andrei@world.std.com writes:
: Ed Hall wrote:
:
: > Electronic music eliminates the player, while improvisational music
: > eliminates the composer.
:
: Improvisation is instant composition. As long as one's playing some sort of
: "instrument" and one's making conscious decisions about what one's playing,
: one is composing. Composition comes _out of_ improvisation. There really is
: no such thing as free improvisation. Even the freest of improvisers have
: "licks". And recordings of : improvised music tend to become more like
: compositions to the listener if listened to repeatedly.
:
: I realize I'm taking your statement a bit out of contest.
Actually, you're not. The point that composer and player are combined
in improvisation is well-taken. I would extend that to the possibility
that all three can be combined. Further, if a listener imposes a mental
grid around ambient sounds that makes them musical to him or her, then
they are, in fact, music -- just like the mental grid I project upon a
Bach fugue makes it musical to me though the same sounds might be "noise"
to a Bantu tribesman.
-Ed
P.S. A somewhat more amusing John Cage quote follows:
I was surprised when I came into Mother's room in the nursing home to see that
the TV set was on. The program was teenagers dancing to rock-and-roll. I asked
Mother how she liked the new music. She said, "Oh, I'm not fussy about music."
Then, brightening up, she went on, "You're not fussy about music either."
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