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Re: [microsound] music is the ultimate incorruptible



a very long thread this.

2 points:

i think the question of power in relation to the making of music is not
being framed in the best way: power presupposes hierarchy which in turn
presupposes a conception of hierarchy and what kind of relation one should
adopt relative to hierarchy..

i am interested in improvisationally based forms (which can include
composition, can include composed elements etc.) because while there may be
hierarchical arrangements that emerge---that is, there may be separations of
function that develop which involve, say, foreground/background features
(players adopting a more comping relation to activity that takes place in
the foreground, which operate as traditional lead instruments)----they are
revocable within performances and renegociable across them.
hierarchies may transpire, but they are not understood as top-down
structures that are given in advance--there is no assumption that one need
defer to these arrangements simply because they exist.: hierarchy at a given
time is among the emergent properties of an improvisation as a group
activity.
they do not in any way presuppose deference or repetition.
this is in line with the distinction between autonomy and heteronomy
outlined in the writings of cornelius castoriadis.

this changing relation to what amounts to a division of labor within a given
piece is among the aspects of performances that recordings wipe out as a
function of the simple fact that recordings fix the elements of
performance.  projections on the part of a listener fill in the space left
by the interactions of the players in real time.
which follows from the fact  that a recording of an improvisation captures
everything except the improvisation.
this is neither a good thing nor a bad thing--it simply is.
but it does mean that recordings are not the best medium through which to
stage these questions of power relations within music.

i have been thinking about dropping complete, note for note webern pieces
into this type of performance for a while now because i think it could be
interesting as a constraint and could push things into areas that i haven't
really explored.  but i haven't gotten around to organizing an occasion
yet....
this leans on a wider relation to compositional elements within which they
operate simply as types of constraints,  as one option amongst a range for
developing constraints that would push performances one way or another.

other point:
i find that informed misreadings of cage can be as or more fruitful as any
other, simply because the ways cage's work open up for thinking sonic
organization are often more interesting than the ways in which cage himself
chose to act upon/within them.
at least for those of us who are not john cage.
i dont see various approaches to cage as mutually exclusive.

personally, i prefer that misreadings be motivated--that is that they are
aware of what they are doing and why they are doing it.  i suspect this is a
function of having used cage's writings in different academic contexts for
quite a long time and that i get bored quickly in conversations with folk
who do not know what they are doing and why with his texts. but this is not
particular to cage.  and is mostly a way of avoiding finding myself having
already crossed that curious threshold that may or may not seperate boredom
from crankiness before i am aware that i have..


stephen