The Paul B. Anti-eai Thread

[Brian Olewnick]

Figured this was a more appropriate place for Paul, if he wishes, to delineate his problems with the genre.

I thought I'd make one historical point, as I'm curious to get his reaction. Steve Lacy, arguably Paul's most admired musical figure (an someone eminently worthy of admiration, imho) was a big fan of early AMM, attending many of their London events in '66 and '67, sitting in with them at least once. Early AMM was as "noisy" and melody and harmony free as it gets. Lacy was particularly enthusiastic of their use of (non-"musical") radio in performance, convincing a previously skeptical Victor Schonfield of its inherent value as a musical instrument. Lacy, of course, went on to become a semi-regular member of Musica Elettronica Viva, another ensemble which rarely, if ever, used melody and harmony in ways which Paul finds acceptable. I'm aware of some recordings under Lacy's own name (including some of the things re-issued on Cramps a few years ago) where, in the 70s, Lacy utilized radio static and other noise elements.

To the best of my knowledge, Lacy never renounced his participation in these musics even though, to be sure, his own work coalesced around music that didn't incorporate these elements (unless I'm missing something, which might very well be the case).

Now of course no one's saying that anyone has to like anything. But you would think it might give Paul pause if the musician he most admires, at the very least, expressed a great appreciation of art which he considers worthless.

[Gary Sisco]

Wowie zowie, baby. I'm staying out of this one! :-0

[Brian Olewnick]

Paul, on the Cindy Sheehan thread:

"And Jesse--another of many people who have never touched an instrument on this board--does the old LOL as he talks about the handmaidens of harmony and melody. Pick up an instrument, you idiot: you don't shit about either."

The old canard (I odn't even know if it's true in Jesse's case). Paul, a non-politician, is apparently free to comment on political matters. If I'm not mistaken, he's often contributed critical thought here on literature (despite not being a writer), movies (despite having no connection to the cinema) and, iirc, even painting--! my field!--despite no background in the visual arts. This is all fine (it is, as far as I'm concerned) but if a non-musician dares make a judgment about music, watch out!

[Gary Sisco]

There was a time in this here republic where people not only spoke their minds about politics but also intervened to force decisions of importance to them, not only locally or at the state level, but also at the level of the federal government, including the Supreme Court. Indeed, there was a time when they were expected to. The idea that political questions could or should be left for "politicians" to decide was considered downright anti-American, for the first half of the country's history. The republic was founded on the concept that citizens are competent to decide their own affairs. That's the most basic notion of American political history. To the extent that it's now gone by the way side, so, too, has the American democratic tradition, in both theory and practice.

When they used words like "We, the people ...," that was exactly what they meant.

"We, the politicans...," would have been greeted with hoots of derision and perhaps some tar and feathers, as well.

One wonders, if they are not competent to decide them today, why they should be considered competent to decide who should in their stead, by the process of voting.

[Gary Sisco]

Agreed, though, that the notion (which I am not imputing to Paul) that nonmusicians are not competent to judge musical issues for themselves is a no-go. If that were the case, talking about music at all -- or even listening to it -- would be pointless. Never mind buying it.

Clearly, though, eai is an extreme minority taste (which is not meant as any sort of qualitative judgment) and isn't likely to become anything else but what it already is.

Just as clearly, however, while a larger minority, the same can be said for jazz -- in all of its forms.

In the end, I can't see any reason why, since it has been considered valid for years to have dispensed with changes and the song form in improvised music, why it can't be equally as valid to dispense with harmony and melody, as well, or rhythm, either. There are other things sonic as interesting: timbre, texture, color, contrast, dynamics, tension, and so forth. I see no reason why their investigation could be considered a lesser thing than the investigation of harmony or rhythm (or the dispensing with them).

[Gordon B]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Clearly, though, eai is an extreme minority taste (which is not meant as any sort of qualitative judgment) and isn't likely to become anything else but what it already is.

Just as clearly, however, while a larger minority, the same can be said for jazz -- in all of its forms.

Yep, I know people who think that hard bop is weird music. OTOH, I don't understand why some of these same people salivate if they get tickets to see U2. To each his own.

[bluenoter]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Paul, on the Cindy Sheehan thread:

"And Jesse--another of many people who have never touched an instrument on this board--does the old LOL as he talks about the handmaidens of harmony and melody. Pick up an instrument, you idiot: you don't shit about either."

The old canard (I odn't even know if it's true in Jesse's case). Paul, a non-politician, is apparently free to comment on political matters. If I'm not mistaken, he's often contributed critical thought here on literature (despite not being a writer), movies (despite having no connection to the cinema) and, iirc, even painting--! my field!--despite no background in the visual arts. This is all fine (it is, as far as I'm concerned) but if a non-musician dares make a judgment about music, watch out!

Originally Posted by bluenoter, in the Cindy Sheehan thread

Whatever else can be said of that premise, I believe it's false; I believe that Jesse is a "gentleman of the guitar" (at the least).

.

[Richard Pinnell]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

In the end, I can't see any reason why, since it has been considered valid for years to have dispensed with changes and the song form in improvised music, why it can't be equally as valid to dispense with harmony and melody, as well, or rhythm, either. There are other things sonic as interesting: timbre, texture, color, contrast, dynamics, tension, and so forth. I see no reason why their investigation could be considered a lesser thing than the investigation of harmony or rhythm (or the dispensing with them).

This sums it up perfectly for me, well said Gary.

[sonic1]

Oh man, do we have to fuel another eai thang? Is this not unlike the marsalis threads, albeit more interesting.

[bluenoter]

Originally Posted by sonic1

Is this not unlike the marsalis threads

What you meant to ask rhetorically is, Is this not not unlike the Marsalis threads?

[Brian Olewnick]

No, I'm actually curious to get Paul's take. He's a musician, I've heard him play (enjoyed both occasions). He just seems to me to have an amazingly narrow view of certain things.

[sonic1]

Originally Posted by bluenoter

What you meant to ask rhetorically is, Is this not not unlike the Marsalis threads?

BNer I have not had my coffee yet, you are making my head spin!

[sonic1]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

No, I'm actually curious to get Paul's take. He's a musician, I've heard him play (enjoyed both occasions). He just seems to me to have an amazingly narrow view of certain things.

Well, ok. Then I will throw in my stock argument for this since I have had a lot of practice:


Paul, of all the arts, music seems to lag behind the rest. In painting, see my avatar for instance, there has been not nearly the resistance to innovation, or breaking down of the rules, as there has been in music.

EAI to my ears is much like the work of abstract artists of the 20th century, which are accepted in every general anthology of art I know of. For some reason people have made music more sentimental and raise riots and such whenever music has been pushed. And with each innovation music has made, you have an old guard hanging on tight, not letting go, or at least, not letting anything else in.

Maybe it is because people exect music to be part of ones life rather than something separate to it, and thus it needs to fit in, in a functional way. Maybe it is because of the time span the art of music takes. I don't know, but if painters can do it, why can't we? And as you say, there are plenty of people listening to this stuff, enough to suggest it is something worth while at least to some portion of the muiscal population.

I do play a few instruments myself paul, but I don't think anyone needs to play instruments to understand music, or else we would have nobody but each other to play to. Your comment to Jesse was unfair, and I think untrue too.

[letchhausen]

Originally Posted by sonic1

Paul, of all the arts, music seems to lag behind the rest. In painting, see my avatar for instance, there has been not nearly the resistance to innovation, or breaking down of the rules, as there has been in music.

EAI to my ears is much like the work of abstract artists of the 20th century, which are accepted in every general anthology of art I know of. For some reason people have made music more sentimental and raise riots and such whenever music has been pushed. And with each innovation music has made, you have an old guard hanging on tight, not letting go, or at least, not letting anything else in.

I'm not sure that I agree that music has lagged behind painting. I think that say the changes from Wagner to Mahler on to Schonberg show great shifts in musical materials. From Schonberg to say a certain student of his named John Cage we see the props pulled out altogether. How about Varese? The Darmstadt school in the 50's and 60's, the INA GRM studio tape music and the electro-acoustic crowd of that same time created abstract works out of noise. RCA, Columbia, Deutsche Grammophon, Vox and many others recorded plenty of what they called "The New Music" at that time. There were the computer music labs at Princeton and other places that were creating electronic music in all sorts of forms. I think that the exploration and deconstruction of the materials of music was going on in music at the same time that it was going on in art and literature. You follow that through the electronic music of the 70's into industrial music, into the power electronics taken to the extreme by Merzbow, and all the experimentation that's been going on this whole time, and you can see the whole schmiel has been exploded outward into the microverse.

I'm a huge fan of eai but I don't see it as the progenitor of abstract sounds because of what has come before, as much as I see it as different configurations of sounds and sound events and a different exploratory methodology to produce these. Or something like that. I hate to try and categorize that this is its philosophy or definition (and I know there's a old and long history to improvisation) since I know that we use this heading for a lot of different people using different ideas and strategies to music making. But it does seem that something new and interesting is going on here.

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

There are other things sonic as interesting: timbre, texture, color, contrast, dynamics, tension, and so forth.

This is exactly correct, the idea that melody, harmony etc is the only way to make music is so ridiculous as to be laughable. Welcome to the 20th century, not to mention the 21st. Sheesh.

One major difference as far as acceptance goes is that a painting only needs to be sold once to a major museum whereas a recording has to sell a lot of copies to anybody willing to spend their own money to gain acceptance. The distribution of the work takes a different route here. Comparing the art market to the music market gets tricky as both are subject to capitalistic forces but works exist differently in relation to the audience. If one were to compare say art books to music cd's you would see as many Joseph Beuys books out of print as you would cd's by any avant-garde musical artist. Live performances of music is another form of acceptance and I have seen Takemitsu's tape works, tons of avant-classical shenanigans, industrial concerts and there are boards, CD's, books and university classes and textbooks all dealing with various forms of music that are abstract. As for eai, well, it wouldn't surprise me if that were already being listened to in some classroom somewhere as part of a class, you can bet AMM is.

But you're right about the old-guard, as Paul as shown us, they aren't about to let go. The thing I don't understand is that I love and appreciate their music and I would never say that the concert halls should stop playing Haydn and Brahms to make way for Ligeti and AMM. But I would call all of it sweet, sweet music.....

[sonic1]

Originally Posted by letchhausen

I'm not sure that I agree that music has lagged behind painting. I think that say the changes from Wagner to Mahler on to Schonberg show great shifts in musical materials. From Schonberg to say a certain student of his named John Cage we see the props pulled out altogether. How about Varese? The Darmstadt school in the 50's and 60's, the INA GRM studio tape music and the electro-acoustic crowd of that same time created abstract works out of noise. RCA, Columbia, Deutsche Grammophon, Vox and many others recorded plenty of what they called "The New Music" at that time. There were the computer music labs at Princeton and other places that were creating electronic music in all sorts of forms. I think that the exploration and deconstruction of the materials of music was going on in music at the same time that it was going on in art and literature. You follow that through the electronic music of the 70's into industrial music, into the power electronics taken to the extreme by Merzbow, and all the experimentation that's been going on this whole time, and you can see the whole schmiel has been exploded outward into the microverse.

I'm a huge fan of eai but I don't see it as the progenitor of abstract sounds because of what has come before, as much as I see it as different configurations of sounds and sound events and a different exploratory methodology to produce these. Or something like that. I hate to try and categorize that this is its philosophy or definition (and I know there's a old and long history to improvisation) since I know that we use this heading for a lot of different people using different ideas and strategies to music making. But it does seem that something new and interesting is going on here.


This is exactly correct, the idea that melody, harmony etc is the only way to make music is so ridiculous as to be laughable. Welcome to the 20th century, not to mention the 21st. Sheesh.

One major difference as far as acceptance goes is that a painting only needs to be sold once to a major museum whereas a recording has to sell a lot of copies to anybody willing to spend their own money to gain acceptance. The distribution of the work takes a different route here. Comparing the art market to the music market gets tricky as both are subject to capitalistic forces but works exist differently in relation to the audience. If one were to compare say art books to music cd's you would see as many Joseph Beuys books out of print as you would cd's by any avant-garde musical artist. Live performances of music is another form of acceptance and I have seen Takemitsu's tape works, tons of avant-classical shenanigans, industrial concerts and there are boards, CD's, books and university classes and textbooks all dealing with various forms of music that are abstract. As for eai, well, it wouldn't surprise me if that were already being listened to in some classroom somewhere as part of a class, you can bet AMM is.

But you're right about the old-guard, as Paul as shown us, they aren't about to let go. The thing I don't understand is that I love and appreciate their music and I would never say that the concert halls should stop playing Haydn and Brahms to make way for Ligeti and AMM. But I would call all of it sweet, sweet music.....

For all the innovations you mention, however, the various music institutions that exist only take what they want-meaning, look through most music history anthologies. You won't very often find those names. You are lucky to find Cage and Shoenberg, which if anyone is mentioned from the 20th century art music, they are.

And Shoenberg and Cage were not all that much a departure from the classicists forms. One may argue that Schoenberg is almost more classical as his adhearance to static forms were so strong. Cage, though in ideology was quite modern and advanced, in practive did not create much music which lacked the old idea of what rhythm was. In fact, I think a lot of his music is very rhythmical, which made some of his advanced sense of harmony or lack thereof more digestible.

Xenakis and Varese are better mentioned, though still for the most part stuck to forms and composition. They certainly didn't make entire albums of sinewaves like Sachiko M which can be said to be almost the "newman" of music.



And once again, all the might-have-been advances in music virtually died in their boots. Whereas Warhol, Rothko, Newman, et al saw appraisal in their lifetimes, Schoenberg was treated as an eccentric joke wherever he went. Even today many people react negatively toward Schoenberg. For a man as important to music as he was, you sure do see him, still, omitted from many music histories. Not to mention Xenakis or Varese. My shelf is full of music histories. I have to piecemeal them together to get any sort of cohesive picture.

You will have to work harder to convince me that music not so conservative of an art. I still think it is the most conservative art out there. While the creators of the arts never seem to lag behind, the appreciators do. The historians do. Those who promote the arts whether in museums, scholastic works, or otherwise, lag behind in music.

Maybe I should say the AUDIENCE of music rather than the art itself lags beind the AUDIENCE of the other arts. And because the support of the audience lags behind in music, music has worked hard to get somewhere today that the visual arts did at the BEGINNING of the 20th century.

[Richard Pinnell]

Originally Posted by sonic1

I still think it is the most conservative art out there. While the creators of the arts never seem to lag behind, the appreciators do. The historians do. Those who promote the arts whether in museums, scholastic works, or otherwise, lag behind in music.

Maybe I should say the AUDIENCE of music rather than the art itself lags beind the AUDIENCE of the other arts. And because the support of the audience lags behind in music, music has worked hard to get somewhere today that the visual arts did at the BEGINNING of the 20th century.

I am pretty much with you on this Jared, although I wouldn't put music right at the bottom of the list, that honour belongs to film.

[sonic1]

Originally Posted by Richard Pinnell

I am pretty much with you on this Jared, although I wouldn't put music right at the bottom of the list, that honour belongs to film.

Yeah, I agree with that.

[sonic1]

And that touches on maybe the reason why:

Film and music are arguably the most COMMERCIAL of the arts. In our world today, if music and film don't make sales, they are deemed failures. Whereas nobody expects quite the same from the visual arts. The sales of the arts increases usually AFTER the appraisal of the art world. The parameters of what is good or bad in the visual arts are not dependant upon sales, as they seem to be in film and music. Jesus, it is getting worse too. When you hear about a film or album these days one of the first things they always mention is sales and what records were broken.

[Jesse]

Too much, Paul swings wildly and it launches a thread dedicated to more of the same!

For the record, I have played guitar for 30 years. I have owned & operated a half dozen electric & acoustic gits. My father, rest in peace, played professionally all his short life. I have drawn some attention to my dad's musicianship here in the past, ironically mainly on similar threads on which I clarified my growing up listening to musics replete with HFM. I have taken theory, harmony, blah, blah. In 1983 I took up C-melody & tenor sax, layed 'em down at the point [perhaps 2 years] where I could, as Walto would have it, 'wiggle my fingers', but faced getting serious. I have stated all this ad nauseaum, responding to presumptuous posters like the rapidly melting-down Paul B.,-damn, it used to be Pete C., who challenged with a bit of elan & real wit.As my WAYLTL? posts clarify, if nothing else, I share an avidity & passion for musics loved by my fellows Ron Thorne and Jon Abbey [to choose two posters w/whom I enjoy overlapping interests, that, imo, represent radically different points on the curve to find...


You bet your ass, LOL!

Jesse

[letchhausen]

Originally Posted by sonic1

And once again, all the might-have-been advances in music virtually died in their boots. Whereas Warhol, Rothko, Newman, et al saw appraisal in their lifetimes, Schoenberg was treated as an eccentric joke wherever he went. Even today many people react negatively toward Schoenberg. For a man as important to music as he was, you sure do see him, still, omitted from many music histories. Not to mention Xenakis or Varese. My shelf is full of music histories. I have to piecemeal them together to get any sort of cohesive picture.

You will have to work harder to convince me that music not so conservative of an art. I still think it is the most conservative art out there. While the creators of the arts never seem to lag behind, the appreciators do. The historians do. Those who promote the arts whether in museums, scholastic works, or otherwise, lag behind in music.

Maybe I should say the AUDIENCE of music rather than the art itself lags beind the AUDIENCE of the other arts. And because the support of the audience lags behind in music, music has worked hard to get somewhere today that the visual arts did at the BEGINNING of the 20th century.

Well, I was just trying to show that there is a history of abstract music analogous to the history of abstract painting. I don't disagree with the Sachiko M/Barnett Newman comparison as I contributed to the thread that discussed that connection. I mentioned a few names but there is tons of material recorded during that time (50's-60's) trying all sorts of strategies using tape, ring modulators and lots of other minimal electronic means. And like a lot of abstract painting, some of this music contained structural elements of the old props holding it together. That doesn't mean that current music can't be compared to various kinds of art, just that that music also derives from a history of reconfiguration of it's constituent elements that painting underwent.

I have plenty of music books and they all mention Schoenberg and Cage. Look up either of those two composers on Amazon.com and gaze at the MASSIVE amount of material available, both books and CD's on either. I've worked in record stores in 5 different states and I can say there is an awful lot of people out there who are aware of and either love or hate one of the other. The concept of what constitutes abstract art and it's popularity is not a given either. That it's accepted by the amount of coffee table books depends on what artist you are talking about. That Barnett Newman retrospective a couple of years back was the first retrospective of his work in 30 years. Warhol he ain't. An interesting figure to know would be the top-selling art books. I wonder what that would say for audience awareness. Hmmm, I'll have to look into that.

As I explained above, music depends on a commercial entity different than that of the artworld so your audience assertion is driven by that fact. You're right, having commercial radio/tv drive dreck down the public's throat shapes a lot of these tastes. Another element is that people experience music far more than they do art. Music is around us everywhere moreso than abstract painting. Music is something that takes place in its own time unlike a painting which you can look at for 5 seconds and walk past. Therefore while I might adopt a quick judgment of liking a painting it's going to work differently if I have to spend an hour with it as I do a musical work. However the real question is who are you defining as this audience? The general masses? Do they even pay attention to art? The groups of people who are study art/music? Musicians/painters? Is it all just museums, academies and tastemakers? Perhaps you're right, if we're looking at cirricula. Overall I just think that we're dangerously close to talking in generalities that might seem obvious, but aren't reflecting real situations. There's a lot of niche people out there into a lot of niche stuff, art and music. I have a ton of written material covering both and I can sure find a lot more European books on artists like Hermann Nitsch, Hans Bellmer etc than I can find in America.

One thing for sure, there's a lot more books out on Barnett Newman than Sachiko M!
I guess you could call that checkmate and down I go again.......

Maybe, I just want to believe that there are more of us than there are.....I'm putting my rose-tinted glasses back on......

[bluenoter]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Paul, on the Cindy Sheehan thread:

"And Jesse--another of many people who have never touched an instrument on this board--does the old LOL as he talks about the handmaidens of harmony and melody. Pick up an instrument, you idiot: you don't shit about either."

Originally Posted by bluenoter, in the Cindy Sheehan thread

Whatever else can be said of that premise, I believe it's false; I believe that Jesse is a "gentleman of the guitar" (at the least).

Originally Posted by Jesse

For the record, I have played guitar for 30 years. I have owned & operated a half dozen electric & acoustic gits.

I'm doing my Superior Dance.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

believe that has words with? dispensed not behinder behinder if music then of course words eai * \+ _____ !!! dis p e n s e ((<< eai must e a i m u st 21st for~/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ * * * *

[Captain Hate]

I defer to Dennis.

[Mike Schwartz]

Gee, the guy got his own thread made up just for him, and hasn't stopped by to thank everyone;-)

[Jesse]

I suggest a complete neurological.

[MRS]

gayer thread

[Gary Sisco]

I kind of agree, if applied loosely, with the analogy with painting. Music is very arguably the most ephemeral of art forms and hence the hardest to deal with verbally. And so of course the more abstract it becomes, the more difficult it becomes to describe (and perhaps to appreciate, as well). (Please note the use of "perhaps.")

I would agree that, jazz record covers from the days to the contrary, eai is more closely in the realm of expressionistic -- and post-expressionistic -- kinds of painting than jazz is, at least today. But that analogy gets stretched pretty thin in places. Some of the things that the Japanese section is up to, I find much more closely akin to more traditional Japanese art forms, such as calligraphy, for example, with its detailed attention to the single stroke, and so forth. The word "pointillistic" comes up a lot in this regard as I read about eai, and I understand why, but to me, the references are more traditional but produced by modern brains in modern times, with of course the most modern technology/instruments. In the end, though, the analogies are far from exact. They're useful in a way but don't really line up.

By the by, I thought the "Pauls swings wildly" a hilarious, unintended pun. He does, of course. Swing wildly, I mean.

Paul's a good friend and he has his ideas about music firmed up. I have no problem with that. I do, too, just not in the same way. I suspect the same can be said for all of us. I'd not fuss and fight with him about it, though, because I know from personal experience that our tastes and thoughts about music coincide more often than not. He likes what he likes, like the rest of us.

In the end, to me, music is sound people create and control (in myriad ways) with "instruments." Instruments have changed and new ones have been invented (or discovered) through the years, sometimes leading to the creation of new forms of music and musicmaking (as has the saxophone, for example, which never was used very much as it had been intended by Mr Sax; or the electric guitar; or the electric "piano"; not to mention the synthesizer). So, the same process has begun again with various electronics and sundry objects and gadgets, which were not intended for these purposes but have been found nevertheless through investigation to be usable as new instruments. That this investigation led to a new musical form(s) isn't surprising, really. It's happened many times before.

[Gary Sisco]

Man, I've never seen this place so slow since the post-JCS migration.

From grapes to raisins, skipping the wine part.

[Steve Reynolds]

for me I spent so much time and effort and thought on music for so many years and now I have other things on my mind (like my life as I now know it) that I just don't have the energy or interest to get all riled up as much anymore.

It just puts me in a place in my head that I don't need to be...

I am more content to just simply listen and enjoy what hear and experience - whether it be music or life itself.


one comment - to my way of thinking - eai type music is so totally different in the way it is contructed that listening to it as compared to even the most abstract or 'out' forms of jazz is a different listening experience - vinegar and oil almost...

[Steve Reynolds]

plus on a broader note - the pictures and visuals that have bomboarded this board, IMO, have taken away the energy and power of the written word and have detracted from the attraction of this (and other) forums to a great extent.