Freedom Caught in Notation

I was very impressed when I heard John Halle, introducing a piece of his in a concert at MIT, excoriate the baby boomers for producing both Dick Cheney and Charles Wuorinen. As well we all might.

KG replies: That goes along with the theme of his piece "Apology to Younger Americans." But you know, I thought the baby boomers were people born between 1946 and 1965. I don't see why we have to take the blame for Cheney and Wuorinen.

Only slightly related, I noticed today that Joe Biden and Meredith Monk were born the same day, November 20, 1942. Can we take credit for them?

That piece looks lots of fun to play, though I think it would call for a rehearsal retreat. My group will often do this for rhythmically demanding grooves like this. London's Icebreaker is similar - cellist Audrey Riley told me they had to go away for a week in isolation to learn Michael Gordon's Trance rhythms, which is why they sound so, ahem, kickass (sorry).

Interesting how West Coast composers who've been doing this kind of thing since the 1980s never get identified as totalists. They don't exist. Only folks east of the Hudson actually did this stuff. Maybe it's because the West Coast composers mainly used computers and sequencers, as in John Bischoff's "Next Tone, Please," or my own pieces using 17 against 19 aginst 23 & so forth, or because the West Coast Composers use live acoustic instruments with oddball non-standard notations, as with Bill Wesley's polymetric totalist pieces.

Remember: if it didn't happen east of the Hudson, it didn't happen, period.

Never mind me, I'm just cranky now that Obama and Biden are backpedaling on their pledge to proescute the war criminals in this maladministration, and especially since Obama announced that the Guantanamo Bay torture facility won't be shut down in the first 100 days.

Not only should Guatanamo Bay's torture chambers be shut down the instant, Obama takes office, they should be burned down, blown up, plowed under and the ground should be sowed with salt to make sure nothing ever grows there again.

I guess it's just me. I'm "ranting and raving," "in need of therapy," suffering from "probable mental defect," and, as those lively lads on Sequenza 21 wisely proncounded, "I doubt you are even a composer." Standard stuff. Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss. I'm just waiting for Obama to announce "We do not torture" and then Biden can hold a press conference explaining "We don't want the first warning sign to be a mushroom cloud" when they invade Pakistan.

KG replies: Come on, Brian, I've been calling West Coasters Art Jarvinen and Chris Brown totalists for years, while I'd never seen any of Halle's ensemble scores until two weeks ago - and he works in the same building I do! (He's in the conservatory, I'm in the music department, and they might as well be different planets.) What am I supposed to do, drive to California and make house calls to look at everyone's scores out there? Is there no mail pickup in California?