A self-help guide to becom­ing a composer

In the first part of this arti­cle, I talked about some of the prob­lems with study­ing com­po­si­tion in acad­e­mia, and I offered some alter­na­tive ways that com­posers might cul­ti­vate their craft more effec­tively (and prob­a­bly less expen­sively too). Here, I’m pro­vid­ing a sort of Top 10 list of life lessons for com­posers. Real­iz­ing that you have no rea­son what­so­ever to lis­ten to my advice, I’m try­ing to couch this in terms of wis­dom I have received from oth­ers or that I can back up some­how, with attri­bu­tion when pos­si­ble. This is by no means com­pre­hen­sive, but these are def­i­nitely issues that I think every com­poser needs to inter­nal­ize for them­selves in one way or the other. Con­tinue read­ing “Why Com­posers Should Drop Out of Uni­ver­sity (and What They Should Be Learn­ing), Part 2” »

So today I read in the Globe and Mail that sci­en­tists are increas­ingly find­ing bio­log­i­cal and genetic sup­port for the age-old adages of love (Siri Agrell, “Sluts and Ver­min”, The Globe and Mail, 26 Apr 2007, http://​www​.the​globe​and​mail​.com/​s​e​r​v​l​e​t​/​s​t​o​r​y​/​R​T​G​A​M​.​2​0​0​7​0​4​2​6​.​w​x​l​s​e​x​s​t​u​d​i​e​s​2​6​/​B​N​S​t​o​r​y​/​l​i​f​e​F​a​m​i​l​y​/​h​ome).

For exam­ple, female mice who play hard to get tend to inspire faith­ful­ness in their mates, as opposed to those who put out right away. There seems to be a bio­log­i­cal rea­son why women that are unavail­able are more desir­able, and this builds faith­ful­ness in men. Inter­est­ing. Con­tinue read­ing “Love, Free Will, and the Use­less­ness of Art” »