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Friday, June 3, 2011

Just returned to U.S. from several weeks in China, inspired by the possibilities

S oft power is derived from both state and society. Savvy states are able to harness the creativity and vibrancy of their societies for soft power purposes while understanding that it is civil society’s independence from the state that contains the real persuasive power. When authoritarian states deny the global public the ability to directly access their domestic civil society, they are potentially depriving themselves of a key soft power asset in the information age.”
— Shanthi Kalathil, ISD Working Papers in New Diplomacy, MAY-2011.

I ’ve just returned from several weeks in China—a wonderful, profoundly stimulating experience. I attended chamber music performances in Beijing, including a delightful concert at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (“The Egg”) by pianist Igor Levit and three of his colleagues (Evgenia Rubinova, Michail Lifits, Herbert Schuch).

U nfortunately, due to Chinese government policy Google Blogger, Twitter, and Facebook are all blocked in the PRC, which is why I have posted no blogs or tweets in recent weeks. (Did not try to use a proxy-server. Hotel ISPs were dodgy enough as it was...)

T here were interesting ‘audience compliance enforcement’ practices in China that we would never see in the West. For example, the concert hall staff aim red ‘marksman’/gun-sight-type lasers on the heads and backs of audience members who make noise or who move or try to take a forbidden photo during a performance. Everyone in the audience sees the bright red dot ‘painted’ on the body part of the offender. We don’t see that kind of enforcement of etiquette in the U.S. or Europe, that’s for sure. But the effectiveness of the social censure by the other audience members who are seated near the ‘offender’ is total and nearly instantaneous. From a performer’s perspective, this is kind of cool—especially when the behavior is disruptive and selfish on the part of the person doing the picture-taking or recording or moving-around.

I gor Levit gave a fantastic left-hand-only rendering of BWV 971 (among other things). I asked him and he says the transcription was Brahms’s, published by Breitkopf & Hartel, but I look in Breitkopf catalog and do not see it... I will have to buy a copy of their EB-6018 to look... maybe it is in there and only the Breitkopf pdf file online is in error. There are lots of LH transcriptions of BWV 1004 Chaconne, BWV 1006, BWV 1002, BWV 1031, and so on. I so far do not find the LH tr. of 971...

T he unlikely LH as proponent of subject, object, everything: this reveals new dimensions in, and sheds new light on, a piece I thought I understood. The RH stands by like a watchful parent, saying nothing.

L eon Fleisher and others have had dystonia or other reasons to pursue such literature, but here in China I hear Igor Levit and learn new things. Some might consider one such piece in an otherwise normal program to be a ‘novelty’ or ‘gimmick’, but it was not. Absolutely masterful.

I visited hospitals—crowded but fastidiously clean and well-run—so many things different from the West, but so many things the same. Visited the Central Conservatory where Chen Yi and Zhou Long and others trained. Oh, the food! The friendly, gracious Chinese people!

S o China blazes this prodigious, distinctive, iconoclastic path—many paths, actually, reflecting mixtures of Han Chinese plus 55 minority groups: regional, metropolitan and rural—always diverging from the West, because why? Because what is distinctly Chinese embodies the belovèd “national circumstances” and reinforces the honorable “Chinese characteristics”, or guoqing (国情). That is why... that is why this Chinese ‘autopoietic’ tendency is self-sustaining. It is a little like Richard Dawkins’s ‘Selfish Gene’ on a large social scale. Based on my 3-week exposure, I think it’s not a deliberated process and not a politically-coerced one. Instead, it feels organic, inevitable. So many people, who mostly seem so happy, so long as the ‘boom’ lasts! I can hardly wait for the chance to return...

Brahms transcription of the Bach Chaconne of Violin partita BWV 1004 for the left-hand (Peters)
Brahms transcription of Italian Concerto (Clavier-Ubung II) for the left-hand (Breitkopf)
Joseffy Violin partita BWV 1006 transcription for the left-hand
Kistler-Liebendorfer Choralvorspiel BWV 711, violin sonata BWV 1001, violin partita BWV 1006, orchestra suite No. 1 BWV 1066, orch suite No. 3 BWV 1068, musical offering canon BWV 1079... transcription for the left-hand
Philipp violin partita BWV 1002, violin partita BWV 1004 transcription for the left-hand
Raff Violin partita No. 2 BWV 1004 Chaconne transcription for the left-hand
Sitsky Violin partita No. 2 BWV 1004 Chaconne transcription for the left-hand
Sosa Chromatische Fantasie und Fuge BWV 903 transcription for the left-hand
Sosa Invention B-Dur BWV 785 transcription for the left-hand
Wittgenstein Violin partita No. 2 BWV 1004 Chaconne transcription for the left-hand
Wittgenstein Schule für die linke Hand III/2: Präludium c-Moll transcription for the left-hand
Wittgenstein Siciliano aus der Flötensonate Es-Dur BWV 1031 transcription for the left-hand

Friday, March 21, 2008

CMT Has Changed to a New Comment System

Try this link to sign up for your free Disqus account.

Compared to Blogger comment services, it’s a big improvement in functionality for those of you commenting on CMT.

You will, though, need to register yourself for free at Disqus. Then make sure that your browser has Java enabled.

Then, just click the ‘comments’ button on a post and it will bring you to a new page where you can enter a comment. (Make sure you're logged in, of course.)

The features that Disqus offers CMT readers include the following:

Threaded comments. You can follow a conversation in the comments, watching the conversation indent as you reply to a specific comment.
Rating comments as well as posts. Which isn’t just a beauty contest, but does enable each commenter to (a) build up some credibility according to the number of comments they’ve made and ratings they receive from other readers/commenters, and (b) choose to view the comments ranked by their favorability. (You can choose how you see the comments by clicking on the ‘options’ link right below the comments box on any comments page.) The Disqus ratings feature helps us do other things as well, so definitely rate comments as you see fit.
You can add links … to your blog, your ClassicalLounge account, your CompositionToday or ComposersForum page, LinkedIn account, Twitter account, Facebook, Flickr, and so on. If you wish, you can also add a description of yourself, your works, ensembles, etc. Those of you who wish to maintain your anonymity can continue to do that.
Avatars. You can upload a small (128 x 128 pixel) photo to appear (shrunk to 48x48 avatar size) next to your name with each comment.
Email settings. You can subscribe to particular commenters (to follow what they write) and have the comments auto-email to you any replies to your own comments.
Filtering by commenter ID. All your comments are pulled together on one page so that you, or anyone else, can check out what else you’ve written.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Whatever Happened to Online Etiquette?

“The uncivil and ignorant have always been with us—but now they have Internet access. Mix in anonymity—what do you expect?”
— reader response to David Pogue, N.Y.Times, 21-DEC-2006

CMT: David Pogue in his column in the New York Times on 14-DEC-2006 asked the question, ‘Whatever Happened to Online Etiquette?’

DSM: You know, it seems to me that hostility online is getting worse—and it’s not just in mass-culture environments either. Or else how do you explain, this Joshua Bell / Saint-Saens / Etude video and the accompanying bombast?

CMT: Is this sort of communication behavior emblematic of video culture, do you think, or online culture? Or is it just a manifestation of uncouthness that we simply have now a technology-based means to observe—something that’s always been around but which in the past was not played out in public? There are, after all, a number of chamber music and classical music videos and vlogs—things expressed with civility and good will. Check this Maxim Vengerov / Ravel / Tzigane video:

and this Emerson Quartet / Bach / Art of the Fugue / Contrapunctus No. 9 video:

DSM: Allan Kozinn of the New York Times has remarked that Bell, instead of performing in strait-laced recital style, characteristically does light pieces as encores announced from the stage, reviving the less formal style favored by violinists in the 1920s. Some time ago Kozinn evidently found Bell’s account of the counterpoint in the Chaconne from Bach's Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, satisfying. Others seem to admire Bell’s playing, too.

CMT: There are broad cultural trends recently that condone ad hominem attacks—we see this in the U.S. with many mass-media productions, including reality television programs and mainstream ‘news’ media. Open opposition to diversity has become a gratuitous modus operandi for many. And for others it’s an expedient way to get attention and do promotional marketing. It’s sad. But it’s even sadder when those deplorable tendencies from mass-culture spill over into the arts, like classical music.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Always Already New: iMix Playlist Sharing

CMT: Did you know you can share your playlists with others by publishing them to the iTunes Store? Published playlists are called iMixes.

DSM: Yes. iMixes include 30-second previews of the tracks in your playlist that’re available from the iTunes Store. By definition, tracks by performers/composers that aren’t available in the iTunes Store can’t appear in iMixes. There aren’t a lot of classical or chamber music iMixes out there yet, but there are more than 400,000 iMixes that’ve been published to-date overall.

CMT: I know that iMixes have been around for a couple of years. But I hadn’t really bothered with them until the new features in iTunes V.7. Your comment about 6,000 string quartet tracks in the iTunes Store the other day made me think again about iMix. I spent some time playing with iTunes’ new iMix feature in iTunes V.7, which allows users to embed playlists in a blog, a MySpace or Facebook or LinkedIn page, or any other web site.

DSM: When you’ve created your iMix, find it in the iTunes Music Store and click the link for “Publish to the Web.” You then get frame containing HTML code that you can paste into your blog or web page. Anyone will be able to click on any of the tracks in order to hear a 30-second sample within their iTunes software. I’ve had occasional problems getting an embedded iMix to work in this Blogspot CSS, and Apple’s iMix/iTunes Store doesn’t currently allow direct streaming from the page. But overall it’s pretty cool.

CMT: Yes, this is a viral marketing play by Apple, to pull users into the iTunes Store. But it’s not much different from the “share this song/playlist” features in Napster, Rhapsody, and other music services. So if you were imagining getting some valuable widget for free and being spared the commercial promotion, fuggettaboudit. An alternative of course is just to point your friends to your last.fm profile. That takes absolutely no effort and is commercial-free, but it’s got the disadvantage that last.fm doesn’t yet have an adequate catalog of classical music available. And it shares your entire last.fm profile, which you typically wouldn’t want to do, with all the non-chamber music things it’s probably got in it. And your last.fm profile is evolving over time, so the profile you share today won’t be what your friend who opens it next week or next month gets. It’s not a ‘publishing’ model at all. So I really prefer publishing and sharing a defined iMix playlist.

DSM: If you don’t like iTunes Store or don’t want to have Apple embedded iMix playlists force-launch iTunes, you might try HotListMaker . HotList enables playing 30-second MP3 clips, but, like iTunes, it too is commercial, steering the listener to digital music site Puretracks to buy the tracks. HotListMaker is currently in alpha, and it shows.

CMT: To publish your iMix:

Select the playlist you’ve created on your PC that you want to publish as an iMix and choose File > Create an iMix.
Enter the descriptive information about your playlist and click Publish (upload to the iTunes Store site).
(Changes you make to a published iMix aren’t updated updated automatically on the iTunes Store, so if you want to change your iMix you need to republish it after you make your updates.)

If you add or remove tracks from a playlist that you’ve published as an iMix in the iTunes Store, you need to update the iMix before others can see your new list. You can also edit the description or title of an iMix, or remove an iMix from the iTunes Store.

DSM: And here’s how to change an iMix that you’ve previously published:

To see a list of the playlists you’ve published or to remove an iMix from the iTunes Store, sign in to the iTunes Store and click View Account.
Select the playlist, click the arrow to the right of the playlist, and then click Update iMix. Make your changes and click Publish.
To see your iMix as it appears at the iTunes Store, click the arrow to the right of the playlist.

CMT: One main aim of playlist-sharing is for the sharee to discover new music that the sharee might not otherwise have encountered. Besides the playlist-sharing iMix stuff, there’s also the aspect of music-discovery. When looking at the iTunes website, I see that you can create a custom RSS feed to keep you apprised of new releases in your preferred genre(s). When I created one and plugged the URL into my RSS feed reader and it gives me a nice list of entries.

DSM: Well, the ‘surface’ aim isn’t the end of the matter. Publishing playlists is a cryptic way to communicate your identity, too. One of the more illuminating parts of Howard Rheingold’s book, Smart Mobs, is its discussion of the ways that technologies are being coopted by people to craft their social identities. Some readers might construe the lists of items we put at the bottom of each post in this blog that way. Of course, publishing playlists is a two-way street. The sharer can be critiqued by the sharees, or he/she can be ignored. Epinions, eBay buyer and seller feedback, and Slashdot contributor ratings—and now iMix ratings—are a few examples of how we’re now able to create public identities and social capital online. But that social capital and those identities are weighed in the balance of public opinion—they can appreciate in value, or they can go down in value.

CMT: So you’re anxious about people creating and publishing iMixes merely as ‘ornaments’ for their false, wanna-be persona? Poseurs? Social fraudsters?

DSM: No, not concerned—just an incidental thought that occurred to me. I’m more concerned about what intellectual property rights attach to these things called playlists when they’re published.

CMT: And I’m wondering how the lists will be curated so that the response-time of searching to discover iMixes that match my search criteria doesn’t deteriorate over the next few years. I wonder whether Apple iTunes Store will enable ‘best-if-used-by’ expiration dates, or maybe implement some sort of most-frequently-referenced ranking or generation-based garbage-collection regime or some other way of purging old or unpopular or orphaned iMix playlists. More than that, I wish they’d add a feature that would let me specify my own effectivity ‘start’ and ‘end’ dates. I’d like to be able to put an iMix up in a sequestered pre-press ‘staging’ area, pending my having my email or blog post or other collateral materials ready. As it is, it’s instantly in the public ‘available’ status as soon as I share it. So Apple really isn’t supporting any kind of ‘publishing’ model for us. I imagine that that doesn’t matter to all of the kids sharing playlists with each other. But for a not-for-profit organization or for a university or any type of serious entity that wants to use iMixes as part of their marketing and communication with their constituencies, it’s problematic.

DSM: I’m sure Apple’s got some VLDB (very large database) engineers working on that. Of course, all that’s needed is for Google to buy them…