Re: [microsound] Is microsound boring?

[James Harkins <jamshark70@xxxxxxxxx>]

Me:
> > >  (And what's so great about being cutting-edge anyway?)

Guillaume:
> > I thought you liked cutting-edge, two sentences ago? Courageous and 
> > cutting-edge = good; avant-garde posture = bad? :) (Also, I must 
> > admit I had a quibble with the construct "avant-garde posture". To 
> > me, that implies a voluntary attempt to adopt some kind of 
> > treacherous behavior, a portrayal which I feel is not entirely 
> > accurate... [emphasis on entirely ;)])<<

Me again:
Actually, my own music is not at all cutting-edge, at least not in 
the superficially-cutting-edge ways that have been bandied about here 
in the last couple of weeks. I'm aware that those are fighting words 
in this context. Partly I'm playing devil's advocate: I want to 
question the tendency in this discussion to (over)value theoretical 
or conceptual sophistication. And for the rest, I'm expressing a 
genuinely felt skepticism about new music's insularity and elitism.

But these are just my personal opinions. No artist in the world needs 
justification from me! People should do what they feel is best.

Some formative experiences for me: listening to a whole bunch of 
pieces described in tantalizing terms in Paul Griffith's _the 
avant-garde since 1945_, hating them all, and falling in love with 
music again when I turned to Steve Reich's _Tehillim_ ... being 
fascinated by critical theory for many years, and then discovering 
that Thich Nhat Hanh writes more deeply using very simple, almost 
childlike language ... hearing a disarming power in Vietnamese 
Buddhist chants and songs that blows away, with simple *presence*, 
most of what I've heard from the European or American of avant-garde.

There's avant-garde music that I like, but I find it to be the 
exception rather than the rule. Am I closed minded? Maybe ... but 
after eight years of playing the grad school game (successfully, I 
might add), I'm quite happily looking for scenes where those games 
are unnecessary. I'd rather play different games :) as I know I will 
have to do.

Don't mind me, I'm just very opinionated about this :)

James

PS Examples of my music at http://www.mp3.com/dewdrop_world -- 
Mahboonkrong encounter is the closest I've come to realizing my 
spirituality in music. Candle dance is my latest.
--
 ______                         | "To be thoroughly lazy is a tough
 \    /  H. James Harkins       |  job, but somebody has to do it.
  \  /   jamshark70@xxxxxxxxx   |  Industrious people build industry.
   \/                           |  Lazy people build civilization."
                                |                -- Kazuaki Tanahashi

                  http://www.duke.edu/~jharkins

"Never does hatred cease by hating in return; only through love
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                                                  -- Dhammapada