lowercase why?

[Jorge Piaget <jorgepiaget@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have a little bit of a problem with this very
elitist trend I have observed in several of the
artistic communities of which I am a part.  I guess
its just marketing, but I find it sooooo tiresome.
"new" musicicans, we must stop this pretentious trend
of advertising everything we are doing as if the
audience for it was somehow less educated than the
craftspeople (thats us) creating the work.  I will
clarify with some examples.

when I was a student at Mills, this other student
wrote this essay about how we all need to move "beyond
the concert hall" and "listen".  That is great.  Thing
is, though, we are fucking MILLS students.  We listen.
 We like Feldman and Cage already.  We like noise.  We
like free jazz.  We like everything.  Bring it on, but
the preaching, it's just in bad taste.

at a concert recently this "experimental" musician who
was about to play a squeaky piece of guitar music
using rosin coated pads on his hands first told the
audience (all of whom where experimental musicians)
some thing like" now this might seem boring and the
sounds might seem screechy by I encourage you not to
cover your ears or leave, but rather stay and listen
INTO the sound" etc etc  come on dude you know we are
all noise musicians.  Its not like you are the first
person to "turn us on" to the world of noisy texture.

Field recordings.  fine.  EXVERYBODY uses field
recordings now.  This isn't revolutionary, its common
practice.

you make quiet music.  that is really special also. 
Francisco Lopez makes loud music.  Lots of folks make
combinations of loud and quiet music.  If quiet music
= "egoless sound" than why do you need to list all of
your former teachers and university credits in your
bio?
and besides, its not the first time ANY of us have
heard/"consciously listened" a quiet sound or
experienced Deep Listening (TM).

sorry for the overall feeling of negativity.  I feel
that it is nice to be reminded to listen.  I do not
feel however that artists need to tell the audience
that they (the audience) do not currently understand
how to use thier senses.  I also do not think artists
need to pretend like everything that they are doing is
revolutionary, espiecially when it's been common
practice for like 60 years.  Hey, its development,
nothing wrong with that.  Attachment to originality is
far from ego-less, for those whose posts bandy that
ridiculous term about.  Maybe if egolessness is the
goal (as was advocated in a recent concert
announcement) than giving up personal ownership of the
music (as Terry Riley says "It's not my music, it's
the music I am doing".

I don't know.  I certainly haven't achieved any
egolessness.  I guess my ego is just envious off all
of you artbuddhaheros who have.

jorge

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