(no subject)
I had a desire to write down what I'm thinking right now.
The music I enjoy listening to and enjoy playing has been changing over the past 3 or 4 years. After three years in college, I finally am going towards the music I truly love and I believe has meaning. What are the last few albums I bought: "3 Compositions of New Jazz" - Anthony Braxton; "Virtuoso Elegance in Jazz" - The Mitchell-Ruff Duo; "The Ligeti Project IV" - Gyorgy Ligeti (including the Horn Concerto, a double concerto for Oboe and Flute etc); "Sound on Sound" - Saturday Looks Good to Me; "Five Compositions (Quartet) 1986" - Anthony Braxton; "When Flowers Covered the Earth" - Warn Defever.
Of these, 3 are jazz, 2 are 'popular' and 1 is classical.
What other music have I been listening to? Alexander Scriabin, Olivier Messiaen, other Saturday Looks Good to Me albums, etc. So, I have completely rejected traditional classical music (self-congratulatory pat on the back?).
What concerts have I been to recently (real concerts, not recitals). A MusicNow concert w/ Olivier Knussen and Augusta Reid Thomas; a show where SLGTM opened for Mates of State.
My 3 most exciting projects right now (in order of ascending excitement): a jazz nonet run by/composed for by Fritz Schenker; a horn quartet working on Schumann's Konzertstuck for the concerto competition at NU; a trio including me, an oboe and a cello playing freely improvised music, which Fritz Schenker has begun to possibly write some charts for.
The most interesting subjects of present and future inquiry? The spiritual/pseudo-religious aspects of music and of art; the state of Ancient Egypt, and if Greece really stole 75%+ of their philosophy/science/morals from Egypt (and whether it was a black or white community).
What does this all mean? I feel like my life is moving in an important and interesting direction. Towards a music that is free and from the soul, yet still formally structured and intellectual. Towards a recognition of the spiritual aspects of music, not as it is talked about by the traditionalists in classical music, but as it is talked about by people like Anthony Braxton, Scriabin and Kandinsky perhaps (although I'm pretty skeptical about that whole Theosophy thing - 7 stages to existence and all that - it's not those specifics of the ideas I'm interested in, but the spirituality and deeper truth embodied therein).
What would my life be like if I fully concentrated on this trio I'm in, and the music it represents: free-form, non-tonal, without a definable sense of time or rhythm... improvised... building a new and individual language... but of course, I'd have to have a day job. Horn player in some symphony? (that's a night job though)... work for the MCA (or go to New York: MOMA)? ... I mean... what the hell is next? Grad school? In what? Music? Art History? American Studies? African-American studies? Philosophy? Social Policy? Yeah, all those.
The music I enjoy listening to and enjoy playing has been changing over the past 3 or 4 years. After three years in college, I finally am going towards the music I truly love and I believe has meaning. What are the last few albums I bought: "3 Compositions of New Jazz" - Anthony Braxton; "Virtuoso Elegance in Jazz" - The Mitchell-Ruff Duo; "The Ligeti Project IV" - Gyorgy Ligeti (including the Horn Concerto, a double concerto for Oboe and Flute etc); "Sound on Sound" - Saturday Looks Good to Me; "Five Compositions (Quartet) 1986" - Anthony Braxton; "When Flowers Covered the Earth" - Warn Defever.
Of these, 3 are jazz, 2 are 'popular' and 1 is classical.
What other music have I been listening to? Alexander Scriabin, Olivier Messiaen, other Saturday Looks Good to Me albums, etc. So, I have completely rejected traditional classical music (self-congratulatory pat on the back?).
What concerts have I been to recently (real concerts, not recitals). A MusicNow concert w/ Olivier Knussen and Augusta Reid Thomas; a show where SLGTM opened for Mates of State.
My 3 most exciting projects right now (in order of ascending excitement): a jazz nonet run by/composed for by Fritz Schenker; a horn quartet working on Schumann's Konzertstuck for the concerto competition at NU; a trio including me, an oboe and a cello playing freely improvised music, which Fritz Schenker has begun to possibly write some charts for.
The most interesting subjects of present and future inquiry? The spiritual/pseudo-religious aspects of music and of art; the state of Ancient Egypt, and if Greece really stole 75%+ of their philosophy/science/morals from Egypt (and whether it was a black or white community).
What does this all mean? I feel like my life is moving in an important and interesting direction. Towards a music that is free and from the soul, yet still formally structured and intellectual. Towards a recognition of the spiritual aspects of music, not as it is talked about by the traditionalists in classical music, but as it is talked about by people like Anthony Braxton, Scriabin and Kandinsky perhaps (although I'm pretty skeptical about that whole Theosophy thing - 7 stages to existence and all that - it's not those specifics of the ideas I'm interested in, but the spirituality and deeper truth embodied therein).
What would my life be like if I fully concentrated on this trio I'm in, and the music it represents: free-form, non-tonal, without a definable sense of time or rhythm... improvised... building a new and individual language... but of course, I'd have to have a day job. Horn player in some symphony? (that's a night job though)... work for the MCA (or go to New York: MOMA)? ... I mean... what the hell is next? Grad school? In what? Music? Art History? American Studies? African-American studies? Philosophy? Social Policy? Yeah, all those.