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Paul Lansky

Paul Lansky Books

Musical composer

Paul Lansky is a renowned musical composer, born on June 18, 1944. His works span a variety of musical styles, including electronic music, classical music, and jazz. Lansky's music is known for its innovation and experimental nature, having a profound impact on the contemporary music world.

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“I can't say that there's a common practice that has to do with pitch language or with the way pieces are put together because today, anything is fair game. As far as I'm concerned, my own common practice is a piece that engages the attention of listeners from beginning to end, and doesn't rely on or expect the listener to zone out.”

Way I Can Ends Today Together Games Language My Own Common Attention Practice Pieces Concerned Fairs Rely Zone Listeners Fair Game

Author:Paul Lansky

“I think you'll find a significant number of people who decide not to enter competitions because their music just won't fit in that world.”

People Thinking World Numbers Fit Competition Significant Significant Numbers

Author:Paul Lansky

“I think of myself as an experimentalist even though much of my music sounds logical and normal, in a sense.”

Thinking Sound Normal Logical

Author:Paul Lansky

“The experimentation that I do has a lot to do with tunes and pitches and ways that melodies are put together.”

Way Together Tunes Melody Experimentation

Author:Paul Lansky

“I came up in the '60s; that was a time when there was a revolution going on in music. Stravinsky had become a twelve-tone composer; even Aaron Copland was writing twelve-tone pieces at that time!”

Writing Pieces Revolution Tone Composer Twelve One Piece Stravinsky

Author:Paul Lansky

“I think of myself as experimenting with different ways of structuring pieces. A lot of it has to do with the computer, of course.”

Thinking Way Different Courses Pieces Computer Different Ways

Author:Paul Lansky

“Even today, I notice that some of my pieces are explicitly tonal; there are actually tonics and dominants. And then there are pieces that are not tonal. I tend to think that there's a dichotomy that has to do with the way pitches are structured.”

Thinking Way Today Pieces Dichotomy

Author:Paul Lansky

“Sometimes I imagine that there's a binary division going on in contemporary practice that has to do with chromatic versus diatonic. I notice that I tend to listen in a diatonic sense, that I register a pitch as a member of a diatonic scale, even in a non-tonal context.”

Sometimes Practice Imagine Members Scales Contemporary Division Imagine That Versus Register Binary

Author:Paul Lansky

“There are, however, composers whose music can only be heard in a chromatic sense. George Perle, for example, wrote pieces that you might think of as leaning in a tonal direction but it's very hard to register a pitch as, say, the sixth degree of a scale, whereas in much of my music I think that's often relatively easy to do.”

Thinking Hard Might Easy Pieces Heard Example Degrees Scales Composer Register Leaning In

Author:Paul Lansky

“It's very interesting for me to listen to music with my wife. She's not a musician but she very often makes comments about pieces in ways that are similar to what I'm thinking.”

Thinking Way Interesting Pieces Wife Musician My Wife Comment Very Interesting Listening To Music

Author:Paul Lansky

“If the music has a logic of its own - as I think my music has - an open-minded listener will apprehend and understand.”

Ifs Thinking Logic Listeners Open Minded

Author:Paul Lansky

“Very often, when you're listening to a piece for the first time, you're listening through a model of other pieces that you know. At a certain point, a piece becomes idiosyncratic and you start to understand it on its own terms.”

Knows Firsts Certain Term Pieces Listening Models First Time

Author:Paul Lansky

“With a piece of classical music by Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven, on first listening I'm referencing it with other pieces by them that I know. I think that most people do this - they listen to pieces through the filter of pieces they already know.”

People Thinking Knows Firsts Pieces Listening Classical Music Filters Referencing

Author:Paul Lansky

“With repeated listenings, a piece eventually becomes its own being. I very often say to students that this is like meeting a person for the first time. When you first meet someone, you reference that person with others who are similar; but, as you get to know that person better, you begin to understand his unique qualities.”

Knows Firsts Persons Quality Pieces Students Listening Unique First Time Meetings

Author:Paul Lansky

“I don't think of my music as being about something.”

Author:Paul Lansky

“I don't think there's something that you have to 'get' with my music. It tends toward the dramatic side rather than the narrative.”

Thinking Sides Narrative Dramatic

Author:Paul Lansky

“I found myself recycling ideas and I saw that I had to invent reasons to compose a piece rather than start from some exciting idea.”

Ideas Reason Found Saws Pieces Exciting Recycling

Author:Paul Lansky

“I had been creating music on tape that was to be listened to as a recording, rather than through performance.”

Creating Performances Tape Creating Music

Author:Paul Lansky

“I came to what I think of as the critical problem: the aging process of a piece of music. I noticed in the '70s that pieces I wrote would sound great the first time I listened to them and then on repeated hearings they sounded older and older until what seemed exciting and vibrant on first listening became stale.”

Thinking Firsts Problem Process Sound Pieces Listening First Time Exciting Aging Hearing Critical Stale Aging Process

Author:Paul Lansky

“I noticed things in my computer music that were getting old, and I started to figure out that this has to do with the way the listener interacts with music.”

Way Figures Computer Listeners Getting Old

Author:Paul Lansky

“I didn't want my music to be seen as examples of an electronic culture; I just wanted them to be thought of as pieces of music.”

Want Wanted Culture Pieces Example

Author:Paul Lansky

“When you have performers, there's the uniqueness of live performance and what performers do in concerts.”

Performances Concerts Performers Uniqueness Live Performance

Author:Paul Lansky

“I never thought that I would write orchestra music, but in fact I did write a group of orchestra pieces.”

Writing Facts Pieces Groups Orchestra

Author:Paul Lansky

“I wrote a lot of software to do various kinds of special things, and I loved the idea of composing pieces in an electronic studio.”

Kind Ideas Pieces Special Various Studios Software Composing Special Things

Author:Paul Lansky

“I was hired for a really excellent academic job early in my life; I was twenty-five when I started at Princeton and I got tenure early on. I really didn't deserve this; I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

Jobs Five Happened Deserve Twenties Excellent Academic Right Time Right Place Twenty Five Tenure Princeton

Author:Paul Lansky

“My perspective on the academic world is very favorable. I did certain kinds of things that I could never have done otherwise.”

World Kind Done Certain Perspective Academic

Author:Paul Lansky

“I was very fortunate to be at a wealthy institution. I do recognize the drawbacks and limitations of the academic world but it's basically the world I grew up in and there's no way in which I would have been able to survive in the so-called real world.”

World Way Has Beens Real Able Grew Grew Up Institutions Limitation Fortunate Wealthy Real World Academic Drawbacks

Author:Paul Lansky

“I've had a lot of fun writing percussion music. It feels quite similar to writing computer music. But I found myself in the role of choreographer in a way, worrying about physical movement and such.”

Way Feels Writing Found Fun Roles Worry Movement Computer Choreographers Percussion

Author:Paul Lansky

“It's always a thrill for me to see new versions of my pieces on YouTube.”

Pieces Versions Thrill Youtube

Author:Paul Lansky

“I've been really fortunate to have Bridge Records interested in publishing my music for the past 25 years. Most of my music is available in their catalog.”

Years Past Records Music Is Available Bridges Fortunate Publishing

Author:Paul Lansky

About the Author

Born: June 18, 1944
Known for: Musical composer
Quotes: 30

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