tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-142252532008-04-13T00:02:50.395-04:00Jerry BowlesBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-20274070223355071712008-04-12T23:16:00.004-04:002008-04-13T00:02:50.441-04:00

This past week, I had the pleasure of attending the SEAMUS 2008 National Conference in Salt Lake City. To say the least, it was an interesting event. Over the years, I've been to conferences of all sorts. Most of the time, I find that there are a few pieces that I'd like to hear again, some that don't necessarily retain my interest, and many pieces that I don't want to hear again. SEAMUS

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-25680205922395317482008-02-17T23:12:00.002-05:002008-02-17T23:26:54.850-05:00

So, I've been searching high and low for some jazz MP3s. Some of these items are long out of print, or on an obscure label. Some are by artists outside the mainstream. In other words, these tracks are not on iTunes - or emusic.com, for that matter. It has led me to some bizarre sites. And, I usually don't find what I want. I recently came across "collectionmp3.net". They seem like a

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-2635335980097672792008-01-27T12:08:00.000-05:002008-01-27T21:10:06.008-05:00

This post has been moved to the front page of Sequenza21. Please visit it there and leave your comments. -AC

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-2363572539520310692007-12-09T22:33:00.000-05:002007-12-09T23:23:35.452-05:00

I think Stockhausen was the composer most responsible for getting me into the whole European avant-garde scene. I remember coming across his music when I took my first 20th Century music course as an undergraduate. I'm sure I dismissed it, as I did most of the other things I heard then. I do recall, however, secretly liking Webern's music, even though on the outside I had no idea what it was

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-38682645055710208072007-12-07T13:01:00.000-05:002007-12-07T13:04:00.431-05:00

I just got this press release, announcing Stockhausen's passing. Sad to say, we've lost another creative soul. PRESS RELEASE The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen passed away on December 5th 2007 at his home in Kuerten-Kettenberg and will be buried in the Waldfriedhof (forest cemetery) in Kuerten. He composed 362 individually performable works. The works which were composed until 1969 are

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-44028392067205556902007-12-06T23:18:00.001-05:002007-12-06T23:18:39.379-05:00

Last week, the Eroica Trio came to Eastern Connecticut State University for a concert and master class. The event was sponsored by the Arts & Lecture Series at Eastern, totally out of our jurisdiction - basically, a note appeared to us saying that the Trio was coming, and we got the dates. Odd, but nice. Oddly, I wound up turning pages for Erika, the trio's pianist. Oddly, because it was

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-67485070037606110102007-11-18T22:54:00.001-05:002007-11-18T23:08:49.817-05:00

Okay fellow Max/MSP geeks: Does anyone know of a good Max/MSP sampler? At one point, there was samplor~, which did everything you'd expect from a sampler. It allowed you to set the 'home' key, range, loop points, etc. It was stable. Then, when Max/MSP converted to version 4.X, it was apparently never updated. So now, when you go to load it up into a new patch, you get the "fragload" error.

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-80646680247968314262007-11-16T22:21:00.000-05:002007-11-16T22:38:02.572-05:00

Okay, here's two totally unrelated links: Frank Zappa, talking on Crossfire in the mid 1980s. It's amazing how observant this man was - and how oblivious the guy in the glasses was! Pay no attention to the little blurb on the YouTube page: I don't think copyright is ever mentioned. Rather, the discussion is on censorship the the government. Zappa's prediction of a totalitarian theocracy may

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-728449888989648562007-11-12T15:03:00.000-05:002007-11-12T15:08:48.494-05:00

According to Dogen Zenji, "most people are not able to acquire the way-seeking mind of spritual awareness without deeply understanding that a day consists of 6,400,099,180 moments." (This was in "Being in Real Time" by Danin Katagiri Roshi, found in the Fall 2007 issue of Buddhadharma.) Okay, so being the geek that I am, I discovered that this is approximately 74,075 moments per second.

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-49814393599780018082007-11-07T09:46:00.000-05:002007-11-10T12:26:57.980-05:00

Sorry, I but I couldn't continue the alliteration... Recently, there was an event for Alex Ross's book The Rest is Noise. (Do I really need to link this book?) The event involved EthanIverson, the pianist from The Bad Plus, performing a number of 20th Century works. You can read his comments and rehearsal notes on his blogsite Do The Math. It seems like one of those events that make me miss New

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-80897614888890101972007-11-03T00:11:00.000-04:002007-11-03T00:37:33.730-04:00

Bailing Okay, a few weeks ago I loudly proclaimed how I was using Open Music to write this piece. And, for a while, I thought it would work. But, I wasn't happy with the results, so I've set that material aside. I do this every now and then: make an attempt at integrating Open Music with my compositional techniques, and then I retreat. I'm not sure why, but the results I get just don't often

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-72156033198851157432007-10-22T22:14:00.000-04:002007-10-22T22:52:57.494-04:00

This semester, I'm teaching a class on Music of the 20th (& 21st) Centuries. One of the benefits of teaching such a class is that it gives me the opportunity to revisit some composers that I've been neglecting as of late. During the early part of the course, I had a chance to sit down with some Ravel and Satie, and then some Messiaen. But most recently, I've been thinking about Morton Feldman

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-11017921078878159922007-10-14T23:00:00.000-04:002007-10-15T02:07:43.305-04:00

Looks like I'm actually writing a piece using Open Music. I've had this software from IRCAM for some time. And I've played with it - going through the tutorials, learning the logic behind the programming. (Okay, I've got to review their looping and recursion design, not to mention the odd way they use IF...THEM statements!) Basically, I think I understand how it's done. During the time I've

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-49995705777969366272007-09-24T21:57:00.000-04:002007-09-24T22:45:53.794-04:00

To my regular readers: (that's right, both of you!) I've invited my students to come and read this blog post. Hopefully, they'll comment and add to the discussion. ===================================== I've been doing a lot of thinking about improvisation lately. Outside of totally free improvisation, the composer (or director) needs to be able to convey to players his or her intentions with

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-91719812913470632432007-09-15T11:33:00.000-04:002007-09-15T11:56:13.754-04:00

As a composer, you hope your pieces get played - more than once. We all know the routine of a piece getting played a handful of times and then having it be more or less forgotten. Sad, but true. Then, there are a few pieces that seem to have a bit of a life. After it's initial performance(s), the work is played by another performer, maybe a student somewhere, or another aficionado of

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-41213782288514005902007-08-20T08:43:00.000-04:002007-08-20T12:48:24.313-04:00

There are pages on the web that claim to demonstrate censorship. The usual story is a band wants to play on a show (let's say something like SNL or Letterman), and they are asked to cut an objectionable song. They do the performance, looking rather unhappy, without the offending song. Sometimes, the band refuses to cut the song, and they don't perform at all, or their performance winds up on

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-46374140422736395082007-08-11T09:28:00.000-04:002007-08-11T10:23:36.917-04:00

Or, Six Critics in Search of a Clue Well, maybe that's a bit harsh. This would have been a great article in 1987. Then, the general population (or at least the 'classical'-loving population) had little idea who most of these people were. But today (and I did double-check the paper's headers, it was indeed published in 2007), we don't really need an 'introduction to minimalism'. And, if so, we

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-36432937450148752402007-08-04T08:42:00.000-04:002007-08-04T09:46:41.006-04:00

Okay, I've got to start this with a HUGE disclaimer. My uncle, Ronnie Ball (who passed away over 20 years ago), was a student of Lennie Tristano, who is the subject of this book. I've been a Tristano fan for quite some time, so hearing about this book was delightful. When I opened it up to find a sub-section devoted to my uncle, I literally jumped out of my seat. Peter Ind's book on Tristano

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-81516501506850963912007-07-29T00:11:00.000-04:002007-07-29T00:46:16.104-04:00

Okay, so by now, you may get the impression that I'm a sporadic blogger. Usually, what happens is I get involved in a project of sorts, and I sort of forget about other things. Curiously, my daughter is the same way... So, this is the next part of my thoughts on improvisation. I'm going to tie this into composition eventually. And, I agree with most of you, that they are distinctly related.

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-37204536887407247232007-06-24T23:21:00.000-04:002007-06-24T23:45:06.850-04:00

Okay, this is the start of my blogs on improvisation vs. composition. I'm hoping this will eventually coalesce into a paper of sorts. Any feed-back, comments, criticism, will be more than welcomed. I'd like to start by bringing to mind the public image of the composer and the improviser. First, let's start with the composer. Now, to musicians and the general public, the image that comes to

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-47824876107977797232007-06-09T10:10:00.000-04:002007-06-11T22:21:15.326-04:00

I've been thinking about improvisation lately. Some of this, maybe a lot of this, comes from my jazz background. Some of this comes from the reaction to Ornette winning the Pulitzer; and some of this comes from my use of improvisation in my own music. I should mention a few things. The ensemble I direct, EEE!, makes a lot of use of improvisation. Sure, we do 'written' works - we've adapted

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-52336547387124619832007-05-12T18:59:00.000-04:002007-05-12T19:41:08.419-04:00

Okay, this was more than a week ago, but I thought that I should post on this, if not just to complete the trilogy. We had two events on the final week of concerts. On May 3, Gray Code gave a performance at Central - a freely improvised set lasting around 45 minutes, followed by another slightly shorter one. The group is a trio of Butch Rovan on clarinets (including the contrabass!) and

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-15628894798329338152007-04-28T09:08:00.000-04:002007-04-28T21:52:00.942-04:00

Okay, this week was much different, as far as the music is concerned. On Tuesday, we had Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid as a guest. Needless to say, Paul was incredibly cool. He came for a lecture and an evening dance-party event. The lecture was fantastic - very inspiring, very thought-provoking. Paul explained re-mix culture - it's origins, semiotics, and his own personal

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-46100427309140039452007-04-23T00:35:00.001-04:002007-04-23T01:00:47.547-04:00

For starters, I'm not going to review the EEE concert. It's my own group, so I can't review it. I will talk about the McLean Mix Duo. First of all, I've heard of them since the 1980s. They've been around, doing these touring electronic music shows long before it was easy, and back when it was cool, hip, and innovative. Before asking them to come, I listened to some of their music on their

Anthony Cornicellotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14225253.post-28929190608129814752007-04-15T21:04:00.000-04:002007-04-15T21:33:29.686-04:00

Okay, here's the rundown for our concerts this week: Monday, 4/16: EEE! (Eastern Electronic Ensemble), 8PM at Webb Hall. Music of Alvin Lucier (Nothing is Real), John Cage (Radio Music), and students. The Lucier piece is for piano and teapot. The piano is recorded, played back through the teapot, and the lid is raised and lowered. It's got to be heard to be believed, which you can do

Anthony Cornicello