About 20 years ago (when Durand scores were prohibitively pricey), as a poor college student I played pachinko in Japan with my dad & that got me about $300, with which I went to a local music store to buy the score of Messiaen's "Vingt Regards..." It's a depressing revelation, but not surprising.

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 3d ago

today in cultural decline gambling eclipses arts and entertainment combined film box office $8.87B recorded music $11.5B live music $18.51B books $14.6B museums $16.4B add it up: $70B less than half of the $166B Americans wagered on sports fortune.com/2026/07/26/g...

That I am missing concerts to attend in NYC these next few weeks is one of many side effects of my current job ending. I hope I will come out of it all by writing pieces that will be mounted in that city.

In other news, I am glad I didn’t upgrade my OS; it turns out that, after all these years, I still need to open Finale for a project I am undertaking for a client. Though the moment I start to use it, I can feel in my right wrist why this software nearly caused tendinitis.

Re: criticism in general, I am always reminded of how my music was once written as a "waste of fine instrumental talent." Can't say much about movie criticisms, but as far as music criticism is concerned, there are many so-called "critics" who don't even know how to listen. And no, [1/3]

Note to self: an entry on vertical hairpin + directional arpeggio to be added in the next edition of my #LilyPond Cookbook (Earlier attempts on this post rendered the image pitch dark...oops)

These days I am on LinkedIn not so much for its intended use, but for some thrills of chancing upon two posts on my phone screen that are so contrasting that it’s vertiginous and oddly aesthetic.

I will be working on updating LilyPond Snippets Cookbook in mid-August to ensure the codes run on the most recent LilyPond version. Currently I’m composing and trying to meet a deadline for which I got an extension under an extenuating circumstance, but I don’t want to delay…

Regarding an email communication I received somewhere, I am thinking: on one hand, free meals are great. On the other hand, I won’t probably add a lot to the conversations…

I am thinking of redoing my website at some point, and Astro was something I came across, then I came across this, which is really cool to see. Maybe might I host my contemporary notation cookbook on my website?

charli xkcd@ky.fyi · 3w ago

astro-lilypond v0.11 supports loading `.ly` files into an Astro content collection. it extracts metadata like `title` and `composer` from files so you can access it easily for page markup lilypond.ky.fyi/guides/colle...

Stumbled upon something I wrote in 2017, in which, reacting to an article I read, I wrote paragraphs of reflection, which is actually my criticism/skepticism on AI back then. Nine years ago. Was my thought too soon? Did I stop growing since then? Maybe will edit and put on my website at some point.

This month has been a month that, by some accident, tests what friendship is. A while ago I had a chat with someone who had a rather strict definition of it owning to their background. I was glad I wasn’t alone when feeling severely conflicted when I came across the word after all that happened.

While the world may be crumbling into pieces, and I certainly am uncertain what will happen with my life come September, being able to help someone with Scheme codes certainly helps with my mood a little bit.

Yes, I am taking a break from my other social media account. I am not sure when I will return to it. I thought doing so would do me some good detoxing, but then another “professional” social media is essentially in the paradigm of anti-AI people vs. AI-glorifying people. Too dizzying.

I do not, and as a musician, the only word I use that begins with these first five letters is “Trumpet” and even then I rush my fingers on the keyboard to get to the last two letters, feeling enormous guilt for a split second each time

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 3w ago

do people use the term "trumponomics"?

Some thoughts. While I was at my first grad school, my composition teacher used to tell me: "You sound like you are having to defend yourself" He was referring to me presenting my work in the Composition Seminar and students back then were overly critical, prone to attacking whoever was [1/5]

Very appropriate

Cats with Jobs ⚒️@catworkers.bsky.social · 3w ago

They're music critics now. 📸 Twitter user cat_anko3.

I had my screen protector replaced less than two weeks ago and it’s already cracked. I don’t remember throwing the phone on the floor. Maybe it couldn’t handle what I was going through 🤷🏻‍♂️

These days, despite all that is happening, I am nonetheless writing, and oddly enough—especially these days many posturing pieces abound—the piece isn’t about anything. It is perhaps about something, but that isn’t what’s important and I feel liberated, for once.

Great news for LilyPonders! Thank you @jeanas.bsky.social !!!

Jean Abou Samra@jeanas.bsky.social · last mo.

People told me that the small wiki I run (https:// wiki.lilypond.community) was regularly down or unresponsive. After peeking into the request log, I blocked the crawler that feeds Meta's AI. Load average instantly down from around 50 to under 0.5.

And the work by Delage, "Sept haï-kaïs" (it wasn't just Messiaen who had a title like that!) for soprano and instrumental ensemble, was a piece that I came across in the great hardship I experienced in 2021, and now I am at such a juncture again, I am fondly reminded of it: youtu.be/MjN627KiYsc?...

Maurice Delage - Sept haï-kaïs

YouTube video by Precipotato

youtu.be

Paul Griffiths@disgwylfa.bsky.social · last mo.

Shoe polish (Lion Noir was his father's business) enabled Maurice Delage to travel to India and Japan in 1912 and learn lessons he applied in his music.

Met with someone whom I got to know over the past few years at the workplace. She treated me for the breakfast. It was heartfelt. I then came home, took shower, then took a very long nap. I actually don’t know how long I slept, but it must be two hours. I have a few more emails to write.

Thankfully algorithm seems to understand that I have no interest in soccer/football.

I wish I could be in full agreement with this.

Matt Seybold@mattseybold.bsky.social · last mo.

“THE UNIVERSITY IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF A SOCIAL SYSTEM THAT HAS GIVEN MORE OPPORTUNITY, MORE FREEDOM, MORE HOPE TO MORE PEOPLE THAN ANY OTHER SYSTEM YET DEVISED.”

Recently it’s been as though I am having one-on-one meetings with devils who each brings the feelings: betrayed, forsaken, worthless, the inability to trust people, annoyed by many things so easily, and it’s been exhausting to send them away. At least Dorian’s been taking nebulizer like a champ.

I thought of something and I read Trakl. I wonder which sonata by Schubert that is referenced in this poem. Might be one of the late sonatas? www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57772/...

6/26/26 Palindrome Day

I cherish the memory of conducting the Japanese premiere of her "Siren Song" in the summer of 2008 at the Pacific Music Festival, where back then there was a program for composers. Juhi Bansal, Pui-shan Cheung, she, and I were the fellows that year. What a lineup!

VAN Magazine@vanmusicmag.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Jacob Greenberg specializes in new music, but even for him Wu Lang's works are "beyond the beyond." In this week's VAN, he explores the blend of utter surprise and miraculous logic in her compositions: van-magazine.com/mag/wang-lu/

The more I read something like this on a daily basis now, the more I am convinced that humanity as a whole is: 1. Too lazy to work hard, and 2. Too busy to work hard. (NB: I said this exact thing to someone in a conversation on a completely different topic)

Phil Gentry@pmgentry.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My kid’s social studies teacher used AI to create these weird, overly elaborate assignments (an 8pp paper for 7th graders) with tons of (again, AI-generated) admonishments not to use AI,and threats to use AI detectors, and then graded them all with AI.

Something HUGE is coming in the fall 👀

Scott Gleason, PhD@buddytwo.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Now with an October 13th publication date!!!

Intriguing?