Re: [microsound] lowercase why?

[transmit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

thanks for that post, jorge.

without sounding bitter (i'm not really; rather, excited) about the state 
of all this interesting music floating about these days, i'd have to agree 
that there is a ridiculous excess of ego that kind of ruins it for me.

i look at it this way:  if some obnoxious, self-important weirdo is going 
all out to push her/his supposedly ground-breaking sound to me, i'm likely 
to be hell more critical, because i don't like the dude.  music is 
personal.  if it's humbly nudged, or "offered", then i'm far more likely to 
really patiently consider something... and maybe see where the maker is 
coming from in creating this thing.  because i don't feel like i can relate 
to pretentious "sound artistes" whose attitude surely permeates their work.

letting the sounds "speak for themselves", and so on.

however, i think sometimes it's necessary for people to assume that an 
audience may not know so much about the style of music they're 
playing.  that's just circumstance.  the problem is not in making this 
guess; the problem is playing it out to the point of patronisation, and 
that just comes back to ego.  if people really love the sound enough, 
should they really be worrying about how interesting they _seem_?

yeah, i don't know why there are "big name" field recording artists either.

let's not isolate "lowercase/microsound" or "experimental" for this kind of 
critique, though.  how many bland rock bands do you know who think they're 
the shit?  poised to revolutionise?  doof of the future?

anyway, tiresome as any of this might be, you could always try and ignore 
the tedious self-promotion.  therein lies your buddha.  'cos there's still 
an incomprehensible amount of fantastic music being made right now.

see you.
jon.




home.pacific.net.au/~transmit


At 04:08 PM 3/15/02 -0800, you wrote:
> 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.

*snip*

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

*snip*

> 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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