@mcmullin@musicians.today
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mcmullin

@mcmullin@musicians.today

Composer of music in search of a spirit of wonder.

Current projects include The Luminous Mysteries, a setting of the complete prayers of the rosary for choir and orchestra, and a series of compositions custom made for individual musicians recovering from strokes.

#Composer #NewMusic #ContemporaryMusic #MusicAsPrayer #MusicInHealth #tfr

#中文
#español

(Banner image above: colorful abstract painting, watercolor on rice paper, by PC Ning. Avatar: boring headshot of me.)

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

mcmullin, to composer
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

I'm working on a large-scale for and with soloists.

What should I listen to for inspiration?

Any time period, any style -- I'm interested in seeing different ways of combining these forces, and studying the nuts and bolts of .

If you're a , director, or who has wrestled with this, what would you say are the key do's and don'ts of writing for this combination?

@composers @classicalmusic

stefan, to fediverse
@stefan@stefanbohacek.online avatar

What is a fediverse-neutral word for "subtweet"? People here use "subtoot", but that's based on Mastodon's "toot", which is no longer officially used.

"Subpost" doesn't sound quite right. But I guess that's it?

#fediverse #mastodon #SocialMedia #subtoot #subtweet #linguistics #language

mcmullin,
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@stefan
I’ve been wondering that too, since I don’t like “toot.”

amyfou, to random
@amyfou@lingo.lol avatar

Good morning, friends ☕ ☕ 🐕 🐕 💞 💞

Thanks to @ingalls for the reminder that May 18 is the anniversary of the Mt St Helens eruption (1980), and it's worth marking that day.

We had moved from Yakima to Wenatchee a few years earlier, so got the reports of 'darkness at noon' by phone from my grandma who was still there.

This ⬇️ is a US Forest Service photo, taken at 1:30PM on Yakima Avenue, Yakima WA, on May 18 as the ash cloud passed through.

mcmullin,
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@amyfou @Adventurer
I think we had this conversation once before… but I remember we had a very fine dusting of ash on our car a day or two later in Connecticut. It got up into the fast high altitude winds and clear across the continent.

mcmullin, to random
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

The other day, talking about issues on the fediverse, @mekkaokereke proposed an (apt) analogy which led to a tangential conversation about racism in Boston. I noticed, as I have whenever this comes up, a curious thing about what “Boston” seems to represent in the public imagination.

A thread (a rant?) about …
1/7

https://musicians.today/@mcmullin/110283766606470442

mcmullin, to random
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

Question for any out there: how do you interpret slurs in a part?

For example, if you see a melody or arpeggio spanning a few octaves in a bar or two, and it's obviously one single gesture, do you play it differently if it's under a slur than if it isn't? Which do you prefer to see?

I've noticed I'm not at all consistent about this in my scoring, which makes it look like I want different things when that's not necessarily so.

mcmullin, to composers
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

Last week @terjefjelde asked me about my techniques, use of , and thoughts about , and I promised to reply when I had more time. Here’s a too-long thread about this and other things that came to mind…

1/18

@composers @contemporarymusic

https://mastodon.social/@terjefjelde@mastodon.social/110220685067926603

msquebanh, (edited ) to random
@msquebanh@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

Any man who still believes are submissive are going to find out the hard way - most of us - are not.

mcmullin,
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@msquebanh
I’m very sorry you (and every other Asian woman) have to put up with this crap. But I confess to kind-of enjoying it whenever someone learns this the hard way.

(To clarify, I mean enjoying vicariously and usually after the fact when I hear about it. If I’m actually there when it happens, instead of just admiring the fireworks, I try to help.)

mcmullin,
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@msquebanh
Surprisingly common workplace scenario: some cocky jerk, thinking (correctly) that a polite, soft-spoken Chinese woman will be an obstacle to something stupid he wants to do, assumes (incorrectly) that he can casually flick her aside and do it, thus displaying his manly power. He soon discovers (predictably) that instead of a pebble in his path, the rock he’s kicking is more like the Gibraltar kind. Then he gets mad because he thinks he was tricked somehow.

StillIRise1963, to random
@StillIRise1963@mastodon.world avatar

For all the white people who say some of these folks “pretend to be racist for money,” please know that there is no such thing. The consequences of the behavior are real and the same, even if one were “pretending,” hence, there is no such thing as pretending.

mcmullin,
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@StillIRise1963
Right, no one cares what we truly feel in our heart of hearts, or whether we think we have a “racist bone” in our body somewhere (That one always puzzles me). They care about actual harms and consequences of what we say and do. The idea that racism is all about feelings is just a convenient dodge.

mcmullin, to random
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

Two recent conversations—with @terjefjelde about strange ways that American culture gets taken up in Norway, and with @skinnylatte about American food, what it is and whether it’s as bad as everyone says—brought to mind the following anecdote from more than 20 years ago.

With apologies to @m2m , this would be more appropriate as a blog post than a thread, but I haven’t actually started a blog yet, and I wouldn’t start it with this.

1/12

mcmullin, to Creativity
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

Two good questions this morning from Andrew Simonet. The second is one I don’t think we talk about enough: you can’t just have the greatest art from the greatest artists, without the whole cultural ecosystem that produces and nurtures them. The minor artists and the failed experiments all play essential roles too.

https://view.flodesk.com/emails/660b0120c1a8c9a0c7ddedcc

#creativity #art #music #ContemporaryMusic #composers @contemporarymusic @composers

mxtthxw, to random
@mxtthxw@mxtthxw.art avatar

You often see folks with ‘buy me a coffee’ in their profiles. However, given I’m trying to cut down on caffeine I’ve gone with ‘buy me a horse’.

mcmullin,
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@mxtthxw
I wonder how many cups of coffee I’d have to forgo to save enough to buy a horse.

Private
mcmullin,
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@liztai
Hmm, sorry if I made sweeping generalizations with you at some point. I don’t pretend to really know anything though: I speculate wildly, admit that’s what I’m doing, and am happy to be corrected. This is actually part of the fun of watching entertainment from other cultures—trying to make sense of things, often by connecting the dots in ridiculously wrong ways. Which can be humbling in a healthy kind of way. (I’m sure I never made digs at Chinese values.)

mcmullin,
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@liztai
Ha! Yes I’m sure you would have. About those examples, jeez. I see what you mean. (I admit I’ve wondered about the baby-voice thing, but I don’t even understand that particular theory.)

emmaaum, to random
@emmaaum@zirk.us avatar

my brain so does not get on with the looped frenzied classical on-hold music for the GP. i don't think it's much of a stretch to say the composer did not intend for his work to be listened to this way.
please continue to hold while we scramble your brain

mcmullin,
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@emmaaum
What drives me nuts is that there’s so much music in every genre that could loop itself quite naturally, and sometimes they even choose such a piece. But then they just play X seconds of it over and over, so you hear like the first 13 and half bars of a 16-bar form that never resolves. It wouldn’t be any harder to loop a full cycle but they never think of that.

mcmullin, to random
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

I’ve been absent from the conversation for a while, but it wouldn’t be right to let the week go by without somebody posting Ellington at Newport 1956, Diminuendo & Crescendo in Blue. Legendary performance…
https://youtu.be/wIX7fnYANak

mcmullin, to Spotify
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

This is pretty ridiculous. I have exactly 2 tracks on , with approximately zero plays (though actually I have no way of knowing), and whatever royalties they generate go to the performers, who may then send me a cut if they choose to. So this doesn’t immediately affect me in any real way—but still.

1,000 Streams or Bust https://dadadrummer.substack.com/p/1000-streams-or-bust

@dada_drummer

mcmullin, to random
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@hilljam 's recent post about perceived vs measured loudness reminded me of something I've been curious about.

Much audio talk stresses compression, where it seems everything at every scale gets compressed every step of the way, with the apparent aim of squeezing it for every possible drop of loudness.

And this puzzles me. Loud is fine, but if everything's always equally loud, then it's also flat, with no shape.

A little thread about dynamics...
1/4

(cc @m2m)

https://open.substack.com/pub/jamieslist666/p/a-word-on-lufs?r=1n47ld&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

mcmullin, to classicalmusic
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

I keep meaning to make more score videos with recordings of my music. I've got a few on Youtube (in my pinned posts), but I'm thinking I should try Peertube. Can anyone recommend a good Peertube instance for this kind of thing?

@contemporarymusic @composers

mcmullin, to random
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

@mxtthxw just in case you haven’t seen this

https://syzito.xyz/@selzero/112447447925059728

mcmullin, to random
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

When I was a student, algorithmic compositional processes were all the rage, sometimes computer assisted but usually not. In theory, @composers should be able to use the new “AI” tools in all kinds of interesting ways. But instead they’re mostly used by streaming companies to fill playlists with generic muzak that no one gets paid for. Do listeners care, or is that what they want?

Ted Gioia’s take:
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/ai-is-defeated-in-hollywoodbut-what

mcmullin, to jazz
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

Anyone else remember these guys? Not sure why I just thought of them, but it's good to hear this again.
https://song.link/i/1167826959

mcmullin, to composers
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

For me at least, this question is more likely to shut down than get it flowing. Maybe worth considering before I commit to making something, but not helpful to think about once in the process.


@composers

https://botsin.space/@oblique_strategies/110370934847572720

mcmullin, to random
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

I have just failed to prove I’m not a robot more than a dozen times in a row. Either:
• The motor vehicles site is malfunctioning
• Captcha is seriously leveling up in difficulty
• I’m wrong about what bicycles, motorcycles, buses, traffic lights, crosswalks, stairs, and mountains* look like
• I’m a robot

*Yes, I got as far as “can you at least see a mountain when one’s in front of you?” And they say I can’t.

mcmullin, to music
@mcmullin@musicians.today avatar

Magnificat, for unaccompanied choir, was written for the New York Virtuoso Singers in 2000. It is dedicated to the loving memory of my great-aunt Dorothy McMullin, Sister of Mercy (1904-1999), whose love and joy, kindness and good humor inspired all who knew her.

https://makertube.net/w/g8g2EdzKFy9v7FWjGECWfv

PDF score etc:
https://david-mcmullin.com/compositions/magnificat

@composers @contemporarymusic @classicalmusic

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