Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.


Regular Contributors


Adrienne Albert
Beth Anderson
Larry Bell
Galen H. Brown
Cary Boyce
Roger Bourland
Corey Dargel
Lawrence Dillon
Daniel Gilliam
Peter Gordon
Rodney Lister
Ian Moss
Tom Myron
Frank J. Oteri
Carlos R. Rivera
David Salvage
Stefano Savi Scarponi
Alex Shapiro
Naomi Stephan
David Toub
Judith Lang Zaimont

Composer Blogs@ Sequenza21.com

Lawrence Dillon
Elodie Lauten
Anthony Cornicello
Everette Minchew
Tom Myron

Alan Theisen
Corey Dargel



Latest Posts


New Music Series at The Flea
Jerry Bowles

How do you get decent sound in Carnegie Hall?
Galen H. Brown

Guess the Composer:
jodru

Success
Ian Moss

Open Ears in Gothenburg
Frank J. Oteri

Opportunity Knocks
Jerry Bowles

When Critic & Artist are the Same Person
Frank J. Oteri

Arranging Is the New Composition
jodru

Should Every Orchestra Have a Resident Composer?
Jerry Bowles

Rameau, Anyone?
jodru


Beepsnort Lisa Hirsch


Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019


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Monday, July 10, 2006
When Did We All Become Philosophers?

Steve Layton writes: You want a forum topic, you got a forum topic...


That's easy, the 19th century. So maybe the real question to ask is "WHY Did
We All Become Philosophers?" Or maybe more relevant to now, "How Do We STOP
Having to Be Philosophers?" ...Yes, you. Deny all you like but face it,
we're still in a culture that expects us to always have some deeper idea
lurking at the bottom of a piece. Metaphysical, psychological, social,
phenomenological, scientific... The cigar is never just a cigar. Practically
all the way up through Mozart the issue barely existed; there might have
been some program decorating the work like frosting on a cake, but at heart
"the piece was just a piece".

Think how rare that is now, at least in what's passed for Classical these
last few generations. Is there any way to go back to where the prime factor
is Playing rather than Thinking? Or is there even the need? I'm not actually
complaining about the situation -- though the onus to be "deep" has
generated a lot of crappy dreck from composers who were never cut out for
philosophising. I'm just interested and curious about how we got there, and
why we stay there.

 



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