In All branches of the art world, in fact in all creative fields there is alway the chicken and egg question. Who came first - the chicken or the egg - or who copied from who, or more sutely, who was influenced by who and did they know that they were when they were…

Concious or unconcious, in tribute or as a ripoff - nothing is new under the sun.

Seriously - no matter what - anything you do, think, create, compose, paint  or invent - has been done before by someone else.

Deceptively Simple has a great post about other bloggers dealing with one piece of music heard in another.

I am just joining in.

I have been wanting to congratulate Alex Ross From the Rest Is Noise, of Whom I am a faithful reader, for being included in this truly amazing group of people by the MacArthur Foundation, and winning one of their 2008 fellowships. it is not possible to comment on Alex’s blog, so I am allowing myself a personal word here.

This is what they say about him:

Music Critic offering both highly specialized and casual readers new ways of thinking about the music of the past and its place in our future.

The people on this list are truly amazing (I know this is the second time that I have used that exact phrase, I am at a lack of words) in their accomplishments, and being around the same age of most of the fellowship winners I am even more amazed that my peers so to speak, have accomplished so much, and are leading in both research and art.

So, Alex, Heartfelt congratulations!

The winner of the Iron Composer 2008, Hermes Camacho,

Title: Impressions of Wallpaper,

Performer: Monument Piano Trio.

In case you are wondering what The Iron Composer is here is an excerpt form ArtSaha:

Based on a concept by ANALOG arts ensemble, Iron Composer Omaha is a quick draw composition contest inspired by the Iron Chef television show. Five composers are given five hours to complete a piece based on a secret musical ingredient for a surprise instrumentation.

Funded by the Robert M. Spire endowment, Iron Composer Omaha debuted in 2007 as a competition for Nebraska composers between the ages of 18 and 26.

In 2008, the competition went national and was open to all U.S. residents.

Source AnaBlog

courtesy of pigpogm

So we know that most composers don’t play (maybe in private they do) and most musicians don’t compose (maybe for the draw), Which is a puzzle in my mind.

In order to compose you have got to have some playing experience, you have to understand music and have to be versatile in the language you are writing - in short , you need to be a musician.

The other way round is true to - interpreting other peoples compisitions and bringing them to life would need a certain sensitivity and knowledge of music - So why wouldn’t a musician compose?

Sandow has a delightful post about Joan Towers 70th birthday concert in New York last week, in which, after her music was played for half the concert, She came onstage and announced that the rest of the concert would be compositions of the musicians on stage. It was apparently wonderful.(read the whole of Sandow’s post here)

I can imagine a whole different quality to the music, composed by someone who usually plays other peoples pieces. Something very fresh. (I don’t know why cucumbers and lettuce come to mind…)

Courtesy of Toptechwriter

Us Humans like naming things. We name streets and neighbourhoods and cities and states, countries continents planets… need I go on?
Usually named after humans of influence (or Mythological gods in the case of the planets) For some reason, as Mathew from Soho The Dog points out, we are always naming things after people that were politically and militarily influential.
It turns out though, that there is another trend. The Moon’s geographical features are named after scientists and the artist got Mercury, and women go Venus.

Mercury is a heavily cratered planet, with perhaps the greatest number of craters of any body in the solar system. After much discussion and no little controversy, the Mercury Task Group decided to name these craters for great human contributors to the arts and humanities, including writers, Composers, painters, sculptors, and architects. This system is consistent with previous decisions made for the Moon, Mars, and Venus, on all of which the craters have human names. In terms of commemoration of human achievement, Mercury will be the complement of the Moon, with the latter honoring scientists and scholars and the former honoring the creative and artistic heroes of mankind. Initially, all craters photographed by Mariner 10 and having diameters of 100km or more will be named, as well as selected prominent or geologically significant craters in the 40 to 100km size range.
…
A number of scholars are assisting the Task Group in selecting these names. The distribution by fields will be approximately 50% for authors, 30% for artists, and 20% for composers. (David Morrison, “IAU Nomenclature for Topographic Features on Mercury,” Icarus 28, 605-606 (1976))

I am not sure if I like the percentage’s of distribution, but at least the arts are getting some recognition.
It also makes a lot of sense that mercury is the planet for us. In Palmistry the third finger from the thumb is Mercury - and it represents communication and creativity.
Go over to Soho the Dog to read more about this.