In addition to composer/performer sites, radio stations sometimes retain archives of broadcast performances, and sites like Instant Encore allow listeners to play back entire concerts.

The irony is that while it has never been easier for a reviewer to obtain scores and recordings of emerging composers, it has also never been more difficult to make a living as a reviewer.

Thanks for sharing your history with us Jeff. This column bears comparison with this older manifesto by Bob Ostertag on giving away his music, that I stumbled upon last week: http://questioncopyright.org/bob_ostertag_speaks

Just FYI, I write my scores on the computer, no longer on paper (except for scores that don’t fit notation software). I’ve got a 2-monitor setup with a 22-inch vertical screen for scores, text and browsing, and a 22-inch horizontal screen for graphics and video. I don’t find any of it taxing, but that may be because I’ve been in front of one computer screen or another since 1978.

Dennis

What a great statement about how Sequenza 21 works!

Jeff,

I was using my MP3 player to review Aaron Siegel … last week.

I think it’s great that you got this conversation going on the forum and I always value your insights.

My one suggestion: let’s have some more! If you really think we’re reviewing the same folks over and over again, you’re welcome to add your own two cents. How about new reviews, articles, etc. about composers you feel are neglected? We could use the help!

Dennis,

My hope has been to sort the polemical from the practical, but it seems that we’re at loggerheads about this issue.

I’d be only too happy to work with PDFs, but my eyes won’t tolerate it. If the technology gave you eye strain, you might not choose to use it. Can you really study large format scores for an extended period of time on a computer screen? If so, maybe you’d consider reviewing PDFs of scores for the site.

Best to all of you.

-Christian

Today, we seem to have a ‘laissez-faire approach’ where the powerful and well-connected, the ‘already made’ crew such as the Judd’s and the Missy’s and other New Yorkers are allowed to promote themselves almost endlessly at NMBX, S21 and NPR because they are clever enough to play these media outlets like a well-tuned fiddle. The folks that can afford to dish out $6,000.00 for an Innova CD, the folks that have the $$ to pay for NYC publicity, hire halls and musicians, are rewarded by the powerful accolade – NON-DIY. Haha… ;)

With the size of our market – we’re all DIY, every one of us. If we’re not selling over 20K units a year – a purchase, a product is just noise. It’s a complete hoax – the CD. A tool to get a review that nobody will read. A CD becomes a carrier wave for hype/text/accolades.

Watching the NYC scene unfold again from here in France, the hype, the incredible stultifying banality of the musical effort and the incredible accolades these NON-DIY composers get as they forge a newly-titled art movement (synthetists! – how apt, because their music is ultimately plastic-pop-syntheTIC) from their sheer hard work, and not their connections or the money, is a joy to behold…

Not caring about watching great talents be ignored while you promote the same names over and over – is a sign of decadent corruption and an outrage. Not doing what you can to make sure the best gets out is letting the arts die out of sheer laziness. Because while the NON-DIY crowd is promoting itself there is a real danger, an ambient belief, thick and chewy, that there is a fair ‘discovery’ system out there for the arts. That today’s Nancarrow or Trimpin or Schoenberg isn’t going to have to wait until they’re 75 to be re-discovered. This laissez-faire approach, letting the rich and powerful control who gets promoted and reviewed and advocated for, actively promotes this idea.

Get a GD MP3 player. Advocate for the composers you love, S21. Be repetitious, advocate, don’t play fair, advocate for the best, not just the well-connected. And this means looking for music on the net, reviewing MP3′s and curating the best so that people can find it and relish it. It has to be done! And it has to be a well-known website to do it.

To do otherwise is to promote the rich and well-connected NON-DIY crowd once more until they are all we have… and that would be a tragedy today, when so much is possible, so much freedom, so much interest, so much potential.

Christian, if you don’t want MP3s or PDFs, then there’s nothing to be said. I only make CDs for my mother (she’s 90 tomorrow; at least she doesn’t need cassettes anymore) and don’t print scores except for actual use in my own performances. I have a pretty strong reaction to rejecting PDFs, just as I did to the S21 score call that was only on paper (which I then ignored). It’s the 21st century and digital media are the format of transmission.

A new distribution system means nothing if our own media leaders won’t actually use it, no?

Dennis

Given the size of our writing staff, who volunteer their time, I think that we cover a great deal of music. Having just seen two print outlets, to which I contributed for a decade, fold, I’m glad to see us still standing. We have Jerry and Steve to thank for that.

I’ll speak for myself below with regards to what I’d like to write about. Perhaps other contributors are happy to abandon working with physical releases: I’m not.

My response above wasn’t meant to be slighting DIY artists. It’s pragmatic. I listen to music on a sound system and don’t have my computer linked to it. When folks send me to streams, that means I can’t assess their music in the way that I’d prefer. I do sometimes write about web only media, but I don’t plan to have it replace my writing about CDs, vinyl, etc. anytime soon.

When someone sends me MP3s, that means that I’m using hard drive space and spending time either making a CDR or putting it on an MP3 player. Given that this gig is, as you put it, a labor of love, all of that makes it less palatable: it’s costing me more resources and time. Those “bits of plastic” come in handy for me from a work perspective.

I’d also love to see us reviewing more scores. That hat I usually wear when writing for academic journals, but I’d be glad to see us expand into that arena. So, those interested, by all means, send me scores. But I’m not working from PDFs or preview scans. I’m already in front of my computer far more than my eye doctor would like.

Best,
Christian

http://www.sequenza21.com/category/click-picks/page/5/

It’s all still there, still valid; but I don’t want to regurgitate all this stuff, or feel the need to constantly lead and re-lead folk down these paths. The sign-posts are there, but the reader needs to step up do their part in the spelunking.

Siegel’s is also a download — not the same as only a download. And there are rarely reviews of live performances or individual pieces. Jeff’s Calefax-winning piece, for example, has been available for several weeks; what are the chances it will be reviewed (as opposed to being simply reported) on any of the major new music sites (not blogs which are, well, just blogs)? The mainstream media review concerts but rarely have time to reflect.

Yes, I appreciate that S21 and other sites are labors of love. But even so, aren’t you sidestepping a little, especially with the slighting reference to “DIY artists” as those who don’t release plastic? So-called “labels” are everywhere (I have one, now unused). Commercial CDs are all about competitive packaging, little plastic art objects. I admit to mostly listening to music from streaming sites and YouTube.

We’ve been concentrating on the audio side of things, which doesn’t even address reviewing scores, which have no place on any of the major new music sites nor in the new music print media (as they once did). Print media also concentrate on CD releases and occasional festival reviews. It suggests that the only real art has already been performed & recorded, doesn’t it?

Okay, all for now. The new distribution strategy seems to work for generating excitement from performers and public, but not for interesting folks when they don their journalist hats. Time for a change? I reiterate Jeff’s original article: “The biggest consequence now is [...] the lack of both serious criticism and the lack of curation.”

Dennis

Aaron Siegel’s (published this past week) was MP3s. And I often work from digital and videos on my blog (www.sequenza21.com/carey).

I try not to make it difficult for DIY artists, especially those who aren’t releasing a recording with a label: they’re free to send me their music digitally. But it is nice, when they are available, to get a physical copy of the recording that you’re reviewing. And those artists who want me to check out their MySpace site or another stream only platform aren’t likely to get reviewed. I like to have something to work with away from the computer.

Sounds like Steve Layton is working on a post in this vein too. I’m eager to see (and hear) the results!