RE: [microsound] Re: concept queens

["Dominic Lanzone" <dubvurt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> as a composer i prefer to think of my music-creating as having more 
> in common with the concept of the "potlatch".

hummm...that's interesting to me........

> just because one continues to "search for new ideas and materials" 
> doesn't mean they are actually there.
> there is also this assumption that our culture is NOT dead... which 
> culture? whose culture? the avant-garde of what? i think the concept 
> of an avant-garde is very euro-centric to begin with, as if there 
> were only one valid cultural strand, and that some subset of humans, 
> so-called "avant-gardists" were somehow at the forefront of it all... 

..........yeah yeah, interesting! 
ok, so who do you consider your community, in terms of your potlatch
society? 
i like that you include your listeners in your community rather than
thinking of them as 'fans' or something, not that most microsund people
would label their listeners as 'fans' (that seems almost antithetic to the
genre), but i guess in terms of the larger musical world, that's pretty
cool.
i also like what you said about the avant garde being a 'western' concept
or aesthetic. i feel like maybe the whole ('oedipal'?) concept of having to
destroy what came before and make something 'new' from it's ashes is very
much an aesthetic of 'western' culture. 
but, i also don't think it is an evil or wrong esthetic in and of itself.
it only gets really problematic when part of the esthetic is to assume,
unquestioningly, an authority over other cultures, when it relegates other
cultures to a 'past' position and by doing so puts them in the position of
needing to be destroyed (and/or colonized and/or sampled) so that something
'new' can be made form their ashes, and they can retain some sort of
subservient validity. 
musically this interests me especially when concerning the Listener. i have
met people who will listen to a techno track with a sample from old 60's
butterfunk songs, or Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn or sampled bits of Ragas or
Bushmen, or Lightning Hopkins, Tammy Wynette, ect. but would never think to
listen to recordings of the original material, and on occasion when i play
them something that was sampled in a song they like, they show no interest. 
eh, no point, just trying to see what thought is out there about this
phenomena....
and i swear this ramble has to do with potlatch communities, too =)

Dominic 

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