Re: [microsound] Derrida rock & roll

[Emily Hicks <marquesa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Jon:

Thanks for getting back so fast.  I'm going to go to LA to see the 
film.  From what I've read of Derrida, it seems you were definitely on to 
something really interesting, even if the term wasn't exactly 
"self-awareness."  That we can never reproduce something exactly, that we 
can never get back to an original, decentered self stuff...that there is 
always loss with each new generation (impossible for lit types to get 
sometimes, but pretty easy when listening to degraded sound)---in relation 
to improvisation--sounds very Derridean.

I'm writing about improvisation, the control of music (recent effect in the 
U.S.--shutting down of campus radio stations etc. by forcing royalty fees), 
and more specifically, the Yamaha motif 6 (synthesizer/sequencer) and how 
they are marketing their product (they promise a world of both freedom and 
control to the unsuspecting buyer--control over all recording conditions 
and freedom to "improvise").  Of course, musicians find their own uses for 
Yamaha products, but I'm actually reading the hype and trying to analyze it 
in Derridean terms.    What I'm looking out is how Yamaha-logic at this 
point in their product development is trying to control context (which just 
means where were the knobs set--stored in memory).  Of course, Derrida 
would tell them that they will never be able to fully capture, reproduce, 
control context...much less reproduce it without any change/loss...

So thanks for your comments--they were helpful.

Emily

At 06:07 PM 8/20/02 +1000, you wrote:
> hello,
>
> no, it's in the film.  it's pretty unconstructive going by my very sketchy 
> paraphrasing of what this guy is saying (can you remember any long 
> speeches in, say, braveheart word-for-word after only one viewing?)... so 
> i'm not going to try and say very much, but suffice to say i was probably 
> wrong (and hurried) to say 'self-awareness' - it was very convincing the 
> way derrida said it.  think about it, though.  when you are improvising, 
> how can you possibly do anything that is completely random, and in that 
> sense how can you say that you did it?  seemingly random or unpreceded 
> acts are still the product of decisions to act.  anyway, i'm doing 
> horribly at explaining anything.  watch the film.
>
> enjoy your evening,
> jon.
>
>
>
>
> pelagius wrote:
> >Isn't losing self-awareness the goal of many improvisors anyway?  How 
> does it follow that >improvisation isn't possible in any "real" way?
>
> ...and, Emily wrote:
> > Are you thinking of "Choreographies"?  The interview with Derrida about 
> > dance/chance...
> >
> > I wrote:
> > > anyway, derrida's points about improvisation roughly follow the line 
> > > that it is hardly possible in any real way - improvisation always draws 
> > > on a pre-existing schema or method, and in order to truly improvise, one 
> > > would have to be not-of-oneself during that time, to lose 
> > > self-awareness.  which, he hastens to add, does not equate to derrida 
> > > being opposed to improvisation.  rather, he's quite for it.
>
>
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~transmit
>
>
>
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