<<Are you really so cynical?>>
A thousand people inhabit my body, and none of them can agree on John Cage.
Still I think I can safely say I like the way Cage talks about music, but I
can't stand his music. I've really vacillated about him over the years, and
you happened to catch me in one of my militant anti-art moods. Just for
shits, though, here's something I wrote about Cage to another mailing list a
couple years ago:
-aesthetic (cf. John Cage): realizing
-that music isn't a perfect form that exists in an
-ideal vacuum: music consists of not only the
-intentional sounds on the score/recording but also
-the random "nonintentional" sounds in the background,
-created by the audience, or album, or atmosphere,
-etc. Unlike most music theory, studying John Cage
-has actively changed how I listen to recorded music.
-I learned to appreciate the pops and buzzs of vinyl
-and glass (in 78s) not as a defect of the medium but
-as a warmth belonging to (not alienating) the music.
-If I'm listening to ambient and a garbage truck drives
-by, it's not a distraction, but an unexpected twist in
-the music. If this sounds facile and cheesy that's
-because it is, but I
So my outlook seesaws like that, and I've learnt to spell "buzzes"
correctly...but it's so hard to talk about these things. My point in my
last email, which was a bit of a troll I suppose (perhaps I provoke only
because I like to be provoked), was that Cage/Stocky/et al are not for most
people. I would love to love all that crap ("crap" used here as a
colloquialism for "stuff"), and I've tried, but I don't. In retrospect, I
bought their music simply because I thought it would be cool to have in my
collection (like the Gescom MD and dozens of other discs I never listen to).
I'm sure lots of people on this list do the same thing all the
time--there's probably thousands of copies of Confield wasting away in
people's collections after one or two fruitless listens--and I'm merely
trying to be candid about it.
<<these people sound like Rush fucking Limbaugh, trashing the NorthEastern
intellectual elites.>>
There was a great ad for Rush F. Limbaugh on the side of a bus here recently
which had a picture of him with an inscription to the effect of "Rush Moved
to the Left!" and then a picture of a radio dial showing the new, lower AM
frequency that he changed to. Pretty damned keen. But seriously, I think
elite-bashing, however superficial (and ironic, in my case), is like
masturbation: it's a healthy habit.
<<any of its fans are particularly bothered by your uninterest. So you
really don't need to slam them with the charge of "elitism.">>
I'm not particularly bothered by their interest, either, but I apologize for
letting a buzz-word like that slip out. Scratch the adjective "elite" in my
last post and replace it with "special." But please-- I wasn't denigrating
people who like musique concrete. I just question how many of them are
sincere. Modern composers make great name-dropping fodder, and--I can only
speak for myself--I've certainly used them for that end in my day, and I
regret it.
<<Actually, Steve Reich studied African drumming extensively, so in this
case there is a pretty direct link.>>
Touche. (I should've known--what avant gardist worth his or her salt hasn't
paid some attention to indigenous drumming and ethnic music since the likes
of Stravinsky and Bartok. [Although you slightly miss my point, but only
quibbles there.] Now Bartok--there's a composer I've spent many many hours
coming to grips with, and quite successfully, but with the electronic
composers--I just can't find anything there to appreciate. The flaw must
belong to me.) Sorry if I pushed any buttons, I'm just trying to keep the
dialectic flowing here, and I can't get enough of hearing myself think out
loud :)
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