete 7, Reason (only for the track Recessed), Axon, Tattoo, ValhallaShimmer
Hardware: Pod X3, Shure Beta 58, Gretsch Electromatic G5120, Taylor 114ce, Ovation Celebrity, Kamouraska Concert, Oxygen 49

January 2, 2011 | Filed Under music | Comments Off 

2010: review

Lifting
I didn’t reach my ‘Road to 400 Goals’ but I did end the year with a personal record for deadlift and weighted in 10 lbs lighter by the end of the year. Most of my lifts remained the same or went up, so I’m happy to have retained muscle mass while loosing a bit of extra weight.

Since I’ve been doing so much heavy work, I’m going to start off the year with a couple months of high-rep, low-weight work with an emphasis on getting my heart rate up.

Reading
51 books this year, not all of them winners, but as I get older I’m getting better at cutting out the garbage quicker. It’s easy to tell the time of year based on what I’m reading, more serious work during the start/end of the year and light stuff over the summer.

Top Ten Books:

  1. Everything Matters – Ron Currie, Jr.
  2. Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace – David Lipsky
  3. After the Workshop – John McNally
  4. Switch – Chip & Dan Heath
  5. Drive – Daniel Pink
  6. Listen to This – Alex Ross
  7. The Creative Writers Survival Guide – John McNally
  8. The Big Short – Michael Lewis
  9. Where Good Ideas Come From – Steven Johnson
  10. A Guide to the Good Life – William Irvin

Music: Listening

Music stuff that last.fm says that I listened to this year(mostly at work):

Artist Play Count
Autechre 657
The Beatles 547
The Rolling Stones 423
Aphex Twin 415
Peter Gabriel 376
Nine Inch Nails 313
Tom Waits 283
Amon Tobin 262
The Kleptones 256
Steely Dan 245
Neil Young 242
The Mountain Goats 218
Galactic 214
Frank Zappa 202
Andrew Bird 197
Uncle Tupelo 195
Son Volt 190
Lyle Lovett 190
Andy McKee 186
Max Richter 181

Other music stuff I remember listening to a whole bunch to in 2010:

Music: Written
I put out three EPs and one full project of music this year, (about 108 minutes of sound). I’m pretty happy with the output and I see a lot of change and progress.

Next Year:
I already have a reading list about 15 items deep. For music I want to get back into Max/MSP and build more interactive processing in Reaktor. I also have a pile of Abersold jazz books that I should spend more time with. The older I get the more I feel a need to dig deeper into harmony.

January 2, 2011 | Filed Under Books, music, personal, Uncategorized | Comments Off