Comments on: Dear Nico: Let’s Give Peace a Chance.

By: Liz

Liz — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 05:37:55 +0000

Dude, if someone heavily promoted my album and spelled my name wrong, I’d be pretty pissed, too. I’ve stopped following all the sequenza21 twitter feeds because of the automated tweets. No thanks.

By: wbiro

wbiro — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:46:53 +0000

The media needs darlings, the audience needs darlings, we need darlings, and he is a darling. Since it is all about attention, he’ll have to balance his music with his attention. When he gets older he may fill other social needs, such as having someone to revere, (whether he rates it as a musician or as a celebrity) which usually means it will be less and less about his music and more about his celebrity, and to look on the bright side, if his music is not that special, then we will not be losing any substantial music, we will be gaining (yet another) celebrity… after all, this has become a glossy-photo business…

By: Jerry Bowles

Jerry Bowles — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:40:10 +0000

You are absolutely right, Amy. Staying active on a Twitter account requires a commitment of time and effort that I can’t afford right now because I have more serious personal concerns. Sequenza21 has been run for the past 12 years by a small group of volunteers and does pretty well considering it has never had an editorial plan or calendar, never had a budget, never had an editorial meeting. Many of its editors have never met face to face. People write and post something when they feel that have something to say. For me, a non-musician who loves new music, it is a hobby that became something good. I am more surprised than anyone that it has enjoyed a certain kind of popularity, especially among composers (not much thanks to me). I would love it if somebody volunteered to take over the Twitter account and make it something “quite marvellous.” Send me a note if you’d like to be that person. sequenza21@gmail.com (And, if you really want to have a conversation with me, I’m pretty responsive on Google+ +Jerry Bowles which I find much, much easier to use and keep up with.)

By: Amy

Amy — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:45:36 +0000

+1 re Dan Johnson’s comment.

The retweeting, the automation and the overwhelming repetitiveness are among the reasons* I soon stopped following @sequenza21 and a couple of other similar feeds I’d naively begun to follow. It was disappointing, because I actually expected more/better of a feed directly associated with a site and community such as this. However “delicately” you want to characterise them, they are no better than spam, and to that end I’d be in sympathy with Mr Muhly.

*Other reasons would be an absence of actual original posts/commentary and never responding to followers’ “@ mentions”. Together all this amounts to a misuse of the twitter medium. And yes, I know, no one is obliged to follow these accounts (and I no longer do) so don’t jump on me. I still say it’s a great pity, since a real twitter account attached to this site could be something quite marvellous.

By: kirkmc

kirkmc — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 08:22:49 +0000

I find Muhly’s music to be trite and overrated. I review CDs for MusicWeb, and I had no qualms about saying:

“This is classical music for those who don’t listen to classical music,” and I pointed out how it simply doesn’t grab me.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2010/DEC10/Muhly_I-Drink_4782570.htm#ixzz1XXI9K4PT

I think Muhly is highly overrated, but he’s in an arena where anyone that can get a bit of attention stands out.

By: Jerry Bowles

Jerry Bowles — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 23:59:26 +0000

Well, I will confess to leaving the Nico download tweet up too long and I have greatly curtailed the use of automated tweets precisely because I am old and sometimes forget about them. I should have cut him off at about 10,000 views.

By: Chris McGovern

Chris McGovern — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 23:37:46 +0000

Jerry, I don’t think it’s wrong for you to have an opinion about any artist. I barely know Muhly’s stuff (It’s “hl”, btw ) myself, but do you think his appeal might be based on the fact that he also works with indie rock and pop acts too, and gets support from a crossover fanbase? That could be the explanation. That Swedish group’s track he had streaming on there (which he said he worked on, btw), is nice, but it doesn’t necessarily sound any heavier than music on an iPhone commercial, imho, but what was the whole spamming thing about?

By: Dan Johnson

Dan Johnson — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 23:31:25 +0000

I think much of the problem is the automated nature of the retweeting, so that you’ve got the same stories coming up over and over again in multiple feeds. In this case, that piece about Nico’s record is STILL being retweeted, with his name misspelled, after THREE MONTHS, even though the audio widget it’s advertising has long been removed. This is actually why I unfollowed the @sequenza21 Twitter—I wished that more care were taken with what was tweeted, rather than going with this scattershot, mechanical approach.

By: Richard Mitnick

Richard Mitnick — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 23:28:27 +0000

I am absolutely no musicologist or critic. But what I see in Nico M-U-H-L-Y is that he is a great “front man” for the current New Music scene. He draws people in which allows exposure for other composers and musicians. A Metropolitan opera commission is not exactly chopped liver. He is successful, his Bedroom Community cohorts are successful.

I do own several albums and I like them.

If I would compare him to anyone, it would not be to a musician or composer, but to the physicist Brian Cox, O.B.E. of LHC and TV fame. He is also criticized, in his case for the expense of travel for the fantastic TV videos in the ‘Wonders of…” series. But Brian is the face, the “front man”of scientific research the world over.

If nothing else, in that roll of “front man” they are peers.

I keep tweeting them both that Nico should write the music for Brian’s next series.

By: John Tavener

John Tavener — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 23:10:23 +0000

Jerrier Bowels (see what I did there? Hint: it’s a French thing), I never said I was mad. I’m just jealous of Morty’s island.