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David McMullin

@mcmullin.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1.5K following 285 posts

Composer of music in search of a spirit of wonder. Exploring here for creative community and conversation. (I'll get my news and outrage elsewhere.) david-mcmullin.com musicians.today/@mcmullin

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Reposted by David McMullin
Han-earl Park @hanearlpark.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I leave it to the enterprising to tab this one out. (Heads-up: I don’t tune to EADGBE.)
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Now on Bandcamp and Mirlo: Crossings, my quartet for unpitched percussion, performed (live) by Talujon: davidmcmullin.bandcamp.com/album/crossi... mirlo.space/david-mcmull...
davidmcmullin.bandcamp.com
Crossings, by David McMullin
1 track album
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Don’t take my word for it—Stan says so!
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
As I slowly get my music onto platforms where you can hear it, here are my Li Bai Songs, settings in Mandarin of Tang dynasty poetry, for baritone, violin and guitar: davidmcmullin.bandcamp.com/album/li-bai...
davidmcmullin.bandcamp.com
Li Bai Songs, by David McMullin
6 track album
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garybutler.bsky.social @garybutler.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
AI in scientific publishing: Slower, worse, and more expensive
There’s a saying in the management world, popularized by NASA administrator Daniel Goldin in the 1990s, that the goal of technological improvements is to make products faster, better, and cheaper. Alt...
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Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Thinking about what Muddy Waters said to the Art Ensemble of Chicago after watching them perform at the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival (possibly the performance recorded for Bap-Tizum): "I don't know what y'all was doin', but y'all was *doin' it!*"
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Haden Plouffe, composer/pianist/rambler @haydnpuff.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Always:
People might bring up Vincent van Gogh as an example of a painter who did great work in spite of, or because of, his suffering. I like to think that van Gogh would have been even more prolific and even greater if he wasn't so restricted by the things tormenting him. I don't think it was pain that made him so great, I think painting brought him whatever happiness he had.
—David Lynch
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kate wehwalt @katewagner.wehwalt.net · 11/05/2026
If anyone has any suggestions for support groups that are not on reddit I would love to hear them. Re CFS I’d like to talk to people who have recovered also. (I don’t buy the idea that no one recovers from it)
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Question for harp players: At quarter-note = 44, how hard is it to make all the pedal changes in this passage? Is there a way of notating it to make it easier? Or if not, if I have to leave out or change some notes, which ones are causing the most trouble? Thank you! #Harp #NewMusic
Four measures of music notation for harp, from an orchestral score in progress. There's a chord, one bar of rest (5/8 meter at quarter-note = 44), and then an arpeggiated phrase. As written, it requires 5 pedal changes in a pretty short amount of time.
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
Massachusetts: can we have this? Do we?
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🌅 Patricia Wallinga 🌇 @pwallinga.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
I believe that 80% of all potential problems in new music are the composer's fault, and I work my ass off to fix those 80% before they end up in anyone's hands, but by god I'll hold my ground on that 20% and I've regretted every time I didn't.
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
It turns out there are people out there who dedicate their lives to developing the tremendous skills and sensitivity it takes to make beautiful music out of dots on paper. I don’t have the discipline to do what they do, so instead I make dots on paper for them.
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Question for string players: What’s the clearest, most efficient way to indicate to a string section that a long held note should be played as if continuously, changing bow direction as necessary, but as subtly as possible, without everyone rearticulating together?
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David Howl @shinydh.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
And now I'm halfway through my sixth year of the outside world seeming like a massive threat - oh, because it is - and my world becoming very small as a result. #StillCoviding #FiveYearsOn
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
“We belong to one another and at the heart of all our catastrophes is a crisis of love: of ourselves, of one another as ourselves and of the Divine.”
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Many thanks to the one brave soul (it was @muz4now.com) who found my Bandcamp page and dropped some coins in the hat there! I don’t have a lot there yet, but what I do have is all name-your-price, i.e. free if you wish. So if you too are curious, help yourself: davidmcmullin.bandcamp.com
davidmcmullin.bandcamp.com
David McMullin
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
There’s one little run in the rosary choral piece I’m composing that resembles other music just enough, in melodic contour, tempo, rhythm, accentuation pattern, and rhyme, that every time I get there my mind consistently supplies the wrong words…
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Joshua Kosman @joshuakosman.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
New post at On a Pacific Aisle, with thoughts on the beginning of Esa-Pekka Salonen's last lap in San Francisco. pacificaisle.substack.com/p/the-beginn...
pacificaisle.substack.com
The beginning of the end
A superb rendition of Stravinsky's "Firebird" began the final chapter of Esa-Pekka Salonen's San Francisco tenure
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
The other day I made it to the end of part 1 (of 5, after an introduction) of the choral-orchestral piece I started a little over 5 years ago.
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Whenever I see “proslambanomenos” I hear it sung as a solo break for the bass in an a cappella doowop arrangement. As Boethius surely intended.
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Stan Stewart (muz4now) @muz4now.com · 13/05/2025
"Requiem for a Stranger" was my opus in 2021 - you know what was happening then #grief #StrangerRequiem #NowPlaying
muz4now.com
Requiem for a Stranger #StrangerRequiem #NowPlaying
Stan Stewart - @muz4now
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Mike @professorberry.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Some day people are going to wake up and realize that the arts are not valuable because they make you better at math and science--THEY ARE GOOD ON THEIR OWN MERITS and teach kids skills that are far more useful in their daily lives: empathy, cooperation, listening...
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12tone @12tone.nebula.tv · 13/05/2025
Are there cool uses for genAI in art? In theory! Do I have any interest in finding them or seeing other people try to find them? Not at the moment! My decision to view all "AI art" as bad without reservation or qualification is a tactical one, to protect a thing I love from people trying to kill it.
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Mario Godoy @godoymusic.com · 11/03/2025
I have some scores available on Bandcamp! Haven't had much success with it, but it's there for when I need it to be.
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Dr. Garrett Schumann @garrt.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
FINALLY listening to @willmasonmusic.com's super cool new album, which I would also recommend for your @bandcamp.com Friday explorations today newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/hemloc...
newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com
Hemlocks, Peacocks, by Will Mason Quartet
7 track album
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C. René Hirschfeld @hirschfeldcomposer.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
In 2003 my Sonett V for #piano and #percussion was released at collegno label. Now there is a new recording of the same work played by Ragna Schirmer and Matthias Daneck out on Berlin Classics ! Thank you Ragna! www.col-legno.com/en/shop/2021... www.jpc.de/jpcng/classi... #contemporarymusic
col-legno.com
René Hirschfeld - Wandlungen, available via col legno - New colors of music
Sensual musical language: From an English sonnet without words for piano and percussion to a suite for harp and percussion based on Shakespeare.
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Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Ok. Little chat. As we are hitting the 5 year anniversary of Covid lockdowns beginning in 2020, as someone who is permanently disabled by Long Covid, here’s what I’d *love* to see when people talk about the ongoing pandemic and how it effects them:
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Chris Hutchings #ChoirsForClimate @hutchingsmusic.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
An Irish guy called Anselm McDonnell is doing this: don't think he's on Bluesky though. anselmmcdonnell.bandcamp.com/merch
anselmmcdonnell.bandcamp.com
Merch from Anselm McDonnell
Merch from Anselm McDonnell
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Bandcamp Friday has me wondering: Have any composers here tried distributing or selling scores and parts as “merch” on bandcamp (or faircamp/mirlo/jamcoop/bandwagon/etc)?
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
When I hear “content” I think: The bottle exists to carry the wine. The wine does not exist to fill the bottle.
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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
A friend recently mentioned to me that they had seen a D&D style alignment matrix for Boston area intersections. I find myself fascinated by this, and it's late and I'm a bit of a wreck, so here we go in no particular order and with no promises of completeness. 1/?
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Judd Greenstein @juddgreenstein.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Everyone tip double at Veselka tonight
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Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Today's BA newsletter includes a major announcement: WE'RE RELEASING A CECIL TAYLOR ALBUM. More details, some other cool news, and some interesting links for paying subscribers, within. Read, share, subscribe! burningambulance.substack.com/p/links-n-su...
burningambulance.substack.com
Links 'n' Such: February 21, 2025
Plus, an announcement about two new CDs from our label
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
#Violin players, please help me out: Is this playable? Tempo is quarter-note = 68. And is it the good kind of challenging, or is it the curse-the-jerk-who-wrote-this kind of challenging?
1st and 2nd violin parts from a choral/orchestral score, featuring fast scalar and arpeggiated figures, in 32nd-notes
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Jen Wang @jenwang.com · 06/02/2025
Update on my life: Last year, I joined my kids' school's PTA, because they needed a treasurer and I'm good enough with numbers. It was a straightforward, self-contained job: balancing the checkbook for an organization that only did a few fundraisers each year.
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
A milestone I missed when it happened: sometime in the last few months, my work in progress (The Luminous Mysteries, setting all the prayers of the rosary for chorus and orchestra) became the longest composition I have written. #composing
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
I often think about how Mendelssohn had a society for historical music that played pieces by Bach that were then only about 75 years old. A similar group today could do Stockhausen, Babbitt, Xenakis…
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Any #oboe players out there? Here’s a piece waiting to be premiered, played beautifully in this demo recording by Jennifer Slowik: davidmcmullin.bandcamp.com/track/votive More info and PDF score here: david-mcmullin.com/compositions...
davidmcmullin.bandcamp.com
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Addendum: This approach is specifically for your artistic growth only. For marketing and promotion, the opposite applies: for that it’s best to be known as the composer who reliably does some one recognizable thing. Even better if you can pass that thing off as a new -ism and yourself as a founder.
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
The one I’m most proud of right now isn’t finished yet, but here’s another. This is quite different from most of my music, so it’s not very representative, but that’s part of why I like it. makertube.net/w/e47idZD55K...
makertube.net
Another Sun
Another Sun — solo piano — 2018 — 9 minutes David McMullin, composer Jon Sakata, piano Another Sun is dedicated to Dr. Ferdinando Buonanno, a great friend and mentor who has long been an inspiratio...
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Dr. Kendra Preston Leonard (she/her) @kleonardphd.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Brilliant bread
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Recent discussion of composers who always sound like themselves, and the thing going around about 5 pieces to understand your style, have got me thinking again about what it means for a composer to have a personal voice, a style. I presume that I do have these—but I don’t want to know about them.
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
This is harder than it sounds. A lot of music I love doesn’t really help understand my style. But here goes: 1. Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time 2. Mingus, What Love 3. Coltrane, Alabama 4. Bruckner, Locus Iste 5. Imbrie, Pilgrimage
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vijay iyer @vijayiyer.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Please consider musicians when you listen to music.
A list of the abysmal payouts per stream for the various music platforms. Napster gives the “best” rate of 1.9 cents, Tidal pays 1.25 cents, Apple Music plays 0.735 cents, Spotify 0.4 cents, and worst of all, Youtube less than 7 hundredths of a cent per stream.
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Since there seem to be a lot of choral people popping up recently, here’s some original choral music. Magnificat, for unaccompanied choir, was written for the New York Virtuoso Singers in 2000. makertube.net/w/g8g2EdzKFy... #choral #music #ContemporaryMusic #ClassicalMusic
makertube.net
Magnificat
Magnificat, for unaccompanied choir — 2000 — 7 minutes composed by David McMullin Dedicated to the loving memory of my great-aunt Dorothy McMullin, Sister of Mercy (1904-1999), whose love of God, ...
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David McMullin @mcmullin.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Quick question about the mechanics here: if you reply to someone else’s reply in a larger conversation, does everyone upstream get tagged/notified, or just the person you’re directly replying to?
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eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
The vital importance of immigrants to a democracy is not just as sources of cheap labor, population replenishment, or as conveyors of culture, capital, & skills (‘good immigrants’), but because immigrants fight for–and model for everyone–the right to have rights. Thank you, Wong Kim Ark. 6/6
b/w ID photo of Wong Kim Ark, young American of Chinese descent. He is looking straight into the camera.
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