Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.
Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019
Greetings, all...I'm new at posting to this great forum but have been following along for several months now and got a chance to catch up a bit by reading your archives. So many topics, so little time...
Anyways, I wanted to get your feedback on a NY Times article I read this morning about the sample/sequencer app GarageBand. On first glance, the article is easily tossed off as fluff..."aww, cute...look at the journalist pretending he's a songwriter". On the other hand, is it such a bad thing that millions of people get a chance to try their hand at molding musical material of some sort? I did find it interesting that the novice songwriter (if you could call it that) went through a similar situation that many of us go through when showing a work to someone who quickly becomes disinterested in it - you can tell it affected him quite a bit.
As in music and art...in a related context, here's a website where you can play Picasso and create simple Picasso-esque pictures using material similar to the samples found in GarageBand.
We just had a student composers concert here this evening (I teach at OU) and on the program was a fantastic electronic piece realized with MAX-MSP by a student who had never composed before, but the work had so inspired his instructor that it was included on the program and the student is already planning to create more works. I understand that many feel there are too many composition students as is, but it's fun to see the lightswitch click with someone who had no clue they enjoyed creating music. Could GarageBand be used in a similar way...to introduce a creative process to people who might not ever seize that opportunity otherwise?
posted by Rob Deemer
12:31 AM
