Re: microsound minimalism & one liners....

[steve roden <sroden@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

i know everyone is getting touchy feely here, but i gotta say i have a
little constructive criticism for this...

> From: marc_mcnulty <mmcnulty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> epiphany!  yes, most of the micro has the same impact as the minimal visual
> art of the '70's.  Kind of a 'one liner...', with no punch line.  There is
> a cleverness in the process, but in the end much seems to be design
> oriented and not content oriented.  There is a great difference between a
> slick logo and a painting by Miro.

while i might agree (or actually would tend to agree) that most micro has
less of a lasting impression than initial excitements might lead one to hope
for (in need of something to listen to last night i had to go back to
flowers of romance by pil - simply as blissful as the day it came out) - i
would hardly call the minimal visual works of the 70's one liners of less
impact. in cliche terms, for me that stuff is like good wine, simply gets
better with age. surrounded by all the pop culture referencing of hipness
that passes for visual art these days in most galleries; a simple judd,
serra, or andre is like ryoanji - and the minimal drawings are even better.
these things have lasting power, simplicity, and are hardly one liners -
unless subtlety and depth are one liner requirements. indeed a slick logo is
not a miro (at least not an early one!), but they were never designed to do
the same thing. phillip glass (after the early organ works) perhaps is a one
liner, but agnes martin certainly aint!

i do agree with your basic seconding of the notion that a lot of the music
micro listers were ga-ga over a year ago has faded in terms of its level of
interest. the real problem some folks seem to be getting at is twofold in my
opinion - a. how much real thought is going into this work and b. (even more
important and as well rather lacking in a lot of problematic work for me) -
what is the ultimate listening experience and how much value is placed on
this aspect of the finished product. we are left with a lot of 'interesting'
ideas (interesting in quotes = not really so interesting after 5 minutes)
that don't really serve up a listening experience worth much. it's great
that we can discuss the ideas behind a lot of work, but it sounds like
beyond that there isn't a lot of it that we really want to spend our time
listening to. if we are making sound or music, i think this might be a
little problem :-) 






steve roden/in be tween noise
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easy - to know
that diamonds - are precious

good - to learn
that rubies - have depth

but more - to know
that pebbles - are miraculous

josef albers
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