I love Twitter. I do. Wholeheartedly, unashamedly, and even though it most assuredly marks me as one of those sorry ancients.
Prime example: Vijay Iyer just sent out a tweet to Seth Colter Wall's blog, directing us to his genius cover of MIA's "Galang" with Marcus Gilmore and Stephen Crump. Go find it, right away. But be sure to read Seth's entry (entitled "Difficult Listening Hour") that precedes the music. Buried in there is a very incisive read on Wordless Music etc. that should give a ton of food for thought to the new (classical) music crowd:
He writes:
"New music movements in both the jazz and classical worlds suffer from lackluster PR inroads when it comes to the non-specialized, young creative class. Before a sorta silly Q&A I conducted with the Fiery Furnaces at my paying gig (heh), I talked to Matthew Friedberger about this phenomenon. When the Furnaces played NYC recently, they had Newspeak, an alt-classical act, open for them. It was clear to me that the proper indie crowd that showed up for the Furnaces had a hard time determining whether Newspeak was cool or not. (They are.) This is because the instrumental exactitude that these kids carry over from their conservatory training is rather observable on stage. They don't look at all casual about playing their instruments. They look totally involved in a way that might be interpreted as embarrassing, depending on your poseur-related baggage..."
