The SoupASonic

I've often said that in order to continually develop as a musician, you have to act like you're 20 -- curious, but pessimistic.

With that in mind, a gentle reminder:
When I was 15, I used to listen and study music, and try to write something in that style, imitate and learn the language at all costs. I wanted to be better than everybody at whatever the "thing" was.

When I was 20, I used to rebel against pretty much everything.

When I was 27, I finally found a connection to some music which was really "for me" -- naturally, it was made by musicians who were acting like they're 20.

Now that this year I'm turning 30, I'm starting to feel like I have certain strengths, and I should capitalize on them ..

..clearly, I didn't learn anything...
:)

I walked by a neighborhood coffee shop on the Upper East Side the other day, and saw a "No Laptops Allowed" sign. For a moment, I felt chills, and just then, I realized that I was staring future in the face.

What does it tell you when a neighborhood coffee shop doesn't allow laptops? -- that their users tend to buy one drink (anywhere between $2-6) and stay for hours. That was certainly the case at alt.coffee in the East Village, until they decided to plug all of their electrical outlets shut, citing "insurance" concerns. Working on a laptop at a cafe combines at least three important life activities into one: caffeine consumption, people-watching, and work. With free wifi, the cost of that $6 latte is practically tax deductible, and getting work done actually feels like a vacation, not to mention that, while hooked into the internet, you can read more magazines, and hear more amazing music, than you could ever try to in your lifetime, almost without cost..

And yet, that model is increasingly becoming unsustainable for the coffee-shop owners. Some start charging for internet services (like Starbucks); others get rid of the internet entirely, others turn up the music so loud that you can't think... Other coffee shops simply close, or re-open "with a new concept". My neighborhood coffee shop on the Upper West Side (the old Columbus Bakery) re-opened with such a new concept, as a marriage of "Pinch" and "S'mac" - a pizzeria and a mac-n-cheese joint...

I tried at length to write a post about how musicians are similar to coffee-shop owners, how we all seek an intimate connection with their listeners and customers. But on closer examination, that comparison fails - the upfront hard costs of starting and running a coffee shop cannot compare with the fairly negligible costs of making music. Where the coffee-shops are trying to monetize their tables by shooing away laptop-laden cyborg freeloaders or asking for a fee, we try to woo them with free downloads, videos, and podcasts -- we *hope* they will monetize one day, and celebrate each of their purchases as we would the first steps of a child.

It's great to live in hope, in faith, in innocence -- just wish that they still lived in a coffee shop.

When I was a child, I spoke in screams and whimpers -- I could sure make a scene;
Later, I spoke in desires, and drew shapes - first oddball, then musical.
Then I learned Russian, though I still preferred to confide almost exclusively to my teddy bear, and speaking bully to just about anyone else. Moscow winters were tough, and practicing the violin seemed like a curse.

For a while, I thought and spoke in Russian daily; when we moved to New York, I learned English. Eventually, I began to speak + think in English, my teddy bear caught up quickly.

These days, I feel increasingly alienated from any language, aside from "Email", a language in which I communicate exceptionally well. I know the styles like the palm of my hand. There's formal, semi-formal, casual, hipster, and various other nuanced shades meant to elicit a response. There are openings, closings, and ways to emphasize content. There's also SMS/Text, the diminutive cousin.

It's very comforting. I have little problem rattling off 100+ emails a day on many projects, but give me a phone-call, and momentarily a mental timer starts to beat, a sign rapidly blinking "you're not multitasking!!". I check the time, scan a magazine, open another tab, window, politely steering the conversation to fizzle out, so that we can confirm everything by email. I rarely take phone-calls when I'm at home, but always when I'm on the run.

There is something about email, and facebook, that has made (my) life much easier to manage. But it has also compartmentalized and eroded relationships to such a degree that having a regular conversation doesn't appear necessary. For example --

"How are you?"
"Check my Facebook status"

"Where did you go on honeymoon?"
"Check my blog, and fotki site for pictures"

"Tell me a little about your band"
"Sure! we're really fun, and for videos and reviews, see my website.."

"Let me tell you how to get to my house from the train station"
"No need, I've got GPS and Google Maps directions"

"I've just had this incredible meal at X"
"I've just read several reviews of it on Yelp/Menupages/Citysearch, and they're all negative"
..and so forth.

Pretty much the only conversation-piece is something which cannot, by sheer complexity or unwieldy nature, be posted online, or an idea that is too improvised to hold its structure in anything but a live in-person performance.

And yet, something's missing from all of this omnivorousness. The people who most often interest me are not ones who're pouring out buckets of content weekly, but those who -- maybe, possibly -- make three or four splashes a year. They don't really use facebook, and can barely if ever get back to an email. They're too busy - reading, writing, catching a 6pm dinner with friends, and contending with larger forms. Bless 'em.

10 years ago, email used to be for procrastination; now, it's vital to getting work done. When someone is "catching up on some email", that's productive -- but returning phonecalls, seeing friends? Time consuming.

I wish I could quit - quit using all of these new resources, and just talk to people in a friendly, unhurried, non-neurotic manner. But with no barriers on my working hours, with so much going on in the world (in the news and otherwise), with having to manage everything + follow up, the optimistic amount of things I try to accomplish daily... the lure of efficiency is too hard to resist.

Let's hope that, at least, I can still devote ample energy to music.

Ouch! I know what you're thinking -- "he's a wax figure!" or, perhaps, "they're both wax figures!" Alas, we're both very real -- and sure enough, that's me standing next to our very own President Bush, at the White House on Wednesday evening. Two hours later, I was at the Washington Greyhound station, waiting for the bus back to New York. Good times were had on both.

I met the First Lady, too. All thanks to a chance meeting with the brilliant conductor Alondra de la Parra at my beloved Cafe La Fortuna two years ago. As I remember, I was sitting in the rear terrace, working on my arrangement of Kayhan Kalhor's "The Silent City" for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, when Alondra walked in with a photographer friend, and before long, she convinced me to perform with her young orchestra, newly renamed as the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas.

The orchestra was in Washington on Wednesday to cap its first international tour, which included performances in New York (at the Skirball Center, NYU), Dallas (at Meyerson Hall), Mexico City (three concerts -- one in the gardens at Chapultepec, another at the Belles Artes, and another at Sala Nezahualcóyotl). Our last concert, at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, was attended by the First Lady, and can be streamed in entirety here. (If you scroll your stream to 1:05, you'll hear my arrangements of two Piazzolla tangos.)

The tour -- especially our time in Mexico City, for which Inna came to visit -- was incredibly special. See a review from Dallas , and my photo collection from the trip to Mexico.

But you probably want to know about the White House visit?

We had no idea that the President himself would welcome us, as originally it was supposed to be a reception with (just!) the First Lady, and in either case both Abbas and Olmert were in Washington, with Israeli-Palestinian peace in the balance. But to our surprise, there he was, greeting us without a hint of fatigue, patiently posing for photographs with each musician, making conversation with each musician, telling interesting bits about his last visit to this or that person's hometown, thanking each musician for asking to take a picture. He apologized several times for the traffic jams that his visits cause.

I felt somehow shy about the honor of meeting the President, thought of how many troops aspire to this moment, how many days in the field, training.. And there I was. (Granted, I did spend 15+ years learning to play the viola...)

For a while, I was just taking pictures for everyone, waiting my turn. Eventually, it came to me, and then he said:

"You must be the most patient guy in the world. Where are you from?"

Upon hearing that I came from Moscow, he launched into a well-thought-out soliloquy about the beauty of Moscow, how it has changed, and how optimistic he was about Russia's progress, about his hopes for its growing middle class. He said that he liked Putin, but didn't appreciate his anti-American sentiment..

I didn't disagree. I felt honored that the President took time to speak with me and share his mind. The issues and opinions didn't matter -- it was the sheer luster of the moment, which lasted longer than I could ever imagine. Surely he had better intelligence than I.

I walked down the hall, and found Alondra speaking with the First Lady. Mrs. Bush was very charming, congratulated us on the concert and my arrangements.

I walked around some more along the more private parts of the Whitehouse, including the Queen's and Lincoln Bedroom. I walked to the State Floor, to see it all decorated for the Holidays. It was all very grand, but not the same opulent way as I've seen rooms decorated at some New York weddings. There was an aura of restraint, of space, a certain modesty. It wasn't cozy or intimate, though by no means were the rooms very big. See all of my pictures from the White House here.

So there it was, my first time at the White House, hopefully not the last. Two hours later, I took the Metro to the Greyhound Station, where I watched the talking heads endlessly rehashing the latest presidential debate, followed by a special on "Campaign Killers". I bought a turkey sandwich full of preservatives, and drank it down with a bottle of Dasani "electrolyte" water. On the bus, a man behind me snored louder than some can scream. By morning, I was home.

WARNING: I'm going to allow comments on this entry, for now. Any flaming comments will be deleted without further warning. This is not at all about politics or free speech, it's simply about a recollection of meeting the President and touring the White House. Please leave it be. Thanks.

Somewhat inspired by the current stagehands strike on Broadway, and the writers strike nationwide, I had a dream last night, in which..:

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra went on strike. I was called in to fill in for a special arrangement of Mozart's The Magic Flute (the Julie Taymor production), in which the orchestra was reduced to one on-stage violist (yours truly), and one on-stage violinist, played by some 10-year old girl who was chaperoned on stage by her dad, and placed on the opposite side of the stage from me. James Levine conducted to a packed house.

At some point, police dressed in Cuban army uniforms came in to arrest both musicians and Levine -- but the music continued, and our disappearance went seemingly unnoticed..

I woke up 10 minutes before our alarm clock.

This week, Radiohead released their new album, In Rainbows, exclusively via their website, and on an honor system -- pay what you wish. WNYC Radio's Soundcheck did a great episode covering this story, and you can hear it, and see my comments on the Soundcheck website. (Of particular interest may be the part about "REFUND" button.)

In a separate instance, Moby launched Moby Gratis to give away a large library of his music for use in independent features and short films and other non-profit ventures. Licensing, touring, and merchandising are the last fronts for an artist to make a living -- and now this.

As an independent artist writing for film, I'm all for making music *affordable*, but giving it away for *free* is another story altogether. As we learned from the dot-com bubble, *free* is not a business model, it doesn't pay for rent, health insurance, or the production of any further music.

By Moby -- a big shot, by any standard -- giving tracks away, he undercuts many musicians who would be happy to license their music for a small fee; or beginner/student/amateur composers, who would write custom music for free, if only given the chance.

Case and point -- several years ago, a student filmmaker asked me to write a track similar to Moby's "Honey". Since then, I'm proud to say that has been used in several shorts, and just got licensed for a wonderful upcoming documentary. With Moby's Gratis, this would've never happened.

There's a reason that subscriptions to magazines still cost something, even if it's $20/year. Every dollar helps.

Let's make music licensing affordable to everyone - everyone can afford to chip in something, however symbolic it may be.


Thanks!

--Ljova

This Sunday was mostly grief. After a delicious breakfast from Birdbath, we headed to Brooklyn for a memorial procession for Take Toriyama, an incredible drummer who died tragically last weekend. The memorial was attended by about 100 people, mostly musicians, kind people feeling the void left by Take's sudden flight. Take's former bandmates in Slavic Soul Party performed an incredibly emotional rendition of Ederlezi in his memoriam. (I had played the very same Ederlezi at a wedding reception, just the night before.) I wish he could've heard this band, seen all of the people!... Take and I had the pleasure of performing together several times with Romashka, and everyone's jaw dropped each time he took a solo. He seemed to me as one of the most softspoken musicians in the NYC gypsy scene. I hope he is at peace...

--

We went to Brighton Beach in search of knockoff Italian shoes, and green borsch(t).

--

Afterwards, we returned to Manhattan to catch a screening of The Lives of Others. We've been hoping to wait for the film on DVD, but then gave up.

If you haven't seen it already, you should. No film since Dancer in the Dark or Babel has left me in such a gloomy, powerfully affected mood. All these films are similar - repressive society, killing dreams, ideas, crippling humanity...

Why would you want to spend your time and money to see a depressing film about the East German secret police? Well, perhaps because in the end, it's uplifting. It made me reach for basic comforts (soup, tea, shower) and highest dreams. I wanted to eradicate repression in my own music, in my performances, to erase any judgement of others, and in general to be a mensch. Compare that to a reaction I'd have after something like "Spiderman 3"..

... It's a hard thing to propose, but few things are as uplifting and maybe inspiring as the possibility of experiencing sad emotions indirectly. Each time gloom strikes, my eyes widen, my sense of smell deepens, and empty sounds gain meaning -- not just as luminescent curiosities, but as ideas of considerable weight. I try to celebrate and value this newly-found awareness as long as I can, knowing that the first moment I laugh, it disappears, as would a bad dream.

Our lives are nothing without the lives of others. (But why do they always have to steal my seat on the subway?)

Witnesseth:

a talk by Malcolm Gladwell on what we can all learn from Spaghetti Sauce, and then:




the Chevrolet "Ain't We Got Love" advertisement from the Super Bowl.

While it takes Malcolm an hour to confirm what the Chevy ad says in one minute, his talk shines a profound (and entertaining) light on the ad. We all like something different, but so long as one brand can diversify its offerings, everybody wins. In just one minute, the ad aims to sell a custom-fit Chevy to black folks, white folks, men, women, and just about anybody except Queen Elizabeth. The ad has the most crude musical transitions I've ever noticed, and yet, it's brilliant - every song is hummable, memorable, the transition to a waltz is especially fantastic. (Wish they had asked me to score it!)

I wonder if any of this can be useful to creative artists. On the one side, the effect of the Long Tail should lead to a more viable living from creating/evolving within a niche. On the other hand, by joining several niches at once, you become an even hotter item -- and hotter still if you can "unite" all the niches together.

Yet the key point this ad makes -- at least for me -- is that the all of the [demographical] niches are presented separate and equal. The niches do not want to be united. Imagine for a second if the ad were structured differently -- a mixed-age mixed-raced crowd, dancing next to one Chevy, all wrapped in one "show-stopping" musical number. Conversely, imagine if there was a tomato sauce called "Blandini - America's Most Popular Tomato Sauce", which would combine all of the data into one sauce, standing next to "Extra Chunky". Would you buy it? Sure you would -- as a present for someone you don't know very well.

I wish I could say that there are only two kinds of music -- "fast" and "slow" -- but obviously things are a bit more tangled up than that.

Perhaps there's nothing here for artists afterall. Our challenge is to dream in a world which increasingly seeks a logical explanation, to excite in a world which merely aims to placate, to invent a new pasta sauce, and a whole new flying zero-carbon magic carpet Chevy.

Meanwhile, as I try to invent a new kind of music, forgive me as I'm off to take comfort in some authentic chicken soup. :)

A few days ago, I scored a delightful line-drawn animated advertisement for the SmartPower YouTube contest.

Enjoy below, and please rate and vote here!


x
Ljova

Earlier today, several people forwarded me a lovely story from the Washington Post, about a celebrated violinist performing in DC's Metro station. The story brought back a heap of memories..

In the summer of 1998, I was a violist with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Italy. Amongst the highlights of that summer were performances of Janacek's "Cunning Little Vixen" and Kurtag's trio "Homage à R. Sch.". That summer, I also made my first appearance at an art gallery, improvising to paintings of the painter Caio Gracco (which was televised, and got me a free painting). That summer in Spoleto, I received my finest haircut, which came with the free gift of a metal business-card-holder I use to this day.

Among other notables, Joshua Bell was at Spoleto to perform in a chamber music series with flutist Paula Robison. The members of the orchestra rarely fraternized with him, seeing as he was a "superstar" and probably didn't want to be bothered. But we did see him frequently in the local ice-cream shop.

As it happens, that summer in Spoleto was the only time in my life when I received a steady paycheck for playing music - it wasn't much (either $275 or $350, I don't remember), but it was more than enough to cover meals, travel, and gifts for the way back. Everyone in the orchestra received the same amount, so nobody was jealous of the concertmaster -- or the principal flutist -- for receiving a premium. Everyone was on equal footing, and everything was fancyfree.

Several weeks later, I returned to New York completely broke, and seeing as my parents were out of town, I decided to play in Central Park to make some money for dinner. But that day, I received great advice from a colleague -- "play in the subway! the acoustics are better, and you've got a captive audience, at least while they're waiting." And he was completely right.

Shortly after I began playing in my local station on the Upper West Side, a photographer took my picture for a book about homeless musicians. When I told her that this was my first time, she was charmed, but took the picture anyhow. (Don't know if the book was ever published.)

I played Bach at first, but soon switched to improvising and playing showtunes. (For some reason, "Theme from the Godfather" and "Autumn Leaves" always worked best.) At most, I made $15-20/hour. This was 1998...

That summer, I auditioned for a permit under the guise of Music Under New York. The audition -- held in one of the great cavernous halls of Grand Central -- required a 5-minute performance in front of a jury of train conductors and other MTA personnel. I played two movements of Bach, while a battery of Chinese dancers prepared for their audition on the sidelines, and a singer-songwriter tweaked his amp. I didn't win.

***

... in the summer of 2006, I decided to play in the subway again, this time in the East Village and Williamsburg. I wanted to promote my upcoming show at Joe's Pub, pass out flyers, and maybe sell my debut CD. Inna + I produced a folder with my bio printed up, as well as fresh press clippings from Billboard, NYTimes, and TimeOut. The outcome? -- I made about $10/hour, and sold 2-3 CDs each time I played. This time, I played very little Bach, and no showtunes.
Playing in Williamsburg was by far the worst reward -- most hipsters are lost in their iPods, and even those who chose to listen were stingy. I didn't know their repertoire..

***

It seems that every corner of a central NYC subway station now has live music, probably a testament both to the rising rent prices, and the indie spirit (most artists now have a CD to sell). An act can expect to make a reliable $10-20/hour, and the privilege of signing up new fans / getting new clients / etc.. It sure beats working retail!...


With that in mind, a few tips for anyone who wants to "break into the industry":
(if you perform in the subway, please chime in with comments!)

-- Play either shortly before or directly after rush hour. Nobody will listen/tip during rush hour itself, as the trains come too often. By contrast, people are much more likely to listen when the interval between trains is 5-10 minutes.

-- Pick a subway station which is central, but not too central. Stay away from big transfer stations (like Union Square, Grand Central), focus on smaller stations which have a large audience, but where trains move slowly. Highlights: 81st Street - Museum of Natural History; L train at 1st Avenue; Spring Street; Astor Place.

-- Play something short, so that someone waiting for a train can catch one entire piece. (Don't play "Chaconne", nobody has time for that!)

-- Be nice, say "thank you" (even while you're playing).

-- Hand out flyers to people standing next to you.

-- Sell CDs, have a mailing list signup sheet. Anyone who buys and/or signs is a sincere new fan.

-- Enjoy the silence, the lack of applause. In the subway, you are the star and you are nobody. Nothing is more rewarding than being yourself, and being undercover.

The clock strucketh (?) 3am, and it appears that innabar and I are actually blogging at the same hour.

We've been sitting in the same room, facing each other and typing away at our respective laptops for three hours straight. Blame it on our Max Brenner sugar high.

Mind you, we don't perform the laptop-vigil too often - maybe once a week. But between all the scheduling, the promotion, the MySpace/Facebook friends and all of the videos everyone sends us from YouTube, it's inescapable. But let's face it - the amount of hours we spend catching up with "web-life" is going to skyrocket. How bittersweet -- what could be sweeter than sitting in the same room with your beloved, firing through our life in the sounds of clicks, accompanied by some anonymous MySpace bands.

For better or worse (or at least for now), the internet is a medium for loners - one person per screen.
With exception of collaborative document editing (writely) and some basic collaborative doodling, most of what's available does not encourage viral communication between people, neighbors, co-workers. Sure, they can "share", but nothing encourages them to experience anything at the same moment. Nothing, except - perhaps - Jon Stewart.

When I was a child, my parents tried to restrict my TV viewing. Now, as relative adults, we guffaw at little children with cellphones, and criticize parents for letting kids play computer games.
But it's not the same. TV is passive, Games are competitive.

Nobody I know sends 100 of their friends an email saying "I just subscribed to HBO, it's the greatest thing ever", but many of those friends could be seen sending me must-see links to YouTube.

In the future - I sincerely hope! - that instead of giving holiday presents, we'll all be sending must-see links, experiences, and things we feel passionate about. It'll be creative, competitive, and it could be expensive if you're a sucker for production value... but if it gets innabar and I to stop blogging and get to bed, we'd be ever grateful.

:)

Marc Shaiman is without a doubt the funniest man in the film-composing business. For evidence, see:



This song's part of the documentary "Finding Kraftland", about his agent, Richard Kraft.
(more at FindingKraftland.com).


flashback to 1987...remember this?

Check out a remix of my track "Heat Me Up" by RyJudge.

Make your own remix of Heat Me Up! Download the original source files here.

[FOREWORD: Out of respect for fellow artists and professional critics, I try to avoid opining on concerts and compositions. Most often it's not that I disliked the art, but that it's not for me to judge anyone's artistic choices. I try to let the artistic experience work on me internally, giving it time to digest and react in my own creations instead... Here are some thoughts about matters which (I hope!) are not as artistic as they are a reflection on the contemporary concert life. ]

As a young violist growing up between Moscow and New York, I idolized one man - Yuri Bashmet. Since the beginning, I loved his incredible tone, his unmatched vibrato (and that he plays *without* vibrato at least half-the-time), his impeccable intonation, and of course his powerful and highly individual interpretive approach and musicality. I was fortunate enough to hear the premiere of the Schnittke Viola Concerto, and the first concert of the Moscow Soloists. Elsewhere, I remember Yuri visiting us and giving me a short violin lesson... ( read on! )

For those of you couldn't attend the recent LJOVA AND THE VJOLA CONTRABAND performance at Joe's Pub in New York, or for those who were turned away (it was completely sold out!), here are two videos, plus a wonderful review from the Newsday music critic Justin Davidson - enjoy! ( read on! )

from a myspace fan:

I have played keyboards and pianos in churches and then meet someone during the week who says "I enjoyed your organ playing."

(Please excuse this moment of "prophetism".)

The most important - and most dangerous - questions, which an artist can explore are -- "What do you want to do now? How?"

The questions are most important, because they define what you do with your art, how you live your life, from moment to moment. They are questions we should probably ask ourselves every day, but I always forget. I already have 1,000 things to do, 25 books to read, 400 emails to write, (100 friends knocking at my door on MySpace) and a schedule seemingly set for the next six months...

The questions are most dangerous, because they often defy what I do with my life.

Art is at its best when it's impulsive, life is rather rigid.
Projects can take years to mature, but life goes on...
The hustle for new and interesting paying work is endless...
Sure, it's beautiful and scary, alternating, dueling, greying hairs...

What is a creative atmosphere? I'm not quite sure, but I'm fairly certain that where I am is not it 90% of the time. To be creative, you need a certain taste of Bohemia; I feel dogged by an endless agenda, and all manner of things non-musical.

"Music is not surgery" I often say, but in fact the industries I'm involved in often elevate it to that very state. The trouble with making a living in music is - if you want to get paid like a surgeon, you have to do it "right". Whatever "right" means to whomever is paying you.

But nobody wants to pay for music - not even you. I'd love to pay for it, and (though most of it comes to me for free), I do.

The only people who pay for music are people who "have" to - TV networks, brides, and churches. All of them "need" a certain kind of music, but for all of them, "music is surgery.

What to do? Not sure. But I think I have to keep looking - looking for this atmosphere where I can breathe and create freely, and still make a living.

Where is that now? I'm not sure. Hopefully nowhere I've already been.
But it is equally dangerous - for every Bohemian, there are at least two other people suffering at his or her mercy.

Trust me, I've been there. :)

It's rumored that Beethoven once said something along the lines of "music is unavoidable", meaning that you can choose not to read a book, you can close your eyes and not look at a painting (or - now - a movie), but you can't avoid to hear music. He forgot to knock on wood...

In fact, the only thing that's unavoidable is probably "smell". At least, I've never met a composer who can't smell.

But this is not about smell - this is about architecture, the longing to sniff the past.

I've spent this fall primarily in Budapest, Hungary - a beautiful, clean, quiet city.

Presently, I'm in Bucharest, Romania - a severly dilapidated, dangerous, corrupt, and overrun city. It feels a lot like Moscow - except that I don't speak the language.

Walking along the few streets that I have so far, I see an incredibly beautiful, intimate city -- but it's clouded under years of neglect, disrepair, dust, asbestos, and problems. It looks like a sort of Paris, only it stopped playing the role 50 years ago. A forgotten movie set. I'd take some pictures, but I don't quite feel safe yet. My digital camera is very small, and my Burberry coat is quite conspicuous (thanks, mom!).

I've never encountered this feeling -- being in an old city, clouded by the new. Growing up in Moscow and New York, I rarely saw living ruins. Either the buildings are new, or they were old and shining.
(I've seen the ruins in Rome - but they are just that, ruins. Museum pieces.)

As a composer, I involuntarily react to the architecture around me. I never felt any sort of sympathy for old buildings. They were old, well maintained, they had all the sympathy of the world, and they had to make room for something new - cooler, with faster elevators. But looking at Bucharest, with its sad dopey eyes, and its many hungry stray pets, I could change my mind. It would be a dream to see this city puff the ages away, and return to its beauty.

(... but I should be careful in what I wish for... After all, I don't want Bucharest to become another tourist trap like Prague...)

There is a musician in Budapest, whose method of ethno-musicology is simple: find the old guy (that being the oldest violinist in town), get him drunk, and put on a tape recorder. What comes out becomes "authentic" - though I disagree.

Bucharest is similar - it is just like the old guy, barely breathing, falling apart... at least to my eyes. Surely it's seen better - and worse - days.

I hope it recovers. Until then, it's hard to be musically modern here. (But it's still easy to blog.)

Osvaldo feeds off Gustavo's ears, and Gustavo is in awe of Osvaldo's magic. One "writes" music, the other "produces" music. They both make an evening of fun. Is it just a question of tools?

Whenever I meet good singersongwriters, they're always in awe of my wide-ranging credits and training, while I'm simply amazed at the songs they created with no training whatsoever. They try to ask me for composition lessons (I laugh); I ask if they need any arrangements, hoping to learn for myself their gift, their craft.

I'm a Bachelor - both by degree, and by identification. I've never applied for a Masters, and have neither joined the camp of "composers" or "songwriters". I went to college for music, but have been using as little of what I learned there in my work as possible. At the same time, the squares (pun intended) that satisfy and inspire most songwriters are rigid and worrying for me, they make me feel responsible, give me head rushes that scream for a change.

I try to write this "Bachelor" music - music for the dogmatic snobs that still have their hearts open, this kind of sound where you think you know the world but have barely traveled, where you act confident but when you sit down, your knees are shaking; the kind of music which can be described by a 25-word tagline which is a confidence-instilling, attention-grabbing synonym for "I don't know... enjoy..."

Polkas, Waltzes, Gallops, Gigues, Jigs, Reels - all just a few once-popular dance forms, now primarily relegated to weddings and rennaisance fairs.

That's all I know, as a classically-trained musician and semi-curious (and semi-optimistic) consumer. But after spending a little time traveling in Hungary, I'm inspired to investigate further.

I'm not an ethnomusicologist, so I don't have specifics -- but it's amazing to hear the many varieties of rhythms and beats to be found in my native Eastern Europe alone. How many dance forms in Transylvania, Serbia, Macedonia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Moldavia, Croatia, Ukraine? Hundreds of exciting, brilliant ideas for moving your feet to the music. Unfortunately, you won't find little of this music on the radio -- there, you'll mostly find the trashiest Europop and major-label rock/hiphop/R+B from the US.

I am shocked and appaled that no popular music I know of has thusfar embraced any of the wonderfully angular and playful rhythms of folklore.

99% of the music I inadvertently hear is in what is known as "Common Time" - or 4/4 - four beats to a measure. To a large extent, a kid growing up today could only be exposed to a singular musical genre, and reject all others. I've met these kids - 100% techno, all the time. They think they're "eclectic", because they reject rock-n-roll. Their only exposure to any shift of pulse and emotion is in the cinema (though even there, with movies becoming vehicles to sell the soundtrack compilation album, that is also changing).

Off the top of my head, I can think of a handful of major names which come to mind as made an effort to bring uneven music to the masses:
The Beatles
Billy Joel ("She's always a woman")
Goran Bregovic
Bjork

Others? Not really. Why not? I haven't the foggiest clue, other than songs and dances in 4/4 are easier to learn... though I have a suspicion that if Shakira recorded and made a video of a 7/11 tune, the next day everybody would want to learn the steps. (Everyone except me - would I watch Shakira?!)

It has to change. It will change. Before the decade is out, I want to see this on MTV -- and I don't mean Magyar Televízió - though that could be even more fun.