category Prompts

A university that attempts to chip away at the white racial frame should do so from a place of humility and recognition. Academia, through its relentless focus on the works of the “great masters of music”, has long been the… Continue Reading →

I think that classical music does itself a disservice in its obsession to preserve the norms of centuries long gone. We shouldn’t expect everyone to experience musical transcendence exclusively on the terms of contemporaries of Napoleon. Most of these composers… Continue Reading →

Seven instructional compositions, by Gabe Cayer ————————————————— Pick up a pen. Write down what it was thinking. Immediately forget what you wrote. ————————————————— Pinch yourself. If any part of you enjoyed it, pinch yourself again. If no part of you… Continue Reading →

The krautrock-style freakout “Polacca” by OOIOO features some obvious participatory discrepancies. First, whereas the bass is in 6, drums and guitar are in a duple meter, pre-empting beats 2 and 4 ever so slightly. Different vocal styles overlap each other,… Continue Reading →

I listened to the Passacaglia from Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 voices. The first few times listening to the piece were like exploring a room full of curious objects while wearing a blindfold. My attention was pulled this way and… Continue Reading →

I don’t think that the preoccupation classical music has with preserving the norms of centuries long gone is particularly healthy. We shouldn’t expect everyone to experience transcendence exclusively on the terms of contemporaries of Napoleon. Most of these composers were… Continue Reading →

I chose the 25th variation, which escapes the traditional narrative about the two recordings in that the 1981 version is actually played slightly faster than the 1955. The differences between the interpretations don’t concern tempo so much as phrasing and… Continue Reading →

My first addition to the golden record project is Robert Johnson’s Cross Road Blues. It is a low-fidelity recording from 1936 of Johnson singing and playing slide guitar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd60nI4sa9A  I wanted to include some blues because it’s a cross-continental genre… Continue Reading →

How have I engaged art in the last 6 months? Listening to music became much more important to me during the pandemic. Partly this was because I was furloughed for a month and a half, which gave me a lot… Continue Reading →