Blog
Tag: compositional practice
14 September 2026
I defend 12EDO these days becasue it gets a bad rap. It is a quasicrystal, and creates the frictionless behavior within that is structurally the same as the frictionless – superconducting! property of some quasicrystals.
Quasicrystals do appear in …
31 August 2026
The album *Bed of Creeks and Coils* is now released on New Focus Records.
Kyle Miller one of the rare composers who takes on the formidable task of negotiating the powerful redolences of the famililar. I take that as a noble challenge. He shares this …
25 August 2026
depicted: Ted Hughes. Harold Meltzer set him. Check out his Shakespeare book.
Fallout from the Death of Tragedy
–Armida, and what the tragic economy required–
TLDR: First corollary to the death of tragedy is that essentializing is not …
25 August 2026
More Fallout from the Death of Tragedy
TLDR: The second corollary to the death of tragedy is that strong men appear ridiculous and attract not the brightest lights, post-tragedy. Stifter was motivated negatively by Napoleon. Beethoven did the right …
22 August 2026
“It follows from the lawless, capricious spirit of the present age, which would egotistically annihilate the world and the universe in order to clear a space merely for free play in the void, and which tears off at the bandage of its wounds as a …
20 August 2026
image: Geog Joseph Vogler, who began speaking of *Mehrdeutigkeit*. Gottfried Weber developed the principles much further.
“It follows from the lawless, capricious spirit of the present age, which would egotistically annihilate the world and the …
30 June 2026
Holding and Letting Go
Chapter 1 of The Illusions of Postmodernism (1996) opens by inviting the reader to imagine a world where the Left had suffered a crippling political defeat. Eagleton’s argument is that postmodernism’s signature moves …
26 March 2026
I’m jotting down thoghts for my next talk at the Berlin Academy of American Music’s Composers Workshop, June 29 to July 5.
Without thinking, often even without overthinking, US music stays with what works.
Those working in an uptown head …
