[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [microsound] pearls before swine




On 31/03/2008, at 10:19 AM, Owen Green wrote:

babilano wrote:

Do you feel it matters if your music is not heard outside a small group of cognoscenti?

I'm much more concerned with the activity than the artefact, so I'm relatively un-bothered about who comes to my shows, buys my offerings etc. compared to wanting to engage more directly with as wide a range of people as I can, especially non-specialists. I'm certainly not attached to the idea that developing a taste for 'difficult' music is, in and of itself, character building or some such guff.

I wholeheartedly agree. I never inform family members, friends or work colleges about my gigs. If people are genuinely interested they usually find out for themselves. Of course I will always inform people I know would be interested. But others who are not specially interested in electronic music would normally come only out of curiosity. I don't want to be a curiosity. For me art/music is an everyday activity, not a means to a career, or a compulsion to convince the world that what I'm doing, my music, is the best, most correct, most aesthetically pleasing/challenging, etc.. Its not going to wean the general public off a bland mainstream diet. I will leave others to attempt that.

Can that ever change?

Does it matter if it doesn't? I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with specialization. The problems, as I see them, that inform categorizations of music by 'difficulty' etc., are rooted in our wider musical / artistic culture, and the tendency for many people to be discouraged from participation from a young age.

It doesn't have to change. Basically the audience for contemporary art, as I see it, is essentially other contemporary artists. Apart from a few dedicated theorists and curator types, the general 'art going' public are still struggling to come to grips with early Modernism. Its much the same with music. I don't see this as a problem. For me its the exchange of ideas that is important, and this exchange occurs between artists. I try to make the ideas that inform my music (though I've been working with video the last few years) legible to anyone who has an understanding of the context. I don't try to hide anything or be mysterious. But, on the other hand, I never try to make work accessible to a wider public by dumbing it down or being too literal, didactic, or submitting to popular taste (unless, of course I'm actually working within a specific genre, which is something I've done before, and might possibly do again).


Or is it like expecting a monkey to appreciate the taste of ginger?
The word taste here is unfortunate. For me there is no such thing as good taste or bad taste, astute aesthetic judgment or poor aesthetic judgment. There are only good ideas and bad ideas.

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



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