Faking Jazz...
JGoodpast
than other forms of jazz. I'm interested to know what everyone thinks.
Personally, when it is marginal musicians playing avant-garde/free-jazz, the
results are usually horrible. It takes first-rate musicians to be able to
handle the freedom this music allows and make it work... and be enjoyable to
listen to. If you are faking, it is brutal to listen to, and almost impossible
to make any since of. That is, for those of us experienced in listening to the
avant-garde. Not that maistream(for lack of a better term) is easier to fake,
but there is a roadmap to follow and it is easier for the mediocre musician to
make viable and enjoyable music. Now, whether this is a positive or negative to
either styles is open to debate. Persoanlly, I am a fan of Wynton Marsalis &
Peter Brotzmann, Evan Parker & Leon Parker, and believe that it all has a place
in the wonderful world of jazz, but I do believe that the avant-garde has
raised the stakes in all of jazz and has created a better, more highly
proficient musician over the last 20 years in all forms of the music.
Opinions??
john
curm...@writeme.com
>I was reading a thread today where it said it's easier to fake avant-garde jazz
>than other forms of jazz. I'm interested to know what everyone thinks.
>Personally, when it is marginal musicians playing avant-garde/free-jazz, the
>results are usually horrible.
I guess we're talking the difference between "faking" avant garde jazz
and "playing it well". I agree that playing it well is NOT simple, and
those that do are truly astonishing musicians.
But I recall that the first time I heard Ayler or ASCENSION, it was
all meaningless noise, I had no idea what these guys thought they were
doing. At that time, I would've been unable to distinguish a group of
incompetents who WERE making meaningless noise.
Now, I love Ayler, and ASCENSION, and many others, and I've learned
that all free jazz is not created equal. Once you reach that point,
the fakers have lost their advantage, cuz now you can hear them.
But in straightahead jazz, there are "right" and "wrong" notes
[depending on whether you know how to resolve them properly or not],
and there is keeping time. And these are easy for anyone to hear if
someone can't do them.
So I'd say, yes, it's easier to fake free jazz, cuz it's easier to
find an audience that hasn't learned to fully appreciate and
distinguish it.
Curmudge :)
Chuck Nessa
Wynton and Evan to mean you have "relatively" little experience with
both styles. I do not mean this as a slam, but as a simple observation
(from my perspective). Fake "dixie", "swing", "bop" and "free" players
can fool anyone not well versed in the various fields......It IS that
simple.
There is a commercial on TV for DeBeers Diamonds, where an eratz
"baroque" soundtrack ( by a living hack), fools some "classical music
fans" into thinking it is Vivaldi. Time and study sorts all this shit
out.
CN
JGoodpast wrote:
>
> I was reading a thread today where it said it's easier to fake avant-garde jazz
> than other forms of jazz. I'm interested to know what everyone thinks.
> Personally, when it is marginal musicians playing avant-garde/free-jazz, the
Kevin Clow
individuals who are listening to it will have their own styles of
observation. a casual listener may hear a 3-piece jazz combo playing
very simple songs, "faking it" with incredibly simple improvisation, yet
to them it will sound brilliant. a jazz purist, someone who's been
listening to jazz since they were still in the womb, and one who owns
about a zillion jazz CDs, records and tapes (and maybe even some
8-tracks), and who could name any Duke Ellington song after hearing 3
notes... that person might hear the same combo and call it garbage. so
which one is right? both of them, really. the casual listener has
virturally no base of comparison, but what they don know is how the
music makes them feel. they enjoy it, and that alone makes it valid.
the purist can write it off, leave the others alone so they can enjoy
it, then go home and listen to the stuff they do like.
i really don't know how much this addresses the original post... if a
performer or band is "faking" it, some will notice and dislike it, some
won't pick up on it at all and really enjoy it. and some will know
they're faking but still enjoy it.
is it easy to fake? i'm not a jazz musician (i play rock guitar), so i
can't speak from experience. but i would venture to guess that if you
learn to play your instrument well, especially if you're good at scales,
you can improvise enough to "fool" some.
"Of course, that's just my opinion, yadda yadda yadda" - Dennis Miller
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
http://welcome.to/thezine - "Dash It!" anti-social magazine
http://listen.to/indy - "demolisten" independent music reviews
Rick Lopez
>
> There is a commercial on TV for DeBeers Diamonds, where an eratz
> "baroque" soundtrack ( by a living hack), fools some "classical music
> fans" into thinking it is Vivaldi.
There are actually several of these commercials, and the mess o' music writ
for them has actually been released on a CD titled "Diamond Music" or somesuch.
Egads,
RL
--
Marilyn Crispell, Susie Ibarra, Sam Rivers, Matthew Shipp, David S. Ware, and
Reggie Workman discographies--Samuel Beckett Eulogy--Baseball & the 10,000
Things--Time Stops--LOVETORN--HARD BOIL--etc., at:
http://www.velocity.net/~bb10k
***Very Various Music For Sale:
***http://www.velocity.net/~bb10k/4SALE.html
Craig Premo
> First of all, I must say I find your statement that you are a fan of
> Wynton and Evan to mean you have "relatively" little experience with
> both styles.
I haven't heard any Evan Parker, so I was intrigued by your comment. Do you feel
that he's not a good player? I've been thinking of buying a disc (like his trio with
Cecil Taylor and Tristan Honsinger) to see what he's like.
Fathom
> So I'd say, yes, it's easier to fake free jazz, cuz it's easier to
> find an audience that hasn't learned to fully appreciate and
> distinguish it.
Is it? I don't know where to find an audience for free jazz at all...
;-]
--
Respond by e-mail to aayoung"AT"sonic.net
8 8 8 8 8 8 8
It's hard to be humble when you were born knowing it all.
Marc Sabatella
>
>>I was reading a thread today where it said it's easier to fake avant-garde
> jazz
>>than other forms of jazz. I'm interested to know what everyone thinks.
Well, I pretty much gave my opinion on that thread, but basically, I
disagree with the stated premise.
>in straightahead jazz, there are "right" and "wrong" notes
>[depending on whether you know how to resolve them properly or not],
>and there is keeping time. And these are easy for anyone to hear if
>someone can't do them.
I think you overestimate the size of the audience for bebop. There are,
after all, billions of people who think Bird and Trane were just making
noise.
On the other hand, you can program a machine to crank out "right" notes
all day long, and not have any interesting music to show for it. I
would say such a machine would similarly fool an audience that hasn't
learned to fully appreciate the music. Similarly, there are any number
of musicians with a command of the bebop language but nothing to say. I
think the term "faking" is just appropriate for these musicians as it is
for a free improvisor who is, well, doing whatever it is you consider
"faking" for a free improvisor.
And actually, "faking" bebop is easier in this respect, because you get
the cover of playng "right" notes (makes it sound "real" even when it
isn't).
There is another way I have of looking at this: from the persective of a
musician who actually *can* play in both styles, and who is pretty
critical in listening to both styles as well (namely, me :-). I find it
much, MUCH easier to please my own ears playing bebop than improvising
freely - I can be content to just run changes without thinking when
playing bebop, but I know *instantly* if my free improvisation isn't
happening.
--------------
Marc Sabatella
ma...@outsideshore.com
Check out my latest CD, "Second Course"
Available on Cadence Jazz Records
Also "A Jazz Improvisation Primer", Scores, & More:
http://www.outsideshore.com/
Dreitzes
>From: jgoo...@aol.com (JGoodpast)
>Date: 3/1/99 6:17 PM Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <19990301181724...@ng133.aol.com>
>
>I was reading a thread today where it said it's easier to fake avant-garde
>jazz
>than other forms of jazz. I'm interested to know what everyone thinks.
>results are usually horrible. It takes first-rate musicians to be able to
>handle the freedom this music allows and make it work... and be enjoyable to
>listen to. If you are faking, it is brutal to listen to, and almost
>impossible
>to make any since of. That is, for those of us experienced in listening to
>the
>avant-garde. Not that maistream(for lack of a better term) is easier to fake,
>but there is a roadmap to follow and it is easier for the mediocre musician
>to
>make viable and enjoyable music. Now, whether this is a positive or negative
>to
>either styles is open to debate. Persoanlly, I am a fan of Wynton Marsalis &
>Peter Brotzmann, Evan Parker & Leon Parker, and believe that it all has a
>place
>in the wonderful world of jazz, but I do believe that the avant-garde has
>raised the stakes in all of jazz and has created a better, more highly
>proficient musician over the last 20 years in all forms of the music.
>Opinions??
>
>john
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
You can't fake talent.
Period.
Dave Reitzes
Walter Davis
Chuck Nessa <cne...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Fake "dixie", "swing", "bop" and "free" players
>can fool anyone not well versed in the various fields
I hope this doesn't start another interminable thread about subjective
vs. objective aspects of music appreciation but...
I really can't grasp this notion of "fooling" the audience or being
"fooled" by charlatan musicians. Why should I care if the person up on
stage is a hack or a genius if I feel like I got my money's worth out of
it.
Really, I'm under the impression that some of you have gone to concerts,
and walked out saying "man that was awesome." Then a couple weeks later
you (lord only knows how) decide that the musician was a fraud, and
suddenly you feel all ripped off. I'd have to say that if this happens
to you, then I suspect you're the one who's faking it. You're probably
the one who's feigning interest in a given music because you think your
friends will think you're cool or some such. Then you find out that
your friends or "experts" or whoever diss the music you just enjoyed,
and instead of saying "so what, I liked it" you start feeling like the
victim of a con.
It will never cease to amaze me how quickly an audience member
(regardless of their knowledge and experience) will say that musicians
were having bad nights or must have been high or are pretenders, yet it
will never occur to them that maybe they're the one having the off night
or pretending.
-walt
Walter Davis walter...@unc.edu
Health Data Analyst at the ph: (919) 962-1019
Institute for Research in Social Science fax: (919) 962-8980
UNC - Chapel Hill
Tom Walls
says...
I think the issue is whether a musician in a given format can communicate
information that the listener can appreciate. I don't really think that the
particular genre is the issue.
I find it odd that we use a term like "avant-garde" or "free" and expect that
we are talking about a particular type of music. I find great stylistic
differences among musics covered by these terms.
IMHO many listeners expect far too much of musicians. They get really pissed
off when you don't play precisely the type of music they expect, at the
highest possible levels. Given the likely rewards of a career in jazz, they
should probably be grateful anyone plays jazz at all. I am one of these
obnoxiously demanding listeners, of course.
JONM AYTAC
: In article <36db23ca...@news.sentex.net>, curm...@writeme.com wrote:
: >On 1 Mar 1999 23:17:24 GMT, jgoo...@aol.com (JGoodpast) wrote:
: >>I was reading a thread today where it said it's easier to fake avant-garde
: > jazz
: >>than other forms of jazz. I'm interested to know what everyone thinks.
It's possible to fake avant-garde in the same sense that it's possible to
fake an orgasm (well, except either gender could fake avant-garde). But
anyways, if you've ever heard/seen the real thing, you can tell the diff
--
Howard Peirce
> It will never cease to amaze me how quickly an audience member
> (regardless of their knowledge and experience) will say that musicians
> were having bad nights or must have been high or are pretenders, yet it
> will never occur to them that maybe they're the one having the off night
> or pretending.
Bingo! Walt wins the DeBakey Award for cutting to the heart of the matter.
Music occurs in the act of listening.
HP
Howard Peirce
> You can't fake talent.
>
> Period.
Seems to me you can't fake insight . . .
Ellipsis.
HP
Howard Peirce
> On the other hand, you can program a machine to crank out "right" notes
> all day long, and not have any interesting music to show for it. I
> would say such a machine would similarly fool an audience that hasn't
> learned to fully appreciate the music.
It's called Band-in-a-Box, versions 7 and above. About $60, for Windows. The
machine and I disagree about what is and isn't a "right" note, but on the whole
I'd say your description is accurate.
HP
JGoodpast
>Wynton and Evan to mean you have "relatively" little experience with
>both styles
No, my friend, I have a tremendous amout of experience with both style. This
statement was simply to show my likes and dislikes. And it was a slam, and
your observation is way off.
>Fake "dixie", "swing", "bop" and "free" players
>can fool anyone not well versed in the various fields......It IS that
>simple.
And if you read my statement I said, and I quote... "That is, for those of us
experienced in listening to theavant-garde." Meaning that it is easy to
determine if someone is faking free-jazz/avant-garde because of the exreme
difficulty in making it work, and in so doing, making it understandable to
those of us listening to it.
Seems to me that you set out to slam me and my comments without fully reading
my statement.
john
JGoodpast
>feel
>that he's not a good player? I've been thinking of buying a disc (like his
>trio with
>Cecil Taylor and Tristan Honsinger) to see what he's like.
>
>
Evan is an amazing musician. He has an amazing command of both Tenor and
soprano, but it is for his soprano that he is most respected. He has created a
unique language that must be heard to be believed. One of the masters of the
avant-garde, and someone not to be missed.
I highly recommend 'The Redwood Session' on CIMP(with his longstanding trio and
a cut with Joe McPhee) and his duo with Andre Prevost 'Most Materall' on
Matchless Recordings. Both are outstanding.
john
JGoodpast
>(regardless of their knowledge and experience) will say that musicians
>were having bad nights or must have been high or are pretenders, yet it
>will never occur to them that maybe they're the one having the off night
>or pretending.
Great point!!! It all comes down to the perspective of the listener. This is
one of the interesting things about jazz, and how two people can have totaly
contrasting views about an artists worth or the show both of them just saw.
Musical enjoyment goes both was, and can be seen as an interactive art form.
One in which the experiences of both musician and listener are as equally
important to the enjoyment, or percieved enjoyment, of a concert or recording.
john
JONM AYTAC
: >I haven't heard any Evan Parker, so I was intrigued by your comment. Do you
stalker songs is the ~!@#$%!%
I can't act like it was my own discovery though
--
Marc Sabatella
I've heard a few of the solos generated by the latest version, and while
I say the were a few spots that might have "fooled" me, I suspect these
were canned licks.
JGoodpast
>
>stalker songs is the ~!@#$%!%
>
>I can't act like it was my own discovery though
>--
Amazing recording technique... The truest sound in the recording industry.
john
Marc Sabatella
>I hope this doesn't start another interminable thread about subjective
>vs. objective aspects of music appreciation but...
>
>I really can't grasp this notion of "fooling" the audience or being
>"fooled" by charlatan musicians. Why should I care if the person up on
>stage is a hack or a genius if I feel like I got my money's worth out of
>it.
>
>Really, I'm under the impression that some of you have gone to concerts,
>and walked out saying "man that was awesome." Then a couple weeks later
>you (lord only knows how) decide that the musician was a fraud, and
>suddenly you feel all ripped off.
These are really good points, and it is why several of us have been
tending to use terms like "faking" in quotes - because it doesn't really
mean what it might seem to mean. I'm in full agreement that what really
matters is whether or not you *like* the music (which pretty much gives
away my stand on the objective/subjective thing, for those who didn't
already know). And it suggests I'm even more foolish than it would at
first appear to continuing to argue with someone who speaks of "faking"
in the context of music he clearly doesn't like. He clearly doesn't get
that if people like something, it is in a very real sense, well, real.
>It will never cease to amaze me how quickly an audience member
>(regardless of their knowledge and experience) will say that musicians
>were having bad nights or must have been high or are pretenders, yet it
>will never occur to them that maybe they're the one having the off night
>or pretending.
As I like to say, music is a form of communication between the performer
and the listener, and if the listener doesn't "get" it, it isn't always
the "fault" of the performer.
Simon Weil
> I said, and I quote... "That is, for those of us
>experienced in listening to theavant-garde." Meaning that it is easy to
>determine if someone is faking free-jazz/avant-garde because of the exreme
>difficulty in making it work, and in so doing, making it understandable to
>those of us listening to it.
>
hard simply because so many of its practioners invent their own languages. In
order to get what each individual artist is doing, I find I have to start
thinking on their terms. This is a hell of a long slow process and,
accordingly, I very much doubt that many people are truly "experienced"
avant-garde listeners (i.e across the whole spectrum of artists). It would just
be so time consuming to listen to just all those artists out there - and
*truly* inwardly digest their music. Certainly I haven't done this. Chuck Nessa
is one of those few people who I do believe has - who is capable of balanced
judgement across the entire range of the a-g. If I may offer some evidence
towards this. I find writing about Avant -garde Jazz to be absolutely awful.
It's all how wonderful x's new issue on y label is. Everything is good.
Absolutely no discrimination occurs (at any rate in the reviews I see). I take
this to mean that reviewers actually can't discriminate. They don't have the
depth of listening experience to make it possible.
Simon Weil
Rick Lopez
>
> As I like to say, music is a form of communication between the performer
> and the listener, and if the listener doesn't "get" it, it isn't always
> the "fault" of the performer.
So then the problem, succinctly put, is how to convey this to a stonehead like
Traynor. I always thought the best way to approach music (or anything else)
that you don't hear/like/get is with humility, not some scoffing squall
presuming intentions you can't possibly know. (Scoffing the sound a fool
makes, some wiseman said.)
The real deal is that Denardo wasn't playing for GT, (or probably even me for
that matter)-- he was playing with and for his father, and if someone digs
peeking through that precious keyhole, why not??
BTW, FWIW, I love Ornette, love his music, but I've never connected with this
disc. Possibly because I'm a drummer(?), but it has nothing to do with feeling conned.
otay,
Rrrrrrrrr
George Traynor
>
>>>Dreitzes wrote:
>>>
>>>You can't fake talent
>>>
>
>>
>>Seems to me you can't fake insight . . .
>>
>>Ellipsis.
Prove it....
-
Chuck Nessa
responsibility from the artist AND audience. It gives the (probably)
limited experience of the audience in charge. Truth does exist, out
there, somewhere. Have the balls to argue it. Don't leave it to the
"however limited" experience of the audience.
CN
Chuck Nessa
Krishna Rayaprolu
Marc Sabatella wrote:
> And actually, "faking" bebop is easier in this respect, because you get
> the cover of playng "right" notes (makes it sound "real" even when it
> isn't).
I think the "fakability" of music depends on whether the listener is
appreciating music with his intellect or with his heart/body. I think it is
independent of the type of music or even the experience of the listener. If a
listener is analyzing music to find the right/wrong notes he could be fooled
with this correct-note-cranking-machine playing bebop. If the listener is
always looking for something new, different or hip he could be fooled by an
avante-garde artist who just creates something shocking or new.
When I lie back and relax in my couch, throw my intellect and analysis away
(which is not always easy) and begin to simply enjoy jazz, I don't think any
fake music can fool me. Some great music might sound ordinary to me if I am not
ready for it but there is no way a poor music can sound great.
Krishna
oaks...@my-dejanews.com
I feel that the most important element in jazz, the one which really makes it
unique in the world, is not its improvisation, important though that is, but
it’s rhythmic specialness. After all, jazz is not the only music in the world
which has improvisation. (No one would ever think that Vilayat Khan is
playing jazz just because he is improvising.) But it is the only music in the
world which has this special way of moving from one one attack to another and
which imparts what we call swing. Even though many jazz musicians have
different types of swing feeling (Would anyone ever confuse Elvin’s feel for
swing with Papa Jo’s feel for swing? Or Art Tatum’s feel for swing (e.g., Get
Happy), Monk’s feel for swing, or Kenny Kirkland’s feel for swing?), they’re
all identifiable as part of rhythmic tradition. And this is what makes it
different from other musics in the world.
Okay--get ready for it! Here it comes! The obligatory, perfectly obvious-----
Ta-dah!!!! IMO.
oakstaff
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
JGoodpast
>avant-garde
>hard simply because so many of its practioners invent their own languages. In
>order to get what each individual artist is doing, I find I have to start
>thinking on their terms. This is a hell of a long slow process and,
>accordingly, I very much doubt that many people are truly "experienced"
>avant-garde listeners (i.e across the whole spectrum of artists). It would
>just
>be so time consuming to listen to just all those artists out there - and
>*truly* inwardly digest their music. Certainly I haven't done this. Chuck
>Nessa
>is one of those few people who I do believe has - who is capable of balanced
>judgement across the entire range of the a-g. If I may offer some evidence
>towards this. I find writing about Avant -garde Jazz to be absolutely awful.
>It's all how wonderful x's new issue on y label is. Everything is good.
>Absolutely no discrimination occurs (at any rate in the reviews I see). I
>take
>this to mean that reviewers actually can't discriminate. They don't have the
>depth of listening experience to make it possible.
>
While I probably agree with you, and it has taken a number of years training my
ears(so to speak) to the differences in the avant-garde, as well as other forms
of jazz, it is very worthwhile to become familiar with many, if not most, of
these musicians because the rewards are tremendous!! At least for myself.
As far as reviewers go, the only guys who seem to take the time and effort to
truely understand the ag, are the reviewers and owners of Cadnece. And John
Corbet, who I hold in very high regaurd in these matters.
thel...@my-dejanews.com
drei...@aol.com (Dreitzes) wrote:
> >Subject: Faking Jazz...
> >From: jgoo...@aol.com (JGoodpast)
> >Date: 3/1/99 6:17 PM Eastern Standard Time
> >Message-id: <19990301181724...@ng133.aol.com>
> >
> >jazz
> >than other forms of jazz. I'm interested to know what everyone thinks.
> >results are usually horrible. It takes first-rate musicians to be able to
> >handle the freedom this music allows and make it work... and be enjoyable to
The stuff is *ALL* fake! Which reminds me:
------------------------------------------------------------------
OUR STANDARD MESSAGE: DEATH TO AVANT-CON "JAZZ", DEATH TO FREE-SCAM
"JAZZ", DOWN WITH TAYLOR, BROTZMANN, FMP ETC.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Friends,
By way of asking for your immediate support in the heavy task that
les ahead of us, I am reposting our "call to arms" for those who may
have missed it. Again, I remind you to strengthen your heart and
spirit and to be vigilant at all times; as you will have noticed,
the enemies of
jazz are not about to take this quietly. But have no fear: I stand
between you and them and will protect you from their unwarranted
wrath. Friends,
the time has come when every true jazz fan must stand up and be
counted:
I am counting on you to do the right thing and help save this music
that we love so much. I want you to walk into a.g./free performances
and right up to the musician, walk right up to the a.g./free fan,
to those in the employ of FMP, ETC; look them straight in the eye and
say "i'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more!".Let them
know that the pollution of jazz will no longet go unopposed! Let them
know that the con must stop today! Let them know that we will fight,
fight, fight!!
The matter at hand:It is clear that all of who are concerned about the
future of jazz will also be concerned about the effects that
that so-called avante-garde "jazz" has had on real jazz. The part of
the public that might be interested in real jazz is often turned off
when they are misled into listening to performances or recordings of
the so-called avante-garde jazz, and it is high time we started to
do something about it. Things have simply gotten out of hand in
what is being put out their, and musicians and lovers of real jazz are
paying for it, whether directly or not. We must stand up against the
sad, sad noise that is ruining this music!
You will have noticed that avante-garde musicians and their fans get
very upset when it is stated that their music is not jazz. Why is
this so? The answer is that this is the only way they can get any
interest in this mindless random noise. Basically, the idea is that
they will quietly sneak into the jazz tent and illegally harvest
there. You may well ask: are there members of the public who are
taken in by the mere name of jazz? Sadly, the answer is yes, whence,
for example, the increasing use of jazz in advertising, the production
of a Jazz perfume, etc. Now, these people when they try the music
might well be turned on to real jazz, but instead they are being
lost to us whenever their first encounter is the so-called avant-garde
jazz. This is why it is time for us to act! We must insist that
these cons finally learn to play their instruments if they
want to be associated with jazz. THE TIME TO CAN THE CON IS NOW!
There are several things we could do for a start: direct people to
real jazz, convince those who believe that avant-garde is cool or
hip or whatever that they are getting conned, vote with your wallet:
don't spend the hard-earned in any way that might have a positive
effect on any perpetrator of this con, direct your friends etc.
to real jazz. And remember, you don't have to get up here and announce
your actions: just do it quietly, and let its effects be felt. Labels
like FMP, venues like the Knittng Factory, etc.; all these should
ring a loud warning bell. Don't be impressed by mere fashion; go
for the real gold, instead of the fake stuff that is being urged upon
you.
Friends, we are at a cross-roads. The time to determine the future
of jazz is now. "Musicians" who never learned to play their
instruments properly, rockers seeking to reap where they have
not sown (i.e. jazz), creators of mindless random noise that gives
jazz a bad name ... All these are things we should leave behind when
we move into the 21st century. It is time to say we have had enough.
Time to let these so-called avant-garde-jazz musicians know we
are onto their game and that it is time they learned to play properly.
Some of those fakes are even right here on RMB, and they will fight
hard and long to continue the con; don't buy it, no matter how much
they malign you. The time to stand up and loudly say: CAN THE CON!
is NOW!
Friend, you may say that you are just one person and what can you do?
Well, a lot of one persons piled up is a lot of persons that can do a
lot. For example, I personally have steered the listening directions
of many people in the right direction. All it takes is getting people
to real jazz events, letting those you come into contact with know
where the real goods are and where the con is, tearing down posters
advertising avant-con jazz. Another way is to shop a lot in one
place and through conversations to steer the proprietors direction
of buying away from what is bad and to the real thing; this tactic
is very effective with small shops or with a city with a relatively
small number of CD shops. If you are on an arts advisory board or
something lie that, let you voice be known. ETC. ETC. ETC. My
forthcoming Jazz Agenda For The 21st Century will lay out all of this.
Friends, we have a hard battle in front of us. Stregthen your spirit,
and be prepared!
Thank You.
=====================================================================
Amos Omondi
(on behalf of: Foundation For Real Jazz)
thel...@my-dejanews.com
I'm with you on this one, friend. Never before have so many talentless
hacks found a refuge from which they could con the public. These
characters will make any kind of noise, and if you ask what they are
up to, you get: "it's avant-garde; it's all deep and intellectual, and
stuff, so if you don't like it ...". And you'll get the same from
their fans who for no other reason than to seem cool, hip, etc.
will insist on peddling all this stuff and insisting that it's great.
Give them real jazz and they can't stand above everyone else, because
everyone understand real music. What they want is to create cults
around strange, or obscure, or .. musicians. But most people know
the con is on. That's why these elements constantly have to defend
themselves. Beware" don't buy any of that nonsense. Insist on
real jazz.
tst...@businessobjects.com
"Faking" implies the musician knows he can't do it well and is simply posing,
hoping the audience won't be able to evaluate the performance and will give
him applause or money or both. There must be fakers out there, of course, but
I suspect most "fakers" believe in what they are doing, and we amazingly
experienced, enlightened listeners simply know better. I mean this half-
facetiously and half-seriously. There are also players out there who might be
taken for "fakers" but who are simply doing their best, not there yet but
learning on the bandstand. Tolerance is a wonderful thing.
... Simon's comment on the fact that "avant-garde" or "free" players
increasingly develop their own personal or group language, making it hard to
determine what an "experienced" listener can be expected to have experience
*with, is an excellent insight. Let's say you discover "free improv" and
spend a lot of time listening to Derek Bailey et al doing that. "I like
avant-garde!" you think, and pick up some Anthony Braxton. It might be the
furthest thing from Bailey-style non-idiomatic free improvisation.
Disconcerted, you go to see the Gerry Hemingway Quintet in concert. Wait a
minute, this isn't too much like Derek Bailey *or* Anthony Braxton. OK, let's
buy a Henry Threadgill CD... Granted that "mainsteam" jazz also has a wide
variety of different sounds, but the range of building blocks and
compositional strategies is undeniably smaller. Hence an "experienced"
mainstream jazz listener is able to make comparisons more easily. Any given
room full of "avant garde" listeners may have nothing like the same amount of
common listening experience; hence they may be easier to "fool" if by that
you mean they have less of a basis of comparison and may not be able to judge
the success of a performance with the same degree of nuance as someone
extremely familiar with that *type* of performance.
...As for whether there is "truth" out there that we should have the balls to
argue about, or whether the success of a performance is nothing more than
whether it makes listeners feel good about themselves, or whether we discover
true quality when we stop analyzing and listen with heart and body... I
dunno. A few years ago I had an insight which I like a lot but which sounds
so bone- headedly obvious that I've never been able to impress anyone with
it. It is simply that when someone likes a piece of music, they are liking
what there is to like. Say you don't know the first thing about jazz, and one
day you happen upon a jazz piano trio. You sit down and listen and it blows
your mind. At the next table sits a jaded jazz fan, to whom it is obvious
that the trio sucks. They're a bunch of fumbling idiots who are butchering
the changes and wouldn't swing if you hung 'em. You start to snap your
fingers erratically, so moved are you by this strange new experience. To you
it is bright, surprising, joyful, full of enthralling transformations. You
are riveted. You decide on the spot to become a jazz pianist if it's the last
thing you do. The jaded jazz fan shoots you a hooded-eyed look and thinks,
"The poor, deaf asshole - he's been fooled by these fakers." So what's
happened? Maybe the musicians *are* fakers. But have you been fooled? No! You
are reacting not to the fakery, which you *don't hear*, but to the generic
aspects of jazz which you *are* hearing - rhythmic vitality, melodic
improvisation, chord changes. The nuances of good or bad performance go right
over your head, but you have discovered some basic parameters about jazz
which thrill you. And isn't this what happens all the time to beginning
listeners? When I was fifteen I listened to Charlie Parker and to Ornette
Coleman and couldn't tell the difference between them. But I knew I had found
something I loved, and if someone had played me something by a third-rate
jazz alto player I probably would have loved that too.
- Tom Storer
"When you're not swinging, fake it." - Thelonious Monk
curm...@writeme.com
>These
>characters will make any kind of noise, and if you ask what they are
>up to, you get: "it's avant-garde; it's all deep and intellectual, and
>stuff, so if you don't like it ...". And you'll get the same from
>their fans who for no other reason than to seem cool, hip, etc.
>will insist on peddling all this stuff and insisting that it's great.
>Give them real jazz and they can't stand above everyone else, because
>everyone understand real music.
I can't believe that, after this music has been around for like 40
years, we're still getting commentary like this. Geez, people said
this exact same stuff about bebop in the 40s but it only took them
about 10 years to get over it.
I like avant-garde jazz. I didn't at first, but I learned to
appreciate it. Not all of it is great, just like not all of ANY genre
of jazz is great. I don't expect everyone to enjoy this kinda stuff.
And I don't think it's "better than" all other jazz forms. It's just
THERE, it's one of the many styles of jazz, it can be heard and
enjoyed on its own terms, and some of its practitioners are giants.
Again, just like ANY genre of jazz.
But don't tell me that I only pretend to like it so I can be cool.
Everyone I know thinks I'm a freak for listening to this. Free jazz
doesn't earn me any cool points anywhere. I like it cuz I like it, not
cuz I'm trying to prove something or be something. I gradually came
around to it and learned to hear it, and liked what I heard. That's
all.
Curmudge
What they want is to create cults
>around strange, or obscure, or .. musicians. But most people know
>the con is on. That's why these elements constantly have to defend
>themselves. Beware" don't buy any of that nonsense. Insist on
>real jazz.
>
pjs...@mwnet.or.jp
jazz listeners cannot really follow a solo, whether it be chordally based or
free. Their judgements are based purely on the basis of what they think is hip
or not, or on some idiosyncratic subjectivety.. As a case in point I had a
friend to whom I played Warne Marsh on Wave LP6, who told me (seriously) that
Marsh's playing was just like "Ornette on Tenor".He simply could not follow
Marsh's line! And this guy was someone who I thought had some idea of what a
jazz solo was about! Some of you people out there who think you know it all
have obviously never really heard (that is understood) Lester's "Lady be Good"
or Bird's "Drifting on a Reed"or "Koko". And "understanding" is the central
issue. If there is no common language between musician and listener (and bebop
was certainly that, having developed from swing etc., based on standards and
variations of the blues), how can anybody judge anything ojectively? Do we
simply rely on our own, or on somebody else's subjective "feeling" or opinion?
Actually It's all there, in the history of the music. It's still there for
those with ears (and intellect) to develop. There is no end...
pjs
In article <ELZC2.5$h3.170...@news.frii.net>,
ma...@outsideshore.com (Marc Sabatella) wrote:
> In article <36DC5B13...@sdrc.com>, Howard Peirce
<howard...@sdrc.com> wrote:
> >Marc Sabatella wrote:
> >
> >> On the other hand, you can program a machine to crank out "right" notes
> >> all day long, and not have any interesting music to show for it. I
> >> would say such a machine would similarly fool an audience that hasn't
> >> learned to fully appreciate the music.
> >
> >It's called Band-in-a-Box, versions 7 and above. About $60, for Windows. The
> >machine and I disagree about what is and isn't a "right" note, but on the
whole
> >I'd say your description is accurate.
>
> I've heard a few of the solos generated by the latest version, and while
> I say the were a few spots that might have "fooled" me, I suspect these
> were canned licks.
>
> --------------
> Marc Sabatella
>
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
Howard Peirce
a funny thing, and the word "fake" once meant something very different in jazz.
You know, "Hum a few bars and I'll fake it."
The ability to "fake"--to construct a performance on the spot, from music you're
barely familiar with, with no sheet music and no preconcieved outcome--was once
the hallmark of a professional jazz musician. Indeed, the hallmark of a
*working* jazz musician, since cats who couldn't fake would soon be out of a
job.
This little linguistic coincidence has gears turning in my head. Suppose the a-g
is, literally, faking it: making music out of nothing, pure guesswork and
bravado, convincing the audience they know what they're doing, even when they
don't. If so, they're part of a long tradition in jazz, practicing a skill that
was once highly valued, but has since become dismissed, along with playing by
ear and [gasp!] entertaining the audience.
Back in the day, a band could successfully fake a tune if somebody could play
the head by ear, and the bassist could come up with a remotely convincing bass
line, and if nobody knows the bridge, hell, just go up a third and
dominant-cycle back. If the audience doesn't know that it's all guesswork, well
then you've successfully faked a tune.
I say, "Fake it and be proud!"
HP
george traynor-
>
>These are really good points, and it is why several of us have been
>tending to use terms like "faking" in quotes - because it doesn't really
>mean what it might seem to mean. I'm in full agreement that what really
>matters is whether or not you *like* the music (which pretty much gives
>away my stand on the objective/subjective thing, for those who didn't
>already know). And it suggests I'm even more foolish than it would at
>first appear to continuing to argue with someone who speaks of "faking"
>in the context of music he clearly doesn't like. He clearly doesn't get
>that if people like something, it is in a very real sense, well, real.
And I like to remember a little quote from Miles concerning the avant-garde and
the people in the so-called, 'know':
"They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing so they don't look
unhip. White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person
is doing something they don't understand. They don't want to have to admit to a
black person could be doing something that they don't know about. Or that he
could be maybe a little more--or a lot more--intellegent than them. They can't
stand to admit that kind of shit to themselves, so they go around talking about
how great it is until the next 'new thing' comes along, and then the next and
then the next and then the next."
So much for white people's sincerity....
george
-
Marc Sabatella
>This is simply meaningless nonsence
What is?
>As a case in point I had a
>friend to whom I played Warne Marsh on Wave LP6, who told me (seriously) that
>Marsh's playing was just like "Ornette on Tenor".
Well, I'm not familiar with that particular recording of Marsh's, but in
general, I'd say that comparison is not so outrageous. Both are hgihly
melodic improvisors who make some unusual note choices. Or did you mean
to imply that your friend was disparaging Marsh by saying he wasn't
referring to the harmony in any obvious way?
Marc Sabatella
>....As for whether there is "truth" out there that we should have the balls to
>argue about, or whether the success of a performance is nothing more than
>whether it makes listeners feel good about themselves, or whether we discover
>true quality when we stop analyzing and listen with heart and body... I
>dunno. A few years ago I had an insight which I like a lot but which sounds
>so bone- headedly obvious that I've never been able to impress anyone with
>it. It is simply that when someone likes a piece of music, they are liking
>what there is to like.
Well, count me impressed. Good example. And this is the extent to
which I agree there is some "truth" in music: there *are* elements of
music that can be ascertained objectively. The problem comes in
assigning value to these truths.
John Monroe
> I don't know about anyone else, but personally I find listening to avant-garde
> hard simply because so many of its practioners invent their own
> languages. [snip]
> I find writing about Avant -garde Jazz to be absolutely awful.
> It's all how wonderful x's new issue on y label is. Everything is good.
> Absolutely no discrimination occurs (at any rate in the reviews I see). I take
> this to mean that reviewers actually can't discriminate. They don't have the
> depth of listening experience to make it possible.
I've noticed this problem with reviews of avant-garde jazz as well, but
hadn't been able to put my finger on the exact cause. The theory you
suggest, Simon, seems like a very good one.
Perhaps I'm about to commit heresy here, but I've often found the reviews
of avant-garde jazz in Cadence to be quite unhelpful in exactly the way
Simon describes. Some of their reviewers are excellent, but others simply tend
to praise everything, and very rarely give the reader any tangible sense
of what the album being discussed might sound like. In part, I think this
is because the folks at Cadence figure that an avant-garde musician
has enough trouble finding an audience when he gets *good* reviews. While
that's true, it makes things tough for avant-garde fans with limited
budgets, like me.
I'd propose modifying Simon's theory in one way, though: maybe the "lack
of experience" isn't the product of general unsophistication, but is
instead a consequence of deadline pressure. After all, the album under
consideration needs to be reviewed while it's still a new release -- at
most, the reviewer probably has time for two good listens before sitting
down at the computer and banging out his 250 words. For me, much
avant-garde stuff (whether completely free or more structured) takes more
time than that to sink in. It took me months, for example, to perceive
the remarkable beauty of Richard Grossman's piano playing; it just
sounded like "abstract noodling" of no particular distinction the first
few times I heard it. After a while, though, I began to get into his
world, and when that happened, the music really started to take me places.
Often the opposite will occur, too; an album that totally seduces me on
the first listen will gradually become less interesting as I subject it to
more detailed scrutiny.
All the same, I think there *are* better and worse avant-garde recordings,
just as there are better and worse works of art in any genre. In
fact, I even believe that aesthetic quality is related to an absolute
standard, which anybody can understand intuitively, if they give the work
sufficient attention. But, because it's intuitive, defining that absolute
standard is difficult (heaven knows, *thousands* of aestheticians have
tried), and takes us pretty far off topic.
Leaving aside the notion of transcendent greatness, then, I'd argue that
in avant-garde jazz, as in any form of language, there are certain general
structures understood by knowledgeable listeners. When I heard Maurice
McIntyre and the drummer from Ayler's Ghosts duking it out, it was
*obvious* to me who the better player was. I arrived at this conclusion
by evaluating what I was hearing in terms of the basic structures (eg.
sensitive interplay between musicians) that I've learned are central to
this genre of music. My perception of how "good" a performance is, then,
hinges upon a comparison -- I evaluate what I'm hearing in terms of what I
have learned constitutes a "good" performance. Here, aesthetic judgment
is the product of *education.* You learn how to distinguish "good" from
"bad" -- by learning this, I'd argue, you increase the pleasure and
insight you're able to derive from the music.
This notion of aesthetic quality is pretty intellectual, I'll admit. But
I think it's important to recognize the extra dimension intellectual
engagement can add to the visceral pleasure of aesthetic appreciation.
Of course, I can also get pleasure from music while knowing that,
evaluated by the strictest aesthetic standards, it's not "good." For
example, I really enjoy hearing enthusiastic high-school stage bands, even
when their abilities as soloists and section players are less than
stellar. The pleasure I take in their enthusiasm, though, doesn't make
their music as profound and sophisticated as, say, Ornette Coleman's
original Atlantic recording of "Lonely Woman." I enjoy both, but approach
them in very different ways.
Basically, then, the point of this now probably overlong post is that
the question of aesthetic standards is extremely complicated -- and that
reducing it to pure "personal pleasure" (I like listening to jackhammers
more than anything else, therefore the sound of jackhammers is a profound
aesthetic expression) is glossing over this complexity.
John Monroe.
george Traynor
>
>Exhibit #1 George Traynor.
But I'm not "faking".
Where's all this 'real' insight you have? Producing albums that nobody buys?
george
-
George traynor
>
>Marc Sabatella wrote:
>>
>> As I like to say, music is a form of communication between the performer
>> and the listener, and if the listener doesn't "get" it, it isn't always
>> the "fault" of the performer.
>
>So then the problem, succinctly put, is how to convey this to a stonehead like
>Traynor. I always thought the best way to approach music (or anything else)
>that you don't hear/like/get is with humility,
WHY?
You either like it or ya don't. Or I should say, you either fall for it or you
don't. No need to get 'humble' over that.
_
>
>not some scoffing squall
>presuming intentions you can't possibly know. (Scoffing the sound a fool
>makes, some wiseman said.)
Read my Miles quote elsewhere in this thread. I guess he was a scoffing fool
too.
_
>
>The real deal is that Denardo wasn't playing for GT, (or probably even me for
>that matter)-- he was playing with and for his father, and if someone digs
>peeking through that precious keyhole, why not??
Or a publicity stunt for the 'intellectuals'.
_
>
>BTW, FWIW, I love Ornette, love his music, but I've never connected with this
>disc. Possibly because I'm a drummer(?), but it has nothing to do with feeling
>>conned.
And I assume you're not ten years old either....
george
-
Brian Passingham
<t...@manyFakes.com> writes
Compare and contrast the contributions to music of Chuck Nessa
and George Traynor ...
KO to Nessa in round one.
Tom Walls
>
>Not really a response to Tom, but I had to throw this in somewhere. Language
is
>a funny thing, and the word "fake" once meant something very different in
jazz.
>You know, "Hum a few bars and I'll fake it."
SNIPPED
>
>I say, "Fake it and be proud!"
>
"Close enough for jazz", we used to say.
Tom Walls
>SNIP
A few years ago I had an insight which I like a lot but which sounds
>so bone- headedly obvious that I've never been able to impress anyone with
>it. It is simply that when someone likes a piece of music, they are liking
>what there is to like.
SNIP
I'll swap you an inane observation of mine: from the performers point of view,
it's not what you don't do; it's what you do do.
Thought I might impress George Traynor with this scatalogical pun.
Walter Davis
jgoo...@aol.com (JGoodpast) wrote:
>> I find writing about Avant -garde Jazz to be absolutely awful.
>>It's all how wonderful x's new issue on y label is. Everything is
good.
>>Absolutely no discrimination occurs (at any rate in the reviews I
see). I
>>take
>>this to mean that reviewers actually can't discriminate. They don't
have the
>>depth of listening experience to make it possible.
>>
there's tons of negative criticism of avant-garde jazz, especially at
the informal level among the fans. And I think there's more than you
notice at the formal level of critics as well. It is true that tons of
things in Cadence are "recommended." (Of course it's high time folks
stopped calling Cadence an avant-garde magazine, they review everything
they get which includes all styles of jazz. There are tons of reviews
of "straight-ahead" and "trad" stuff in there) But if you read the
reviews (and maybe do a little reading between the lines) I don't think
it's hard to tell what really excites them and what doesn't. It's kind
of like the Penguin that gives mostly 2.5 to 3.5 stars to everything.
If I remember right, there are actually fewer 1 star recordings than
"crowns". And like the Penguin, Cadence is no more or less
discriminating among its more traditional offerings. Same I think goes
for Downbeat or even reviews in the NYT, where you'll rarely find a
really bad review of straight-ahead stuff.
Also I'm sure some critics are reluctant to openly pan something because
they know the artist and the label aren't making any money and they'd
hate to be responsible for hurting sales even more. And in the case of
Cadence, I can't help but worry that the fact that they sell most/all of
the titles they review leads to an upward bias in the reviews.
Also it's part of the whole grade inflation thing. Trust me, it's
pretty rare these days to find a teacher willing to flunk a student.
Not that that's a good thing, but I don't think it has much to do with
folks not being able to tell the difference between good and bad work,
they just don't have the heart/guts to say so.
And finally, many (fans, musicians, etc.) in the avant-garde have also
adopted a more post-modernistic philosophy which doesn't recognize the
concept of "universal aesthetic quality" or something similar. Since I
believe that my disliking something doesn't mean that it's "bad", it's
rather hard for me to truly pan any piece of music. If you dig it, hey,
that's cool with me. On the other hand, I'm still more than happy to
extol the virtues of music I like.
But I don't see this as being much if any different between straight and
avant stuff. And frankly I'd say I see less willingness to criticize
straight musicians among straight fans than avant musicians among avant
fans, but that may just be the sample.
-walt
Walter Davis walter...@unc.edu
Health Data Analyst at the ph: (919) 962-1019
Institute for Research in Social Science fax: (919) 962-8980
UNC - Chapel Hill
Rick Lopez
But this is no fair. GT has both hands tied behind his back, is sporting
full-view blinders, and has very wobbly knees.
Is he very young? Is this his trubba?
I keep wondering why he sounds so pissy about music that he can't hear. ... I
mean it's hard to respond to his kind of intractable swill. Does he feel the
same about contemporary lit, adventurous film, experimental theatre, cubism,
abstract expressionism, performance art, etcetera??? (GT- please don't waste
your time answering, I'm just wondering out loud, because I'm very tired and
very cranky and I think you're an asshole.)
Sorry,
RL
R
Krishna Rayaprolu
Marc Sabatella wrote:
> which I agree there is some "truth" in music: there *are* elements of
> music that can be ascertained objectively. The problem comes in
> assigning value to these truths.
Personally, I believe that music not only has objective truth in it but to some
extent it is quantifiable also. Infact I would go to the extent of saying that
measuring musical experience is not that different from say measuring temperature.
The measuring device for musical experience, the creature called human being, is a
little crude device but he works analogous to a thermometer. I am assuming that an
attribute is quantifiable if you can assign numbers to it and hence be able answer
basic questions like "which of these two is greater?".
FAQ:
Q: How do you assign numbers to musical experience?
A: Human beings can rate musical experience. For instance in a scale of 1-5 I can
say Coltrane is 5, Mariah Carey 1 and so on. Just the way we have reference points
for temperature we need to create reference points for musical experience too.
Q: But I don't know which is better. Coltrane's VV sessions or Miles Plugged
Nickel.
A: Don't worry. Every device has a least count. My home thermometer cannot
differentiate between 100.000001 F and 100.000002 F. It just says 100F. So there
is nothing wrong in giving the same rating to both.
Q: My friend says KennyG is better than Coltrane. I say the opposite.
A: Every device has a scope of measurement. My home thermometer cannot measure the
temperature of a furnace. Most likely your friend hasn't grown into Coltrane's
music. So he cannot be allowed to rate them. If you appreciate both as much as
there is to appreciate in them, you can give a rating.
Q: Sometimes humans are biased. My friend insists he enjoys jackhammers better than
Coltrane even though he appreciates Coltrane, just to prove a point.
A: Measurements should be made keeping all conditions standard. My high-school
physics lab teacher used to tell us that in order to balance out external biases you
need to make several measurements and average them out. Same thing works here too.
Jackhammer lovers can be eliminated by averaging several people's rating.
Krishna
Marc Sabatella
>On 2 Mar 1999, Simon Weil wrote:
>> I find writing about Avant -garde Jazz to be absolutely awful.
>> It's all how wonderful x's new issue on y label is. Everything is good.
>> Absolutely no discrimination occurs (at any rate in the reviews I see). I
> take
>> this to mean that reviewers actually can't discriminate. They don't have the
>> depth of listening experience to make it possible.
>
>I've noticed this problem with reviews of avant-garde jazz as well, but
>hadn't been able to put my finger on the exact cause. The theory you
>suggest, Simon, seems like a very good one.
>
>Perhaps I'm about to commit heresy here, but I've often found the reviews
>of avant-garde jazz in Cadence to be quite unhelpful in exactly the way
>Simon describes. Some of their reviewers are excellent, but others simply tend
>to praise everything, and very rarely give the reader any tangible sense
>of what the album being discussed might sound like.
Well, there is a general tendency in all reviews, I think, to give
performers the benefit of the doubt and talk about what good there was
to talk about, and chalk up what the reviewer didn't like to personal
taste. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. I don't want to
be told whether something is "good" or "bad" (I don't think such a
determination can objectively be made); I just want to get some idea of
what it sounds like.
That said, I would say the biggest problem in reviews I see,
particularly of "avant-garde" music, isn't that they are too uniformly
glowing. It is that they are far too arbitrary. A recording might get
slammed for not living up to some expectation the reviewer has set up
based on his own preferences, or perhaps because it is within his area
of expertise but falls short of the small handful of favorite recordings
to that reviewer.
>Basically, then, the point of this now probably overlong post is that
>the question of aesthetic standards is extremely complicated -- and that
>reducing it to pure "personal pleasure" (I like listening to jackhammers
>more than anything else, therefore the sound of jackhammers is a profound
>aesthetic expression) is glossing over this complexity.
Well, I think even phrasing it that way is biased. You are assuming
there *is* such a thing as an objective aesthetic standard, and are then
correctly pointing out that pure personal pleasure cannot measure it.
If, however, you assume there *is* no such thing as an objective
aesthetic standard, then the example you gave is not paradoxical or
nonsensical in the least. Such a person would say only that he likes
listening to jackhammers, but would not conclude anything about the
instrinsic value of jackhammer sounds, since he knows there is no such
thing.
Marc Sabatella
>Personally, I believe that music not only has objective truth in it but to some
>extent it is quantifiable also. Infact I would go to the extent of saying that
>measuring musical experience is not that different from say measuring
> temperature.
>The measuring device for musical experience, the creature called human being,
> is a
>little crude device but he works analogous to a thermometer.
Well, yes, but it isn't *objective*. That is, different measuring
devices will yiled different values.
tst...@businessobjects.com
[SNIP]
> Personally, I believe that music not only has objective truth in it but to
> some extent it is quantifiable also. Infact I would go to the extent of
> saying that measuring musical experience is not that different from say
> measuring temperature.
[SNIP]> Q: How do you assign numbers to musical experience?
> A: Human beings can rate musical experience. For instance in a scale of 1-5
> I can say Coltrane is 5, Mariah Carey 1 and so on. Just the way we have
> reference points for temperature we need to create reference points for
> musical experience too.
> [SNIP] My high-school physics lab teacher used to tell us that in order to
> balance out external biases you need to make several measurements and average
> them out.
This is nothing like determining objective, quantifiable truth. It is simply
statistics on opinion at a given moment: in other words, polling.
- Tom Storer
"When you're swinging, swing some more." - Thelonious Monk
tst...@businessobjects.com
> jazz listeners cannot really follow a solo, whether it be chordally based or
> free. Their judgements are based purely on the basis of what they think is hip
> or not, or on some idiosyncratic subjectivety.
This is a major problem for whom, exactly, and how?
Any art is also craft, but it is not *only* craft. The learned musician who
follows the solo, hearing the chords and the meter, analyzing it all as he
goes, certainly enjoys an added dimension that the lay listener doesn't have.
But even that learned musician is also making judgments about the beauty of
the solo, and that, I'm afraid, is largely dependent on "idiosyncratic
subjectivity." Otherwise you could hardly explain that in any group of
learned musicians you will find wide divergence in taste and judgment. Tell
me you haven't had any arguments with your musician friends about how good a
given musician or solo is.
. As a case in point I had a
> friend to whom I played Warne Marsh on Wave LP6, who told me (seriously) that
> Marsh's playing was just like "Ornette on Tenor".He simply could not follow
> Marsh's line! And this guy was someone who I thought had some idea of what a
> jazz solo was about!
So maybe he's unsophisticated. What is certain is that he heard something in
Marsh's playing that reminded him of "Ornette on Tenor" - lacking your
analytical tools, he simply couldn't articulate what it was, and perhaps
whatever it was is something that to you would be too obvious to even notice,
or care about. I don't know why you're so floored by the fact that most jazz
lovers are not musically trained and therefore cannot hear things the same way
you have learned to hear them.
> Some of you people out there who think you know it all
> have obviously never really heard (that is understood) Lester's "Lady be Good"
> or Bird's "Drifting on a Reed"or "Koko". And "understanding" is the central
> issue. If there is no common language between musician and listener (and bebop
> was certainly that, having developed from swing etc., based on standards and
> variations of the blues), how can anybody judge anything ojectively? Do we
> simply rely on our own, or on somebody else's subjective "feeling" or opinion?
People who share a language can judge things consensually (if not entirely
objectively) concerning the use of that language. What you and I share is not
a knowledge of harmony - I'm ignorant of it - but a sense of the beauty of
jazz. I couldn't analyze "Lady Be Good", so a theoretical "judgment" of it is
beyond me. On the other hand, I hear how beautiful it is, and so do you.
Can't listeners on all levels share tastes and aesthetic values, even if they
don't necessarily share a technical appreciation?
pjs...@mwnet.or.jp
ma...@outsideshore.com (Marc Sabatella) wrote:
> In article <7bjncr$8va$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, pjs...@mwnet.or.jp wrote:
>
> >This is simply meaningless nonsence
>
The fact that a machine can be programmed to play bebop and fool people is
somehow an argument that bebop (or chordally based jazz) is easier to fake
than Free. You can presumably program the machine to play free jazz, and fool
people that way too. To what purpose? It does not seem like much of an
argument to me, especially as we both agree that “…billions of people think
Bird and Trane were just making noise.” I think it was Herbie Mann who once
said that a large proportion of his audience came “…to see me move!” (that
is, they are/were essentially deaf to the music)… :-)
> >As a case in point I had a
> >friend to whom I played Warne Marsh on Wave LP6, who told me (seriously) that
> >Marsh's playing was just like "Ornette on Tenor".
>
> Well, I'm not familiar with that particular recording of Marsh's, but in
> general, I'd say that comparison is not so outrageous. Both are hgihly
> melodic improvisors who make some unusual note choices. Or did you mean
> to imply that your friend was disparaging Marsh by saying he wasn't
> referring to the harmony in any obvious way?
He thought Marsh was playing Free, whereas he was “stretching out on
the forms”(Tristano), a critical distinction.
pjs
curm...@writeme.com
wrote:
>And I like to remember a little quote from Miles concerning the avant-garde and
>the people in the so-called, 'know':
>
>"They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing so they don't look
>unhip. White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person
>is doing something they don't understand. They don't want to have to admit to a
>black person could be doing something that they don't know about. Or that he
>could be maybe a little more--or a lot more--intellegent than them. They can't
>stand to admit that kind of shit to themselves, so they go around talking about
>how great it is until the next 'new thing' comes along, and then the next and
>then the next and then the next."
>
>So much for white people's sincerity....
In other words, since ***MILES*** said this, it couldn't possibly be
wrong?
George Traynor, meet Ad Hominum.
John Monroe
> >the question of aesthetic standards is extremely complicated -- and that
> >reducing it to pure "personal pleasure" (I like listening to jackhammers
> >more than anything else, therefore the sound of jackhammers is a profound
> >aesthetic expression) is glossing over this complexity.
To which Marc responded:
> Well, I think even phrasing it that way is biased. You are assuming
> there *is* such a thing as an objective aesthetic standard, and are then
> correctly pointing out that pure personal pleasure cannot measure it.
> If, however, you assume there *is* no such thing as an objective
> aesthetic standard, then the example you gave is not paradoxical or
> nonsensical in the least.
True. My point in making this argument was not to disprove the
relativistic approach to aesthetic matters, because it quite simply
*can't* be disproved -- at least if you start from the premise that there
is no such thing as an objective aesthetic standard. Instead, I wanted to
present a possible alternative, because I personally don't feel like the
relativistic approach fully explains the complex interaction of
experience, shared cultural knowledge, and individual taste that makes it
possible for a person to be moved by a work of art.
The relativistic picture seems unsatisfying to me, because it places such
a heavy emphasis on the totally irreconcileable *differences* between
people, and almost cheerfully embraces the alienating notion that
truly effective communiction is impossible.
Instead I'd argue that it's equally impossible to be the pure, totally
autonomous individual that this relativistic view posits. Human beings
are social animals, and social structures shape every aspect
of our existence, even our thoughts (after all, we do think in language --
if not in words, in symbols).
Why are we able to enjoy music in the first place? It's because
we have a perceptual framework we use to make sense of that music -- in
much the same way as we make sense of language when someone speaks.
Language wouldn't work, and music wouldn't communicate, if we didn't share
a perceptual framework with which to make sense of it (Western listeners,
to pick a particularly clear example, hear major chords as "happy," minor
ones as "sad"). Just focusing on the personal factors of music
appreciation leaves out music's collective dimension -- a piece of music
doesn't just communicate something to *one* person, it communicates
to a group who share a perceptual framework that allows them to make sense
of it (e.g. a club full of "jazz listeners"). If standards of "good" and
"bad" exist and are a matter of something more than individual discretion,
they would be a product of this shared perceptual framework.
Tom Storer makes a good point when he observes that different people hear
music in different ways, and that this variation depends upon the
listener's degree of knowledge. I'd argue that these differences in
perception reflect the varying degrees to which listeners have absorbed
the perceptual framework used by a particular form of music. A "jaded
jazz fan," because he's heard far more jazz, has a more complex
understanding of what makes a "good" jazz performance than an enthusiastic
newbie does, though both are equally capable of enjoying the music.
Greater knowledge tends to make a person more aware of the collective
perceptual framework within which the music operates. That doesn't mean
every experienced listener agrees with every other experienced listener,
but it *does* mean that a certain amount of consensus about what's "good"
and what's not will emerge -- look at how many posters here like Miles
Davis, for example. This doesn't necessarily mean that Miles was granted
some kind of transcendent, divine power, but it *does* mean that he had a
remarkable ability to creatively explore the possibilities made available
by the shared perceptual framework that characterizes "jazz."
John Monroe.
George traynor
>
>But this is no fair. GT has both hands tied behind his back, is sporting
>full-view blinders, and has very wobbly knees.
I do? Gee you know more about me that I do. Are you a Peeping-Tom? Should I
call the police?
_
>
>Is he very young? Is this his trubba?
No, I'm old and creaky, confined to an iron lung. You should see the bedpans I
want Dub-hole to clean.
_
>
>I keep wondering why he sounds so pissy about music that he can't hear. ... I
>mean it's hard to respond to his kind of intractable swill. Does he feel the
>same about contemporary lit, adventurous film, experimental theatre, cubism,
>abstract expressionism, performance art, etcetera???
Let me see it first, then I'll tell you what I think.
_
>
>(GT- please don't waste your time answering,
But I like to, since you've asked for it. Plus it's also my time so don't
patronize me by being concerned about it.
_
>
>I'm just wondering out loud, because I'm very tired and
>very cranky and I think you're an asshole.)
And I think you're a chili-beaner who's got bad breath. Who'd fall for anything
if it's intellectually slick enough.
Stick to tacos and frijollas, senor. Unless you want more flames....
_
>
>Sorry,
>RL
But I'm not....
george
-
george Traynor
>
>On 3 Mar 1999 08:59:34 -0800, george traynor- <noF...@allowed.com>
>wrote:
>
>>And I like to remember a little quote from Miles concerning the avant-garde
>>>>and the people in the so-called, 'know':
>>
>>"They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing so they don't look
>>unhip. White people are especially like that, particularly when a black
>>>>person is doing something they don't understand. They don't want to have to
>>>>admit to a black person could be doing something that they don't know about.
>>>>They can't stand to admit that kind of shit to themselves, so they go around
>>>>talking about how great it is until the next 'new thing' comes along, and then
>>>>the next and then the next and then the next."
>>
>>So much for white people's sincerity....
>
>
>In other words, since ***MILES*** said this, it couldn't possibly be
>wrong?
Well, I'd certainly take his word for it over yours... Anyday.....
But why ask. Was he talking about you?
george
-
Kevin Clow
>
> "Faking" implies the musician knows he can't do it well and is simply posing,
> hoping the audience won't be able to evaluate the performance and will give
> him applause or money or both.
in some cases, a very able and talented performer will "fake" because
they are tired. and some fans won't even be able to tell. i once
played in a rock band (i was singer and occasionally rhythm guitarist),
and both the bass player and the drummer were incredibly talented. one
performance, the drummer felt very ill, but insisted on playing anyway.
people who had attended concerts of ours before commented afterwards how
incredible he was. he was disappointed in his own performance, and
while the rest of us (the band) thought he did well, we knew he wasn't
nearly as impressive as he normally was.
(footnote: the band never got a record deal or anything, but the
drummer went on to join a celtic/traditional/folk band called Kilt, and
they are enjoying national success)
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
http://welcome.to/thezine - "Dash It!" anti-social magazine
http://listen.to/indy - "demolisten" independent music reviews
Marc Sabatella
>In article <GTeD2.30$h3.171...@news.frii.net>,
> ma...@outsideshore.com (Marc Sabatella) wrote:
>> In article <7bjncr$8va$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, pjs...@mwnet.or.jp wrote:
>>
>> >This is simply meaningless nonsence
>>
>> What is?
>
>The fact that a machine can be programmed to play bebop and fool people is
>somehow an argument that bebop (or chordally based jazz) is easier to fake
>than Free.
Oh. Well, my comments were dealing with one particular aspect of
"fakery" (I believe I said "in this respect", or something like that
that). On the other hand, I think a great of training is required to be
able to "fake" bebop convincingly to any given audience, and probably
less so for "free" music, so in *that* respect, "faking" bebop is
harder. And of course, it all totally depends what type of audience you
are talking about, as well as the background of the musician in
question, and what we mean by "fake". So I don't think it makes sense
to say that one style of music is easier to "fake" than another. That
is the point I was trying to make.
> He thought Marsh was playing Free, whereas he was “stretching out on
> the forms”(Tristano), a critical distinction.
Perhaps, but a pretty subtle one to most ears, and there are some pretty
essential similarities as well. I don't think it fair to ridicule
someone for focusing more on the similarities than the differences.
Marc Sabatella
>I personally don't feel like the
>relativistic approach fully explains the complex interaction of
>experience, shared cultural knowledge, and individual taste that makes it
>possible for a person to be moved by a work of art.
>
>The relativistic picture seems unsatisfying to me, because it places such
>a heavy emphasis on the totally irreconcileable *differences* between
>people, and almost cheerfully embraces the alienating notion that
>truly effective communiction is impossible.
Well, as a "relativist", I would disagree with almost every one of your
characterizations. I believe cultural influence is a very strong
unifying force, such that there will often be agreement within a people
as to what is "good" and what is not. It is precisely the relativistic
nature of aesthetics that *allows* it to be so determined by culture,
and therefore allows communication within that culture. And this view
expresses hope that different cultures, merely through sharing
information and experience, can come to appreicate each others'
standards.
>Human beings
>are social animals, and social structures shape every aspect
>of our existence, even our thoughts (after all, we do think in language --
>if not in words, in symbols).
And this is completely in line with my view.
>Why are we able to enjoy music in the first place? It's because
>we have a perceptual framework we use to make sense of that music -- in
>much the same way as we make sense of language when someone speaks.
>Language wouldn't work, and music wouldn't communicate, if we didn't share
>a perceptual framework with which to make sense of it
A good analogy. The word "cat" doesn't *objectively* refer to a
particular species of animal; it is just a cultural norm. Similarly, a
piece a piece of music isn't objectively good or bad; its status is
determined by cultural norms. Seems you are arguing relativist case
pretty well... :-)
>Greater knowledge tends to make a person more aware of the collective
>perceptual framework within which the music operates.
True. But the part I don't agree with is that "adheres to the norms of
the collective perceptual framework" translates into "good"
in any objective sense, because there are so many possible collevtive
perceptual frameworks to choose from.
BTW, sorry, Walter, that the discussion ended up heading here, but you
kind of knew it would, didn't you? :-)
Walter Davis
Krishna Rayaprolu <kri...@staff.prodigy.com> wrote:
>
>
>Marc Sabatella wrote:
>
>> which I agree there is some "truth" in music: there *are* elements of
>> music that can be ascertained objectively. The problem comes in
>> assigning value to these truths.
>
to some
>extent it is quantifiable also.
Alas Krishna, your method says absolutely zip about musical quality.
What you propose is a scale that measures individuals' music
preferences. That the average person gives Trane a 4 and Mariah Carey a
2 (or more likely Mariah a 4 and Trane a 2) says nothing about the
underlying quality of the music. Unless you are willing to make the
assumption that there is a close (nearly exact in practice) relationship
between musical quality and people's preferences, a preferential scale
means nothing. And you won't be able to test that assumption unless you
can come up with reliable measures of quality.
Furthermore, the method you offer for "eliminating" the jackhammer
lovers only works if there's what's known as high "inter-rater
reliability" which I think we have ample evidence is not the case when
it comes to music. "Inter-rater reliability" is a measure of the extent
to which we can expect 2 (or more) raters to agree on the rating they
give to a particular object. For some albums or musicians, inter-rater
reliability (at least among jazz critics or "serious" fans) may be
fairly high, but it's unlikely to hold across a wide array of albums,
much less a wide array of musical styles, or genres.
Furthermore, you've come very close to circular reasoning. Your system
would allow people to judge the quality of a piece only after you've
somehow decided they're experienced enough to judge the quality of a
piece. That is to say, judgments are only allowed by people who've
shown themselves to already be in agreement with previous judgments.
Oddly enough, I'd say that disagreement with previous judgments is
probably a sign of greater experience. From what I've seen, it's only
those with a long history of jazz listening who dare to question that A
Love Supreme (for example) is a great album.
And furthermore you dismiss the problem of bias in measuring human
ratings far too easily. Social measurement is a pain and will likely
never be better than an extremely inexact science. Applying measurement
models to similar sorts of scales (which already assumes that in fact
the scale measures what you think it does) generally show that less than
50% of the variation in the measure is due to variation in the
underlying concept. Even if you're willing to write off 50%+ of the
variation to "random error", you've got a pretty poor measure of
whatever you're trying to measure. Granted, having several measures
(e.g. several raters) can increase the reliability quite a bit.
Yet I see absolutely no reason to think that methods which work quite
well in the physical/scientific realm and work OK in the social
scientific realm will work at all in the aesthetic realm. I could do
the same thing you suggest with colors to discover that fuschia is the
best color. Or I could do the same thing with religious/moral beliefs,
then claim that my findings show that physical punishment for wrongdoing
is the will of God -- otherwise people wouldn't think that physical
punishment was all right.
-walt
Simon Weil
>... there is a general tendency in all reviews, I think, to give
>to talk about, and chalk up what the reviewer didn't like to personal
>taste. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. I don't want to
>be told whether something is "good" or "bad" (I don't think such a
>determination can objectively be made); I just want to get some idea of
>what it sounds like.
>
>That said, I would say the biggest problem in reviews I see,
>particularly of "avant-garde" music, isn't that they are too uniformly
>glowing. It is that they are far too arbitrary. A recording might get
>slammed for not living up to some expectation the reviewer has set up
>based on his own preferences, or perhaps because it is within his area
>of expertise but falls short of the small handful of favorite recordings
>to that reviewer.
Well my underlying point was that avant-garde reviews lack incisiveness - and
it wouldn't appear you disagree with that. In fact both Walt and John seem to
accept that as well (forgive me if I'm misreading the responses). And surely
this can't be a good thing. I mean it seems to me much to the advantage of the
avant-garde that it should be well -explained. Apart from the fact that when
people buy they'll buy the stuff they want rather than the stuff they don't
want ( and so won't give up on the a.g in disgust after a few misinformed
purchases.) - when they actually get the stuff home they'll have some help
getting more out it. Not what I get from the vast majority of a-g reviews - a
sense of being left in the dark .
Simon Weil
Gary Milliken
>I don't know about anyone else, but personally I find listening to avant-garde
>hard simply because so many of its practioners invent their own languages.
A music professor I spent much time with in college (whose music was so
"avant-garde" that he often used the term as a joke) told his students
that Style = Repetition. In order to recognize any "style", whether it
be an identifiable historical style or a personalized individual "sound",
it must do a fair amount of repetition to establish itself. Ergo, any
music which does not repeat itself cannot be stylistically pigeon-holed.
When I thought that through, it made me exhausted just to imagine a music
which is totally free of recognizable gestures 100% of the time. Conversely,
I have also found it useful to remember this idea when I begin to get
annoyed at repetition in some of my favorite musicians' licks: the repeated
phrases are, after all, "signature licks" that identify that guy's personal
style. This can easily be overdone, of course, but I find it helpful to
remember, and it also helps me feel better about my own playing if I begin
to notice certain things happening too frequently.
GM
Rick Lopez
--
Marc Sabatella
>Well my underlying point was that avant-garde reviews lack incisiveness - and
>it wouldn't appear you disagree with that.
Correct.
Krishna Rayaprolu
Walter Davis wrote:
> Furthermore, the method you offer for "eliminating" the jackhammer
> lovers only works if there's what's known as high "inter-rater
> reliability" which I think we have ample evidence is not the case when
You completely missed my point about least-count. Think of this experiment:
Take two objects A and B whose temperatures you know to be 100.4 F and 100.5
F. Take several thermometers from different makes but all having a least
count of 1F. Try to find out which object is hotter. Different
thermometers give completely different results. Does that mean that
temperature is a subjective feeling of the thermometers? No. It just means
that the difference is less than the least count of measurement. On the
other hand if you compare A and B with temperature difference over 1F most
thermometers agree on the results. You will still find a few discrepancies
because of defective thermometers, external biases and poorly calibrated
ones but you can average them out.
I think there is a high inter-rater-reliability only if you keep the
comparisons larger than our least count of (intuitive) measurement. True
some serious jazz fans might question whether Love Supreme is the "best"
album. But how many of them think that it is worse than the sound of
jackhammers? Take the simplest non-trivial scale with the largest
least-count, scale of 1-3 with least count of 1. Now let "serious" jazz
listeners rate albums. (Ofcourse, rating of 2 means nothing). Try to see
the inter-rater-reliability. The challenge ofcourse is to define the
criteria for a serious listener which I think is a practical difficulty not
a theoretical impossibility.
I think people look at the variety of opinions on music and just have a
resigned attitude of "music is all subjective. Coltrane is no better than a
jackhammer. It is all in the listener whether he is thrilled with Coltrane
or jackhammer." Not realizing that there are more similarities than
differences of opinions. I was trying to explain the differences in terms
of lack of experience (poorly calibrated listeners), biases (agreed, lot
more in people than in instruments), and a few hard-to-change narrow-minded
people (defective ones). With a good filtering criteria and large enough
least-count you can get a pretty good inter-rater-reliability.
Krishna
Krishna Rayaprolu
JONM AYTAC wrote:
> so your proposing a total linear ordering on the jazz set? Blah
I am not that ambitious. In the least I would like to take one of the
greatest pieces of music, compare it one of the shittiest pieces of sound (no
matter what music or even non-music) and would like to say that there is
something about that great music which is "better" or "more" than this shitty
sound. It is a pity we cannot even say that with confidence. I don't know
why we discuss anything at all if music is that subjective.
My friend says he enjoys Mariah Carey as much as I enjoy Coltrane. That it
is all subjective. Not knowing how to measure "enjoyment" I cannot argue
about it. But I do notice certain factors which are clearly weak in his
appreciation of music. For instance, the detail to which he listens to music
is much less than mine. An overall smoothness in music (which is mostly
smooth transition of notes), even beat and a hummable tune is all he cares
about. Isn't detail a measure or atleast a factor of musical experience?
His involvement in music seems to be less than mine. Isn't that another
factor in the "quantity" of musical experience?
Krishna
Glen Alpert
Fucking idiot. The general uselessness and idiocy of most of his posts can
be easily ignored. But it is not a matter of liberality or political
correctness (which undoubtedly will be used by Traynor perjoratively and
in a scatter gun approach) that is in opposition to crap like this.
Calling someone an idiot, like many of us feel about Traynor, is
qualitatively different than calling someone with a hispanic surname
various racist insults. What a boor and asshole.
--Glen
In article <7bmdmv$j...@drn.newsguy.com>, George traynor
JONM AYTAC
it might be fun to try to model it as a first or second order language,
or to try to construct some sort of denotative semantics or something,
to model the whole thing with some sort of computable syntax or something
you still couldn't decide the "true jazz" problem though
fuck it
--
JONM AYTAC
well, hey, we can certainly be specific about Coltrane's innovations
of rhythmic and harmonic concept and even make a statement like
coltrane's more complex and what not
not only that, there is the linearity thing.. digesting
coltrane thoroughly allows you to digest joe henderson
or sam rivers better or something...
digesting mariah carey certainly doesn't do as much for my
overall musicality
or something
:
:
: JONM AYTAC wrote:
:
: > so your proposing a total linear ordering on the jazz set? Blah
:
: I am not that ambitious. In the least I would like to take one of the
:
:
--
JONM AYTAC
: : appreciation of music. For instance, the detail to which he listens to music
: : is much less than mine. An overall smoothness in music (which is mostly
: : smooth transition of notes), even beat and a hummable tune is all he cares
: : about. Isn't detail a measure or atleast a factor of musical experience?
: : His involvement in music seems to be less than mine. Isn't that another
: : factor in the "quantity" of musical experience?
Oh yeah this notion of smoothness is like he has a working notion of legal
and illegal productions, a grammar of musical derivation. Coltrane's got one
too to some extent (for instance, coltrane's grammar could produce from a
given chord the same voicing a major third up or down, or it allows for
lengthy phrases, or polyrhythms)... COltrane's grammar would subsume Mariah
Carey's. I doubt Mariah Carey could improvise a vocal line on Giant steps...
besides, "Naima" makes for a much cooler R&B track than "someday", right?
--
Marc Sabatella
>You completely missed my point about least-count. Think of this experiment:
>Take two objects A and B whose temperatures you know to be 100.4 F and 100.5
>F. Take several thermometers from different makes but all having a least
>count of 1F. Try to find out which object is hotter. Different
>thermometers give completely different results. Does that mean that
>temperature is a subjective feeling of the thermometers? No. It just means
>that the difference is less than the least count of measurement.
There mere fact that you can make such an anloagy doesn't prove it
holds, though. I still no no reason to prefer your theory over mine,
which holds that the reason you get different measures is that there is
no objective answer.
I *will* say that you are probably right that in some comparisons, there
would be close to universal agreement. This to me says only that we, as
human beings, share elements of culture. It still says nothing about
the value of the music.
>I think people look at the variety of opinions on music and just have a
>resigned attitude of "music is all subjective. Coltrane is no better than a
>jackhammer. It is all in the listener whether he is thrilled with Coltrane
>or jackhammer." Not realizing that there are more similarities than
>differences of opinions.
Oh, we realize this all right. And we recognize the causes for
it. Coltrane's music is structured in reasonably obvious ways (although
even this perception is not universal, as witness the guy who was
claiming Coltrane killed melody). It is less repetitious. Lots of
attributes that are reasonably objective. But finding a formula
to condense a set of attributes into an overall "value" - that's the
subjective part, because not everyone shares the same weighting. Some
value structure over tone, others vice versa, and so forth.
> I was trying to explain the differences in terms
>of lack of experience (poorly calibrated listeners), biases (agreed,
>lot
>more in people than in instruments), and a few hard-to-change
>narrow-minded
>people (defective ones). With a good filtering criteria and large
>enough
>least-count you can get a pretty good inter-rater-reliability.
Well sure, by throwing out all data that doesn't fit your conclusion,
you can prove any theory.
Marc Sabatella
>In the least I would like to take one of the
>greatest pieces of music, compare it one of the shittiest pieces of sound (no
>matter what music or even non-music) and would like to say that there is
>something about that great music which is "better" or "more" than this shitty
>sound. It is a pity we cannot even say that with confidence. I don't know
>why we discuss anything at all if music is that subjective.
I say the opposite: if it was objective, there would be no point in
discussing it. It is precisely the subjectivity that makes for
interesting differences of opinion.
>Isn't detail a measure or atleast a factor of musical experience?
>His involvement in music seems to be less than mine. Isn't that another
>factor in the "quantity" of musical experience?
To you. Not to him. See, even the *definition* of quality is
subjective.
Dennis J. Kosterman
Milliken) wrote:
>
>>I don't know about anyone else, but personally I find listening to avant-garde
>>hard simply because so many of its practioners invent their own languages.
>
>A music professor I spent much time with in college (whose music was so
>"avant-garde" that he often used the term as a joke) told his students
>that Style = Repetition. In order to recognize any "style", whether it
>be an identifiable historical style or a personalized individual "sound",
>it must do a fair amount of repetition to establish itself.
I'm going off on a tangent here, but repetition of a different kind
can go a long way in helping one to appreciate avant-garde jazz (or
any "difficult" form of music). If each performer has his own
language, it makes sense that, as with any language, repeated exposure
leads to greater familiarity leads to greater understanding.
My initial reaction to Cecil Taylor, years ago, was "This guy has tons
of technique, but the music sounds like a bunch of random noise --
ugh!" But because Taylor's music was highly recommended by people
whose opinions I respected, I gave it another chance and kept
listening. Eventually -- and it took years -- something clicked and I
started to enjoy his music. You might say I was finally starting to
understand his "language".
Another example is Herbie Nichols. A year ago, I had never heard of
him or his music. Then I started seeing his Complete Blue Note
Recordings praised over and over again by critics and musicians whose
opinions I respected, so I bought it. My initial reaction was "This
is OK, but what's all the fuss?" It just didn't impress me. But I
didn't say "I've been conned!" I said "If all these people like it so
much, there must be something valuable here, and I'm going to find out
what it is." So I immersed myself in that music -- I listened to
nothing else for about a week. And by the end of that week, I was in
love with the music! Herbie's music is not particularly "avant-garde"
(which is why it only took a week instead of the years it took for
Cecil Taylor), but it was different enough that I couldn't really hear
it until I got used to it.
My point is that, with difficult and unfamiliar music, you've got to
make the effort to keep listening to it until you get familiar enough
with the particular "language" being used, and only then can you start
to talk about the intrinsic worth of the music (just as you can't
evaluate the intellectual content of a conversation in French if you
only understand English). Most people aren't willing to make this
kind of effort -- if a given piece of music, or a given artist,
doesn't appeal to them right away, they lose interest. And I can't
really blame them -- why invest valuable time trying to "appreciate"
something that sounds horrible? More often than not, it actually *is*
horrible, and you've wasted your time. It helps to have mentors
(those people I keep mentioning whose opinions I respect) to guide
you.
Dennis J. Kosterman
den...@tds.net
nils
> I am not that ambitious. In the least I would like to take one of the
> greatest pieces of music, compare it one of the shittiest pieces of sound (no
> matter what music or even non-music) and would like to say that there is
> something about that great music which is "better" or "more" than this shitty
> sound. It is a pity we cannot even say that with confidence. I don't know
> why we discuss anything at all if music is that subjective.
It is that subjective. So don't try to impose
objectivity.
Two issues here:
(1) art vs. entertainment.
a lot of music (which falls into the category of
being used for dance) serves a societal role as
entertainment and not high art. jazz was this way
until the '40s or so. before that, a lot of
european classical music. now, it's hip-hop or
mariah carey or whatever. the important thing
here is the presence of a regular (not
understated) beat and absence of longer melodies,
solos, or complicated melodic information.
(2) language
some people have been talking here about the fact
that it takes some exposure to the sounds of jazz
to pick up on the specific language that's used to
communicate in this medium. this is particularly
true in avant-garde, or free jazz. basically
anything from coltrane onward can demand a certain
level of musical literacy, without which the
listener is lost. not completely lost, in the way
that certain sounds still retain the ability to be
moving, or deep, or have a profound effect on the
listener. but it's hard to appreciate the nrg
ensemble if you haven't heard albert ayler.
nils
Krishna Rayaprolu
> Tom Storer makes a good point when he observes that different people hear
> music in different ways, and that this variation depends upon the
> listener's degree of knowledge. I'd argue that these differences in
> perception reflect the varying degrees to which listeners have absorbed
> the perceptual framework used by a particular form of music. A "jaded
> jazz fan," because he's heard far more jazz, has a more complex
> understanding of what makes a "good" jazz performance than an enthusiastic
> newbie does, though both are equally capable of enjoying the music.
The only word I disagree in this paragraph is the word "equally" on the last
line.
I had a similar experience as Tom Storer when I first listened to jazz, not
being able to differentiate different jazz players but instead, appreciating the
general good characteristics of jazz. Today I am more experienced and have a
different "framework" to decide good and bad. But I think that the "amount" of
enjoyment that I derive today from the music I like, based on todays' framework,
is "more" than when I was a newbie.
I believe that everyone has a relativistic "component" and an objective
component to his music appreciation. Relative component is the one which is
influenced by the framework, by the cultural norms, by individual standards of
what is best and what is average, the enthusiasm of a newbie and so on. The
other objective component is the true "quantity" of true enjoyment music
produces. I think the only way to distinguish these two types of enjoyment is
by evaluating them at steady state. That is, after several listenings one is no
longer impressed with the newness of a particular style or the relative merits
of this style of music based on his prior experience. The only component that
remains at steady state is the objective component of the music.
Krishna
tst...@businessobjects.com
mill...@scofield.ebay.sun.com wrote:
>
> [SNIP]
> A music professor I spent much time with in college (whose music was so
> "avant-garde" that he often used the term as a joke) told his students
> that Style = Repetition. In order to recognize any "style", whether it
> be an identifiable historical style or a personalized individual "sound",
> music which does not repeat itself cannot be stylistically pigeon-holed.
>
> When I thought that through, it made me exhausted just to imagine a music
> which is totally free of recognizable gestures 100% of the time. Conversely,
> I have also found it useful to remember this idea when I begin to get
> annoyed at repetition in some of my favorite musicians' licks: the repeated
> phrases are, after all, "signature licks" that identify that guy's personal
> style.
Right! I find that a curious thing happens to me with artists whom I really
love: when they reach a stage where people start to criticize them for
"repeating themselves," I often find that this is a stage I like a lot. Many
people demand constant surprise, constant unpredictability in their jazz. I
find that a jazz musician can sometimes boil down his or her expressive
personality to what I suppose is a process, whose mechanisms are combined
gracefully and expressively and end up producing a highly recognizable set of
sounds with much repetition from performance to performance. But the
repetition, in the cases I'm thinking of, is not mechanical. The same phrases
or phrase-types are right, are felt, each time. I can glory in the honest
familiarity of the musician's personality - just as the predictable reactions
of intimate friends can be comforting because they they embody a solid, true
identity. I think of late-period Lester Young, of Betty Carter's last album -
even Charlie Parker was highly repetitive in this way, and it never bothers me
a bit.
- Tom Storer
"As I say over and over again, when you're swinging, swing some more." -
Thelonious Monk
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
tst...@businessobjects.com
ma...@outsideshore.com (Marc Sabatella) wrote:
> In article <36DF4E1A...@staff.prodigy.com>, kri...@staff.prodigy.com
wrote:
>
> >greatest pieces of music, compare it one of the shittiest pieces of sound (no
> >matter what music or even non-music) and would like to say that there is
> >something about that great music which is "better" or "more" than this shitty
> >sound. It is a pity we cannot even say that with confidence. I don't know
> >why we discuss anything at all if music is that subjective.
>
> discussing it. It is precisely the subjectivity that makes for
> interesting differences of opinion.
LOUD APPLAUSE !
- Tom Storer
"When you're swinging, swing some more." - Thelonious Monk
tst...@businessobjects.com
> I think people look at the variety of opinions on music and just have a
> resigned attitude of "music is all subjective. Coltrane is no better than a
> jackhammer. It is all in the listener whether he is thrilled with Coltrane
> or jackhammer." Not realizing that there are more similarities than
> of lack of experience (poorly calibrated listeners), biases (agreed, lot
> more in people than in instruments), and a few hard-to-change narrow-minded
> people (defective ones). With a good filtering criteria and large enough
> least-count you can get a pretty good inter-rater-reliability.
"Poorly calibrated listeners," my goodness. This is getting positively goofy.
Please explain in what way you the measurements you are referring to differ
from a popularity contest.
I refer you to John Monroe's excellent post in the "Faking Jazz" thread about
the complexity of shared versus individual perceptions of music, in which he
points out that our aesthetic appreciations are neither "objective" nor purely
solipsistic - rather, an individual *and* social phenomenon.
George traynor
>
>yup. you a kid.
>
Uh gee Mr. Ric..., yuh gonna spank me...?
sniff...sniff... boo-hoo..... snivel...snivel...
Don' spank me...sniff...sniff... I be good.....sniff...sniff... I pwamise....
-
Kid Traynor
says...
>
>This racist shit
Hey I ain't the "Greaseman" or Howard Stern. It wasn't unprovoked.
_
>
>(and the sexist shit he also throws out) is intolerable.
Tough.... If I wanna use the word, "chick" or "pussy", that's my business.
_
>
>Fucking idiot. The general uselessness and idiocy of most of his posts can
>be easily ignored.
Seems to me that you have a problem doing so, so stop complaining.
_
>
>But it is not a matter of liberality or political
>correctness (which undoubtedly will be used by Traynor perjoratively and
>in a scatter gun approach) that is in opposition to crap like this.
The fact that senor Lopez decided to attack me personally meant that I respond
back in kind. That's my style. In any way I feel fit....
_
>
>Calling someone an idiot, like many of us feel about Traynor, is
>qualitatively different than calling someone with a hispanic surname
>various racist insults.
Oh my, how sanctimonious 'we' are.... Should we nominate you for sainthood, or
should you look in your own dirty backyard first? Eh, Glenn-boy?
_
>
>What a boor and asshole.
Hey dickhead, wanna clean my bedpans? Gotta whole pile of 'em here for ya...
the 'kid'
-
Rick Lopez
>
> This racist shit (and the sexist shit he also throws out) is intolerable.
> Fucking idiot. The general uselessness and idiocy of most of his posts can
> correctness (which undoubtedly will be used by Traynor perjoratively and
> in a scatter gun approach) that is in opposition to crap like this.
> qualitatively different than calling someone with a hispanic surname
Well of course he's more wrong tgan that, since I'm Italian-- the surname
being a gift from my step-father. So perhaps he'd like to rephrase his swill?
what a kid!
RL
Douglas Norwood
> True some serious jazz fans might question whether Love Supreme is the
>"best" album. But how many of them think that it is worse than the
sound of
>jackhammers?
Maybe some of those who think of John Cage as a serious artist.
-
DOUGLAS NORWOOD LNB...@prodigy.com
John Monroe
> >Greater knowledge tends to make a person more aware of the collective
> >perceptual framework within which the music operates.
To which Marc responded:
> True. But the part I don't agree with is that "adheres to the norms of
> the collective perceptual framework" translates into "good"
> in any objective sense, because there are so many possible collevtive
> perceptual frameworks to choose from.
So, in the end, we basically agree -- except when it comes to this last
point. And our difference on this point, I think, is fairly important.
I agree that there are many possible collective frameworks to choose from,
and that it's possible for somebody familiar with one framework to learn
another. In my opinion, though, the simple variety of frameworks does not
make considerations of aesthetic quality irrelevant, as you imply. It
just means we have to view aesthetic judgments from a different
perspective.
Maybe, now that we're all safely post-modern, it's difficult to make a
palatable case that certain works of art are "good" in a universal sense.
But that doesn't invalidate the proposition that certain works of art are
"good" when evaluated *in terms of the perceptual framework in which they
were created.* It's one thing to say "Beethoven's Fifth is a profound
expression of all that is Divine in the Human Spirit;" it's another to say
"Beethoven's Fifth is an extraordinary example of the symphony form as it
existed in the mid-nineteenth century."
The work is great either way, but the second formulation allows a lot more
room for other ways of thinking to exist -- presumably there are, for
example, Javanese people who are deeply moved by certain great
works for Gamelan, but who would be glancing at their watches throughout a
performance of Beethoven. These different ways of perceiving music,
however, don't eliminate the distinctions of "good" and "bad" *within*
particular frameworks.
Taking this argument a bit further, I'd say that Miles Davis is not
"good" because he simply *adhered* to the norms of a perceptual framework
(if that were the case, anyone who followed the rules could be Miles
Davis); he's good because he worked *within* the framework in a
remarkably intelligent, subtle and perceptive way. As a result, listeners
familiar with the framework in which he was working can perceive his music
as something extraordinary.
It's similar, again, to language. Everyone who can speak Enlgish knows
how to adhere to the basic structure (rules of grammar, etc.). Saying
something *interesting* within that structure is a completely different
story, and takes a lot more effort. The very fact that the structure
exists means you have certain set parameters -- things that are
easier to say, things that are harder to say, and things that can't be
said at all. The very existence of these parameters implies a
standard against which various cultural products can be measured, I'd
argue. The "quality" of a particular work, then, isn't weighed on some
kind of transcendent scale, it's determined *in terms of* the perceptual
framework in which it's produced. How does the work of art relate to its
perceptual framework? Does it employ the possibilities of the framework
in a way that communicates something especially compelling to an audience
familiar with that framework?
If we're going to get to those dread "objective standards," then, we
need ask another question: can various frameworks be considered
commensurate with one another? (Gamelan = Jazz = Classical, etc.) Maybe
they can, if you crib a bit from Kant. He argued that *all* human
beings are distinguished by their capacity to reason; this reason causes
people's thoughts to be structured in a particular way. All the various
individual frameworks human beings create (languages, aesthetic systems,
whatever), in turn, could perhaps be said to stem from this fundamental
structure of human reason.
I find this extremely wide-angle view reassuring; it unifies all the
various ways of thinking that exist in the world, while simultaneously
taking their difference into account. The notion of a universal human
"reason" (that is, in the most general terms a common set of guidelines
that structure thought) helps explain, too, why I can learn to appreciate
Javanese Gamelan, should I so desire (just as the hypothetical Javanese
person could learn to appreciate Beethoven). We both, as human beings,
share the fundamental structures of reason, and therefore have the
cognitive equipment to make sense of one another's particular ideas and
values.
The fact that multiple systems of ideas and values exist doesn't mean
that those ideas and values have no meaning beyond the individual's
subjective perception, if only because that subjective perception
occurs within, and is shaped by, a complex network of shared (sometimes
overlapping) structures.
John Monroe.
Marc Sabatella
>I wrote:
>
>> >Greater knowledge tends to make a person more aware of the collective
>> >perceptual framework within which the music operates.
>
>To which Marc responded:
>
>> True. But the part I don't agree with is that "adheres to the norms of
>> the collective perceptual framework" translates into "good"
>> in any objective sense, because there are so many possible collevtive
>> perceptual frameworks to choose from.
>
>So, in the end, we basically agree -- except when it comes to this last
>point.
Well, note I didn't say there is any *real* objectivity even in judging
how something fits the cultural norms. Just that it provides *some*
basis of commonality. Things are still subjective within the world of
one culture.
>I agree that there are many possible collective frameworks to choose from,
>and that it's possible for somebody familiar with one framework to learn
>another. In my opinion, though, the simple variety of frameworks does not
>make considerations of aesthetic quality irrelevant, as you imply.
I didn't say it makes them *irrelevant*; I said it demonstrates they are
not *objective*. Why do people seem to assume that subjective matters
are somehow less important than objective ones? As I said in another
post, it is the objective things I think are less interesting to
discuss.
>Maybe, now that we're all safely post-modern, it's difficult to make a
>palatable case that certain works of art are "good" in a universal sense.
Definitely.
>But that doesn't invalidate the proposition that certain works of art are
>"good" when evaluated *in terms of the perceptual framework in which they
>were created.*
True, it doesn't invalidate this proposition. But I still believe this
proposition is false in general. There are some works where there is
greater agreement than others, sure, but I don't see that this proves
it is all objective. it just proves that there is some agreement in
some cases.
>It's one thing to say "Beethoven's Fifth is a profound
>expression of all that is Divine in the Human Spirit;" it's another to say
>"Beethoven's Fifth is an extraordinary example of the symphony form as it
>existed in the mid-nineteenth century."
And it's another to say it's a particularly bad symphony, which I'm sure
any number of people have been willing to do (check out Slominsky's
Thesaurus of Musical Invective if you like).
>These different ways of perceiving music,
>however, don't eliminate the distinctions of "good" and "bad" *within*
>particular frameworks.
I'm not eliminating them; I'm saying they never existed.
[ re: Miles Davis ]
>he's good because he worked *within* the framework in a
>remarkably intelligent, subtle and perceptive way. As a result, listeners
>familiar with the framework in which he was working can perceive his music
>as something extraordinary.
Some listeners. And a host of other jazz fans find him terribly
overrated.
>The fact that multiple systems of ideas and values exist doesn't mean
>that those ideas and values have no meaning beyond the individual's
>subjective perception
Again, I made no such claim.
>if only because that subjective perception
>occurs within, and is shaped by, a complex network of shared (sometimes
>overlapping) structures.
Totally agreed. But I still don't see that this translates into
"objectivity".
Walter Davis
curm...@writeme.com wrote:
>On 3 Mar 1999 08:59:34 -0800, george traynor- <noF...@allowed.com>
>wrote:
>
>>And I like to remember a little quote from Miles concerning the
avant-garde and
>>the people in the so-called, 'know':
>>
>>"They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing so they
don't look
>>unhip. White people are especially like that, particularly when a
black person
>>is doing something they don't understand. They don't want to have to
admit to a
>>black person could be doing something that they don't know about. Or
that he
>>could be maybe a little more--or a lot more--intellegent than them.
They can't
>>stand to admit that kind of shit to themselves, so they go around
talking about
>>how great it is until the next 'new thing' comes along, and then the
next and
>>then the next and then the next."
What an odd argument from someone claiming that all those folks (many of
whom are black) who are playing a music that he doesn't get are 'faking'
it. Rather than admit that they're making a music that is beyond your
understanding, you'd rather ridicule them.
I'm more than willing to admit that guys like Ornette and Cecil (for
example) are more intelligent than I am, certainly infinitely more
musically creative, and geniuses at what they do. I don't even see any
reason to think that Denardo's not every bit as intelligent (or more)
than I am and, although I'm not a particular fan of his work, he's more
musically creative to boot.
And Miles is hardly the one to complain about white folks following
around the latest fad -- who did he think were buying all those records
of his?
-walt
Walter Davis walter...@unc.edu
Health Data Analyst at the ph: (919) 962-1019
Institute for Research in Social Science fax: (919) 962-8980
UNC - Chapel Hill
Krishna Rayaprolu
tst...@businessobjects.com wrote:
> > I say the opposite: if it was objective, there would be no point in
> > discussing it. It is precisely the subjectivity that makes for
> > interesting differences of opinion.
>
> LOUD APPLAUSE !
Atleast that's not the reason I read this newsgroup. To me it is an education. I
learn from people who have seen some objective truth which I couldn't, then try it
out and sometimes I end up seeing what I didn't see before. I wouldn't have given a
second try to some of the cds if friends or people in this newsgroup didn't
recommend and described what they liked about it. Conversely I would never join a
newsgroup if music were totally subjective, if the differences of opinions cannot be
changed with some objective truth. (I wouldn't like to discuss people's favorite
color since that wouldn't change my opinion).
Krishna
SwingDoug
always sound fake no matter what.
Walter Davis
ma...@outsideshore.com (Marc Sabatella) wrote:
>In article <7bm402$bo2$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, pjs...@mwnet.or.jp
wrote:
>> He thought Marsh was playing Free, whereas he was “stretching out
on
>> the forms”(Tristano), a critical distinction.
>
>Perhaps, but a pretty subtle one to most ears, and there are some
pretty
>essential similarities as well. I don't think it fair to ridicule
>someone for focusing more on the similarities than the differences.
>
Besides, I don't think of Ornette's playing as being "free" either, and
"stretching out on the form" seems a fairly accurate way of
characterizing Ornette's playing (though I've never heard Ornette on
Tenor, so won't say what that album is like).
Walter Davis
Monroe <jmo...@pantheon.yale.edu> wrote:
>
>>I personally don't feel like the
>>relativistic approach fully explains the complex interaction of
>>experience, shared cultural knowledge, and individual taste that makes
it
>>possible for a person to be moved by a work of art.
>>
>>The relativistic picture seems unsatisfying to me, because it places
such
>>a heavy emphasis on the totally irreconcileable *differences* between
>>people, and almost cheerfully embraces the alienating notion that
>>truly effective communiction is impossible.
>
>Well, as a "relativist", I would disagree with almost every one of your
>characterizations. I believe cultural influence is a very strong
>unifying force, such that there will often be agreement within a people
>as to what is "good" and what is not. It is precisely the relativistic
>nature of aesthetics that *allows* it to be so determined by culture,
>and therefore allows communication within that culture. And this view
>expresses hope that different cultures, merely through sharing
>information and experience, can come to appreicate each others'
>standards.
I missed John's post and only saw Marc's strong reply, so if there's
stuff in John's post where he addresses these points, sorry I missed
them. But John may not realize that there are different levels and
types of relativism. It is true that there are certain relativists who
may take matters to such an extreme that everything becomes purely
individualistic, and this is the straw man he's attacking.
But to take a relativist point of view isn't to ignore socio-cultural
forces. In fact, it usually puts such forces front-and-center.
"Relativity" derives from the shifting socio-cultural perspectives.
John basically argues that music is a social construction (or at least
the understanding of music is) and this is the central
relativist/post-modernistic point. As such, the idea that there music
(or any artform) can be inherently or objectively good or bad makes
little to no sense.
Adopting a relativist viewpoint doesn't necessarily mean that we render
ourselves incapable of making general statements about certain cultural
subgroups and their musical tastes. It's quite possible that what
Americans (or suburban white young males to be more realistic) currently
prefer is pretty knowable and predictable, but that doesn't mean it
won't change (we know from history it does) nor does that mean that
what they like is "quality" (and in fact most who believe in objective
quality would explicitly suggest it isn't).
But I know from experience, education, etc. that the socio-cultural
factors (at least those that we've got some idea of how to measure)
generally don't do all that good a job of explaining individual
attitudes and behavior. We can show (under certain assumptions) that
they're important and partially predictive, but in general the
unexplained portion is at least equal and often twice the size of the
explained portion. And that's even for fairly objective, seemingly
knowable, well-measured concepts like income. Accurately
predicting/explaining individuals' musical preferences strikes me as
infeasible if not impossible.
Marc Sabatella
>Conversely I would never
> join a
>newsgroup if music were totally subjective, if the differences of opinions
> cannot be
>changed with some objective truth. (I wouldn't like to discuss people's
> favorite
>color since that wouldn't change my opinion).
But there is s much more to music than color. I can tell you I like
green, but I can't talk intelligently about *why* I like green. There
are no *components* to green worth discussion. On the other hand, I
*can* talk about why I like "A Love Supreme". I can talk about the
various elements of the music that attract me. The fact that *I* happen
to value these elements doens't make them objective valuable, but there
is the possibility that I can turn you on to some of them too, to cause
you to see something you didn't see before.
Walter Davis
Krishna Rayaprolu <kri...@staff.prodigy.com> wrote:
> I was trying to explain the differences in terms
>of lack of experience (poorly calibrated listeners), biases (agreed,
lot
>more in people than in instruments), and a few hard-to-change
narrow-minded
>people (defective ones). With a good filtering criteria and large
enough
>least-count you can get a pretty good inter-rater-reliability.
This is far far harder than you let on, and in fact I'll claim it's
virtually impossible when it comes to musical preferences. And all of
these techniques are based on assumptions: (1) you've defined the
concept you're measuring; (2) your measures reflect that concept in
valid and reliable ways; (3) the "error" term is in fact error. I would
argue that no one has ever been able to define musical quality in an
agreed-upon manner (and you haven't even tried); the hypothetical
measures you propose are, at best, measures of musical preference; the
"error" term (arising from the "filtering criteria") are not random
error but are in fact legitimate alternative opinions which you discount
because they are not in sufficient agreement with what you (or the
majority of others) think quality is.
The measures you suggest already exist -- they're called critics'
ratings. Penguin, All-Music Guide, Rolling Stone Guide to Jazz, etc.
etc. etc. will tell you what the best albums are, they (claim to) detect
the difference between 3.5 and 4 star records, they are
"well-calibrated" listeners. Now explain to me why that's musical
quality.
You can quantify anything. I can define quality music as music which
pleases people. I can measure that by looking at album sales, under the
assumption that no one's gonna fork over $15 for something they don't
enjoy. I can "filter out" all those folks who buy albums that don't
sell at least 100,000 (the "jackhammer and jazz" crowd). Voila, a
purely objective measure of musical quality. I could then even try to
measure the albums along certain characteristics, and maybe an analysis
of these will clue me in to different dimensions of musical quality.
(for those interested in jazz meets jackhammer, you might want to track
down a cd by a Bay Area saxist named Scott (?) Robinson, called _Arc_ I
believe (or maybe that's the label). No jackhammers, but he does record
a track in a tunnel with lots of cars whizzing by, honking, screeching,
etc. I'm giving it a thumbs up no matter what its objective quality
might be :-).
It really is like religion. I could go around to a number of Christians
(or Christian ministers and/or theologians if you want "experts") and
get their attitudes about certain moral questions. After that, I might
indeed be able to say something about what Christians believe in (in
1999) and I can then evaluate the extent to which a given Christian
matches that set of beliefs. But that doesn't get me any closer to
knowing whether those are correct moral beliefs, whether those
Christians who don't have a high level of agreement with their fellow
Christians are "better or worse" Christians (i.e. closer to some
objective reality of "Christ"), and certainly not whether Christianity
is a better religion than Judaism.
Why is it so hard for people to accept? You hear a piece of music and
you interpret it, understand it, enjoy it based on your combination of
personal experience, socio-cultural background, temporary mood, musical
background, etc. etc. etc. When I hear a piece of music, I process it
through my "combination." Neither one of our understandings need be
(nor is) "more correct" than the other. There is at least one aesthetic
out there in which industrial noises are an expressive art of the
highest quality and there are many aesthetics out there for which they
are crap. The fact that the adherents of the "industrial=crap"
aesthetics far outnumber the adherents of the "industrial=art"
aesthetics says absolutely nothing about quality.
This is not science, this is art; this is not the physical world, this
is the aesthetic world; and the rules and methods of science should not
be expected to apply.
Walter Davis
Krishna Rayaprolu <kri...@staff.prodigy.com> wrote:
>But I do notice certain factors which are clearly weak in his
music
>is much less than mine.
Measured how? And does the devil (or the quality) lie in the details?
:-)
>An overall smoothness in music (which is mostly
>smooth transition of notes), even beat and a hummable tune is all he
cares
>about.
Man, not a month goes by in which we don't see these characteristics
described as "great (pop) songwriting", usually attached to a statement
that today's songwriters are crap. Similarly we'll see the lack of an
even beat and a hummable melody trotted out as criticisms of the
avant-garde. If we're to take lack of an even beat and absence of a
hummable melody as evidence of musical quality, then Evan Parker is the
genius of modern music. And I suppose jackhammers have an even (though
very rapid) beat, but they don't produce very hummable melodies, so
jackhammer listeners are apparently nearly as qualified as you to judge.
>Isn't detail a measure or at least a factor of musical experience?
Sure, but does "detail" guarantee you're a better judge of "artistic
quality?" I've met plenty of listeners who (from my vantage point) get
so bogged down in details that they miss the great music (the old
forest-trees problem). And does it take more detailed listening to
judge the "smoothness" of the notes than it does the "unsmoothness"?
Does your friend not notice the "unsmoothness" of Coltrane's notes or
does he just not like that unsmoothness?
And how exactly do you define and measure "smoothness?"
>His involvement in music seems to be less than mine. Isn't that
another
>factor in the "quantity" of musical experience?
It is a difference in the "quality" of musical experience (where here I
mean quality not in the sense we've been using it, but to distinguish
between "qualitative" and "quantitative"). Granting that your depiction
of you vs. your friend is accurate, I have no problem with saying that
you guys have qualitatively different musical experiences. I'd also say
you have different aesthetics. I don't think those make either of you a
better judge of music (if for no other reason than I don't think there's
anything there to judge). I would most especially say that it is folly
for you as a jazz fan to pretend that you are qualified to judge the
quality of pop music. That wouldn't even seem to meet your own criteria
for objectively measuring the quality of music.
And of course we could tie this back into a recent thread. I can't
imagine any objective criteria by which we would consider you to be a
better judge of music than Joni Mitchell, yet Joni Mitchell was recently
quoted comparing (favorably) Mariah Carey to Ella Fitzgerald. If there
is objective quality in music, certainly Ella ranks high on the scale.
So if Joni Mitchell is a better judge than you, we'd have to say that
(admittedly based on only a single data point) your friend is a better
judge of music than you despite the fact that he's an "inferior"
listener.
And since your friend apparently has not deduced from the fact that he
doesn't get much enjoyment from Coltrane that Coltrane's music is
necessarily inferior, I'll put a little more faith in his opinion than
in yours.
I also find it odd that you claim to have no idea how to measure musical
enjoyment yet you seem confident that you can measure musical quality.
JONM AYTAC
quantifiable issues in music or something
--
JGoodpast
>make the effort to keep listening to it until you get familiar enough
>with the particular "language" being used, and only then can you start
>to talk about the intrinsic worth of the music (just as you can't
>evaluate the intellectual content of a conversation in French if you
>only understand English). Most people aren't willing to make this
>kind of effort -- if a given piece of music, or a given artist,
>doesn't appeal to them right away, they lose interest. And I can't
>really blame them -- why invest valuable time trying to "appreciate"
>something that sounds horrible? More often than not, it actually *is*
>horrible, and you've wasted your time. It helps to have mentors
>(those people I keep mentioning whose opinions I respect) to guide
>you.
This is what it takes with music as difficult as the avant-garde. Until you
become familar with an artist's language, you can't really become familair with
the structure and rythym of the music of he is playing. Once you do become
familiar enough to see the structure within the freedom-- I've used the cliche
that it opens up like when a rose bloomes. A vail is lifted and you can see
the logic at work. And as the above post states, not everyone is willing to
make the effort and spend the time it takes. If not, you might as well pass
the avant-garde by, because there is equally worthwhile jazz music out there
that isn't as difficult and one can appreciateit will less effort. Though
they'd be missing some amazing music.
john
Glen Alpert
wrote:
> In article <profbop-0403...@d246.nas18.sonic.net>, pro...@sonic.net
> says...
> >
> >This racist shit
>
> Hey I ain't the "Greaseman" or Howard Stern. It wasn't unprovoked.
Then call him an idiot, not racist remarks...he didn't call you a white idiot.
> _
> >
> >(and the sexist shit he also throws out) is intolerable.
>
> Tough.... If I wanna use the word, "chick" or "pussy", that's my business.
>
Sure it's your business....it's part of what makes you such an idiot.
_
> >
> >Fucking idiot. The general uselessness and idiocy of most of his posts can
> >be easily ignored.
>
> Seems to me that you have a problem doing so, so stop complaining.
Racism should be confronted. Your useless ramblings are of no consequence.
> _
> >
> >But it is not a matter of liberality or political
> >correctness (which undoubtedly will be used by Traynor perjoratively and
> >in a scatter gun approach) that is in opposition to crap like this.
>
> The fact that senor Lopez decided to attack me personally meant that I respond
> back in kind. That's my style. In any way I feel fit....
Do what you do. Attacking someone personally and attacking some one
personally in a racist way are two different things. Know that it makes
you look like an idiot and is beyond what most people around here
tolerate.
> >
> >Calling someone an idiot, like many of us feel about Traynor, is
> >qualitatively different than calling someone with a hispanic surname
> >various racist insults.
>
> Oh my, how sanctimonious 'we' are.... Should we nominate you for
sainthood, or
> should you look in your own dirty backyard first? Eh, Glenn-boy?
>
I'm not that sanctimonious....it usually takes extreme idiots to get my
dander up.
_
> >
> >What a boor and asshole.
>
> Hey dickhead, wanna clean my bedpans? Gotta whole pile of 'em here for ya...
>
> the 'kid'
>
Ah, the clever excrement comeback. Fuck you.
--Glen
Walter Davis
orp...@parker.Berkeley.EDU (JONM AYTAC) wrote:
>well, hey, we can certainly be specific about Coltrane's innovations
>of rhythmic and harmonic concept and even make a statement like
>coltrane's more complex and what not
>
as Marc (ahh, the ol' Davis-Sabatella "It's all subjective dammit!!" tag
team swings into action once again -- I feel like the 4 Horsemen hauled
out of well-earned retirement to deal with that pesky NWO)...anyhoo, as
Marc pointed out, there are some aspects of music which are objective
(or I might say quasi-objective). We can come up with a list of
characteristics we consider "complex" and say something like "the more
of these characteristics a piece of music has and the greater extent to
which it has them, then we will call that piece of music more complex."
And although "innovation" and "influence" can be awfully hard to pin
down, they are (in theory at least) potentially objective concepts.
But would those characteristics make a piece of music better? I was
thinking this morning of one of my favorite tenor players, Ike Quebec,
and those wonderful "comeback" albums he made for Blue Note in the early
60's. I wouldn't consider them complex, innovative (if anything, he's
way behind the times), or influential. But I sure as hell consider
them beautiful.
Or, not to get Marc in trouble (hey, I asked him not to get this
discussion started :-), but one of the previous times we discussed this
someone started with a point similar to Krishna's about Trane and
jackhammers -- "hey, at least we can say Bessie Smith is better than the
Partridge Family, right?" A short time later, this same person was
arguing for complexity as one of the key elements of quality. Marc
kinda pointed out that by most musical standards, the Partridge Family
songs were in all likelihood (i.e. I don't think he actually did an
analysis) more "complex" than Bessie Smith.
And that cuts to what is eventually the heart of the matter. There are
a number of technical standards which can be applied to music. But you
can't tell me those technical standards tell you what the emotional
impact of a piece of music is. And you can't tell me that, if there is
such a thing as objectively great art, that emotional impact isn't a
huge chunk of what makes a great work of art. And the emotional
reaction of a listener to a piece of music, their understanding, their
interpretation, that music's place within the context of their lives is
going to be so complex a process as to be essentially individualistic.
Moreover, I'd argue, that even if you can discern regular patterns of
who reacts how to what, you'll be at a complete loss to explain why one
reaction is "right" and another reaction is "wrong." I get blown away
by Ike Quebec and Richard Thompson and Joe McPhee and Fela Kuti.
Someone else gets blown away by Frank Sinatra and Black Flag and Hank
Mobley and Ravi Shankar. So what?
And heck, even regarding technical standards, it's my understanding that
music notation still isn't capable of fully representing a jazz solo,
due to the presence of slurs, slides, broken notes, screeches, etc.
Think about it, we can't even write down what a jazz solo sounds like.
Yet some think we can deduce its "true" meaning and quality. Methinks
not.
>not only that, there is the linearity thing.. digesting
>coltrane thoroughly allows you to digest joe henderson
>or sam rivers better or something...
>
Not so sure I'll go for that. On a minor point, tracing the line
backwards should work as well as tracing it forward. On a slightly more
important point, stretching the linearity thing to its logical
conclusion, why listen to Trane at all when you can listen to whoever's
the latest in the line. But mainly, the world doesn't strike me as all
that linear. You're talking about numerous factors, interactions,
diminishing returns, exponential growths, networks, cross-cutting
circles, and some incomprehensible random error. For one person,
Ornette on Tenor helped him "hear" Warne Marsh; for another person, the
two are completely unrelated.
>digesting mariah carey certainly doesn't do as much for my
>overall musicality
>
Ahh, but it may do quite a bit for someone else's overall musicality.
Or if not Mariah, then one would hope Aretha, or certainly Bon Scott.
:-)
Marc Sabatella
>Or, not to get Marc in trouble (hey, I asked him not to get this
>discussion started :-), but one of the previous times we discussed this
>someone started with a point similar to Krishna's about Trane and
>jackhammers -- "hey, at least we can say Bessie Smith is better than the
>Partridge Family, right?" A short time later, this same person was
>arguing for complexity as one of the key elements of quality. Marc
>kinda pointed out that by most musical standards, the Partridge Family
>songs were in all likelihood (i.e. I don't think he actually did an
>analysis) more "complex" than Bessie Smith.
Oh great, now I get to defend that one again :-) Yeah, sure, bring it
on. Actually, I don't think anyone challenged me on it last time.
>And that cuts to what is eventually the heart of the matter. There are
>a number of technical standards which can be applied to music. But you
>can't tell me those technical standards tell you what the emotional
>impact of a piece of music is.
Bingo.
Ethel Jean Saltz
http://formentor.uib.es/~julyan/TeX/soundspaper/sounds/sounds.html
On 6 Mar 1999 00:27:02 GMT, walter...@unc.edu (Walter Davis) wrote:
> orp...@parker.Berkeley.EDU (JONM AYTAC) wrote:
>>well, hey, we can certainly be specific about Coltrane's innovations
>>of rhythmic and harmonic concept and even make a statement like
>>coltrane's more complex and what not
>>
>as Marc (ahh, the ol' Davis-Sabatella "It's all subjective dammit!!" tag
>team swings into action once again -- I feel like the 4 Horsemen hauled
>out of well-earned retirement to deal with that pesky NWO)...anyhoo, as
>Marc pointed out, there are some aspects of music which are objective
>(or I might say quasi-objective). We can come up with a list of
>characteristics we consider "complex" and say something like "the more
>of these characteristics a piece of music has and the greater extent to
>which it has them, then we will call that piece of music more complex."
> And although "innovation" and "influence" can be awfully hard to pin
be-Ahavah ve-Shalom, Queen of Creekbend,
MAC-NIET-SPIN-GAL,Khai Y'all, C-O-H-N, ADTR, 0390A.G.,
Trinity=Torah(Ethics)+Ne'eveem(Sociology)
+Ketuveem(Multimedia)
Trinity=Periodic Table of Elements
+Direct Current Circuits+Electromagnetic Spectrum
Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan/Miami Platform
mailto:nie...@airmail.net
pjs...@mwnet.or.jp
> wrote:
> >> He thought Marsh was playing Free, whereas he was “stretching out
> on
> >> the forms”(Tristano), a critical distinction.
> >
> >Perhaps, but a pretty subtle one to most ears, and there are some
> pretty
> >someone for focusing more on the similarities than the differences.
> >
> Besides, I don't think of Ornette's playing as being "free" either, and
> "stretching out on the form" seems a fairly accurate way of
> characterizing Ornette's playing (though I've never heard Ornette on
> Tenor, so won't say what that album is like).
Let me explain further the meaning of “stretching out in the forms “ by
quoting Barry Ulanov's liner notes from“The New Tristano", (Atlantic 1357 -
1960-2?)
“Lennie calls what he does here“stretching out in the forms." Within the
jazz forms, simple as they are, he has sought the utmost limits of spontaneity
of the improvising imagination. He is never altogether unconscious of the
progression. He is never enslaved to any sequence of notes or chords. He is
almost completely free- but not completely. That is part of the joy in it, he
explains: "to see how far you can stretch out in a given frame of
reference.” The possibilities, he says, are” practically infinite, endless
even in the most simple forms. You are constantly creating form on form, a
multiplicity of lines, a great complex of forms.”
Now my interpretation of this (intellectually,aurally,musically) is that
Tristano's music here and elsewhere,(notwithstanding some occasional free
departures)is essentially harmonically based. It is no secret that the
Tristano school worked over the chord sequences of a fairly limited number of
tunes to the point that for the improviser the changes became second nature.
Reaching such a stage,a capable improviser was able to create comparatively
freely within the melodic and (extended) harmonic structure of a particular
tune,moving out of bar line constrictions if necessary,so that full chorus or
cross chorus statements could be made. But the essential point is that there
is a palpable harmonic structure. (As well as chorus length and swing. These
latter elements are not directly stated by Ulanov, but are certainly there in
the music.)
In contrast Ornette, whether he worked within a 12,16 or 32 bar structure,
jettisoned (for one reason or another) the harmonic structure. Whereas
Tristano’s music was essentially an extension of what had gone before,
Ornette’s was an incredibly radical departure. Whereas jazz to this point
(Ornette) was a combination of the intellectual and emotional, Ornette’s
action (and its critical reception) meant that the purely emotional could
predominate. And of course this is what has gradually happened (Ayler, Gayle
etc.)… (and this isn’t just confined to jazz either,it is a 20th century
pan- arts phenomenon..)
This leads me to wonder how one can objectively come to grips with the purely
emotional in jazz, especially now that the last vestiges of form (chorus
length,swing etc.) have disappeared? How does one come to grips with someone
"speaking in tongues"?
To me, specifically between Marsh and Ornette, the "critical difference" is
Ornette's lack of an harmonically based, intellectually comprehensible melodic
line. Marsh has it in joyous,inventive abundance. And when one thinks of the
implications, it is a profound difference.
I am amazed that I have to spell it out. (But then I guess I'm just 40 years
too late anyway...).
pjs