always.on.my.mind

  • Our Place

    So, how can I expect to rest in solitude, his strained voice assaulting my ears, and maintain some air of reason? Lying on the floor between my most feeble attempts at self-improvement, staring uncomprehendingly at your sketch. His voice: one of a multitude of new-things you bring to my life. He reminds me of you. I stretch my back, my arms, my neck, my heart. The hands read seven o’clock. This is our place. You are not in it.

    I flee, of course. It is all I can do, or at least all I can think to do. Flee to a spot where I might be kept company in my solitude; avoid the anguish of isolation without all the inconvenience of actual interaction with other human beings. A quiet place where sideways glances substitute for companionship, and a seat on a worn mail-order corporate sofa provides the illusion of comfort, rather than government-subsidized institutionalism. Tranquil, yet not unbearably so, this space will suffice.

    A nameless boy scuffs past and hovers nearby. He wears proudly his collegiate attempt at the philosopher-beard, his means of demonstrating the profundity of his character and intellect without all the inconvenience of actual interaction with other human beings. Unhappily, its irregular and juvenile qualities belie all he hopes to suggest. A friend appears, and the banter between them—though briefly overheard—confirms first impressions. Snide comment here. Awkwardly placed sarcasm there. Thoughts which—within this brood—pass for humor believed rich in intellectualism, slip crudely past their lips, hang thickly in the air, then drop flatly.

    Struck by disparity, I circle to you still again, and linger there, blissfully. We find little call for the snide, and exploit irony to a superior end. The awkward abandoned long ago in favor of true comfort, draped powerfully around us—enveloped in a relaxed clarity as we stand, we sit, we lie. Effortless interactions. Two years of conversations sift through my mind: a litany of the humorous, absurd, and humorously-absurd. Shared beliefs and scattered affections. A chronicle of two souls made one in a tapestry of thought and sensation, so interwoven as to make imperceptible where one may commence and the other cease. Serious and tender, ridiculous but insightful. Persistently real, yet somehow ideal. My tutor, apprentice. My perfect partner.

    A strained voice from above, assaulting my ears, wrenches me to this present reality. The hands propose I must return home. Icy warmth twists my intestines in throbbing contortions; they seem black and dying within an otherwise living frame. I stare uncomprehendingly as the nameless boy and his philosopher-beard shuffle toward the wintry darkness. My soul slips silently past my heart, hangs thickly in the air, then drops flatly. I do not want to go back there. It is our place. You are not in it.

    © david j. downs

  • An Open Letter to Leo Laporte

    Disintermediation of content is a theory, not a reality.
    It is not about quality content.  Not today, anyway.  There are millions of people producing great content lost in a world that reached media over-saturation more than a decade ago.  Singers, songwriters, filmmakers, and other content creators whose skills surpass those of the established veterans are all over the world, but they will never achieve success; their superior products will never be found within the white noise that is the Internet.  They will never earn a living from their creations, let alone reap a fortune (as your examples suggest).
    The experiment performed by Louis C.K. was successful, not because his content was excellent, but because his content was valuable to fans who already knew him.  He has a long history as an industry writer for top-tier comedy shows.  He has prior Emmy nominations.  He has appeared as a comedian on Leno, Letterman, Conan, and other late night shows more than 35 times over the past decade.  He has a very popular eponymous weekly television sitcom.  In short, he was already quite famous before he attempted to cut out the middle man.  His experiment would not have made close to a million dollars without his prior exposure–which was thanks to backing from the entertainment industry.
    Very few people had heard of Justin Bieber before he signed with Braun, received financial backing from Usher, and made his deal with Island Records.  Without the established music industry, Justin would still be posting iSight videos on YouTube.  As an educated and involved American, I consider myself a barometer of what the “average person” might have been exposed to, and I had never even heard of Jonathan Coultan until you mentioned him on MacBreak Weekly.  I assure you, that speaks volumes.
    I am sure you have a psychological stake in this discussion, because you lump yourself right in with the others previously mentioned.  But TWiT’s success is not because your content is exceptional.  There are many technology podcasts with content quality just as good (and perhaps superior) to the shows on your network.  It is naive for you to believe that you would be where you are today without your prior history of industry backing.  TWiT’s success is mostly due to your past hosting on television and radio.  Without those experiences, you would have had no name recognition and no influential contacts in the technology industry.  Dvorak, Gruber, Ihnatko, Breen.  Established authors and pundits would not be regulars on your show without your past industry backing.  How do I know?  Because these same people don’t routinely appear on other high-quality shows that are created by people who were never on television.
    Andy is right: your examples are data points, not proofs.  You list four people as evidence (and most of them are really non-evidence, for the reasons previously stated).  There are more than 7,000,000,000 people alive on planet earth today.  Four data points in a set of 7 billion does not a proof make.  Offer 10,000 examples of content creators who achieved success solely based on their own merits and with no financial backing from established corporations or wealthy individuals, and you’ll go a long way to convincing us that disintermediation of content is (becoming) a reality.  Hell, how about just one thousand?
    The fundamental implication that we’ve reached (or are even approaching) some Utopian age in which the Internet provides the mechanisms of an authentic meritocracy for content creators is laughable.  The established industries still run the show and will until we are long gone.
    P. S.  It’s likewise humorous that you scorn those who “ignore reality” and “beat their heads against the wall” as they suggest the world should be the way they would prefer, and in the next breath suggest that politicians would vote based on the will of their constituents.  How utterly naive.  Politicians respond to money, not votes.  They will pass the legislation that the industry tells them to pass, regardless of the number of letters and phone calls they receive.  They know who butters their bread.

  • Where are we headed?

    I’m going to rant today in a most uncouth manner. Apologies in advance.

    Nearly two years (and very few entries) ago, I lamented the fate of musical orphanhood. Of course, in that instance, I was discussing the utter absence of any compositional fraternity in the Great American Wasteland (i.e., anything west of New York City, at least according to those on the scene. I happen to enjoy living in the Midwest, but what do I know?).

    But I’ve been considering an interesting parallel that arose in my previous entry—also from nearly two years ago, and also a lament of sorts. At that time, I was disconcerted by the relative lack of rigor required to produce prize-winning classical music. Strike that; I remain disconcerted. Anyone who attempts to convince me that pieces created through so little effort are somehow deserving of accolades has a long row to hoe.

    This week, I’ve been listening to two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Leon Kirchner. A recent interview with the Claremont Trio set me along that path, particularly the following passage:

    Leon Kirchner’s Trios are pillars of the 20th century piano trio repertoire that had never before been recorded together on the same disc. I think it’s fascinating to see the contrast between the concise, almost jagged construction of the first trio and the fanciful, at times wistful unfolding of the second, which was written almost 40 years later.

    Now, don’t make the mistaken assumption that I am lumping Kirchner’s work into the category previously mentioned. There is art here. Lily, for instance, is a glorious exploration of timbre and instrumental dialogue. It reminds me of everything I adore about Stravinsky.

    Kirchner’s 2006 string quartet demonstrates a maturity that stands in contrast to the explosive emotion of his earlier works. In this respect, he is like most every composer who had the privilege of a long career writing music. When one considers melodic and harmonic aspects of these works, however, no such evolution is apparent. In terms of pitch class selection, Kirchner may as well be writing the same piece more than half a century later. His voice? Perhaps. The result of instruction? Likely. After all, Kirchner is a direct descendant of the Second Viennese School.

    My favorite composers include the likes of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Bernstein and Miles Davis. Noticing a pattern? Good.

    The world changes. Music, as with every aspect of our dynamic universe, must likewise change. But to what end are we headed? Where can we find evolution of value? I’m not seeing it streaming from NYC. An apt if crass and poorly constructed metaphor springs to mind: the fruits borne of notable contemporary composers are the mutilated children of Schoenberg and La Mont Young. Is this the best we can hope for? We are offered the results of truly uninspired creation. This reality is depressing beyond words.

  • Definitions

    As I age, my perspective continues to change. The question of the day must therefore be, what defines art music? The term, as we have progressed over the past century, has been applied in a consistently expansive fashion. Many years ago, I thought this could only ever be a Good Thing. I now find myself torn, however, or at least reconsidering the notion. What constitutes art music? What are the criteria to be utilized? Is it intent? Surely not. Complexity? Also an unacceptable marker, to myself and many. It would seem that currently the only criterion is that the composer has been classically trained. Is this the standard? If so, is it enough?

    This weekend alone, I have listened to the music of perhaps one dozen composers—typically young composers who are quickly establishing themselves and earning the trappings of such establishment: commissions, fellowships, awards, high-profile performances, CD releases—whose music I would consider contemporary art music only when the broadest of definitions has been applied. I find a thought strolling through my brain after hearing each new work: either I am completely out of the loop (there is no denying this) or things have gone horribly wrong over the past ten years (also a distinct possibility).

    I have no desire to publicly slight my peers, but I am simply at a loss as to how what might have been a 15-minute (maximum) experiment that yields a five-minute work qualifies one for a three-week residency in an artists’ colony. Any ideas?

  • A composer’s riddle

    What’s the difference between New Age and the new classical avant garde?

    A tonal center.

  • Classical composition today

    I am increasingly concerned over the state of classical composition in the United States, particularly anywhere outside the greater NYC area.

    Scouring the internet for composer resources—collaboratives, alliances, discussion forums, sample excerpts, substantive blogs, podcasts, online texts, anything—is a genuinely fruitless effort.  The resources available are few, and these are rarely updated.  The most active resources—even those provided by allegedly “pro-classical” organizations, like NPR—relate to popular music and songwriting, of little use to those of us who take any of the less traveled pathways.  I find nothing on important concerts or recordings of new music.  No interviews with established composers.  Nothing.

    I have managed to locate the independent sites of a few composers, but much of the music presented is the continued beating of the proverbial dead horse: atonal nonsense that was put out to pasture fifty years ago, except no one remembered to clue in the theory and composition professors to this fact.  (Can you believe one of my own composition instructors attempted to steer me toward pitch class sets as a legitimate means to composing new music?  Has any progress been made over the past century?)

    There is no composers’ group in the state of Missouri that is open to unaffiliated composers (I found only one group, with membership restricted to students of a single state university).  As a local theory and composition professor mentioned to me recently, midwestern composers are typically too busy teaching (living on commissions in “flyover country” being an apparent impossibility, every local composer evidently serves on a collegiate faculty or sells insurance) to participate in any collective endeavors that might require—say—monthly meetings, conferences, new music concert attendance, or (radically) actually composing new pieces.

    The sad reality is that having lived here for a decade now, I’ve yet to meet even one other classically trained composer.  The organization with the greatest number of my own acquaintances as members is the Cleveland Composers Guild, and even one of those is apparently deceased.  As I should have guessed, membership in this organization is limited to those in northeastern Ohio.

    Ah, to be a musical orphan.