My first Tiny Desk Concert
The harmonies of Ivan and Alyosha, which are, of course, not names of anyone in the band. Dostoyevsky, apparently. Mellow but a good time, especially when you can hear them warming up as you sit at your new desk and then walk feet down the hallway to see them play for you…
As usual, expect the performance to appear soon on Tiny Desk's page. In the meantime, hear one of the songs they played, Easy to Love.
Along with seeing music in the office, another adapation in my two NPR weeks has been finding the ropes of a more collaborative environment. Seeing the band on Wednesday, a recent Alex Ross line came to mind. Ross was grappling with the use of music in dance — the discomfort he felt at dance performance when always, to a music person like himself, "the movements of the dancers seemed at odds with the rhythm and the structure of the music." I've felt the same way for years. But I liked where Ross landed on matters. Writing on a new show in New York:
"The choreography imposed a different, quicker kind of logic, but by now I've seen enough dance to understand that music need not always set the pace: as so often in the art of collaboration, a loss of creative independence can be a gain in creative power."
