Fickle Ears

When a work of mine is deemed by conservatives to be too far out, and also deemed by radicals as not far enough out, I'll know I've ...

Today, I finally feel up to confronting the fact that this space is by and large a place for the airing of negative feelings rather than pos...

One of my tuba students recently came to me for advice on how to convince his high school band director to let him play in the jazz band. Am...

Today is Halloween, which has always been my favorite holiday, but this year, while most of the rest of the country is busy donning their be...

It has been my opinion for some time that of all the boneheaded errors contained in the original (read: illegal) Real Books, Wayne Shorter s...

As yet another follow-up to the post on composing with notation programs, here are three more pages from my oeuvre that required some extra...

As a follow-up to the last post, it's worth mentioning that there are two interesting threads going on TubeNet right now about composers...

There was an interesting and lively discussion on Sequenza 21 recently around the topic of composing with notation software. I would be rem...

From an article in The Nation about high-rolling conservationists: World-renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle was there by Seligmann's s...

Last night, I attended the first of this season's six "Engine 408" concerts by members of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Th...

I did something earlier today that I haven't done for several years. Before leaving for work, I grabbed my Discman, popped in a CD, and ...

Remember going to the beach as a kid, building a totally awesome sand castle, then irreparably maiming it by nitpicking about the finer deta...

I'm not embarrassed to admit that at one point in my life, I was one of those people for whom there were two kinds of music: classical a...

There are very few pieces in the solo tuba repertoire that are any good. There are even fewer pieces in the solo tuba repertoire that are an...

It is a great irony of the creative process that we are likely the worst judges of our own work, but that our opinion matters most in their ...

One purpose of the current blog month experiment was to prove whether or not I was capable of producing something on a daily basis that anyo...

A respondent to a Daniel Wolf posting asks whether part-time musicians can make great music. In fact, part-time musicians like Charles Ive...

If the imminent death of physical media means that used record stores will be inundated with CD's and selling them for the same cost as ...

With today being my 26th birthday, this seems as good a time as ever to give some thought to the effects of age, experience, maturity etc. o...

How about "Uwis?" I'm curious.

Somehow, a brass ensemble selection has made it onto the muzak rotation at the MSP airport. On behalf of the brass community, I'd like t...

October is Blog Month here at My Fickle Ears Dig It. For one month only, we will take on the structure, persona, habits, and style of a ...

On the occasion of the Republican National Convention coming to my hometown, I offer this essay on the dynamic between art and activism, a s...

From The Nation's recent review of work by writer and activist Bill McKibben : [McKibben's] turn toward activism has not been free o...

I've said before that my primary justification for the low level of activity here is that it reflects how often I myself am able to set ...