Blog
Category: How to Talk about Music
9 April 2026
This is mostly aimed at topical connections to some questions the arise from TE Hulme’s essay, “A Tory Philosophy” –
–can humans change?
–whither *the identity of man*?
These became right wing pieties to push back …
10 January 2026
Dear AM,
Like Fanny Doolie we like passing tones, but neighboring tones are merely for “shits and giggles”.
I keep learning from your value judgement. I go back to it again and again. I agree in principle with it, but I cannot think of a …
1 January 2026
Glossary of Musical Terms
This is a glossary of terms in and around tricks of the trade, tricks that go back many centuries and are now mostly eclipsed. This is normal. There are always modalities that are in fashion, relegating other modalities to the …
16 March 2024
depicted: Adalbert Stifter
Intro to Stifter’s *Many Colored Stones*
A Tale of Two Synecdoches
I met Louis Andriessen when I played De Staadt with NY Phil under Gunther Schuller. David Starobin was the other guitarist and Scott Kuney played bass. …
11 February 2024
The brilliant and enterprising composer Emil Awad is the founder and director of the Festival Camarata 21 at the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Vera Cruz, Mexico. Many of us have participated – Mario Davidovsky, Robert Pollock, Suzanne Farrin, …
26 October 2023
In progress…
Yesterday at Oktaven Studios in Mount Vernon, New York, Cygnus recorded Martin Boykan’s “Diptych” and Richard Festinger’s “Hidden Spring”.
Some notes on Boykan, HERE. Those comments mostly about …
24 September 2023
Taking up Bowery Haunt again with Oren Fader has led to a continual stream of quiddities emerging from the experience of the music. Talking about them makes them seem abstract, but these are visceral. I am only interested in the visceral – what …
22 May 2023
Dina Koston, founder of the RSF, complained about neo-romantic music. The phrase I remember her using was “warmed-over Schumann”. But that was directed at other names, not at Del Tredici.
I was surprised to learn that she programmed the music of …
