These are essays from my blog PostClassic, on Arts Journal. I blogged actively from August 29, 2003 to August 24, 2016. Out of 1568 published posts, the bulk were of ephemeral interest, but I've saved here the essays and thoughts I would have been sorry to lose if they disappeared over there.
By the way, the software that was reading my text transfers couldn't read the letter combinations "fi," "ffi,' or "fl," so if you see a word that doesn't make sense, try inserting one of those combinations of letters. I've been trying to catch and correct all of them, but I keep finding new ones.
- KG
2003:
Remembering One's Ignorance - August 23, 2003
Declining Literacy 1: Man Plus Moment - August 28, 2003
Declining Literacy 2: Music's Tower of Babel - August 28, 2003
Loving, Hating Carter, Boulez - September 3, 2003
Censorship by Word Count - September 5, 2003
Recording and its Unfulfilled Demands - October 17, 2003
You Could Do Something with That - September 18, 2003
Interesting Revelation - October 14, 2003
Recording and its Unfulfilled Demands - October 17, 2003
Charles Rosen's Sins of American Omission - October 21, 2003
Almost Too Beautiful - October 26, 2003
System and its Discontents - November 20, 2003
Practice! Practice! Practice! - November 26, 20032004:
Following the Classical Script - February 23, 2004
Rzewski on Composition vs. Improvsation - March 15, 2004
New Music in Old Europe - March 24, 2004
"Time for Europe to Look Ahead" - March 26, 2004
Modern Prejudices - April 5, 2004
Postclassical (Un)Defined at Last - May 10, 2004
Pullet Surprise: New Horizons in Mediocrity - June 1, 2004
Godzilla of the Piano Repertoire - May 10, 2004
Are Pigs Flying Yet? - July 8, 2004
I, Academic Composer - July 13, 2004
Our Classical Bedtime Stories - August 17, 2004
Completion of an Earlier Thought - August 17, 2004
But What Does It Sound Like? - August 29, 2004
Competitions, as Bartok Said, Are for Horses - September 20, 2004
Speak for Yourself - October 10, 2004
Peeping Over the Genre Fences - October 14, 2004
Did Nancarrow Have Days Like This? - October 24, 2004
Criticism, Musical Expression, and Values - November 1, 2004
A New Year's Reflection - December 31, 20042005:
New Music: The Generation Problem - January 28, 2005
The Nancarrow Saga Continues - February 17, 2005
Kittens on the Basketball Court - March 3, 2005
Downtown Music and its Misrepresentations - March 8, 2005
Once More into the 12-Tone Breach - March 20, 2005
Escaping from Classical Music - March 26, 2005
Criticism, Composers, and Objectivity - March 28, 2005
Sources of My Aesthetics - April 17, 2005
Similarity Duly Noted - April 18, 2005
Suppression of Downtown Composers - April 20, 2005
Not at All Obvious - April 24, 2005
Roll Me a Cigarette, Partner, I'm a Postminimalist - April 25, 2005
No Slave to History: George Rochberg, 1918-2005 - May 31, 2005
I Am Not My Music's Fault - June 1, 2005
How to Respond to Critics - July 24, 2005
Habits of Classical Sentimentality Hard to Break - July 25, 2005
Virgil Thomson, In his Own Precise Words and Notes - September 2, 2005
When Does the Post-Prohibitive Age Arrive? - September 9, 2005
Fetishism for the Literal - September 28, 2005
The (Too) Tolerant Generation - October 1, 2005
Rochberg as Post-Prohibitionist - October 8, 2005
From One of the Horse's Mouths - October 18, 2005
One Who Did No Harm to Our Poor Earth - October 19, 2005
Another Old Fart's Grumpy Diatribe - October 25, 2005
Something that Has Always Perplexed Me - December 11, 2005
The View in a 20-Year-Old Mirror - December 24, 2005
The Underrated Predictability of Audiences - December 27, 2005
Our Potemkin Music Scene - December 29, 20052006:
Totalism as a New Rhythmic Paradigm - January 1, 2006
Rules of the Word Game - January 4, 2006
Creativity and Chronology, Rethought - January 9, 2006
Metametrics: Origins - January 14, 2006
Metametrics: Origins 2 - January 22, 2006
Metametrics: Origins 3 - January 31, 2006
Metametrics: A Brief History of 5-against-4 - February 15, 2006
Authorizing Tehillim - February 17, 2006
Selected to Bother - March 6, 2006
A Short History of My Subjectivity - April 1, 2006
Marvin Gann, 1935-2006 - April 13, 2006
Satie, mon Semblable, mon Frere - May 19, 2006
In Which the Blogger Explains Himself - May 20, 2006
Passing of a Gentleman - May 2, 2006
Standing Up for Subjectivity - June 5, 2006
The Hit-and-Run Composer - June 6, 2006
Some Have Versatility Thrust upon Them - June 7, 2006
Low Imprisonment Threshold - June 13, 2006
The Man in the Single Hat - June 14, 2006
American Romanticism: Painting versus Music - July 1, 2006
Music Theory: Case for the Prosecution - July 4, 2006
Teaching the Music that Doesn't Behave - August 31, 2006
Ignoring Progress - September 9, 2006
The Masses Speak, and Wisely - September 10, 2006
Willing One Thing - November 21, 2006
The Siren Call of Conformity - November 24, 2006
"The Lessing Is Miracle" - December 16, 2006
Getcher Dirty Mitts Off my Genre - December 29, 20062007:
Feldman, Painter of Pages - January 02, 2007
The Kleinmeister Factory, Then and Now - January 13, 2007
Why I Am a Postminimalist - January 25, 2007
The Postclassical Catch-22, Caught In the Act - February 13, 2007
The Unapproachable Sacredness of Pop - March 29, 2007
The New-Music Narrative, Interrupted - April 25, 2007
Sand Castles of Knowledge - May 5, 2007
Trois Regards sur Minimalisme - May 6, 2007
Composing "Outside One's Time" - May 10, 2007
How to (Not) Teach Composition - May 11, 2007
They Come in Pairs, Too - May 21, 2007
Totalistically Tenney - May 30, 2007
A Truly Loopy Idea - June 23, 2007
Diversity of Taste Is for Losers - August 10, 2007
Go Gentle, My Upload - August 18, 2007
The Minimalist Invasion - September 3, 2007
Hero of the Subjective - September 23, 2007
Pretending to Be a Stumblebum - October 3, 2007
The Solitary Listener - October 4, 2007
When Geniuses Collide - November 08, 2007
Chance Encounters - November 28, 20072008:
Beam Me Up - January 7, 2008
In Dispraise of Efficiency - January 29, 2008
The Art of the Nonsequitur - February 1, 2008
Answering All Questions - February 7, 2008
Suck It Up - March 10, 2008
Don't Blame Me, It Was Henry Cowell's Idea - March 15, 2008
Expressing the Unself - April 7, 2008
The Maple Leaves Are Always Greener - April 8, 2008
Veni, MIDI, Non Vici - April 15, 2008
Sounding the Solar System - April 20, 2008
The Rock Need not Return to Earth - April 21, 2008
Spot On, but a Little Late - July 21, 2008
The Complexity Issue - July 23, 2008
All Indians Walk Single File - July 27, 2008
What Part of Eno Didn't You Understand - August 2, 2008
Meanwhile, Back in the Real World - August 14, 2008
The Right to Steal Shall Not Be Abridged - September 9, 2008
Compliment from the Grave - September 10, 2008
Cleaning Up a Life - September 23, 2008
Classical Reflections - October 1, 2008
Bleak Inheritance - October 6, 2008
The Op. 111 Club - October 24, 2008
The Trouble with Serialism - November 7, 2008
Composing Generously - November 8, 2008
The Gender Politics of Kickass - November 29, 2008
The Idiot's Guide to PostClassic - December 6, 20082009:
Theorizing NOW - January 4, 2009
My Ives Keynote Address - February 2, 2009
A Problem of Identity - February 15, 2009
Top Six Reasons to Wander in the Wilderness - February 18, 2009
The Symphonic Temperament - February 24, 2009
So I'm Neo-Riemannian: Who Knew? - March 6, 2009
When Students Cancel, You Have Time to Think - April 2, 2009
All Stick, No Carrot - April 2, 2009
What Composers Talk About - April 21, 2009
Words Finally Fail Me - April 23, 2009
Post-Rehearsal Musings - May 26, 2009
The Art of Humiliating Dead Composers - May 27, 2009
Caution, Slow Listener - June 4, 2009
When Morty Met Stefan - June 5, 2009
A Cautionary Example - July 7, 2009
Some Composers Are Not Islands - July 11, 2009
Some People Can't Take a Compliment - July 15, 2009
The Rest Is Falsehood - July 18, 2009
Confessions of a Closet Midtowner - July 26, 2009
Style and Idea - August 1, 2009
I Was Once a Good Boy - August 3, 2009
The Epistemology of Elitism - August 6, 2009
Great Moments in Music History - August 27, 2009
The Outside-one's-ism Student - September 12, 2009
The Minimalist Alliance - September 10, 20092010:
Aiming My File Cabinets into the Right Students' Ears - January 15, 2010
Getting Off the Assembly Line - January 25, 2001
The Curse of the Recital - February 3, 2010
How to Read - February 6, 2010
Boulez on Music 22 Years Ago - February 28, 2010
The Composer's Guide to History - June 4, 2010
Placating the Postminimalist Performer - June 7, 2010
What "Composing the Music You Hear" Means - June 10, 2010
Success Is Just Another Form of Failure - June 17, 2010
How to Care How It Was Made - June 21, 2010
Critical Obsession - August 29, 2010
How Music Sounds to Children - September 6, 2010
A Couple of Complaints - September 6, 2010
Homophobia Case Against Ives Closed - September 13, 2010
Thought for the Day - October 12, 2010
A Serenade Out of Season - October 20, 2010
The Role of the Idea - November 27, 2010
Chasing My Past with Harpoon and Row Matrix - December 17, 2010
Resisting the Narrative - December 24, 20102011:
Gambling Tips for Performers - January 3, 2011
Language-Spinners and Image-Cutters - January 6, 2011
Vertiginously Relative - June 6, 2011
The Woman behind "The Greatest Man" - October 22, 2011
The Blind Alleys of Criticism - November 28, 20112012:
I Am Ralph Fiennes - January 21, 2012
The Progressive Conservative - April 8, 2012
Literature as a Mirror - July 14, 2012
The Line between A and B - July 21, 2012
Pas Mon Ami Pierrot - July 27, 2012
Birthplace of a Sonata - August 13, 2012
Strange Times: William Duckworth (1943-2012) - September 13, 2012
The Elusive Spinet Piano of Lizzy Alcott - September 23, 20122013:
The Negative Profession - April 15, 2013
Ives, Caught Between Two Caricatures - May 10, 2013
What Writing Has Taught Me about Composition - May 27, 2013
Escape from the Pack of Peers - July 23, 2013
A Louisiana Voice - August 5, 2013
Following Perfect Lives - August 18, 2013
Obligatory Calendrical Observations - August 20, 2013
Opus Triple-Digit - August 29, 2013
Passionate Dinosaur in a Laidback World - September 2, 2013
Confessions of an Old Fart Academic - September 7, 2013
The End of Music History - September 8, 2013
A Teacher Fondly Remembered - September 19, 2013
In Which Exception Is Taken to Various Common Practices - October 17, 2013
Niblock Under the Microscope - October 29, 2013
Great Moments in Teaching - October 31, 2013
Great Moments in Teaching, Part 2 - November 3, 2013
The World Turned Upside Down - November 16, 2013
Snapshots from Academe - November 25, 2013
Reports of My Misbehavior Greatly Exaggerated - November 26, 2013
Unanticipated Claim to Fame - December 30, 20132014:
Where One Looks for It, Evidence Will Be Found - March 10, 2014
A Long-Lost Name Resurfaces - March 18, 2014
The Modernist Populist - May 4, 2014
"The Idea Can Do without Art" - May 26, 2014
One of the Greats: Elodie Lauten (1950-2014) - June 4, 2014
Ives the Primitive as Straw Man - July 17, 2014
The Composer as Cripple - July 22, 2014
Superficial Perceptions Are Permanent - October 11, 2014
The Mission Creep of Peer Review - December 14, 20142015:
Things Composers Can Do - January 14, 2015
New Horizons in Microtonal Neoclassicism - January 21, 2015
The Tough Discipline of the Vernacular - February 15, 2015
Memories of an Early Frost - October 9, 2015
Even the Most Brilliant Musicians Are Mortal - November 8, 2015
A Critical Conspiracy - December 6, 2015
What We've Come To - December 14, 2015
Misreading - December 20, 2015
Not Who We Were - December 21, 2015
The Perennial Fiction of Nature - December 31, 20152016:
Boulez est mort - January 6, 2016
Cribbing from Frankie - January 7, 2016
Thought for Feldman's Birthday - January 12, 2016
"You Can't Do What You Want, but Anything Goes" January 12, 2016
Sound, not Stamp-Collecting - January 14, 2016
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