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Post by driscollmusick on Jun 15, 2018 18:29:37 GMT
Dave, are you up for it?
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Post by Dave Dexter on Jun 15, 2018 18:49:52 GMT
Oh definitely - I started this to replace Ning when Ning seemed offline, then only stopped using it when Ning returned. If anyone wants to come here and discuss music - in an environment where posts don't get deleted without explanation and trolls aren't fostered - I'm very happy to try and do things right.
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Post by Bob Porter on Jun 15, 2018 20:50:45 GMT
Of course, I'm in!
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Post by Tim Marko on Jun 15, 2018 20:53:16 GMT
I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed when this site fell by the wayside. I always thought the level of discussion here was far above the other site. Anything I can do to help, let me know.
PS Good to see you again Dave!!!
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Post by Dave Dexter on Jun 15, 2018 23:15:08 GMT
Great! Hi again Tim, it's been a while. I'm far more interested in discussing orchestration than metaphysical musings about the purpose of vibration, so hopefully that translates to good chats
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Post by driscollmusick on Jun 16, 2018 18:12:25 GMT
Great! Hi again Tim, it's been a while. I'm far more interested in discussing orchestration than metaphysical musings about the purpose of vibration, so hopefully that translates to good chats I second this. It seems like a lot of the discussions on the other forum are intentionally *not* about music. I would guess for some that might reflect insecurity from some about digging into the nuts and bolts of the thing. Relatedly, I also find the musical "amateurism" (i.e., the self-contentedness and lack of desire to improve continually one's knowledge and skills, regardless of professional achievement) very frustrating. I partly chalk that up to certain age brackets (sorry, gents!) and even a more general trend of disregard for expertise sadly infecting the Anglosphere. Dave, IMO, this should be a forum about improving your music and providing constructive, practical feedback to help improve the music of others. Even non-critique conversations should be framed to that goal ("look at the interesting thing this famous composer did", "learn about this new tool that might improve your mockups", etc). Otherwise, why are we here?
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Post by fuguestate on Jun 17, 2018 5:36:34 GMT
driscollmusick: Yes exactly, why are we here if no one has any desire to improve their craft? Any disagreements we may have with each other aside, isn't the whole point of a composers' forum to learn from each other? If the Other Place has basically degraded into a feel-good forum for patting oneself on the back, then perhaps I should stop bothering to go there too. And even apart from that, at least for me, I can't imagine how I could live down the shame of calling myself a composer yet remain stubbornly unwilling to improve or at the very least acknowledge that I need to improve. Remaining stagnant in one's current skill level is actually equivalent to regressing, because everyone else is advancing.
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Post by Mike Hewer on Jun 17, 2018 7:59:11 GMT
Oh Boy...this feels like a proper home after just reading Teoh and John. I try to learn everyday and I actually thought .ning would have the sentiments above as a fundamental raison d'etre. I am sorry I was involved in the toxicity there, but in my defence I also had to battle a monolithic slab of ignorance and jealousy from one individual...still, I should have known better than to argue with an ill-educated bigot. If I've lost any standing with you guys here because of .ning I will endeavour to make it up to you all as that is too much a price to pay for losing it with....well decent words fail me. The only good thing to come out of .ning for me was to meet you guys who I consider my peers. Let's get on with improving ourselves...I'm in......
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Post by Dave Dexter on Jun 17, 2018 20:04:15 GMT
Oh Boy...this feels like a proper home after just reading Teoh and John. I try to learn everyday and I actually thought .ning would have the sentiments above as a fundamental raison d'etre. I am sorry I was involved in the toxicity there, but in my defence I also had to battle a monolithic slab of ignorance and jealousy from one individual...still, I should have known better than to argue with an ill-educated bigot. If I've lost any standing with you guys here because of .ning I will endeavour to make it up to you all as that is too much a price to pay for losing it with....well decent words fail me. The only good thing to come out of .ning for me was to meet you guys who I consider my peers. Let's get on with improving ourselves...I'm in...... I honestly can't imagine anyone could have viewed your posts as toxic unless they held a very different perspective on craft and the importance of self-improvement. When dealing with someone who both champions ignorance of craft and appears to enjoy a degree of protection, the only outcomes are either indifference or resolve. I'm glad it was the latter.
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Post by fuguestate on Jun 19, 2018 18:53:38 GMT
Mike Hewer : Perhaps I'm just jaded from having spent (misspent? ) decades of my life on and off in various online forums, chatrooms, and the like, but having been involved in more internet flamewars than I'd like to admit, I've come to the conclusion that it's the kind of game where the only winning move is not to play. In my younger, more idealistic days it was oh-so-important to prove some random online ignoramus wrong, or to correct the great injustice of some poor sods actually believing said ignorant spoutings. But these days, I just shrug and walk away with a "meh". In any online community of sufficient size, there will always be idiots. Life is far too short to waste the time, energy, and frustration dealing with them. Far more rewarding to spend that time and energy doing something useful, like, y'know, compose.
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Post by Mike Hewer on Jun 20, 2018 7:56:39 GMT
John...just noticed your Mahler link (still getting used to navigation here). That is some piece isn't it? The soprano solo and the choir melted me the first time I heard it. One of my all time favourites. @teoh. Yeah, I've come to pretty much the same conclusions, I just had to get there in my own time. Latterly, I'd just say what I felt was reasonable and as accurate as possible technically speaking on .ning and leave it at that. I always try to offer considered and responsible advice by taking a bit of time to actually look at a score. For example, I see that Lawrence has posted a new piece and received the usual meaningless platitudes that are no help whatsoever to him. A quick glance at the score, apart from revealing a very beautiful piece, shows areas that need to be finished in a technical sense. Why has he not received any help from the implacable buffoon I ask myself, even though I know the answer. How is that fractal fugue? Kris has set a challenge for life there I feel, one that I might not be able to crack unless I adopt just the spirit of it and ignore the pure technique (he probably wouldn't buy that as it goes completely against the tenet and hence the actual challenge). I even got a phd maths friend to explain (as he would a child) the equations just in case I might see a way forward by subversion. I got to understand them but soon realised they where not much help because a) I couldn't see how to apply them without getting emotionally involved and undermining the whole process and b) I am actually a dullard when it comes to math beyond simple addition like "how many beers have I had.... ..... (yes constable occiffer)..... " .
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Post by Mike Hewer on Jun 20, 2018 13:39:48 GMT
Oh Boy...this feels like a proper home after just reading Teoh and John. I try to learn everyday and I actually thought .ning would have the sentiments above as a fundamental raison d'etre. I am sorry I was involved in the toxicity there, but in my defence I also had to battle a monolithic slab of ignorance and jealousy from one individual...still, I should have known better than to argue with an ill-educated bigot. If I've lost any standing with you guys here because of .ning I will endeavour to make it up to you all as that is too much a price to pay for losing it with....well decent words fail me. The only good thing to come out of .ning for me was to meet you guys who I consider my peers. Let's get on with improving ourselves...I'm in...... I honestly can't imagine anyone could have viewed your posts as toxic unless they held a very different perspective on craft and the importance of self-improvement. When dealing with someone who both champions ignorance of craft and appears to enjoy a degree of protection, the only outcomes are either indifference or resolve. I'm glad it was the latter. Me too, thanks Dave....
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Post by driscollmusick on Jun 20, 2018 14:25:25 GMT
Mike Hewer Yeah, there are not many pieces that inspire ordinary folks to dedicate their whole lives to its performance (see: Gilbert Kaplan). I love the last movement, but always feel a little bit disappointed by the orchestral postlude (after the choir ends). I do think he nailed it in 8.
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Post by fuguestate on Jun 20, 2018 18:55:10 GMT
Mike Hewer : I haven't dared to revisit my fractal fugue yet. I just... can't see any satisfactory way to continue that would still meet Kris' stringent demands (and I've already bent the rules quite a bit by allowing free counterpoint around the fractal subject entries). Well, actually, I personally don't care to follow Kris' "rules" to the letter, since this is my composition, not his; but I just can't resist the challenge, y'know? The perfectionist in me wants to show him up one notch and outdo myself, but right now I just don't feel I have the skill to pull it all off. So it's currently on the backburner. For the time being, I'm taking refuge trying to wrangle my Phyrgian dominant fugue, another WIP, but that one's also not going where I want it to. The exposition is IMO quite nicely non-traditional (though it doesn't deviate too far, unlike, say, your bolder harmonic language in your fugues), but having admittedly run out of steam after the exposition, I simply didn't know how to continue without lapsing back to a thinly-veiled guise of traditional harmony. Presently I'm wallowing in self-pity at my inability to make progress on both fronts, but probably the way forward would be to throw out about 1.5 pages worth of painstakingly-written counterpoint and rewrite everything after the exposition. It's not the first time I've done that -- Exuberance, the fugue that y'all were raving about (har har), went through at least 2-3 rounds of this sort of gut-and-rewrite -- but that doesn't make it any less painful this time round.
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Post by fuguestate on Jun 20, 2018 19:01:53 GMT
P.S. Anyway, on a less solipsistic note, perhaps the correct way to approach the fractal fugue challenge is with baby steps, starting with a liberal interpretation of it like you've described before, and only attempt the literal, strict definition after we've garnered some real experience with less-than-perfect imitations thereof. After all, one has to crawl (and grovel before the annoyance of the Emerig ) before one can walk, and one has to walk before one can run.
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