In the past month I have written two pieces. Rather, I thought I wrote two pieces of music. At best, new music comes with difficulty in recent years. This wasn’t always so, but as S. J. Perelman said, “with each piece you use up a part of yourself.” And having written about 225 pieces of music in my life so […]
As I get older, a certain aspect of wisdom has come my way. Being someone who will never completely surrender their “Peter Pan Principle” this does not mean I will all together submit to advancing age. I only intend to assimilate its (aging) better aspects, and like a fledgling alchemist, I will try to mix some childlike wonder with a
I am a fan of two late Southern writers who, as it turns out, were lifelong friends: Shelby Foote and Walker Percy. Actually, I had a correspondence with Shelby Foote about 30 years ago when I was young and seeking a mentor. We exchanged letters and spoke on the phone mostly about his writing and my music. We never met
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I have been thinking a lot lately about why some music attracts my interest and other music does not. Then I thought about the music of two of my contemporaries who for reasons that will soon become obvious will remain nameless. Both of these contemporaries are solid technical musicians and prolific composers. They are also both very well known. Musician
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picture this by reynold d. philipsek For the past two years (while I was engaged with the filming and distribution of the “A Life Well Played” documentary), I was also busy putting together an album of what I could accurately call a true distillation of my musical oeuvre. This entailed not only the development of new pieces, but the remodeling
My mother was a very keen music fan. Even in my pre-school years I remember listening to her records with her on her tiny Hi-Fi set. She collected 45 RPM 7 inch singles. In those days the “singles” had picture sleeves which added to the fascination for me. Her favorites were Hank Williams (Senior, that is, not his less talented
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