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PostClassic

Kyle Gann on music after the fact

Cursing the Man Who Invented the Computer

I had reported having trouble getting Kontakt 2 sampling software to work on my computer. In April the company released the 2.1 upgrade, which was supposed to make the program run smoother by making the samples much less CPU-intensive. But every time I tried to start up, my screen froze – on a G5 yet! This morning I set out to attack the problem. I spent hours going back and forth with Kontakt tech support. I reinstalled the program from scratch three times. Finally I narrowed it down to the audio setup. I reinstalled my MIDI interface driver twice. I talked to a nice man at Mark of the Unicorn. After seven hours of frustration, it turns out that I have a defective USB port. I unplugged the MIDI cable from the port, stuck it in the next hole, and everything suddenly worked fine.

Kontakt 2.1 plays like a charm. With Li’l Miss Scale Oven to retune it, I now have the retuned Steinway grand I’ve waited my whole life for. Of course, my hair’s noticeably grayer than it was yesterday, and I’m a little snappish.

What’s going on here

So classical music is dead, they say. Well, well. This blog will set out to consider that dubious factoid with equanimity, if not downright enthusiasm [More]

Kyle Gann's Home Page More than you ever wanted to know about me at www.kylegann.com

PostClassic Radio The radio station that goes with the blog, all postclassical music, all the time; see the playlist at kylegann.com.

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Sites to See

American Mavericks - the Minnesota Public radio program about American music (scripted by Kyle Gann with Tom Voegeli)

Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar - a cornucopia of music, interviews, information by, with, and on hundreds of intriguing composers who are not the Usual Suspects

Iridian Radio - an intelligently mellow new-music station

New Music Box - the premiere site for keeping up with what American composers are doing and thinking

The Rest Is Noise - The fine blog of critic Alex Ross

William Duckworth's Cathedral - the first interactive web composition and home page of a great postminimalist composer

Mikel Rouse's Home Page - the greatest opera composer of my generation

Eve Beglarian's Home Page- great Downtown composer

David Doty's Just Intonation site

Erling Wold's Web Site - a fine San Francisco composer of deceptively simple-seeming music, and a model web site

The Dane Rudhyar Archive - the complete site for the music, poetry, painting, and ideas of a greatly underrated composer who became America's greatest astrologer

Utopian Turtletop, John Shaw's thoughtful blog about new music and other issues

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