We speak often about “tradition” in music, particularly in the world of the military and wind band. We invoke it to justify repertoire choices, organisational structures, even aesthetic priorities. Yet we rarely pause to ask a more uncomfortable question: who…
The Milan Lectures, part 3 David Whitwell On the origins of Symbols for Dynamics Here we discuss the symbols for dynamics used in the notation of music—the lower case p of the Italian word piano and the lower case f…
The Milan Lectures, part 2 David Whitwell Where does Music Exist? In the first lecture in this series I mentioned that Aristotle invented a new branch of philosophy called Aesthetics. He also was the first to point out that if…
The Milan Lectures, part 1 David Whitwell What is the Purpose of Performance? This is a very important decision for which every conductor must make a choice in preparing a performance: Am I going to give an aesthetic performance or…