[microsound] How essential is your music?

[babilano <babilano@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hallo groep,
I said I would respond later this weekend and of course work, life,  
laziness and a problem with my new firewire audio interface prevented  
me from doing so.
There's also this thing about stating the obvious or never quite  
being satisfied with how I formulate certain thoughts,
No education makes one very insecure in the theoretical department.

Enough excuses.

To recap: Visit to the (disappointing) Van Abbe museum, discussion  
w/  American who tried to impress us intellectually and made the  
statement that "Art should be essential, not just interesting,  
entertaining or even educational".
I didn't really see how that could be accomplished and his answer  
("that's for each individual artist to decide") not very satisfying.  
He said artists should do more to make their work accessible and I  
agreed with that.
The museum had a lot of works there without any explanation or clues  
as to how to interpret them.
Only two people responded to the questions I sent to the group and I  
can understand why.
The questions were not specific enough and I don't ever fill out  
questionnaires either.

One question I asked was : " do you care if people understand what  
you are trying to do?"
Paulo Mouat : No. Define "understand"... It's a lost battle if you  
expect a
thorough understanding, it's pointless (and prone to subjective
misconceptions) if you settle for anything less than that.

Yes of course, I think you're right but many artists just put stuff  
out there and don't give any explanation about the work when some  
information would be helpful to get a sense of the meaning of a work.  
(define "meaning":)
For a musical work this is far less important, I think.
The Beethoven story was surprising to me because an emotional  
reaction would seem a great compliment for any musician.

Laura Mello wrote:
How essential is your music?
It comes from/is my essence.

To me that is about as essential as you can get but still hard to  
attain, it's what makes great art, especially in music.

> Do you make an effort to get your music heard beyond the small crowd
> of illuminati?
Laura again:
Actually, no. I would like it to be heard beyond this small crowd, but I
also don´t like the idea to commercialize it in the sense that I should
come to the public and tell them "listen to me". I think people  
should also
be used to want to look for something new and not always wait for the  
"new"
to come to their computer monitors. But that´s a very personal opinion.
Maybe a balance between both (being accessible to the public, but not  
being
imperative) would be the best.

Yeah, I remember the obligatory visits with my class to museums with  
disgust.
I suspect people are less interested when something becomes more  
easily availlable.


Unsatisfactory as always,
babilano

ps: I'm still curious to hear from others how they feel about  
bringing their work to the public.
Is it pearls before swine ?




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