Category: music

To combat sleeplessness, people are turning to all sorts of techniques, iWhile sleep music used to be confined to the fringes of culture—whether at avant-garde all-night concerts or New Age meditation sessions—the field has crept into the mainstream over the past decade. Ambient artists are collaborating with music therapists; apps are churning out hours of new content; sleep streams have surged in popularity on YouTube and Spotify. – Time

He was no originator, like Schoenberg or Stravinsky, nor did he possess Britten’s or Shostakovich’s command of manifold genres. He was, however, a composer of rare gifts, particularly in the setting of sacred and secular texts. As the decades pass, he grows in stature, and his aloofness from musical party politics matters less. – The New Yorker

“Poulenc was a composer who melded the incompatible. Famously described as a combination of “monk and ragamuffin”, he wrote music that the mind can mistrust but the heart will adore. He clung resolutely to tonality and melody in a century that had other ideas. His humour and light, his sheer loveliness, have led to suspicion.” – The Guardian

Insisting that music theory, musicology and ethnomusicology are separate disciplines with no shared ground impoverishes all of our work. By narrowing our focus and policing our boundaries, scholars miss connections and opportunities, and we remain frozen in disdain for all that we don’t know. A distinction between applied and academic music may have its uses, but hyper-specialization leads ultimately to a belief that scholars can’t be creative and that artists are incapable of critical thought. – The Conversation

With “Crazy Blues,” Mamie Smith opened the door to a surge of powerfully voiced female singers who defied the conventions of singerly gentility to make the blues a popular phenomenon in the 1920s. Indeed, the blues became a full-blown craze, with listeners of every color able to buy and listen at home to music marketed as “race records.” – The New York Times

Having listened to recent online offerings from North America and Europe (where concerts are carefully starting to move back into halls), David Patrick Stearns predicts that “innovation and experimentation will continue to be part of the package …, but in a less reckless form than in the past, and with a strong streak of social responsibility. Performances will be more intense. Decorative elements will be at a minimum. The pursuit of artistic truth could easily translate into a lack of polish. And that will be okay — we’ve had plenty of polish in recent decades.” – WQXR (New York City)

The Lyon Académie de Musique officially went bust on New Year’s Day 1693, but it was back in business two years later. “How did Académie musicians transform hardship into productive creativity?” writes musicologist Natasha Roule. “How did they assert their relevance in the local community? What worked — and what didn’t? The answers to these questions could fill a book, but we can break them down into three key takeaways.” – Early Music America

“If he has withdrawn those two particular songs from BMI’s political license program, then the Trump administration does not have a license to play them at a political rally and they have a good case that they will more likely win.” – Rolling Stone

You don’t think minimalists can be virtuosos? Tell it to Ernest Hemingway. Tell it to Thelonious Monk. Tell it to the Japanese calligrapher who spends his entire life perfecting a straight line, or drawing a flawless circle. – https://psyche.co/ideas/true-musical-virtuosos-are-minimalists-who-put-roll-before-rockPsyche