Nicely put. Thanks!
Alan Lockett wrote:
quoted 80 lines --On 27 September 2005 08:19 -0600 mantrakid <mantrakid@neferiu.com>>
> --On 27 September 2005 08:19 -0600 mantrakid <mantrakid@neferiu.com>
> wrote:
>
>> The result transcends genre, it establishes musical individualism,
>> and it
>> has existed in all forms from bach to the beatles to nirvana and beyond.
>> (self)Genre classification is for lazy musicians who lack the self
>> esteem
>> and courage to express themselves in their purest form. They assume that
>> the only way to connect with the masses is to include themselves with
>> the
>> masses.
>
>
> I'm not sure there have been many musicians willingly
> 'self-classifying' themselves as 'IDM'.
> It's a tag that was devised as a kind of critical 'shorthand' to
> enable classification, and it stuck, regrettably, though very few
> practitioners adopt it in anything other than a 'knowing' kind of way,
> as if it had quotation marks around it, so to speak.
> Anyway, leaving judgments as to the term's appropriacy (and aesthetic
> considerations) aside, 'genre' operates simply as a form of
> classification, and though classification is often characterised (as
> here) as somehow detrimental, leading to neglect of individual
> elements that distinguish one from another, it's actually a very basic
> human tendency. At the most basic level, we do it in order to make
> sense of the complexity of sensory input we have to deal with daily;
> it says that item X is similar in several significant respects to Y
> and Z, though different enough to be X. Where it becomes problematic
> is when the aspect of difference is diminished or obscured (which is
> where an element of wilful deployment comes in). For example, its
> social psychological by-products are things like 'stereotyping', which
> can be used for evil and wicked purposes, of course, but there is
> nothing about the act of genre-fication *per se* that is to be abhorred.
>
>> Genre exists to restrain thinking to normality and mass
>> association. I personally would much rather be referred to as
>> 'mantrakid'
>> than a techno hiphop artist.
>
>
> Hmmm. I don't think genre 'exists' to do this. Genre is used to signal
> to recipients of a message what category something might be said to
> fit into, so as to enable a rough and ready processing of the message
> (that is not to say it is considered the whole story).
> It may be *deployed* by some for the purposes mentioned above
> admittedly, but I don't think there's anything pre-wired into genre
> that disposes it to 'restrain' individuality (i.e. it's a container,
> but not a prison); things can be situated at a different level/order
> at one and the same time depending on what system or sub-system they
> enter into, being part of a smaller or larger group of similar things.
> To make an analogy, I'm aware that a pink grapefruit is, at one and
> the same time, a type of *fruit*, a type of *citrus fruit* at that,
> and what's more a type of *grapefruit*. Acknowledging its status as
> 'fruit' doesn't diminish its essential pink-grapefruitiness, nor does
> rejoicing in the particular individual sweet tartness of a particular
> specimen require it to be placed apart from the universe of other
> fruits and fruitiness in general.
> Being referred to as 'a techno hiphop artist' doesn't of itself deny
> the individuality of 'mantrakid' any more than calling a pink
> grapefruit a fruit restrains its status as a grapefruit, and a pink
> one at that, and, what's more, an especially sweet one ...
>
> urgh... my head hurts now... my mum told me not to mess with ontology...
>
> Now off to listen to some Elevator Shitcore Ether-Gospel
>
> alan
>
> ----------------------
> Alan Lockett (Senior Language Co-ordinator - EFL)
> Language Centre, University of Bristol,
> 30-32 Tyndall's Park Road, Bristol, BS8 1PY, UK
> tel: +44 (0)117 3310914 e-mail: Alan.R.Lockett@bristol.ac.uk
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org
For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org