(To any sax players out there: yes, my fingers should never be that far from the keys – one of many bad habits I’m trying to break)
Last week I gratefully received, from my friendly postman, the book of tunes for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) Jazz saxophone grade 3 exam. Despite my doubts about jazz education – about its usefulness in producing spirited jazz players, and also about the usefulness for me in particular of an exclusive focus on jazz – I think I can still benefit from it hugely. What I want, and what it promises to give me, is an objective measure of progress; some structure and discipline; and goals.
And besides, the program … read on »
Archive for October, 2007…
World Class Breakfasts, Trees, Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Breakfasts, People, Coffee, Steak, Corn and Breakfasts – but let's not mention the pancakes
It has been many weeks since I returned from Canada, and whilst it was full of some of the most stimulating experiences of my life, I am painfully conscious that I still haven’t blogged about it, and my several hundred photographs languish unseen. It’s perverse.Of course, it’s the very richness of the trip that makes it so overwhelming to think about putting together a blog entry. Not to mention that we moved to a new flat a few weeks ago, and that we have no internet connection. The answer is to fire it all out in isolated little bullets of wonderment and fascination, rather than in one big indiscriminate bombing raid. We were in Canada for over three weeks and … read on »
Roger Scruton on Conceptual Art & JAR on Music
Last September, I had a debate with Brian Rowan in the comments of one of my blog posts. The debate was about music: whether you can say, for example, that Stravinsky is better than James Blunt. I said yes, you can, and Brian said no, you can’t. Well, I saw this article in the American Spectator a few days ago, by Roger Scruton, an interesting thinker who has appeared on this blog twice before. It’s mainly about visual art rather than music, but I believe the argument stands for any kind of art. He says it so much better than I do. Here’s an excerpt:
Increasingly, many teachers of the humanities agree with the untutored opinion of their incoming students, that … read on »
©2010 Alistair Robinson