In considering the ways today's art is an art of appropriation, let's notice a basic change that's occurred in writing, composing, and design. Editing used to involve re-writing, re-typing, re-drawing -- physically copying some previously used material into each new version. Computer-enabled editing techniques now mean that the virtual copying and pasting of material from one version of a project to another is routine whether we're working with … [Read more...]
Play Better
At Tanglewood, quite a long time ago, Louis Krasner told me a story. For many years, he was the concertmaster of the Syracuse Symphony. A benefit concert had been arranged. Leopold Stokowski was coming to conduct Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The orchestra members speculated -- how would Stokowski conduct the iconic opening measures? Slow, with big fermatas? In tempo, à la Toscanini? What would the Maestro do? According to Krasner, Stokowski … [Read more...]