Steve Reich : Music for 18 musicians (question)

lol, was looking up a Benjamin Britten thread earlier and it consists of two posts about paedophilia!

Not a hill I'd die on but, from all accounts I've come across, the way Britten handled the urges that troubled him was pretty brave and admirable.

how exactly do you define "the world of modern composition" ?? This phrase already seems kinda problematic because obviously it/you don't mean to include all non-improvised music of the 20th century ...

OK I mean the world of modern orchestral/classical/notated music then. (And why do they call is 'dance music'? You can dance to all sorts of music???!!!!)

Hey, Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer.

lol in a piece i was writing earlier in the year i used the phrase "composed music and chart pop" and nearly got into a fight with the editor bcz he said "but isn't pop music also composed?"

"yes you're right but also literally everyone will know what i'm getting at here"

(i didn't say this and i changed it to something even more inadequate which didn't seem to bother him so everyone's the loser really)

I like "notated music". It does mean that you include show tunes and exclude electroacoustic music on fixed media, which seems fine to me.

Wuorinen so far was the only person of that generation who somewhat openly admitted to being on the Trump train.

― Boring, Maryland, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Lol no way

The person with the downright worst politucs I am mutuals with and tolerate is an avant-garde pianist and teacher whom I've known on a couple of classical internet message boards I've been on. He was pro Change UK (non-Brits wondering as to what that is please don't bother).

Mutuals with on twitter...he is quite good on music, just utter thrash on anything else.

Cancel pianos.

Alexander Hawkins is a comrade ftr

what about rzewski?

Elitist cis white man who appropriated the struggles of POC.

ilx always circles back to cardew to in the end :D

serves imperialism iirc

i guess there's no way getting round the fact that 99% of people in this world (REAL ENGLAND being thisworld) who can afford either
a) a piano b) to be a composer
are going to be tory as fuck.

/from tory as fuck backgrounds and so prone for backsliding

plenty of poor as fuck council house families had a rented Steinway in the living room with a 50p slot on the side!

Yeah wtf

uh, the cost of music school and "being a composer" vastly exceeds the cost of a piano ...

Tell it to a homeschooled composer I know named Mozart.

Eh, it's true enough insofar as there is a cost to any education program and financially uncertain life choice but I don't think it requires 1% level privilege and have not heard of any evidence that people involved with new music composition are more politically conservative on average than the general population. (My anecdotal experience, since that seems to be what we're working with here, is on the contrary.)

xp cf Schoenberg

I love how these threads systematically bring out all the canonical, downright snooty clichés about art music. Not that it didn't have it coming, but still.

*notated art music

I mean, I really don't think most people in 'this world' grew up as wealthy or well-connected as Taylor Swift or Lana del Rey.

If it was just posh people that had pianos in the home the history of bebop would have likely been a whole lot duller perhaps? Just saying like.

yeah we have ridden this ride before, I feel

i generally don't try anymore

xpost

'Still D.R.E.' prominently features the piano as a conspicuous sign of wealth iirc.

I don't think it requires 1% level privilege and have not heard of any evidence that people involved with new music composition are more politically conservative on average than the general population. (My anecdotal experience, since that seems to be what we're working with here, is on the contrary.)

Considering these composers come from a variety of different countries with diverse economic systems, it's not easy to generalize. Coming from America, most of the new music composers I am familiar with do come from privileged backgrounds. They are mostly cis white men. Most of them are baby boomers or older. Compared to other cis white baby boomer men, they tend to be more politically progressive. However, considering this type of music is highly connected to academia and avant-garde arts, which tend to be way more politically to the left than average, these nice liberal white men are conservative by comparison.

In other words a reet bunch of melts, lol

As an American, I am not clear on what a "melt" is -- but you probably are otm

Cancel pianos.

― The nexus of the crisis and the origin of storms (Sund4r), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

I haven't attended a concert by him since. Happy to keep things at a distance as I can't be arsed paying money to see good music played by bigots lol.

lol all concerts have been cancelled for the past 6 months here and nothing is scheduled for the next 6 months at least so ...

Xp

I hope that isn't Howard Riley you are talking about, he's the only avant garde jazz pianist hero we have from Hudds!

Nope he isn't from the jazz scene.

Sarah - encountered his awful twitter about two years ago. Probably started going to his recitals ten years ago.

wait who? i am confused. Rzewski?

Luckily in the UK and I assume lots of other countries oiks still get access to free or at least heavily subsidised music lessons. Give our gov a bit more time tho

Haha so am I! sorry got our wires crossed (just checked whether Rzewski had twitter) xp

MEV invented twitter iirc

Free music lessons ended a long time ago and I think most local authorities no longer even subsidise them either - although as with most things in the UK it depends upon your postcode.

fwiw, somewhat of a response on his Twitter today

Steve Reich’s response to last week’s article in The Guardian by Philip Clark: pic.twitter.com/5Kek546yxE

— Steve Reich (@SteveReich) September 16, 2020

Was listening to Inside Music at the weekend on Radio 3 and Tai Murray played a selection from Drumming, which I thought was kinda interesting.