Re: [microsound] microsound vs. DJ culture

["tobias c. van Veen" <tobias@xxxxxxxxx>]

hi Christo,

Thanks for these excellent thoughts.

I guess what I am boiling down to is the persistence of "criticism" or the
"critic." I'd rather entertain the idea of investigating systems of
complexity which counterpoint to studies on affect, relays, forces. There
are different ways of saying this. And that what often irks me are theories
of "aesthetic" "critique" that imply certain ethical and epistemological
universals.

To knock on a couple of things you mention below ..

I don't think it's ever necessary to feel one is "real" to hip-hop. I think
this is missing the point -- too many cultural studies academics wring their
hands without ever stopping to think that perhaps the issue is "critique" in
the first place, or the fact that no one is born to hip-hop, or anything
else: you've just gotta be down with it, i.e., show some interest in
learning more about it .. if there's a territorial "keep-out" attitude to
hip-hop which claims that you've got to be "keepin' it real" to get it, a
little research will also show, within hip-hop, those who disagree with that
kind of exclusivity. So join the party.

I.e., what matters is that one grants one's object of study the latitude
from which to develop a relation with its environment, further, an
articulation of that surrounding (a re-definition feedback loop). You
suggested something quite similar at the end of your first email; we should
simply extend that idea one step further to accept that this very criterion
might be subject to reconstruction and displacement via the process itself.

This makes things more difficult than most people want to -- I think most of
us would much rather take shortcuts. Unfortunately this leaves us with
perhaps well-meaning essays that look ridiculous with the passing of time,
because they don't take the time to reflect on the variable alterations of
that which is under discussion.

The question as to where this leaves one as a "critical listener" perhaps
might lead one to remix whether "critical" is the point of entry of
"listening" .. to rethink the context in which "critical" became the
criterion itself of analysis.

As for Adorno..  I see no reason why the reappropriation of counter-culture
invalidates its affect and effects, nor reduces its force, historical
agency, its struggles, ruptures and archives... to say otherwise would be to
_grant the cultures and structures of reappropriation--what is usually
called "consumer capitalism," i.e. but also the right--its power without
question_. Adorno's analysis often has the uncanny effect of rendering
capital's control much stronger, perhaps, than it is. There is a degree of
negative fatalism at work in an analysis that so strongly dismisses that
which makes us happy. Making weird music wouldn't have magically solved the
issue of reappropriation of counterculture. True, Captain Beefheart hasn't
been resold (yet) as Volkswagon ads, but neither did he start a revolution.
Nor do you hear him all that often these days ..

The cycle of reappropriation perhaps has to be distinctly thought from that
of capitalism and the culture industries. Recycling is the basis of remix
culture, which sees the sharing of art and music as positive rather than
negative. Could Adorno have dug an understanding of property in this
direction? After all, it is more Marx than Marx: property in remix culture,
theoretically at least, is a shared kind of "resource" (although the
reality, as I've recently written elsewhere, is far more along the lines of
wanting to have one's cake and eat it too -- owning a remix, etc. -- there
is much work to be done, I feel, in seeing where this is leading us...).

Adorno should have read more Hunter S. Thompson.

Thanks again Christos -- enough from me for a bit ..

best,

    tobias

> Hi Tobias
> 
> that was interesting.
> 
>> Q-- 
>> 
>> Although I am wondering why are you comparing "'mainstream' dj practice"
>> with Stockhausen et al?
>> 
>> Wouldn't a better example be Janek Schaefer with Stockhausen?
>> Or, Algorithm with Berio?
>> How about Q-Bert with Mahler?
>>  
>> 
> My comparison was a reaction to another post where i think i saw a
> "genealogy" being drawn from Stockhausen and Varese to DJ culture. but
> you're right that one should compare mainstream to mainstream...
> 
>> For certainly Stockhausen is not a "mainstream composer" -- perhaps the
>> equivalent to "mainstream dj practice" would be Vivaldi..
>> 
>> Stockhausen's Telemusic with John Oswald's Plunderphonics?
>> 
>> There has to be a fair and accurate example from each genre.. each of which
>> is not a genre at all, per se, but a conceptual differentiation in the
>> approach to sound.
>> 
>> The tension you speak of in new music may not exist in dj culture for the
>> reason that this tension holds less meaning in a music originating from
>> recorded music. Although even then this tension certainly also exists, say,
>> in remix culture and where this meets dj culture (say Negativland, John
>> Oswald, also Kid Koala, DJ Danger Mouse, etc). But this tension is not the
>> primary affect nor effect of a dj set orientated at ritual gathering, for
>> example, in which the tension is not over the conceptual understanding of
>> icon and property, but rather in the purely sonic event (which is more
>> "musical" than Stockhausen, in a sense).
>>  
>> 
> and this in turn raises the question of how much does one include in
> criticism. to take another Adorno example: he once wrote something to
> the effect that he could never consider a song writtten with traditional
> harmonic structures, cadences etc to be a real vehicle for criticism of
> the Vietnam war. this approach evacuates the dimension of reception and
> the social identification that a song provides, perhaps a vital part of
> any anti-war movement (or any movement for that matter). with the
> benefit of hindsight, when we see how easily "counter culture" was
> recuperated by (sorry) the culture industry, maybe there is a point here.
> 
>> One a tradition _from_ recorded sound (dj culture); the other, with history
>> and aesthetic categories developed _before_ recorded sound. Of course both
>> are intraweaved extensively. But to continue with a categorical separation,
>> dj culture cannot exist sans recordable media. Thus its aesthetic is
>> developed from recordable media as its conditions of possibility. New music,
>> while incorporating recorded media, works with an aesthetic inherited from a
>> history of music grounded in performance by players of specific
>> bodily-involved instruments. This is only one aspect of difference in
>> respect to media and technology; there are also socio-political, cultural
>> differences in the context in which music is made and produced. Dj culture
>> very much, I think, engages a culture of carnival, which has its own
>> histories in both European and other cultures. We could also speak of sonic
>> territory in the birth of djing in Jamaica, the hip-hop ensemble in NYC, the
>> shamanistic role of the dj in what Maffesoli and Graham St John call
>> "neo-tribal" cultures, etc.
>>  
>> 
> indeed, there are "socio-political, cultural differences in the context
> in which music is made and produced". but then do we need to understand
> them in depth to be able to formulate a criticism of the music? in all
> honesty, i don't think i'll ever be in a position to intimately
> understand the specificity of  NYC hip-hop ensembles (and i would hazard
> a guess that for most of the people who listen to hip-hop, the social
> specificity is more an object of "safe" phantasm than real
> identification), so where does that leave me as a critical listener?
> assuming many musics do establish a sonic territory and even that this
> territory may be the scene of a politicaly charged struggle do they
> automatically get the benefit, as music, of whatever support one might
> want to give that particular struggle?
> 
>> And each example also loses its status as such: we would have to do so from
>> the acquisition of two approaches to two histories of sound (two
>> singularities that are also differential in theme). Just as we recognise
>> Stockhausen's individuality (by the criteria you propose), we would have to
>> recognise Q-Bert's, for example; although perhaps should we not consider
>> Q-Bert from an aesthetic pertaining to that particular themeatic approach?
>> Ie, to analyse Q-Bert through the complex narratology he engages in hip-hop
>> (the same could be done with Dj Shadow, which at one point I likened, to
>> much chagrin from critics, to Proust), but also to the development of unique
>> skill (his crab-scratch) and forms of scratch-notation. Likewise, Janek
>> Schaefer has redesigned the turntable instrument while Martin Tetreault has
>> deconstructed the turntable as apparatus.
>> 
>> 
>>  
>> 
> maybe a fundamental question is whether there really are many parallel
> value systems for any particular critic. not to confuse what i might
> enjoy with what i can build a critical discourse around.
> but i take note and shall go and listen!
> 
> tara
> 
> cc
> 



tobias c. van Veen -----------++++
http://www.quadrantcrossing.org --
http://www.thisistheonlyart.com --
McGill Communication + Philosophy
ICQ: 18766209 | AIM: thesaibot +++ 


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: microsound-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: microsound-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
website: http://www.microsound.org