baring it all

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 06:41:00 +0000

Good friend starting an audio blog documenting his working process in "real-time"

Check it.

Free sample:

Too little, too late

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:02:00 +0000

Borat sued by unwitting frat boys (click)

Seasonings Greetings

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 18:59:00 +0000

Just in time for the holiday season (click pic):

The Gospel according to the AP

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 23:47:00 +0000

I'll be the first to admit that going into the midterms I felt resentment. That's right. I resented the fact that I was forced to root for a party which 6 years ago (and in many ways still today) I felt had let me down and had been led astray. Blame Clinton, blame the DNC, blame NAFTA, whatever. The point is, over 6 years, my political POV has been sideswiped so that those same folks are now my heroes.

So here I am, a few days after the Democratic sweep of Congress, and the giddiness is just starting to die down. So before we begin the long process of clean up and restoration in Washington (and before we begin griping about centrist Dems again - what a luxury!), let me just revel in the headlines.

It had been a LONG TIME since I read a headline and broke into a smile. So the experience of Wednesday and Thursday was slightly euphoric. Every reload of the NYTimes website and the world got a little bit better: The Dems take the House, Rumsfeld resigns, Montana Senate seat to the Dems, Allen concedes giving the Senate to the Dems, etc.

I'm still doing it today even though the phenomenon has died down. I half expected to hit reload at some point and see: Soph wins lottery, Sheila crowned queen of the universe.

It's almost like a repudiation of 9/11 and the days after, when one horrible headline/news event led to an even worse one. Well, those days are over. Happy days are here again - meaning we're back to Republicans trying to tear Dems down with quaint accusations of stains and cigars. It's good to be home again.

Who knew?

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 15:13:00 +0000

Oh, you knew...you knew all along.

block party

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 04:16:00 +0000

All I can say is...#23, suckas...numbah twenty tree.

(oh, and we used to live 4 blocks from #1, my little monkeys)

sound response

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:01:00 +0000

In response to the spouse's (and my own) noise complaints from this great city - I propose we join this fine group of folks.

"NYSAE is a membership organization that advocates listening and promotes public dialog about the urban sound environment. NYSAE creates and encourages new ways of encountering sound and provides resources and information on acoustic ecology."

grip dip

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:39:00 +0000

This may be the most caustic stuff on earth -- and it comes in a can fit for Pringles. So either:

1) that's a mighty strong can
2) Pringles are toxic
or
3) this is yet another example of risky fun for the whole family

"This heavy duty rubberized coating adds a cushioned grip to hand tools, garden tools and handles. A water, salt and acid resitant coating, Rubberize-It resists and protects items from chipping, peeling, electrical conductivity, rust and corrosion. Use it for coating chains, ropes, outdoor furniture legs, electrical connectors, diving boards, steps, tools and more."

a deep breath

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 19:55:00 +0000

Super huge thanks to ICE for their performance of my piece Pasa Pnoì last Wed. And a special thanks to those who came out to see it. For those who didn't, I should have video and audio in the coming weeks.

If you're free Sunday night come to TWO additional installments of ICEfest (my term, not theirs):

Sunday, October 22, 2006 | 7:30pm & 10:00pm
Monkeytown
58 N 3rd St
(between Kent & Wythe)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn 11211
Tickets: $5 cover
For reservations contact Monkeytown: 718.384.1369
www.monkeytownHQ.com
Co-produced by Monkeytown

Program, 7:30pm:

Vassos Nicolaou
Prisma for Sextet (2005)

Ignacio Baca Lobera
Occasional Exit for bass clarinet and percussion (2004)
Estudio for bass clarinet and organ (2002)

Suzanne Farrin
Clarinet and Vibraphone (2005)
From fair and fur... for electric guitar and two vibraphones (2002)

Mario Diaz de Leon
Trembling Time for seven players and electronics (2006)

==========================
Program, 10:00pm:

Huang Ruo
Opening: To the Four Corners, for clarinet and percussion (2005)

Dai Fujikura
Poison Mushroom for flute and electronics (2003)

Edgar Guzman
Anima for guitar and electronics (2005)

Peter Gilbert
Riccochet for guitar and electronics (2002)

Nathan Davis
Kebyar Untai for solo amplified dulcimer (2005)

Du Yun
San1 for percussion and electronic sounds (2003)
Lethean (2005

back to life, back to reality

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 05:35:00 +0000

Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est.

Saturday night in Toledo

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 19:01:00 +0000

As many of you know, I'm from Toledo...Toledo, OH. For years I heard the cries and complaints from the Toledo Blade that we were the red-headed stepchild of the other major Ohio cities (the 3 C's -- Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati). But I've also noted another trend, on the national front, in which Toledo has become one of the towns used to represent "middle-of-nowhere-and-yet-everywhere middle-America."

(all photos courtesy of http://www.teresco.org/pics/signs/)

Here are some stand-outs:

Some recent examples:

--Sarah Vowell's July 20th, 2005 NYTimes editorial (i'm doing it again!):
"I can probably live with the fact that the Electoral College won't be abolished during this or any summer for the rest of this century. I can probably live with an increasing number of campaign updates from the (also maddeningly arbitrarily important) states of Iowa and New Hampshire - then Toledo, Toledo, Toledo in the coming months and years."

--Daniel Gross's July 27th Slate article on the recent payola crack-down:
"How, precisely, are consumers harmed if a radio station in Toledo played Celine Dion more than it otherwise would have in the absence of payments?"

--and finally an oldie but goodie - John Denver's song "Toledo" with lyrics such as:

"Saturday night in Toledo, Ohio, is like being nowhere at all
All through the day how the hours rush by
You sit in the park and you watch the grass die"

or

"You ask how I know of Toledo, Ohio
Well I spent a week there one day"

and the real kicker

"And here's to the dogs of Toledo, Ohio
Ladies, we bid you goodbye"

Thus Toledo joins the ranks of those mid-west bastions of nowhereness such as Peoria and the elusive yet ubiquitous Springfield.

I actually don't have problem with this. Growing up in Toledo and then leaving immediately after high school, I have the natural disdain for a place that never represented me and yet played a huge role in shaping my early perspective. Politicians often harken to their hometowns with a nostalgic tear in their left eye. Musicians and filmmakers pay homage to imaginary or real hometowns or regions. But a great number of folks leave and never look back. The kitsch value of Jamie Farr and the Mud Hens aside, I'm no fan of Toledo. But I did have a happy childhood (good-bye any powerful artistic statement I can blame on juvenile abuses and traumas) and I have to begrudgingly give credit to the suburbs of Toledo for that (oh yeah, and my family). And there's my appreciation (well, at least awareness) of the beauty of fishing for walleye, owning your own trailor on the lake, and a strawberry shortcake on a paper plate eaten in a church parking lot.

But then there's that gnawing feeling at the back of my neck (especially irritating when I go back) that the things people are commenting on when they use Toledo as an "everytown" reference, are the same things I had to work to overcome: cultural numbness, political apathy, social complacency, a mania for comfort, and a caustic pragmatism that still invades my brain whenever I aim to do anything spontaneous.

Sadly, even the act of escaping to NYC only continues the predictable and cliched trajectory. New York?! How unoriginal! LA, here I come!

ticket to chide

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 00:42:00 +0000

Last week I had the opportunity to go see the American premiere of Ferneyhough's opera "Shadowtime" (thanks, Conrad). I'm not really going to talk about my impressions of the opera specifically because they're less than useful (except for this one - Mr. F, stop reading heady books and writing heady music and go outside and play for once!). That said, we're all entitled to our opinions...which sometimes makes opinions useless. But to expedite the discussion I will at least say that I mostly agree with Anthony Tommasini's assessment from the NY Times.

photo from Scene V (Walter Benjamin and border guard), Munich premiere, by Regine Koerner © 2004

Maybe you can get a sense of what frustrated Tommasini by reading the synopsis -- should I say "thought summary" -- ugh.

On a side note, I feel bad that I keep referencing the Times. I agree with the free katie and open media advocate Kenyatta that blogs should be a space free from the talons of mainstream media -- so my guilt is duly noted and we all move on.

so to come...
a rethinking of "Who Cares If You Listen?" entitled "I want SOMEONE to listen...just so long as they're not all white, old, and rich"

In the meantime, Sheila and I have been vacillating about the name of our band that's trying so valiently to leave the vacuity of "wouldn't it be cool if" and materialize into "we're so kick-ass and we can prove it." Here's the latest (and possibly final) manifestation: IBU (International Bitterness Unit) --

UPDATE: just after typing that last sentence I did a search...DAMMIT! Now we're back to our 2nd choice: FUK Y'ALL IF Y'ALL THINK WE NEED A NAME TO MAKE IT "CONVENIENT" TO REMEMBER US AND THEREBY MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO MARKET AND ULTIMATELY RAPE US.

Too death metal?

al vente #1

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 23:44:00 +0000

Lately the city's been getting to me. Maybe it's the heat. So I feel like I have to vent -- This is the inaugural (and possibly exaugural) item in my list of NYC peeves. It's kind of like the Voice's Best of NYC -- but the opposite. Let's see how long this lasts:

1) pre-emptive exiters: this is those folks who, as the subway is coming into a station, start to make their way toward the doors. While this is generally a harmless act, there are those times when the train is crowded and you happen to be in the way of one such P.E.E. who then forces you to let go of your pole to let them through. This seems to happen to me only when we reach the station at which I too am getting off, making their pre-emption that much more noxious and unnecessary.

I was expressing this to a friend (I too won't reveal my source) and she totally agreed, adding, "...and it's one of the times [when the train is slowing down/stopping] when you really NEED to hold on." Well said.

the cat's away...

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 20:11:00 +0000

Well, Sheila's off to Philly for the PlayPenn conference.

Only two months until my swingin' days are over! Better gets it whiles the gettin's good.

inspirational

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 04:18:00 +0000

From the religion that gave us "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth" comes our quote of the day:

"With the waterfalls, this really feels like a sanctuary."

Yes, and the 9 football fields-worth of carpeting in the new NBA-approved church-arena can't hurt, either.

word-spew

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 16:37:00 +0000

Sorry about the length of that last post. Can you tell I'm frantically searching for a dissertation topic?

insta-music

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 18:43:00 +0000

It's Xmas in July and I'm playing with my new toy...er, tool...for, um, composition...my compositional tool...uh, I'm expanding my available musical, uh, resources for the purpose of generating a, er, broader, um, breadth of, hm, expression and, ahem, freeing once, uh, inhibited musical ideas.

CODE FOR: I bought some software in the hopes that it would make me a better composer...by making me have to work less.

Now really, though, is that fair to the wonders of Stylus RMX, an impressive groove-editing tool with a huge array of options for customizing loops?

And the key work there is "customizing." Do we really have an adequate word to describe the act of combining pre-existant music into larger amalgams? I don't think DJing is quite the right word - it's simply one of the forms this type of composition takes (another form is mash-ups). But I'm talking about the act which encompasses all those activites and more. Then again, why not use the word composition? Have I been conditioned to attribute the act of composition to the creation of highly "original" music (built from the ground up) by a single (dare I say heroic) individual.

That form of composition is quickly falling by the wayside as group composition takes over. By that I don't mean a group of people simultaneously sitting in a room dreaming up melodies, harmonies, rhythms, and textures (though many bands work that way and the commercial music world thrives on that type of composition - for better or for worse). I mean the collective act starting with one person creating a snippet of music and then another person taking that snippet and making it a part of a larger piece. That process has become terribly complex with companies employing composers to create tracks that will then become samples or loops or grooves in software like Reason or Fruity Loops or Stylus. Those loops/samples/grooves are not considered pieces in their own right but building blocks (albeit sometimes rather complex and complete ones) ready to be dropped in or layered or recombined in someone else's piece. How can I take credit for "composing" music which was created using this process?

The Stylus FAQ addresses the legal end of this by saying: "...the lifetime license fee to use the samples is covered in the purchase price of the instrument. You can use it on as many of your own projects as you like and we hope that you make some hits with it!" Regarding the issue of credit, the FAQ states: "It [giving credit to Spectrasonics, the company that makes Stylus] isn't mandatory for our instruments...but we certainly would appreciate it!"

So legally we're covered. But then there's my pesky conscience. I whipped up the following snippet in about 5 minutes using Stylus. How much of that am I responsible for? I can probably bet you that that particular combination of loops/grooves has never been tried (along with other settings - filters, envelopes, randomization (what Stylus calls "Chaos" - an amazing feature). But I'd have a hard time feeling good about myself if I were to pass that music off as my own. And yet that's just we're asked to do.

This is a huge topic of course and an interesting, though obvious, perspective is: how responsible was Mozart for his music. The following excerpt from a Slate.com article hints at this issue:

The story of the mystery symphony is basically this: Scholars in Vienna recently stumbled on a symphony in D that bears Mozart's name—but it's a discovery with a twist. A nearly identical symphony has been unearthed in a library in Zagreb bearing the name of David Westermayer, a compatriot of Mozart's who has long since sunk into obscurity. So, who really wrote it? The puzzle has sparked some notable musicological detective work. However scholars end up resolving the question of authorship, it highlights a side of Wolfgang his father preferred to gloss over and popular legend tends to ignore: The boy genius, for all his originality, was also an impressionable imitator. Either he availed himself of a score by an elder and rearranged it somewhat (as he did with some early concertos), or, if the work is shown to be his, he was composing derivative music that experts could mistake for that of a mediocre adult contemporary. In other words, young Mozart was not simply a little boy who was visited by inspirational bolts from the blue. He was an industrious student inundated by contemporaneous influences. (Mozart and Us: What the ur-prodigy has to teach his successors; by Ann Hulbert; Posted Wednesday, June 1, 2005, at 4:22 AM PT)

Take it one step further: when I choose to compose music on a 5-line staff, am I bending the musical throes of my soul to fit it into a system of dots and lines or have my musical throes already been programmed to birth music in a style which can easily be notated?

God, I've been in school too long. As a tangential antidote, play with this toy for a bit. It's a fun tool called polyPulse by NYU colleague Chris Ariza.

Here's his blurb:
polyPulse is web-baed on-line MIDI poly-rhythm generator. This tool allows the user to easily generate five-part polyrhythmic constructions through a web-based interface, and hear (and download) the results as a MIDI file.

sequenza21

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 04:41:00 +0000

And now for my first real blog about composition stuff (aside from my yanni lament). Composer Lou Bunk turned me on to sequenza21.com - a new (concert) music site which includes blogs, cd reviews, concert calendar, forums, and wiki (though I have to second Lou's admitted underknowledge of the wiki phenom. - anyone care to enlighten?).

from the old country

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:24:00 +0000

So in order to get married in the Greek Orthodox Church we have to fill out this form. The form is outdated, and some of the questions are more appropriate for a small town or village wedding... as you can see (click it):

I've got to wonder, if I had answered yes, what could possibly be the "complete explanation" which would satisfy even the most uncompromising Greek?

Suggestions welcome...

reverie

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 17:28:00 +0000

I've been having trouble waking up lately. It's not so much that I'm sleeping through the day but more that I'm willfully extending my post-sleep sleep by convincing myself of many uncomfortable semi-truths. Like that my dream world is more inviting than my waking world...or that no one is expecting me to wake up and "do something"...or that if I wake up and walk around in the raw air I'll be exposed, out of my shell, seen for the fraud I am.

I didn't have trouble getting up Thursday morning, though. A little dose of tragedy on the Western Front always gets my waking blood pumping. Maybe it's because I wanted to be vigilant, but I really think it's because I have a nose for devastation and I wanted to feel the rush of this one. Part of me is afraid that since the Day the Sky Came Down I've come to depend on impending doom to greet me on my alarm clock. As if catastrophe is the minimum occasion I need to get me up and at 'em. Lacking this, waking up seems less than urgent.

brownie batter blues

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 02:25:00 +0000

I don't have real proof of this, just a growing hunch. You know that Ben and Jerry's flavor Brownie Batter? I love it. At least I used to. I've been eating it now for about a year and have noticed a disturbing trend. When the flavor first came out it had goobs of brownie batter mixed in with the ice cream. It was possible to scoop up a heaping spoonful of nothing but rich batter...mm, mm. As of late (like the last 8 months or so) the amount of lovely batter has been steadily decreasing. Now you'll get a little wisp here and there, just to tease you, make you think that thick spoonful is just around the corner. But then you're at the bottom of the pint and you realize you've just been tooled.

Again, I have no real proof of this (except for an old pint I ate once which was about to expire in three months but I ate anyway and found that thick, glorious batter I had come to love). But maybe it was just me being a typical addict: getting hooked and then wanting more, and my lack of satisfaction just had me coming back in the hopes of the next pint giving me the kick I was craving.

Which started me thinking about all the other products that I remember loving and now not loving so much. Did my tastes change or did the custodians of the product start to skimp on an original, successful formula?

Here's an incomplete list of products which may or may not fit the above profile (please feel free to add to this list):

Sweet Tarts (the ones in the paper packs of 3) - COMPLAINT: no more tart
Frosted Mini-Wheats - COMPLAINT: where's the frost? (btw - quit your Vanilla Creme disgusto-ness -- same with you, Special K, with your Vanilla Almond BS - it all stinks of the noxious fumes of exurbia).
Snapple (why did we ever think these were good for us?)

LBJ invents the internet

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Mon, 04 Jul 2005 01:22:00 +0000

Click on LBJ for this interesting tidbit from On the Media (from the June 24, 2005 broadcast).

the worst of the best

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 23:28:00 +0000

Two years ago, on July 6th, I was the worst best man. My good friend Alan had asked me to be his best man at his wedding in Las Vegas. I was game even though I don't know jack about throwing bachelor parties and know even less jack about Las Vegas (the last time I was there I was 9). Also working against me was the fact that my cousin was getting married two days before so I could only get there late on the day before - pretty much ruling out a bachelor party. Strike one.

So I'll skip over the little details (yada yada) and jump to the toast...oh, the glorious toast. Digging up a little college anecdote was just what the occasion called for. Alan and I had been in the same class of composers at Oberlin. During our shared junior recital Alan and I were backstage as a piece of his was being performed. He asked me, "What do you think this piece is about?" My mind raced through the usual suspects of compositional motivations: a lost love, general violent angst, a supplication for world peace. But I had come to expect even higher, loftier motivations from Alan - and so it was that he answered, "Masturbation." Of course. Thus began a brief survey into all of Alan's earlier pieces only to discover that sex was a common element in all of them. This prompted me to say, "I guess in order to get to know your music better I'd have to sleep with you." We had a good laugh and that was that.

Then came my moment to speak in front of Alan, his new wife, and their respective families (children included). I'm not sure what possessed me but I told a pared down version of the above story and then concluded with..."And to [his wife], who will always know that much more about Alan's music than I could ever hope to." Not really a big deal, kind of charming in fact. But the awkward silence and the hesistant path of the glasses to lips informed me that maybe I had crossed a line. No one said anything about the speech to me afterward (or since) which makes me even more convinced that I royally fouled that one up.

I consider myself a good judge of propriety, but having breached the faith bestowed upon a best man, I feel less sure of my senses of humor, charm, and tact. Strike two.

That being all I have to share regarding my worst best man story, I'm afraid I have to invent a sport in which it's TWO strikes rather than THREE that renders you "out." Imagine that sport exists...and imagine me slinking back to the dugout in shame.

Happy Anniversary, Alan

devin on kbcs

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 22:22:00 +0000

My buddy (or should I say "best man") Devin has a radio show every Sunday night from 10pm-12am (PST so it's on Monday 1am-3am on the East) on KBCS in Seattle. He regularly plays my stuff. So, if you feel like waiting around for a couple hours to hear a random snatchit(??) of my music...it'll be like back in the 80s when you'd listen for hours waiting to hear your favorite Mr. Mister song come on.

Nevermind that you can just go to my site and hear whatever you want whenever - but then you don't get Devin's velvet voice giving away enlightened tidbits and anecdotes.

That link again...kbcs.fm.

That's (1-800)-kbcs.fm.

Order NOW!

happy fun smile

noreply@blogger.com (bravenavel) — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 22:11:00 +0000

You don't know futility till you plug a fun band performing on Friday night and realize that the only person reading your blog is already coming with you.

So, Sheila, fyi - we're going to see
Happy Fun Smile: bringing okinawan pop and japanese chindon to nyc
friday, july 1, 9pm
Pete's Candy Store
709 lorimer street, williamsburg, brooklyn