Re: [microsound] whoopsy

[Joshua Maremont <thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> At the end of the self definition-by-exclusion process, one finds that
> inclusion of some sort is more or less inevitable.
> Are the terms "glitch", "post-digital aesthetic", "microsound"- less hollow
> then terms such as "house", "2-step", "half-step-fuckstep"???
> Must musical development rely so much on terminology? or is terminology the
> only thing that really develops in this process?

A very troublesome issue indeed!  For here we are on a list defined 
around a certain realm of music and named according to terms coined 
for that realm.  Without any terms to describe things we would find 
ourselves unable to communicate, or we would be forced to create 
private languages in order to discuss such things.  Then again, the 
buzzwords of music seem to appear with disturbing predictability at 
the coming-of-age festival (or perhaps more appropriately, the 
debutante ball) for a given style as it crosses the threshold from 
obscurity into commercial viability, and following the buzzword 
almost inevitably can be noticed the popularization of a rapidly 
ossifying formula by which music sold under that 
buzzword-become-brandname is soon rigidly defined.  At least within 
US, these brands not only formulate music - which now strives to fit 
within their guidelines in order to be slotted into acceptable 
categories (those spun by DJs, booked at clubs, sold at record shops, 
covered by the press, etc) - but also create target demographics 
designed to separate people into little cells which consume 
statistically consistent sets of culture product and can be analysed 
according to age, gender, religion, political alignment, etc.  For 
example, once a certain strange assortment of gloomy dramatic 
psychedelic musics was given the label "goth," at that point the 
"goth" - a definable set of consumer attributes rather than simply a 
black-clothed weirdo - was created as well.  At least in San 
Francisco, each of the dance music brands to which the message quoted 
above alludes can be associated with a standardized set of people, 
whose clothing brands, haircuts, ages, chosen chemicals, and reading 
choices fall within narrowly defined ranges, whereas before the dance 
music underground had been carved into such musical categories the 
various events here tended to attract a remarkably diverse assortment 
of people.  I tend to find categorization of music unhelpful, and to 
me the application of a generalized pattern of analysis (rather than 
synthesis) in our increasingly microspecialized culture to music has 
resulted in ghettoization of both musics and listeners, serving to 
reduce the former to cliches and to drive the latter toward the 
fickleness of bored consumers.  But perhaps the following question 
should be asked of such a term:  is it invented by musicians in order 
to illuminate their work or is it rather used by businessmen as a 
means of moving units?  We as language-users have a choice at all 
times as to whether we passively accept the language as it has been 
formulated for conventional meanings or actively reinvent it for the 
deliberate expression of our own meanings.  But we must also keep in 
mind the disseminative process of language:  a term created by 
musicians in order to realign the tools of meaning with the 
expressions of creativity may eventually be appropriated by the 
Market and used as a brand on the fur of the same musicians in order 
to direct the subsequent breeding of the herd.  Which is preferrable, 
after all - the life of a leashed purebreed or that of a stray 
mongrel?  I suppose it all depends upon the backyard.

np - Minimal Compact "Raging Souls"
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