My friend jacob has been kind enough to add my own weekly column of writing to his webpage.  The contents of my column are somewhat ludicrous, but that is, of course, all intentional.  I'll probably write a serious column sometime.  Tune in next week for another majestic tromp through life.  Here's the link for this week's column of Rummaging in the Other Man's Trash:

http://jdunmanhere.web1000.com/allen.htm

Eventually I might be able to persuade Mr. Dunman to include a little sound clip of one of my midis to play on my column page.

IMPORTANT:  You should stop by and see all the other interesting and cool things on his webpage.  Here's the link to the main page:

http://jdunmanhere.web1000.com/

LJ Interests meme results

1. aulis sallinen:
   This is a living composer from Finland that I like. I would like to hear his 6th symphony performed. It is entitled "The Dreams of Gandalf."
2. charles ives:
   This is the first "originally American" composer, in my opinion. He sometimes wrote in a very accessible style, but also wrote some very experimental music. There is too much to say about him right here, and unfortunately a lot of people in America are still not ready to listen to music of this kind. He was very far ahead of his time, and he is still way ahead the ears of most of the general American public. Very sad.
3. e. a. poe:
   One of my favorite authors. I think I like "The Masque of Red Death" the best. He was a strong influence on all the important writers of horror fiction that came after him, including perhaps my favorite, H.P. Lovecraft (who writes more of a cosmic/sci-fi horror).
4. franz schreker:
   This is a Jewish composer that the 3rd Reich essentially destroyed. Damn them. They kicked him out of his job in 1933, and banned the performance of his music. He suffered a heart attack the next year and was finished. I haven't heard much of his music, but what I have heard I really enjoyed. His musical style is related to Mahler and Strauss, and course Ricky Wagner.
5. harry partch:
   My favorite American hobo composer. He was experimental, and his music is very ritualistic and dramatic. Like a modern Greek drama. He took the normal musical scale of twelve pitches and widened it to include 53(?) or approximately that number. Lots of microtones. He built his own instruments too, usually out of stuff he found during his hobo travels out west.
6. jean sibelius:
   A great composer from Finland who is influenced by the Nationalism of his country and the nature around him. I think my favorite symphony of his is still no. 4, probably because it is the darkest and most mysterious (he had just recovered from throat cancer when he wrote it). I like them all though. He drank a lot too. They had to drag him out of a bar so that he could finish his violin concerto.
7. maurice ravel:
   A french composer that I like. Great orchestrator too. His ballet Daphnis and Cloe has plenty of musical material that has been scavenged and put into movie soundtracks. John Williams is a criminal (although he probably steals from Prokofiev the most). At least some people have something they enjoy that they can call classical music, even if it is almost all stolen.
8. purcell:
   British baroque composer that I'm very fond of. The end of his opera Dido and Aeneas is very moving. He didn't live too long, probably because he wife got mad at him in the winter of 1695 (he was having an affair?) and shoved him out in cold. He got sick and died.
9. samuel barber:
   An American composer who has more ties musically to europe than to America, but his music is good and strong, so I like it. You can still tell it is American though...there is just something about the way it sounds. He wrote the famous Adagio for Strings, which was probably a love song to one of the guys he was...well...you know. He was a rainbowy-kind of person, if you catch my drift. But I like his music, not what he did with his personal life.
10. terry goodkind:
    A fantasy author that I liked reading. I wish he would have finished his series already, but I guess the fantastical quest for more money drives him on. If he ever finishes the sword of truth series I might pick it back up. I've read the first 6 or 7 books.
    
    I could have a said a lot more about each of these ten people, but I'm a little pressed for time, and I need to spend the next hour reading up on Charles Ives' Symphony No. 4 for my seminar.

Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list.