Welcome!

People have urged me for years to publish my thoughts about music. Well, ok, two people and I think they were just tired of getting the rants via email! But what the heck, I've enjoyed reading blogs for years and I certainly have thoughts about music. Let me give you some background: I've been a professional musician all my life, most of it as a classical guitarist. I studied with some great maestros of the guitar: Jose Tomas, Oscar Ghiglia and Pepe Romero. I also have composed my whole life, though not so much as a professional composer as just to get something out of my system. I also spent several years studying musicology which was enormously fascinating. Nowadays I do the occasional public performance but spend more time composing and writing program notes for concert series.

But enough about boring old me. What about music? We live in interesting times: the recording industry seems to be in deep trouble, classical music seems to be in a long decline, pop music seems rather vacuous and I'm starting to have doubts about this whole recording thing. You know, whenever you go into a public place these days you are assaulted by some horrific recorded music. Old news, I know, but we are still living with the consequences.

What kind of blog will this be? The Instapundity kind with links and very brief comments? An Alex Ross type blog with longer entries and lots of photos? An Ann Althouse type blog with linked items and thought-provoking comments (and furious wars in the comment section)? I guess things will just have to evolve naturally. I tend to write 500 to 1000 word essays from time to time, but I suspect there will be lots of linkage as well. The focus will be on music, but I will wander into other things as well. Events will dictate coverage.

So hello and welcome. I will put up the first essay post in a couple of minutes...