CIM Recommends/Columbus Events
It has occurred to me recently that my rate of musical intake may be slower than that of my peers, and by that I mean that I usually like to sit on a new record for a while before jumping into a new one. This is the way I have always operated, since I was memorizing Smashing Pumpkins songs in high school. I tend squeeze everything I can out of the record before moving on, and I may have this process going on with a few records simultaneously. There are definite advantages to this policy, I’d argue that I know that music about as well as I could without studying it, but at the same time, this methodical digestion limits my discovery of new things. I think it might be time to try to split the difference. There’s just too much music out there that I haven’t heard (in the jazz world alone, regardless of everything else).
What got me thinking about it was the School for Improvisational Music’s website. I just applied for the Winter Intensive (not really having any idea what my chances are of getting in), and I discovered the CIM Recommends page, where many of the center’s faculty have recommended not just influential CDs, but books, films, and even wines as well. Pretty sweet, and also intimidating. That’s a lot of material to get through.
And speaking of new music, if you’re in the Columbus area, there’s a couple cool things going on soon. Solo percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani will be playing at the Columbus Dance Theater (joined by local musicians), and the OSU New Music Collective is having an Autumn concert at the end of November. I don’t know anything about this group, but the program will include both John Cage and Aphex Twin, so I think I’m pretty much there.
Here are the links to the event pages:
In other news, writing music is still hard. I essentially have completed the tune that I designed for my second recording session, but I’m having doubts about it. At this point it seems that the combination of pop and jazz elements is too blatant, too stark. These things can’t be forced together, you know. They have to combine organically in order for tunes to not sound like a gimmick. I’m about to begin the ever crucial editing phase, so we’ll see how it goes.
