PostClassic

The Non-Obvious Explanation

Kyle Gann — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:44:51 +0000

Never mind why, but I’m in Missouri. And locals are telling me that, since it was an open primary here and anyone could vote, Missouri Democrats voted en masse for Santorum just to jerk the Republicans’ chains. And the talking heads are going on and on about the mystery of Mr. Man-on-Dog-Sex’s resurgence, which, in [...]

What a Guy

Kyle Gann — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:48:32 +0000

I interviewed Philip Glass live in front of an enthusiastic student/faculty audience at Bard tonight. It’s the second time I’ve done such a thing; the first was about 15 years ago in NYC, and Phil and I couldn’t remember what school it was. But Phil insisted on writing my introduction for him, saying, “These students [...]

In My Lefty Dreams

Kyle Gann — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:01:17 +0000

I actually dreamed this morning that Obama’s secret drone program was really a minimalist sound installation, a kind of soft Phill Niblock piece coming from concealed loudspeakers.

The Difficulty of Seeing Music

Kyle Gann — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:48:03 +0000

Sort of looks like an old faded-then-digitized photograph of the Alps, doesn’t it? I should make you guess the piece, but given my current obsession it’s too easy. This is the MIDI info, player-piano-roll style, for the first six systems of the Concord Sonata. After the initial wedge motive Ives descends down to the lowest [...]

Music’s Quasi-Objectivity

Kyle Gann — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:28:53 +0000

Just before writing the Essays Before a Sonata, Ives had read a 1902 article by an Oxford tutor named Henry Sturt, called “Art and Personality.” It’s not a great article, and it’s odd that Ives’s imagination was caught by it, but he quotes it in the Essays more often than he acknowledges. (For instance, the [...]

Videos Worth Watching

Kyle Gann — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:38:36 +0000

I’ve always loved David Garland’s songs, and have written about them many times. He’s still making them, and he’s got a new album coming out, Conversations with the Cinnamon Skeleton, that he’s made – believe it or not – with Sean Lennon, supermodel Charlotte Kemp Muhl, and English songwriter Vashti Bunyan. Whew. One song from it, The [...]

I Am Ralph Fiennes

Kyle Gann — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:11:08 +0000

Not really, but I am a total bardolator. I worked as a security guard in 1978-79, a year I took off between my master’s and doctorate, and while “working” could basically do whatever I wanted as long as I kept my butt in the seat. The two self-improvement projects I completed that year were reading [...]

Wonkish

Kyle Gann — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:59:57 +0000

A repeated criticism that I get for my writing is that I am inconsistent in the level of expertise I assume in the reader. For instance, many people who don’t know much about music assume that musicians always get paid for their work (hah!), and so their first response to 4’33″ is that Cage got [...]

Excerpts from Outer Space

Kyle Gann — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 02:44:45 +0000

Here’s a You Tube trailer for John Sanborn’s video to my piece The Planets. The images are from all different movements, but the music is all “Mercury.” The film will be featured at the Videoformes festival in France March 14-18. Relache will begin touring with it in the fall.

Warning: Self-Obsessed Post

Kyle Gann — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:38:39 +0000

I have nothing to say, and I’m not saying it. Or rather, I do have things to say, but not in this format for the moment. I am beginning my sabbatical, and withdrawing from the world somewhat to work on two of the most ambitious projects of my life. The more immediate is a long [...]