tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56083165854187691572024-03-13T08:34:56.024-04:00David Chesky's BlogDavid Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-4017215967172759292022-04-02T08:06:00.005-04:002022-04-02T08:10:30.399-04:00<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: times; font-size: large;"><b>The Health of the Classical Music Ecosystem</b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Let's take a quick look back at classical music for the last 120 years. What has been added to the standard repertoire ? I don't mean some token five-minute works that orchestras toss on a program to have something modern.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif">From 1900-1960 we have added to the standard repertoire Strauss, Mahler, Stravinsky, Bartok, Ravel, Faure, Holst, Honegger, Berg, Rachmaninov, Janacek, Webern, Sibelius, </span><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif">Saint-Saens, <span>Elgar, Vaughn Williams, Schoenberg, Debussy, Gershwin, Prokofiev, Ives, Shostakovich, and all the Diaghilev</span></span><span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="color: #4d5156;"><span color="inherit" style="border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(77, 81, 86); font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ballet Russes works, and I am sure we can find a lot more. Now what has been added to the standard repertoire from 1960 until 2020 ?</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">If you look at this like an investor would look at a business, you will see a very unhealthy ecosystem that would be destined to collapses as all business and art need innovation to be relevant. Do we have less talented composers these days or did the first half of the 20<span color="inherit" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><sup>th </sup>Century by luck produced all these ? Or did they have leaders in the classical industry with a vision that was the catalyst to create these masterpieces. It seems like today concert halls now sell history as their business models.</span></span></div>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-75094340418879521492021-06-16T19:18:00.001-04:002021-06-16T19:20:06.769-04:00The Perception of Time in Music<p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: large; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">A quarter note is not consistently perceived as a quarter note the way a metronome might indicate, as time is not a stable mathematically precise constant for humans. Time is perceived by us depending on the time of day, how we feel, and the situation. I have noticed this when I compose, I hear the music a lot faster in my head as a pure non-physical abstraction and it makes total sense. Only when I hear it live might I say that the tempo is wrong. Sometimes when I am performing really fast Bebop jazz, time slows down and then when I hear it back later, I wonder how we were playing all those notes so fast.</span></span></p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: times; font-size: large;">If you play a concert at night in front of 10,000 pumped-up fans, your endorphins are pumped, and your senses heightened, and everything is moving at a faster pace. It is similar to walking in an airport on those people movers. Your walking is constant, but the entire escalator platform is moving thus you are moving the same, but the entire event perceived from an outsider is faster. If you record a concert like that and then listen to it the next morning in a calm house, the entire program will sound way too fast, as now your mind and perception of time is more relaxed. And vice-versa holds true: if you record a piece early on a quiet Sunday morning and then play that recording back later that night in a venue packed with 10,000 people, it would seem way too slow. We all have experienced time shifting, when you are bored sitting in a school math class times sits still, and when you are engaged in some action movie time bounces along. So, metronome markings are not an absolute but only an indicator of the tempos as these should change according to the emotional context, the venue and situation.......</span></span></p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-13166278158653241212020-05-11T18:57:00.000-04:002020-05-11T19:50:09.437-04:00How can a composer have a direct relationship with the public outside of the concert hall?<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The modern composer needs to circumvent the concert hall in order to reach their audience. The concert hall by perpetuating the same classic European works is choking the voice of the modern composer. How can American composers create their own unique sound in this environment that is the inverse of all the other art forms. The currant concert hall audience does not celebrate anticipation. With the progress of AI the pendulum will shift and the composer will be able to realize online and via recordings anything they can imagine. Perhaps in the future there will not be the social need to hear music as a mass collective via the standard orchestra and audiences perspective. It is hard to let go because we romanticize this music and tradition. In the end Darwinism always wins. If the modern orchestra cannot adapt and reach out to a new audience and be relevant in a modern society rather than an aural museum the system will collapse and be supplanted with a new art form.</span></span></div>
David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-87073675145772092792019-10-26T17:37:00.000-04:002019-10-26T17:37:12.207-04:00The State of the Arts, and thoughts while on the road<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It is becoming clear to me that new classical music is doomed upon conception.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Berlin, for me, is a metaphor for cutting-edge arts. A city filled with great writers, artists, intellectuals, and composers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But the mainstream cultural musical institutions of Europe are an insult and embarrassment to these incredible artists. These institutions recreate and sell European musical history to wealthy tourists while choking the voices of these contemporary artists. Every city I visit seems to have the same repertoire of musical works and operas in their concert halls. The only thing worse is in the USA as we sell not our own musical history but imported history, as if we must lack self-esteem with our own musical arts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In all areas of the arts, painting, sculpture, literature, film, and architecture, there is a genuine inquisitive thirst for what is going on now. Classical music is the only genre I know that refuses to join the present with the rest of the world. What if we asked modern painters in the world to copy 16th-century masters all day? How creative would that be for them? But commerce dictates, and that is how wealthy patrons want the classical world to stay. Good or bad orchestras are now just only aural museums.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It's absurd for any critic that is truly a person of arts and letters to partake in writing and perpetuating the status quo. The institutions will kill off the very thing that any business, art, or genre need</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">s to survive—innovation</span></span></div>
David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-35315003946607396862019-04-30T08:23:00.003-04:002019-04-30T08:23:46.258-04:00Orchestras vs Virtual<div class="x_MsoNormal" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #262524; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">After spending the last few days with a large orchestra I could not think of a worse environment to make music.</span><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #262524; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">Looking at the faces of the orchestra you can tell they don't want to be there. You can bet that 50 percent or more don’t like it and resent playing the music. So how can they make art out of it?</span></span></div>
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<span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #262524; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">You have to deal with the giant corporate bureaucracy, don't touch this, or do that, or go there. Not the least bit welcoming or relaxed. The symphony has an elitist social club aspect to it, and it alienates many music lovers.</span></span></div>
<div class="x_MsoNormal" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #262524; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Then there is the issue of the orchestra musician hating new music. Much of it is difficult</span><span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #262524; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #262524; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">and not what they learned 20 years ago in school. Then if all goes well they might book your work three years out so there is no immediate gratification like we have in jazz. In jazz everyone on the bandstand wants to be there, enjoys what they are doing, and the entire experience is fun, not some punch the clock factory job.</span></span></div>
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<span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #262524; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">And in the rare event where they will let you record it, you’ll have to make 1000 edits to fix wrong notes to get it in shape for release. So find a great engineer editing team.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A</span><span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #262524; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">s virtual instruments get better composers will no longer have to deal with any of this. They will fine tune their creations like sculptures, without the interface and headaches of dealing with 100 people. The future for new music will be on electronic devices in your home and on the go. People will use the web as we now use a program in a concert hall.</span></span></div>
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<span class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #262524; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">One hundred years down the line if a piece of music enters the mainstream repertoire things might be different for the composer...</span></span></div>
David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-48884226209372038642018-06-03T07:13:00.000-04:002018-06-03T07:13:05.878-04:00Rock vs Classical<div style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont;">
<span style="font-size: large;">How will young people will gravitate to classical music when it has a limited catharsis compared to the mass emotional raw visceral energy of rap and rock ? These musics reflect the electronic frenzied world we live in today as compared to when we had horses and buggies to get around and candles to light our homes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Classical Music is a pre electric art form....</span></div>
David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-13151216156748548862018-05-28T15:03:00.003-04:002018-05-28T15:03:43.019-04:00Today's World<span style="font-size: large;">You need to be a psychotic in today's world to be sane !</span>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-88684599039581283802018-05-05T07:25:00.003-04:002018-05-05T07:28:57.064-04:00Why Classical Music cannot change<div style="color: #666666; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Mozart, Brahms, Bach, etc have all been codified by our society as classical music and have become a branded institution. Orc<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">hestral institutions now exist for the perpetuation and perseveration of the institution, not invention .<br />So we have institutions vs. invention. If you want new and innovative music you must look elsewhere. </span></span></div>
David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-87878348230870501912017-12-01T17:35:00.001-05:002017-12-01T17:37:05.292-05:00Tech the new creative outlet<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "helvetica" , sans-serif , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: large;">The tech world inspires and rewards creativity. The classical orchestral world castrates it.</span></span>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-89184699805732098222017-12-01T17:33:00.001-05:002018-05-28T15:05:17.418-04:00Youth<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Youth has the illusion of possibility.</span>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-72856345585046435662017-08-21T17:26:00.000-04:002018-05-28T15:05:41.638-04:00New Classical Music<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont;">New </span><span style="background-color: white;">compositions</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont;"> in todays classical music climate are doomed from conception.</span></span>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-18117039935915046782017-06-24T11:23:00.001-04:002017-06-24T11:23:31.148-04:00Classical Music<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif, Helvetica, EmojiFont, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', NotoColorEmoji, 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Android Emoji', EmojiSymbols; font-size: 16px;">
Progress runs on innovation.</div>
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Classical music runs on preservation.</div>
David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-14297638085630437442016-11-16T15:50:00.000-05:002018-05-28T15:08:18.237-04:00Dilemma<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I look at all these orchestral works on my desk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And ask ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Is it a waste of life to write something no one cares about ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Or is it more of a waste of life to write things people like,,, and you don't care about ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">What is the answer ?</span></div>
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David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-57752136649673239802016-06-11T22:41:00.001-04:002016-06-12T08:32:04.007-04:00Musical Criticism in the Internet Age<div style="color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">Dear Kind Sir,</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">OK I GET IT !!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">My<b style="line-height: 21.299999237060547px;"><i style="line-height: 21.299999237060547px;"> Venetians Concertos</i></b> are relentless,rhythmic therefore most likley vile.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">And I apologize for being naive enough to believe that art reflects time and culture ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">And since I live in the middle of New York city, not some quant alpine pasture my music reflects that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;">And I apologize for being dumb enough to think that a critic can be objective rather than subjective and try to understand what I am doing instead of reducing my work to their own myopic level of understanding. Aesthetic criticism absents itself from the subjective </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; line-height: 22.719999313354492px;">experience and attempts through rigor and training </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; line-height: 22.719999313354492px;">to objectify the experience to quantifiably accepted </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;">criteria. That's why aesthetic criticism is valid and </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; line-height: 22.719999313354492px;">important. Otherwise, everyone would have a valid </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;">opinion</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;">!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">Perhaps I should write adagio diatonic recorder and lute music for surfing Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumbler and rest of the the new intellectual pursuits of our time. <span style="line-height: 22.719999313354492px;">The word is dead and along with that serious music and literary criticisms.</span><span style="line-height: normal;"> As we enter the age of Trump </span><span style="line-height: 22.719999313354492px;">we will finally get the culture we deserve</span><span style="line-height: normal;">...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: normal;">I suggest if you are up to stretching a little to listen to</span><span style="line-height: normal;"> my <b style="line-height: 22.719999313354492px;"><i style="line-height: 22.719999313354492px;">Mice War </i></b>children's opera.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">Best</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">David Chesky</span></div>
David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-18099045674141767312016-05-24T21:57:00.002-04:002016-05-24T22:02:28.857-04:00American Ballet Theater<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br style="color: #1d2129;" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;">Interesting program.......</span><br style="color: #1d2129;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;">Russian music. Russian ballets. Russian dancers, Russian choreographer..... but wait.... it will be an American audience, so I guess that is why they call it American Ballet Theater. It is sad that these institutions think that we are so inept as New Yorker's that we don't have the talent to create art, or in this case, re create it. Perhaps they are doing Ailey's "Revelations" right now at the Kirov ?</span></span></span>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-43431801911822730842016-02-22T10:42:00.003-05:002016-05-24T22:00:02.813-04:00EGO<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.9333px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">EGO is mans downfall and the catalyst to make him soar. When it dominates us, we are natural born Killers. When we tame it, we can create great things. But the EGO monster has to be fed more than our stomachs to give us some power in a powerless situation. Perhaps nature gave us EGO so we did not sit under a coconut tree all day thinking what is the point of doing anything. Perhaps the smartest man of all sits under that tree and see the big picture and is content watching his 70 years go by in peace knowing whatever he does, does not matter.</span></span>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-51064079548318615512015-12-21T11:12:00.000-05:002015-12-21T11:12:24.981-05:00Pop Culture<span style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The way our culture is retrogressing in the not to distance future actors in a large theater will recite nursery rhymes to an adult audience that will stand up and cheer.</span></span><br />
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David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-42726202514341755332015-12-12T16:25:00.000-05:002015-12-12T16:25:15.321-05:00Our Culture<pre style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.3px; white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Cultural institutions must be circumnavigated in order to create new culture.</span></pre>
David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-76653319511291163872015-09-02T15:54:00.000-04:002015-09-02T15:54:35.313-04:00Opera, a DEAD art form ?<div class="ecxgmail_default" style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I just saw a new English opera the critics raved about that was a complete bore. If this was an indie movie we would bomb it as a banal, boring and non-relevant story, but since the culture vulture critics need to justify their existence they put modern opera on a pedestal and look at it like some ink blot test trying to find some hidden meaning the rest of us cannot. The great operas entertain, engage, and enrich us and that is why they have stuck around for centuries and will continue to do so. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">On another note, where are the great American operas that the American opera houses created and put into the repertoire? They simply gives us more old European works to cater to an older elite wealthy audiences. Take a handful away and the entire opera world disappears. The fact is opera is a DEAD 18th century art form supplanted by the art form of today, FILM. It has no relevance and connection to modern America. The next generation of Silicon Valley venture capitalists will not support it, and it will die unless the classical world as a collective can create works that speak to a younger audience. And I don't mean the downtown scene that lowers the bar to be hip and pander to pseudo-intellectual rockers, but to find new works that reflect our current society and its concerns while still being able to entertain and engage the patrons.....then new opera will speak to a new generation....</span></div>
David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-47085597584303853082015-06-25T20:45:00.001-04:002015-06-25T20:46:47.719-04:00Business<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 16px;">Business is just legalized war.</span>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-24006646875852270092015-02-18T16:20:00.000-05:002015-02-18T16:20:37.314-05:00 Why the collapse of American Symphony orchestra is inevitable<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As an American culture we have failed as a collective to make classical music our own. America somehow managed to take a European piano and let its artists create a new genre of music called jazz. However, the current model for American orchestral management is to hire European music directors, play European music, and record the same European music over and over again to the point where it is unsellable and driving orchestras more in debt and audiences farther away. What is the artistic or business model there?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I can understand making these records if they were flying out of the record shops, but they are virtually unsellable. Albums are only done for the vanity of the music director’s ego to create their own legacy in the classical world at the future expense of the orchestral musicians and patrons.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Can't these patrons and managers at least find American music directors? Are we that inept as a society that in our expansive country, where we explode in creativity in so many genres, cannot find our own home grown music directors? Or are we always going to be content as a second rate Europe?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Who is minding the store? How are these things allowed to happen? The classical world hemorrhages vast amounts of money and would not even exist if it were not for the handful of rich patrons that allow music directors to indulge this behavior. If it is all a write off for a musical charity, this money would be a lot better spent if these patrons would have the sense of self to at least try to create their own indigenous American orchestral sound, as we have managed to do with Jazz. Art must have context and we are a society of rhythm and of jazz. The entire world has changed and responds to a different pulse than the European elite of the 1700s. This current thinking only pushes classical music farther away from the youth of this country and prevents any chance of its growth. We are not Europe and need to concentrate on building a first rate model predicated on the ideas of our own country rather than imitating the Europe of 100 years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Part 2: The future </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The powerless composer and the all mighty orchestra paradigm will soon invert. The composer will have the power of realizations of their works, as the “Artificial Intelligence” computer orchestra will far surpass any real orchestra in the next few years. A composer’s imagination will no longer be stifled predicated on the dexterity of the human digits. They now will be able to realize whatever they can imagine in their minds. If you want to write a tuba part where the tuba must play perfect 32nd notes at any tempo from the lowest note to highest note without any effort or mistakes this will be a none-issue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">For those of you that follow the Binaural+ recordings I have been doing in conjunction with Professor Edgar Choueiri and the Princeton Physics lab, virtual 3D audio is around the corner. In the future the collective experience concert hall may not be the best venue to listen to music as soon our homes can be transformed into any venue we like. Science fiction? No, it is science that can now be done in a lab.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The composer of the future will not resemble his forefather, sub human life form composer who grovels like a scared mouse at the feet of an orchestra to play their music. They will not only compose music, but perform it with a perfect virtual orchestra, pick the venue, and you will get it as a hi-resolution 3D download at home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So if the orchestras of tomorrow want to coexist with this new platform they need to change their modus operandi and perhaps start thinking about joining the world of the present.</span></div>
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David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-614952200977799202014-11-20T09:58:00.000-05:002014-11-20T09:58:00.309-05:00The Artist and Society<br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">In order for any creator in the high arts to retain a modicum of sanity one must drop the ontological construct of self </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">world</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">. In the world of the arts there is no world, only the self as the world is very </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">capable</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> and </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">successful</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> in </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">turning</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> a </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">creator</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> into an </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">alcoholic</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">, </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">depressive</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">, drug </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">addict, or in some rare cases, ear-less</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">I started my </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">career</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> in jazz and </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">looking</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> back it </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">would</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> have been very </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">practical</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> to have stayed in that idiom. Jazz </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">is</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> very different </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">art form</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> than orchestral composition, (as it is based on improvisation) and the JAZZ AUDIENCE is OPEN to new things. JAZZ thrives on the spontaneity</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> of</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> new music being created in the </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">moment. </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">I </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">would</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> compare it to the thrill of surfing a giant wave as you ride the sound that </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">emanates</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">instantaneously from your subconscious to your </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">fingers. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">I </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">thirsted</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> to leave my very comfortable home and create new music in </span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">different</span><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;"> genres and forms and composed orchestral works because I love the sound of these large scale challenging musical novels that do not exist in the world of jazz, but unfortunately I created these for a classical world that is NOT OPEN to new IDEAS and RESENTS them as it perpetuates the status quo, and has been spiritually and intellectually castrated thus forth they are not to able to celebrate anticipation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">So in liberating myself from my mothers nipple I will write symphonies for fun, and play jazz for fun, and EXPECT NOTHING more than the SATISFACTION of the creative process.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.3000011444092px;">So I am signing off and entering the world of the Solipsistic ARTIST, the PSYCHOTIC and CRIMINAL, and all others that live outside the realm of SOCIETY in the hope of finding inner peace from solely the artistic process.</span></span></span></div>
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David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-40468374115946203222014-10-18T21:22:00.000-04:002014-10-18T21:22:07.857-04:00Orchestral Crisis<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.5555562973022px;">An orchestra has to be in the same world as the world.</span>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-89158712146790429932014-07-21T12:11:00.002-04:002014-07-21T12:50:39.201-04:00The Art Gene<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.299999237060547px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">The Art Gene</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">The McGurk Effect (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0" style="color: #0068cf; cursor: pointer; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0</a>) has proven that humans are hard wired to function in a certain way, even if we instinctively know something is not correct. We cannot short circuit our natural responses despite how frequently we try. The experiment blatantly displays that it is virtually impossible to alter our natural response. Genetically passed down knowledge simply trumps acquired knowledge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Take for instance, ten young men walk into a bar. They are all from the same town and have the same cultural background. A girl is sitting at the bar and none of them attempt to speak to her. Four of the men express they are not attracted to her. Three say they would date her once. Two agree she might make a nice girlfriend. And one puts her on an aesthetic pedestal, falling madly in love and begs her to marry him. Hard wired or not? This has to be a bio chemical response. We romanticize the most simplistic human evolutionary function. Are we programmed to respond to a certain set of random patterns, i.e. a person’s attractiveness, in the natural order of selection to preserve the species?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Is it possible this gene that determines attractions within a species, also defines beauty in all other areas of life?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">I was not raised in Russia or Austria, therefore I have no connection to either culture, yet I will always prefer to listen to Stravinsky's works over Mahler's. While I can appreciate Mahler on a cerebral and compositional level, I can honestly say I am not moved by his music in the same way, nor have the same connection as I do with Stravinsky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Is it possible that some music critics, no matter how much they listen, will not be able to connect and see the beauty in a work? These works, as brilliant as they might be, can merely be dismissed by the critic as minor and non relevant. So, do our natural, sexual attractions and preferences carry over to our artistic tastes as well? No man can fake being moved by a woman's face, the body does not lie, you love her or you don't. Is this the case as well for art? Are humans unable to see the beauty in some works because we are hard wired not to in this area?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Are the genes that control our musical aesthetics passed down and imprinted in our nervous system? Are our tastes predetermined from birth or do they develop with later cognitive learning and culture? </span></div>
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David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5608316585418769157.post-66914754740779868672014-07-03T10:12:00.000-04:002014-07-03T10:12:07.717-04:00Perfection<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;">"Perfection only exists in the real </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 22.719999313354492px;">world inside my head, all else is an illusion"</span>David Chesky's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14590557370350674447noreply@blogger.com0