There is a kind of drumbeat of despair that accompanies the discussion of classical music in the public fora--at least in North America. There are so many voices: Ted Gioia, Greg Sandow, me in posts like this Classical Music's "Business Model" and a host of others. Let me offer some thought-provoking propositions: A certain model of society, in the US often called the "blue model" seems to be undergoing a severe disruption witnessed by people simply leaving: Chicago, New York, California. Unfortunately for classical music, these are also main cultural centers for classical music, but they ar ..read more

The other day I recommended three philosophy channels on YouTube and I want to start this post by re-recommending one of them. I just started watching Prof. Victor Gijsbers series of videos on epistemology and they are really great. Here is the third one:  You should get a couple of things from this clear, balanced and well-argued clip: epistemology, along with logic and ethics (and probably aesthetics as well) is a normative discipline, i.e. it is not about digging up knowledge so much as it is about discovering why you should be seeking knowledge. The other main point is that the sear ..read more

Because the Friday Miscellanea used to be a lot more light-hearted and then things got very dire. * * * Now back to our usual message of woe: Spotify officially demonetises all tracks with under 1,000 streams. See, this is why I don't stream (apart from YouTube). It is my conviction that much of the best art and music is found on the less-travelled paths, the less well-known artists. So the way the big corporations have stepped into our lives--oh and big governments too--has not been a blessing. According to a Spotify blog post, 99.5% of all streams on the platform are of tracks that ha ..read more

One of the great things about YouTube is that you can educate yourself--for free--in just about any area of life. Though I would stay away from the "guitar in ten easy lessons" clips. I have learned a great deal in the area of philosophy on YouTube, so here are some people I follow in philosophy. No particular order. First up is Jeffrey Kaplan a super bright and crisp thinker that has an elegant and clear presentation and teaches philosophy in the US. Can you figure out how he manages to write backwards so fluently? He has lectures on a myriad of subjects including why physicalism is not possi ..read more

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This is Kazuhito Yamashita playing his transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky for solo guitar. Yes, I know, it is impossible. But I saw him play it in Toronto in the 80s so, obviously not. I even used to own a copy of his transcription, published in Japan.   ..read more

The first movement is 28 minutes long and the second movement even longer. But he manages to squeeze all four movements into less than an hour and a half. Remarkable performance by the Berlin Philharmonic. But what I find most remarkable is that the great Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache conducts it from memory. How can you possibly memorize an hour and a half of orchestral music this monumental? Plus he might have a few other works in his memory ..read more

You know how if you ever let anyone see how you do sit-ups or push-ups or planks or whatever, the first thing they say, invariably, is "you're doing that all wrong!"? And then you change your technique but still the next person says "no, that's not how you do it." So you should never let anyone other than your coach, if you have one, see you exercise. Similarly, it is probably a bad idea to let anyone other than your teacher see how you practice guitar. And now I'm going to demonstrate why. Here is a clip of Alexandra Whittingham practicing:  And I'm going to say "Alexandra, you're doin ..read more

We in the music world use accents all the time, in both our performances and in our notation. Here are some:  But the English-speaking world has decided that not only will we eliminate all accents from written English (yes, we used to have some like this "noël" to indicate that there were two syllables. Similarly in "coördinate.") But that has all been declared obsolete. And we eliminate all accents from non-English words even when they are crucial. Take this example from a recent blog post: Apple is laying off 700 workers, including the entire team working on the Apple Car, which Appl ..read more

As of this morning, there are 3,800 posts on The Music Salon and 13,005 comments. Thanks to all who have commented and keep it up! I don't think I have ever put up Berlioz' colorful and charming Harold in Italy. Here is a performance by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony with viola soloist Antoine Tamestit and conductor Eliahu Inbal ..read more