After giving the matter some thought, I realized that many of my teachers have been exemplary in some fashion or other, and although I never framed the evaluation of mentors in terms of inspiration, they’ve provided invaluable models for thinking about composition in particular and life in general. Why not call them inspiring, then?

Is it possible to sell out without having to change musical styles?

Perhaps our institutions could offer graduate students an internship that puts them into the public schools as composers-in-residence.

Lessons on the importance of delegation, sobriety, ingenuity, tolerance, activism, and resourcefulness. Plus: a treasure from the filing cabinet.

The omnipresence of recorded music illuminates, ironically, the issue of venue and its impact on the experience of listening to music.

Most “emerging” composers in our world, as well as aspirants in almost any genre, seek any opportunity to get their music in front of an audience whether financially lucrative or not—in most cases not. It’s probably the one piece of common ground between all of us, even if the economies that support the successful practitioners of each genre are so stark in their differences.

Learning how to compose or perform music is a very different skill from not needing a diaper anymore, yet we use the same word for it: training.

Composition for sk8ter boi, new music Armageddon, and the iPod as cultural scapegoat. Plus Paola and Jeff get married.

Fun with Internet vanity searches, or, how to keep tabs on your place in the new music pecking order.

The outpouring of comments (thanks, by the way) in response to last week’s column prompts me to address another pop music-related tangent: the use of
vernacular materials in new concert music.