I’ve finally got started with SoundCloud, and when using the upload function I realised that this could be a great illustration of how simple the question about file sharing really is: When uploading you choose between ‘all rights reserved’ or ‘creative commons’ for the license of the uploaded file. Then you can also choose if others are allowed to download your clip or [...]

I’m currently reading John Cage:s Composition in Retrospect. It is mostly written in his characteristic “mesostics”, a form of art text with linked lines of prose poetry. A key word in Cage:s production is ‘non-intention’; he wanted to free himself from “memory, taste, likes and dislikes”. He often used chance operations to attain non-intention, but [...]

It was said of Mendelssohn that he was too fond of the dead, when he frequently performed older music. Where is that attitude today? It seems to me that today too much effort is put in preserving the great tradition from two centuries back. I don’t blame Mendelssohn for contributing to this interest in the [...]

Previously the concept of remix was mainly related to “[...] audio mixing to compose an alternate master recording of a song[...]” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix). But in contemporary art music the ideas behind the remixing and sometimes also the word “remix” has lately been used also on purely acoustic composing processes. And often this involves reusing music from the old masters in [...]

Can music contain a code that can be decoded by the listener? [...]

As you may have read here before, I am very interested in conceptual art and its possible application in music. A basic description of conceptual art would be that the ideas or concepts behind the art work takes precedence over concerns about aesthetics and craftsmanship. Traditionally aestheticism and craftsmanship have been very highly rated so a radical form of conceptual art [...]

Yesterday we had a national election here in Sweden, and this have lead me to think of my relation, as a composer, to politics. As I have written before, and perhaps can get back to soon, I think of contemporary art music as being essentially about ideas and not about craftsmanship. (But craftsmanship can still, as ever, [...]

Even for the audience that is skeptical about the post-Mahler music I assume there is a demand for new music. Even if there is a vast source, it is still limited and growing older and supposedly more distant from the performers and listeners. I myself have a fascination for the 19th century which I think [...]

When I use the dubious concept of computer-generated music (most recently here), a remark is in its place: A computer is just a tool, although an excellent one; a computer can’t create music. The creator if any is the programmer/composer which uses the computer tool. Here again I think the concepts of rules, chance and choice can [...]

I think the most important part of a composition is the idea behind it. The craftsmanship is also important but at this point in history there is of course vastly amounts of music already; and to justify the creation of more music I think you have to back up with a pretty good idea. What [...]