It’s kinda like this…
A few weeks ago I was having dinner with a composer friend who introduced me to a lot of music that I didn’t know much or at all. We listened to The Zombies, the lasting memory of which was their superb pitch that makes me hate American Idol and The Voice even more. We listened to Mikel Rouse, whose inner sense of rhythm veers dangerously into half human/half genius-robot territory. We listened to “Marquee Moon” by Television with the epic Tom Verlaine guitar solo. And we listened to a couple of his own works, including a piece for percussion called Chronomosaic.
Here is a good time to mention that I studied music in college and received a Masters Degree in Instrumental Conducting, so the concept of reading a score is not alien to me in any way. But this score, which was given to me to follow along with a recording, was insane. I flipped through the first couple pages and saw that it was all in 9/8 time and didn’t pay too much attention to where the actual notes were within the measures. And then it started… Continue reading
