"Kyle, please keep blogging regularly. Your metametrics posts literally changed my life when I was starting my undergrad. I am now waiting to hear from grad schools after sending them applications and writing samples covered in the names Branca, Chatham, and Gordon."

This comment to my last post sticks acupuncture-like into my reasons for blogging or not blogging, my attitude about teaching, and a lot of other aspects of my life. I never press minimalism, postminimalism, or totalism on my students. Some of my composition students are very ambitious, and want to go to grad school. I know that a knowledge of, let alone strong interest in, Partch, Branca, Diamanda Galas, Glass, Young, Mikel Rouse, Ashley, Art Jarvinen, and all these other nutcases I'm fascinated by - what I consider the great music of my time - will not be assets to an academic composing career. I know my students should be able to analyze Stravinsky, Stockhausen, Nancarrow, Webern, and what academia considers the canon. I feel guilty even trying to interest them in the music I most believe in, because while it might excite them artistically, I know that the best composition careers go not to the most exciting composers, but to those who follow the academic/classical script. Of course, if they come to me interested in that music, I eagerly supply them with all they want. I have two file cabinets bursting with unpublished and self-published scores of "my kind of music." A handful of students, mostly grad students from other schools, have come to me precisely for that, but not one has ever taken advantage of more than a fourth of what I could offer in that area. Consider:

A few years ago, a few students asked me for a tutorial on minimalism, which I happily provided. One of my colleagues, finding out, became incensed with me, and shouted, "See? You're influencing them! You're influencing them!" - as though I weren't supposed to do that. But in fact, the student who led the tutorial request was the son of a woman whose favorite composer was Steve Reich. I try not to influence my students toward my own aesthetic direction because I know it won't help them career-wise.

I apply frequently for senior composition, theory, and history jobs, but I almost never get interviewed. My publication record is superb, I have excellent references from friends who chair departments at other schools, and my student satisfaction ratings are very high. I can only conclude that it is the content of my publications, my academically incorrect aesthetic position, that scares away other departments from considering me. Sure, I directed an international conference on minimalism - but minimalism remains a dirty word in academia. And why would I want to burden any of my students with the same disadvantages under which I labor?

And yet, aside from writing my music, which I secretly think is very good - one of my guilty pleasures - I think the most useful and fulfilling role I could play would be as a distribution channel for the commercially and academically unviable music I love. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than for someone to provide me with the money and wherewithal to scan those file cabinets' worth of scores to create a Free Internet Library of Downtown Music, where students who have an interest in it, like Patrick above, could feast their eyes and ears on all this alternative music. But how could I do that in a world in which copyright difficulties won't even allow me to write, "Creep into the vagina of a living," etc., and in which even the word "Downtown" raises the hackles of a majority of musicians? As long as there was a Downtown scene in New York that provided an alternative career path for composers who don't write the kind of music orchestras and those oh-so-precious classical musicians will program, there was a reason to continue this work. Incorrigible heretic that I am, I believe that there still is a Downtown scene: you'll find it in organizations like Anti-Social Music and New Amsterdam Records, among others, in which young composers take the distribution and performance of their music into their own hands, which is virtually a definition of Downtown. But even the young composers involved today seem uninterested and unknowledgeable about the music I've spent my life immersed in. Downtown New York has always been that way: each new crowd comes in, and has little feeling of connection with the dominant crowd that preceded it. Bang on a Can shrugged off free improv, just as Zorn shrugged off minimalism. And I find myself working night and day for a musical generation that has been shrugged off Downtown, and of course doesn't exist for academia or the classical music organizations.

Frankly, I'm 54, and I'm dog-tired of working as hard as I've worked all my life. But more accurately, I think I would be happy to continue doing the work if considerably more reward and acceptance came as a result. I've been on a big scanning spree during this winter break - mostly of scores I plan to teach in upcoming semesters, and largely because I save a ton of trees by projecting the music on a screen in class rather than Xeroxing it. But I also keep scanning scores of the postminimalist music I like to lecture on, and one score I scanned this week was Carolyn Yarnell's The Same Sky, which I think is one of the most fantastic keyboard works anyone's written in the last 20 years....

I hope to get time to analyze the piece sometime, so I'll have more to say about it. What would be even more gratifying would be if I inspired some student to analyze it and send me the paper. I wish I could direct this activity specifically toward the younger musicians who would find it interesting, and not toward those who reflexively find it Not Serious. I rarely get to feel that such efforts are worth the amount of work I put into them. I seem more often penalized for my expertise than rewarded for it. But to the extent that this blog has a purpose, this is where I see it. It is not a very efficient medium, but it is almost the only medium I have, aside from the laborious producing of books....

In other words, if I can figure out how to get this blog to more efficiently serve the grandest purpose I can imagine for it, without wasting energy on all the other stuff that serves no purpose at all (like defending the music and my terminology), I will gladly keep doing that. And if I figure out some other medium that would be more productive and rewarding, I will switch to that - even if it turns out to be something less public.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

COMMENTS:

Billy says: OK, don't stop blogging. Your blog introduced me to Tom Johnson, Charlemagne Palestine, Eliane Radigue, even La Monte Young. I wouldn't have heard about the minimalism conference in Kansas City, and attended, if I hadn't been reading PostClassic. And that led to my senior musicology thesis on postminimalism, which will probably lead to me being a scholar of minimalist/postminimalist music, which will probably lead to me at some point analyzing and teaching the music that you love. Even if people hate on you on your blog, it's not like that actually affects anyone. But you introducing us to great music we wouldn't ordinarily hear has a ripple affect outwards. Hope to see you at the Belgium conference in 2011.

Dan says: I do like the music about which you blog -- which may be no more worthy of the comment space than the fact that those who don't like it don't like it, but I hope you'll continue, as this space is one of my few sources of news/info about it.

Galen Brown says: Are you saying that the recording you posted was played by Kathy Supove? I knew she was good, but holy crap, she's a monster. And it's a fabulous piece. I don't think I've ever even heard of Carolyn Yarnell (I must have missed your previous posting about this piece). I get a fair number of CDs in the mail (not as many as a real journalist would get, but something every couple of weeks) and most of it doesn't excite me. Most of the concerts I got to are solid, with some nice music on them, but I rarely hear things that truly excite me. I'm sure part of the problem is me-I'm not very good at going out and finding interesting music. And it's difficult and not very rewarding to slog through all the PR stuff I get every day to find the gems. But part of the problem is that the music I like the most is often not very well plugged into the professional infrastructure. I spend a lot of time wondering why I don't give up on "classical" music and switch to rock, and then every now and then I hear a piece like "The Same Sky" and I remember why I belong here.
You know my position on your continued blogging, so I won't bore you with it again. As always, thanks for everything.
KG replies: That's why the curatorial function is so crucial. Career aggressiveness and stunning artistic creativity are rarely found in the same person.

Nicola Mason says: Kyle,
For over a year, I have religiously followed your blog, often opening Post Classic before my morning coffee. I am not a musicologist, an eloquent writer, or a superior musician (I'm a PhD Music Education tubist). But I love music, I love learning about music, and I love sharing my unique finds with who ever will lesson.
Almost one year ago, at the beginning of my PhD coursework, I committed myself to a project inspired by two people, my history professor Dr. Lance Brunner at the University of Kentucky and you. This project took me on a journey, one that I know will continue for years to come. It opened my ears to the eccentricities of LaMonte Young, the creativity of Steve Reich, and the simple complexities of Tom Johnson. It opened my eyes to the masterpieces of Mikel Rouse and Phil Niblock, and it drew me into a community of minimalism.
At the end of last semester I gathered the copious papers and notes I had accumulated from my readings of various sources including your blog, several books, and my extensive notes taken at the second International Conference on Music and Minimalism and taught a 2-hour graduate class everything I knew and loved about Minimalism. The buildup to my presentation created countless conversations on minimalist, post minimalist, and totalist composers. And heated debates about techniques and classifications even stretched to Facebook.
I wanted to thank you for the inspiration and the courage you gave me to begin this adventure. I am nowhere near the end of my journey. Every one of your intriguing comments and gems of knowledge on your blog inspire my own reading on the subject/composer/work. And I sincerely hope that you will not become disheartened by the challenges and hardships that you encounter. Whether I am here in the USA or back home in South Africa, I will continue checking my bookmarked Post Classic for your thoughts…
KG replies: That's a really touching tribute, Nicola, thank you.

Will Mego says: I’m a composer, and not of the styles you discuss on your blog, and in fact you might even hate like my music. However, were you to stop talking about things like this, I wouldn’t be listening to “the same sky” right now. So while my sound might be different, your discussing and posting things like this have a very real effect on that sound. Thank you for posting it, and I hope you post more scores and mp3s…it makes me a better composer. Thank you.

Ryan Tanaka says: It might be just me, but I'm getting the impression that the minimalist aesthetic is a tad bit more accepted over here on the west coast than in the east. John Adams is the creative chair of the LA Phil now, after all...even Esa-Pekka's compositional style took a pretty big turn toward that direction when he started living out here. I remember during my undergrad (at the U of Illinois) I would get weird looks for the types of things I was studying, but moving out here really helped to open up my musical palette. But then again, I did go to CalArts so my experience might not be typical.
As for academia, I have a few interviews lined up for a Ph.D program this year so we'll see if my participation in the minimalist conference will count for or against me. After going to concertsI got the impression that they were sort of in a middle-area between some of the dissonant modernist style and people experimenting with some of the ideas developed within the minimalist trajectory. Change comes slow, but maybe there's some hope. Doesn't quite match the passion and conviction that people had at the conference, though.
Nice piece, by the way.

M. says: Blogs come and go, but sometimes when one goes away, there just isn't a suitable replacement. I first heard of you, and of your particular musical interests, in an online article on what you termed "postminimalism" that I found...well, I completely forget how I found it. It was the sort of article that I pray for when I'm online, one that opens up a new set of possibilities for exploration, with specific suggestions (in this case, Ingram Marshall, Daniel Lentz, Janice Giteck, William Duckworth, and a few others). Eventually I went looking for more of the same, which led me to your blog. It ought to be self-evident that I haven't found everything, or even most of the things, that you have suggested here to be to my liking. But I'm listening to "The Same Sky" for the second time right now, and it will be finding a permanent place on iTunes on my work computer, and the chances that I would have stumbled across this wonderful piece in some other way are infinitesimally small.
I am not a musician, a composer, a musicologist or anything related. I am merely a listener and a music lover. I am perhaps more willing to explore off the beaten path than most, but I like to think that I'm not the only one. I do not feel the need to burden your blog with negative evaluations of works I don't like, and until now I haven't felt a great need to post anything about the ones I love either. But when you make noises about ending this blog, I get a feeling as though I'm about to lose a great personal resource. Where else can I find out about works like "The Same Sky" without devoting more time than I have to listening to 30-second snippets? Of what use are 30-second snippets in evaluating whether or not it might be worthwhile to sit through an entire 20-minute piece?
There is something profound to be said here about the true role of the critic, and I'm sure I'm going to botch it badly, but: blogs like this one serve as a lens, focused by someone who knows more than I do about what might make a piece worthwhile. I may not agree with the aesthetic behind your decisions all of the time, but the bewildering mass and variety of music that's out there requires some sort of guide. You're one of the ones I've valued for a couple of years now, and probably the only one that leads me to pieces like "The Same Sky". Your blog is irreplaceable.

Kathleen says: I think the tool your looking for is out there - fresh off the presses from Indiana University - Variations. You should ask your library about it - it wouldn't serve the desire you have as a more public platform, but it integrates scores, score analysis and recordings (not so sure about commentary and sharing that). It takes some technical commitment to have it up and running, but what an awesome tool: http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/scores/
It's a shame that copyright keeps us from implementing tools in the best way - the tools and technology are there. The law is lagging painfully behind....

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