Re: [microsound] pop

[Christopher Sorg <csorg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> we live in  a world of words
> its appropriate to make distinctions
> 
> if no distinctions, just don't bother writing, correct?
> 
> no distinctions, no microsound, no pop, no nothing. well, only nothing i
> supppose, but in the end, no list.
> 
> -mark .k

For me (and I would suspect, for others), distinctions between types of
music assist me in a sort of self-editing process.  I really, really am
not interested in wasting my time with the majority of music that is
presented by MTV and most radio stations.  Of course, those distinctions
serve to insulate people from experiencing things outside of the
boundaries they've constructed, but that can be useful.  I don't have time
to listen to everything, nor do I need to.

That isn't to say that I label things "pop" or "academic".  I've read
comic books my entire life and didn't know they weren't art until Maus
won the Pulitzer and comics "became" art.  I tend to agree with another
poster who suggested that these are class distinctions and aren't
necessarily  useful to music lovers.  In loving music and the other arts,
however, I also enjoy all the healthy discourse that surrounds it, whether
it is the artist writing about the work (ie Morton Feldman), music
theorists like Benjamin Boretz or thinkers like Attalli.  As a friend of
mine likes to say, "It's all good."

What is remarkable to me is that someone could suggest that the other
parts of music (thinking, writing, theorizing) aren't the
"real" work.  While it's true, it isn't the _actual_ sound or music
produced, it is real work and true appreciation that goes in to much of
it.  When the academic is truly in love with the material and makes the
theory his "art", I believe you can tell, and it can enrich the original
work tremendously.  Of course, I've also had the experience of being
around academics who clearly were *not* in love with the material and were
just using it as a prop.  That is unpleasant, for sure.  But I'll take
that risk.  And besides, I'd hate to see where artists would be without
notepads and sketchbooks.  It'd be a real developmental challenge, for
sure.  Writing also serves as an editing process for the artist, and
exposes them to thought processes that they may have otherwise been
unaware of.

However intellectual thought has been used to supress good work and good
people, it also has it's own art about it.  I think it's fine for many
musicians to deny any sort of theory in their work and put it out, but the
artist should know that in this cultural climate that leaves a vacuum that
will be filled.  It wasn't any different with action painters of the 50s,
who allowed their work to be spoken for by remaining silent.  In that
case, if you're okay with leaving the interpretation to others, then you
shouldn't complain when the work is misrepresented/misconstrued.  There's
also that tricky, fine line about what you want to say about something
you've made and what you want to leave open to interpretation.

Besides, this argument is as old as the bards vs. the
philosophers.  There's an old story I heard that in Mesopotamia, even when
written contracts existed, the ruler's commands could only be met out by
word of mouth.  This did not mean that the ruler was present, but that the
word travelled from mouth to mouth until it reached its destination.  This
distrust of thought vs. action is as old as Western civilization, and
probably does a disservice to both as they are one and the same.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Christopher Sorg
   Multimedia Artist/Instructor
 The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
   http://csorg.cjb.net
     csorg@xxxxxxxxx

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