1stly) Five very mopey paragraphs from Mr. Glenn Branca. OK I know he was being intentionally provocative but I can't help myself. Dear everyone: no more "end of music" bullshit, please. I don't want to hear it. Get out there and buy some records and go hear some local musicians. The internet is packed with new music. A lot of it sucks. Some of it doesn't. Yes, we have an economy and a mass culture at the moment that have largely opted out of getting involved with sorting this new music, and as a result the mass of new stuff out there can be quite overwhelming. Tough nuggets. Get out there and listen and play and write and take some INITIATIVE. No excuses.
Moreover, ask yourself this question: would today's musicians really be better off if the corporate economy were more interested in what they're doing? I just encountered that old story about Thoreau getting tons of copies of Walden back unsold from his publisher and saying (at least claiming) that he was pleased no one cared about his work, because it meant he could go in any direction he wanted to. This isn't easy, but it's the situation. Anyone who claims nothing "new," whatever the hell they mean in that context, isn't being done is just lazy. I especially don't want to hear it from someone who's written 13 symphonies for electric guitars. "Nothing new" my ass. You know what you like. Get out there and find it.
One more beef: GB writes, "For more than half a century we've seen incredible advances in sound technology but very little if any advance in the quality of music." Advance? Huh? Music is supposed to be getting "better?" We're supposed to have topped the WTC and Beethoven's late quartets and Stravinsky and Ravel and Coltrane and the Beatles and whoever else you like? I'm pretty sure that's not the point. I thought we were making music because we're alive and we like music. Oh well.
Everyone knows the corporate Muzak tripe is out there, and everyone who cares about music knows that it sucks. It hasn't stopped any of the recent music I love from getting created and conveyed to me.
2ndly) A cheerier bit from Annie Gosfield re. advice for "young composers." The words "contest" and "competition" are happily nowhere to be found, and the thrust for me at least comes down to "make your music--make your music," which of course I'm down with. Not all of it resonated but this point is worth quoting at length:
"Make music, and make music happen. The more you write, play, improvise, listen to, and think about music, the better. If your grand opus isn’t being premiered by the New York Philharmonic, don’t despair. Set up a solo gig at a local venue and play your own music. Build a community of musicians and start your own ensemble, band or collective and learn from each other. Take advantage of a good-news-bad-news situation: the strict boundaries between musical genres are crumbling, but performance opportunities are decreasing. Be creative, anything can happen anywhere. Support live music and try to get to know artists that you admire."
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