Tag: music

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A Day in the Life of a Musician by Erik Satie:

An artist must regulate his life.

Here is a time-table of my daily acts. I rise at 7.18; am inspired from 10.23 to 11.47. I lunch at 12.11 and leave the table at 12.14. A healthy ride on horse-back round my domain follows from 1.19 pm to 2.53 pm. Another bout of inspiration from 3.12 to 4.7 pm. From 5 to 6.47 pm various occupations (fencing, reflection, immobility, visits, contemplation, dexterity, natation, etc.)

Dinner is served at 7.16 and finished at 7.20 pm. From 8.9 to 9.59 pm symphonic readings (out loud). I go to bed regularly at 10.37 pm. Once a week (on Tuesdays) I awake with a start at 3.14 am.

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

Is it harder to write a sonnet than a great hip-hop verse?

The literal rules for writing sonnets, tankas, haikus etc. aren’t particularly hard to follow. It’s following the rules and actually saying something that’s hard. You can write a sonnet that makes no sense, and has no real power in the words. Likewise, you could write a rhyme that’s technically on beat and say nothing at all.

Nice sample at the end. Puff is much, much worse than Biggie.

Weekly muxtape, unusual edition

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muxtape, unusal edition
The only reason I put together the unusual edition is because of the first track “Strange Overtones”. I’ve been repeating that religiously since I heard it earlier this weekend. I haven’t had a track get such heavy play since “Weird Fishes”. Other highlights include Victor Wooten’s sick bass solo around the 2-minute mark in “Oddity,” and Paul Desmond’s saxophone work in “Strange Meadow Lark,” which has some unusual 10-bar phrases.

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Classical and pop reviews 2, Greg Sandow’s follow-up to his previous post on the topic:

Certainly we’re not immersed in classical music because we want to check whether the latest pianist to come along really knows what to do with Beethoven — whether her tempo in the slow movement of some sonata really is correct or not. And probably we’re not so deeply tied to this art because some work can be called “magnificent,” or because we identify a particular emotion inside some classical piece. We can go to the movies and get emotional. I think we’d say that the rewards we get from classical music go pretty deep. But I’m not sure we could say that reviews of classical concerts normally convey how deep and powerful those rewards can be. Whereas pop reviews pretty accurately convey what we get from pop, which among other things might mean — I think it does mean this, actually — that pop reviewing is easier. My own experience, writing both pop and classical reviews, is that I’ve had to work much harder to say what’s powerful in classical music.