Re: [microsound] deconstruction

[Bill Jarboe <billjarboe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 1/18/04 3:26 PM, Ian Andrews at i.andrews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Bill Jarboewrote:
>
>> In terms of music-making I see deconstruction as relating to rock music
>> more than digital aesthetics. Once when I was trying some deconstruction of
>> rock aesthetics a friend of mine turned me onto Arto Lindsay's 'Aggregates
>> 1-26' and that seemed to address such questions as "How far can one go
>> before it ceases to be a song?" "What is a song?" "Where does something
>> cease to be a groove?"A group setting seems to be much more vulnerable since
>> everyone playing is experiencing it while it happens (sound) and it's also
>> such a public statement.
>>
>> People, including myself often view deconstruction as a sort of
>> loser/suicide career move which was probably partly what the old Beck song
>> was about ; though it was popified enough to be ineffectual.
>>
>> Many great tunes start as deconstructions.
>
> In the 1980's &90s the Anglo-American art world (particularly the New York
> art scene) had a fondness for throwing around the term "deconstruction"
> which it took to mean: taking something apart in order to examine its
> constitutive elements. Unfortunately this definition is a very poor
> definition of Derridean deconstruction which could be better described as:
> examining the underlying oppositions (in which always one term in the pair
> dominates) which form the foundations of something (a term, concept, text,
> etc.) and then displacing (not simply inverting) that opposition.  This
> definition can not so easily be applied to music. But that¹s not to say its
> impossible
>
> e.
>

 What you write is helpful.

 I wasn't trying for a definition , more describing a view; what I see when
thinking of deconstructivism applied to certain types of music. It doesn't
seem all that contradictory though, since if one is taking apart a piece of
music while it is being played ( in a group setting) one will probably
inevitably end up examining the underlying oppositions ( a bass note/lack of
discernable bassnote for instance). I mean , one could name things elements
, yet that isn't too accurate when dealing with spherical soundwaves which
are constanly moving outward and changing, especially where if one changes
something it affects what everyone else is playing.

  b.




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