Marcel Proost, Laptop Composer

Doctor Bob, my optometrist, reaches into a drawer and pulls out his Mac Pro. He hits a key and up pops a page of staves, a 4/4 time signature and a several rows of perfectly “engraved” eighth notes. He hits the space bar and it launches a composition of his called “Pink Tequila.” “Cool, huh?” he says.

Social Networking with Edward Elgar

Edward Elgar, that shy, difficult and moody Worcestershire composer, had his own “network” of friends, although one suspects it was smaller and far more intimate in those days long before iPhones, Facebook and chat groups.

Plato & Socrates: the musical mind police

Plato’s writings about music go with Adorno’s comments about jazz. You read them and seriously wonder how a great analytic mind could make such bizarre evaluations and see such subversive evils lying hidden behind the tones.

NY Philharmonic to install new speedy exit ramp for patrons

The new “Listener Speedy Exit Ramp” will enable to patrons to leave their seats either during or after a performance and exit the building in less than 2.5 seconds.

Glass and Reich: End of a Bitter Feud

Ex-president Clinton to negotiate detente between the two composers. Happy ending for a dispute that has simmered for nearly fifty years.

Elliott Carter to celebrate 130th birthday with premiere.

Carnegie Hall announced yesterday that Elliott Carter, America’s most distinguished emerging composer, will celebrate his 130th birthday with a celebration and world premiere of a new work “Tempi incastrasi” for one orchestra and three conductors.

Composition Master Class

Some students will preface their presentations by some anecdotal background: “I got this rhythmic idea from the weird way my roommate snores.” Or “I broke up with my girlfriend in the middle of composing the adagio, so that’s the reason for the sudden percussion entrance.”

Quiz Results

For those that missed the exam, there will be a make-up test (much more difficult), tomorrow morning at dawn. Meet in the parking lot of Surf Supermarket in Gualala. Please bring your own pencils.

End of Semester Pop Quiz

OK, all you Hellmouth readers and lurkers. Put your books and iPods away and get ready for your Marcel Proost end-of-semester pop quiz. No cheating. Do NOT look at your neighbor’s work. Answers in the next posting.

Marcel Proost, Libertarian

“Marcel, what happens if they shut down your electricity in response. What are you gonna do, fire up that pathetic little gas generator you got there? You won’t have enough power to run your grow lamps AND listen to your old Robert Craft albums at the same time.”

Innocents Abroad

“So, is it true that they don’t wear pants on the other side of France?”

“Oh, Marcel, jeeze that joke is so totally lame it went out of fashion forty years ago. And furthermore, I didn’t make it to the other side of France. Except for a day in Chartres, I was in Paris the whole time.”

Cool Hand Lennie

Bernstein’s creative crisis came at exactly the same time that his enormous fame and superstar status peaked, making it all the more difficult for him to locate the private inner muse that might have led him to a fruitful maturity as a composer in the manner of his great idol, Mahler.