By Dan Visconti I am sure there are many people whose first encounters with contemporary music were not difficult at all, but I was not one of them; that kind of wonder and excitement of new sonic possibilities kicked in only gradually for me, and it was not until I was an older teen that I had really developed a taste for the music of our own time.

By Spencer Topel Various fledgling composers will fantasize about the proverbial "break" that will propel their music, persona, and talents into the stratosphere; but the opportunities come few and far between.

Janis, who comments often on my posts (and who wants to be known here just by her first name), e-mailed me with a fabulous idea. In a moment, I'm going to turn this post over to her, and simply show...

Contrary to recent reports, Steven Tyler is not leaving Aerosmith. Tyler joined guitarist Joe Perry at one of Perry’s recent shows promoting his solo album Have Guitar, Will Travel for an ad hoc performance of “Walk This Way”. Tyler subsequently announced that he had not left Aerosmith...

During the mid-to-late 1980’s in the UK there were a bunch of bands playing intelligent, jangly, melodic pop music. A lot of so-called people found most of these bands (like the Loft, the Bodines, Close Lobsters) to be overly awkward, unpleasantly earnest or too pencil-necked to be pop musicians;...

While it is nothing new for an American composer to find himself living overseas, I've noticed that most composers (and Americans in general) have a very limited conception of "where the action is" in Europe.

By Colin Holter Presenting classical music in the White House sends a positive message, and to quibble about the details of that message is perhaps to miss the point of it. Still, let's take a look at a few things.

Finding out that the release of the Brunettes new album Paper Dolls is somewhat imminent was enough to cheer us up on a cloudy, slightly manic Tuesday. Looks like it comes out in February of next year, which will be here before you know it once we get the holidays out of the way. Even [...]

By Frank J. Oteri I've always wanted music to say more than it might ultimately be capable of saying.