What constitutes our repetoir?
brian gardiner
and why nots. I play classical and am trying to tie myself in to the
classical guitar world. This group helps quite a bit with that. Through
people in this group I have learnt guitarists I to listen to, and repertoire
to be explored. Fun thing about exploring is, you start to discover some
things that where never brought to you attention. My repertoire of half
songs is growing very high indeed :-)
But... I have a query. In another post here today someone mentioned that
Classical Gas is not, strictly speaking, classical guitar. I have been
chewing this over in my head, even listened to it, and I cannot figure out
why. What makes Classical Gas a non-classical guitar piece while Adelita is?
What about Steve Howe's Mood For A Day? Is this classical? If not, why not.
Sometimes it seems we cry about our lack of popularity, but we immediately
disown a popular piece. Why is Classical Gas, Mood for a Day. Midsummer's
Day Dream (think that's the title, been many years. By Rick Emmet) or
Braunyaur not classical. When examining a piece for inclusion into the
repertoire, what am I looking for (other than the Editions Orphee label on
the back)? :-)
Thank you for all answers.
Brian
Klaus Heim
"brian gardiner" <bgardi...@nothome.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:7rX18.1105$g0b...@news1.bloor.is...
Maybe intention and scope. Works written for nylon string guitar are not
necessarily classical, while some works for multiple electric guitars are
definitely classical music.
Klaus
Matanya Ophee
Brian gardiner asked:
>> What makes Classical Gas a non-classical guitar piece while Adelita
>is?
I cannot comment on Classical Gas, because, strange as it may seem, I
have never heard or seen this music. One of the few things I do not
have in my library. But personally, I do not consider Adelita, or
anything else by Tarrega, as worthwhile part of the classical
repertoire. It was OK a hundred years ago. It was OK 50 years ago, but
we have much better stuff today, even on the beginner and intermediate
level.
>> What about Steve Howe's Mood For A Day? Is this classical? If not, why
>not.
Again, I cannot comment because this music is outside my frame of
reference. Never heard it, or of it. But let's take this in the
direction you want to go:
I can fully accept a _transcription_ for the classical guitar of music
coming from any source whatsoever, including the steel string acoustic
guitar, the dobro, the hawaiian guitar, the Russian guitar (which I
have done myself quite a bit), the ukelele, the banjo, the balalaika,
or the lute. The only thing that matters is that the music is good,
well crafted according to the best compositional matrices known to us
today, and exhibit a distinct originality and inspiration.
And we have many examples already. Roland Dyens' Frank Zappa and
Thelonius Monk pastiches, the Sonare Duo transcriptions of Chick Corea
and Mike Oldfield. These are not different _in essence_ than
transcriptions of Greensleeves by Cutting or Carman's Whistle by
Johnson or Guardame Las vacas by Narvaez, or El Choclo by Villoldo, or
Verano Porteño by Piazzolla.
The question is not if transcriptions are bad, and Klaus and I have
definitely opposite views on the subject, but if a performer
understands that music of this type belongs in concerts for specific
audiences, and does not belong in concerts for _other_ audiences.
>> Sometimes it seems we cry about our lack of popularity, but we immediately
>> disown a popular piece. Why is Classical Gas, Mood for a Day. Midsummer's
>> Day Dream (think that's the title, been many years. By Rick Emmet) or
>> Braunyaur not classical. When examining a piece for inclusion into the
>> repertoire, what am I looking for
You are looking for music that appeals to you personally, which you
think you are capable of performing in a way that will increase the
chances that your audience will be pleased, and which will allow you
to go to bed at night peacefully, not having to worry about someone
suspecting that you have less than honest claims to your excellence.
You are also looking for music which will set you apart, as soon as
you come out on stage, from all the other run-of-the-mill copy cats
rent-a-program guitarists. Because, to quote Mr. Rodgers, you are
unique. There is no one in the whole wide world exactly like you. So
choose the music which will emphasize _your_ uniqueness, not that of
your current idols or colleagues.
> (other than the Editions Orphee label on
>> the back)? :-)
You could do a lot worse than that, it goes without saying, but there
is much music of value and quality. There is only one way to find it:
go dig in catalogues, music libraries, print music stores, on line
data bases, and read reviews in magazines. Not always useful, but
eventually, you will learn which reviewers you can trust and which you
can ignore.
>Maybe intention and scope. Works written for nylon string guitar are not
>necessarily classical, while some works for multiple electric guitars are
>definitely classical music.
Well said, Klaus.
Matanya Ophee
Editions Orphe'e, Inc.,
1240 Clubview Blvd. N.
Columbus, OH 43235-1226
614-846-9517
fax: 614-846-9794
http://www.orphee.com
David Norton
> But... I have a query. In another post here today someone mentioned that
> Classical Gas is not, strictly speaking, classical guitar. I have been
> chewing this over in my head, even listened to it, and I cannot figure out
> why. What makes Classical Gas a non-classical guitar piece while Adelita is?
> What about Steve Howe's Mood For A Day? Is this classical? If not, why not.
Quite possibly it's the idea of "familiarity breeds contempt". The
pieces you mention have been heard any number of times on the radio
and in cocktail ounges. If you play Classical Gas at a classical
recital, you get funny looks. Play an Introduction and Allegro in the
same key and at the same ABRCM Grade level, you get applause. Same
thing happens with "classical" pieces: play the Bach Minuet in G from
the Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook, the one which was pop-song-ificated
(new word, Webster!) into "How Gentle is the Rain", you get polite
applause. Play the Bach Minuet from the 1st Cello Suite, you get warm
applause. Play the Bach Minuet from the 2nd Cello Suite, you get
enthusiastic applause.
Perhaps if in the past, Big Names in the CG world had played "Mood For
A Day" at the Wigmore Hall and Kennedy Center and Chandler Pavilion
and Concertgebouw, on a Fleta, while wearing a tuxedo and keeping a
rigid posture and not interacting with the audience, it'd be as big a
CG hit as Leyenda.......
Anyone care to write an alternate history timeline?
Cheers,
David
(who has a sh!t load of work on my desk and really should do it. Some
day.)
Klaus Heim
"Matanya Ophee" <m.o...@orphee.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:plig4uo7vuk2h1h96...@4ax.com...
>
> I can fully accept a _transcription_ for the classical guitar of music
> coming from any source whatsoever, including the steel string acoustic
> guitar, the dobro, the hawaiian guitar, the Russian guitar (which I
> have done myself quite a bit), the ukelele, the banjo, the balalaika,
> or the lute. The only thing that matters is that the music is good,
> well crafted according to the best compositional matrices known to us
> today, and exhibit a distinct originality and inspiration.
>
> And we have many examples already. Roland Dyens' Frank Zappa and
> Thelonius Monk pastiches, the Sonare Duo transcriptions of Chick Corea
> and Mike Oldfield. These are not different _in essence_ than
> transcriptions of Greensleeves by Cutting or Carman's Whistle by
> Johnson or Guardame Las vacas by Narvaez, or El Choclo by Villoldo, or
> Verano Porteño by Piazzolla.
Do these transcriptions of 'pop music' become classical music? Not that the
definition matters much, but it is a question I have asked myself a few
times. Take for example the difference between your dime-store "Beatles for
the Classical Guitar" and the Takemitsu transcriptions. Especially since
Takemitsu elaborates somewhat, the feel of the music has definitely changed,
even though I can still recognize the melodies.
I surely like the pastiches and think it's a good idea to take influences
from all over the place. Rock and Jazz plays a big role in 20th century
music, it would be strange if this had little influence on classical music.
One such pastiche, Casterede's Invention No.2 "Hommage a Pink Floyd" is
among my favorite guitar pieces. Then there is also Domeniconi's Hommage a
Jimi Hendrix.
Klaus
Matanya Ophee
>> And we have many examples already. Roland Dyens' Frank Zappa and
>> Thelonius Monk pastiches, the Sonare Duo transcriptions of Chick Corea
>> and Mike Oldfield. These are not different _in essence_ than
>> transcriptions of Greensleeves by Cutting or Carman's Whistle by
>> Johnson or Guardame Las vacas by Narvaez, or El Choclo by Villoldo, or
>> Verano Porteño by Piazzolla.
>
>Do these transcriptions of 'pop music' become classical music?
Sometimes they do. Sometimes the crap level remains the same, even if
the medium is changed. Like the old saying: feces always floats on
top. Much of the core repertoire of classical music from the classical
era, is based on popular melodies. Francois de Fossa wrote this
magnificent set of variations on a popular melody Wan i in der frueh
aufsteh (which roughly translates as When I get [it:-)] Up in the
Morning) it becomes classical music, just like any pop tune of
today's.
>I surely like the pastiches and think it's a good idea to take influences
>from all over the place. Rock and Jazz plays a big role in 20th century
>music, it would be strange if this had little influence on classical music.
>One such pastiche, Casterede's Invention No.2 "Hommage a Pink Floyd" is
>among my favorite guitar pieces.
And then there is the Boudounis pastich on Pink Floyd... the differenc
eis not in the tune, but in the way it is handled. Casterede, who I
once met through the kind offices of Jean-Pierre Jumez, is a composer.
Boudounis si something else.
William D Clinger
> In another post here today someone mentioned that
> Classical Gas is not, strictly speaking, classical guitar. I have been
> chewing this over in my head, even listened to it, and I cannot figure out
> why. What makes Classical Gas a non-classical guitar piece while Adelita is?
> What about Steve Howe's Mood For A Day? Is this classical? If not, why not.
There's an old joke to the effect that any discipline whose name
includes the word "science" can't be a science. Maybe Classical
Gas isn't classical because its name includes the word "classical".
:)
Seriously, though:
1. I don't know.
2. I think it's an interesting question.
3. I don't think it's a very important question.
With regard to the general question of why some works for guitar
are considered classical and others are not, I think Matanya Ophee
gave as good an explanation as I've seen in a message he posted
here a month or two ago. I don't think his explanation was very
good, but I haven't seen a better and have none to offer myself.
Klaus's answer was sort of a summary of Matanya's:
> Maybe intention and scope.
But this leaves out tradition, which was a big part of Matanya's
answer.
When I don't understand something, I like to look at several
specific instances. In the spirit of Classical Gas versus
Adelita, I would ask:
Why is Greensleeves (c. 1580) more accepted as part of the
repertoire for classical guitar than Ah Robin (c. 1510)?
Why is Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring more accepted as classical
than Fanny Power?
Why is Simple Gifts (c. 1850) more accepted as classical than
Grandfather's Clock (c. 1870)?
Why is Sunburst more accepted as classical than Jack Fig?
The second and fourth instances are pretty clear. Both J S Bach
and Andrew York are composers who have built or continue to build
the musical genre now known as classical, whereas Turlough O'Carolan
and Leo Kottke made their living as working musicians and wrote
folkier music.
The first and third instances are less clear. I think it's mostly
a matter of tradition. Greensleeves was so wildly popular that
Francis Cutting and others arranged it for lute, and so there is
a continuous tradition of playing it on plucked strings since 1595
or earlier. Ralph von Williams helped its classical reputation
also. Although Ah Robin is more classical in its structure and
composition than Greensleeves, and was written by a prominent and
identifiable composer, William Cornysh, it was never as popular as
Greensleeves, so there is no strong tradition of playing it as an
instrumental work on plucked strings.
As for Simple Gifts, I think Copland's use of it in Appalachian
Spring and Christopher Parkening's recording of it have contributed
to its acceptance, or at least toleration, by classical guitarists.
Furthermore Simple Gifts has the romantic advantage of being written
by a relatively anonymous person, Joseph Brackett Jr, whereas Henry
Clay Work was one of the most successful songwriters of his time.
To generalize from these examples, I think the clearcut cases have
to do with whether the composer is or is not working consciously
within the tradition of classical music. In the boundary cases,
I think it's more an accident of history than anything else.
These things change over time. I would guess that by 2050 or so,
Classical Gas will be considered about as classical as Lecuona's
Malaguena is now.
Will
Matanya Ophee
> Why is Greensleeves (c. 1580) more accepted as part of the
> repertoire for classical guitar than Ah Robin (c. 1510)?
>
> Why is Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring more accepted as classical
> than Fanny Power?
>
> Why is Simple Gifts (c. 1850) more accepted as classical than
> Grandfather's Clock (c. 1870)?
>
> Why is Sunburst more accepted as classical than Jack Fig?
I don't know the answers to the first three, but since York's Sunburst
is as far away from my concept of classical music as can be, I sure
would like to find out about Jack Fig. let me see this tune. perhaps I
should comission a concerto for guitar and steam calliope based on the
Jack Fig tune. What a smashing title!
>
>The second and fourth instances are pretty clear. Both J S Bach
>and Andrew York are composers who have built or continue to build
>the musical genre now known as classical, whereas Turlough O'Carolan
>and Leo Kottke made their living as working musicians
And York and Bach are(were) not working musicians?
>These things change over time. I would guess that by 2050 or so,
>Classical Gas will be considered about as classical as Lecuona's
>Malaguena is now.
What's classical about this Malagooenia?
Gorblimey
David Norton <davino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2a2ac44.02011...@posting.google.com...
Well put.
Given that so much of the CG repertoire is arrangements of tunes from a
different context (eg cello suites), perhaps it is the quality of the
arrangement that makes the difference between pop (for want of a better
word) and classical music.
That and the strength of the original melody.
Pete
Larry Deack
> That and the strength of the original melody.
It ain't just the melody but that may well be the difference. Ever heard
the term 'through composed'?
Terlizzi
>>> Thelonius Monk pastiches
the only one we have of real accomplishment.
mark delpriora
Greg M. Silverman
Yes! one cannot argue that (Bernstein, Gershwin, Ives and Copeland come
close, but not quite!)! As we speak, I have the Yellow Shark on and am
enjoying the strains of the "Dog breath Variations." This is "Art" with
a capital "A!" I just ordered The Zappa Album featuring his music
performed on baroque period instruments by a Finnish ensemble... should
be very cool!
If you can get a copy of the Zappa songbook, try playing Igor's
Boogie... sounds great on CG! Very much in the style of Stravinsky!
Stucco Homes from the Zappa Guitar book works pretty well too! Plus, if
you have the Real Book (the ~ahem~ not so legal edition favored by jazz
musicians eveywhere), it has good charts of Peaches and Blessed Relief.
BTW, the Hot Rats songbook is now available from the Zappa Family Trust
(go to the official Zappa web site for oderering)... just got it the
other day, but haven't had any time to look at it yet.
Long live Frank!
Now off to work on variations 9 and 10 of the "tune" that doesn't exist!
Greg--
William D Clinger
> I don't know the answers to the first three, but since York's Sunburst
> is as far away from my concept of classical music as can be, I sure
> would like to find out about Jack Fig. let me see this tune. perhaps I
> should comission a concerto for guitar and steam calliope based on the
> Jack Fig tune. What a smashing title!
http://www.leokottke.com/output/pmusic.html (Leo Kottke/Eight Songs)
> >The second and fourth instances are pretty clear. Both J S Bach
> >and Andrew York are composers who have built or continue to build
> >the musical genre now known as classical, whereas Turlough O'Carolan
> >and Leo Kottke made their living as working musicians
>
> And York and Bach are(were) not working musicians?
I was smiling about that on the train home, wondering who would jump
on it first. I was in a rush to catch the train, and realized what
I had said about fifteen minutes after I hit the send button.
> What's classical about this Malagooenia?
I personally don't consider _any_ of the works or composers mentioned
in my message to be classical.
Will
Dawn and Todd Tipton
William D Clinger wrote:
>
>
> http://www.leokottke.com/output/pmusic.html (Leo Kottke/Eight Songs)
>
>
Sam was talking about the culture in the Twin Cities. Well in my
building alone is Leo Kottke's mother and Sergio and Eduardo's
uncle. That's gotta count for something doesn't it?
:-)
Todd Tipton
Minneapolis, Mn.
612-735-5865
http://toddtipton.homestead.com
"I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who
has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has
intended us to forego their use."
--Galileo Galilei
James Calivar
Now I can't say for sure whether Mr. Zappa was a brilliant composer or not -
mainly because I don't know nuttin' about composin'. But I CAN say that I
think Overnight Sensation is one of the best albums produced of all time.
Evertime I hear it I can't help but crack up. I've also read Frank's
autobiography several times over (having bought it in hardcover when it was
first released), and it leaves me laughing every time.
I can't he's my favorite 'rock' guitarist - Jimi Hendrix gets my nod for
that one - but I certainly don't tire of listening to his riffs. I wonder
if there's a CG transcription of "Black Napkins" anywhere?
Interesting personal note. When Stevie Ray Vaughn died, I was bummed. Saw
him first in 1984 on Hendrix's birthday, and many more times afterwards.
Great shows all. I always liked him, but I did not shed tears at learning
of his his demise. Yet when Frank Zappa died, for some inexplicable reason
I found myself in a weeklong funk Many tears were shed on my part. I guess
I just realized what the world would be missing now that a mind of that
magnitude had left us. (Or more depressingly, how *little* the world would
miss him - it's a real shame more people didn't "get" him).
Anyway. Glad to hear of others that share a similar fondness of ol' Frank.
- James
"Come on Frenchie! SNAP it!"
"Greg M. Silverman" <g...@cccs.umn.edu> wrote in message
news:3C48BF21...@cccs.umn.edu...
Greg M. Silverman
>
> Wow, get this - a Zappa fan in a CG newsgroup! Very cool.
Yeah! Imagine that!
>
> Now I can't say for sure whether Mr. Zappa was a brilliant composer or not -
> mainly because I don't know nuttin' about composin'. But I CAN say that I
> think Overnight Sensation is one of the best albums produced of all time.
> Evertime I hear it I can't help but crack up. I've also read Frank's
> autobiography several times over (having bought it in hardcover when it was
> first released), and it leaves me laughing every time.
Which one of his bios (there are needless to say, many)? If you don't
have his autobiog: The Real Book -- get it! It is full of lots of good
stuff, including hiss many experiences of working with large symphony
orchestras, and we he eventually decided to do all of his "serious"
music using a synclavier.
There are quite a few! Overnight certainly is a top notch production:
Dynamo Hum makes me laugh every time I hear it,1 :-)
About his "serious" music: Performs the music of Franceso Zappa could
probably be considered his first serious full length work (am still
wondering if Franceso was really an 18th century composr/cellist as the
Zappas claim!), Perfect Stranger with Pieerre Buolez and his Ensemble
perfroming several of the works, the LSO perfroms music of Frank Zappa
(he gives many funny accounts of that in the Real Book, including the
Brits fondness for beer!), "The Yellow Shark" and of course the sequel
to Lumpy Gravy, "Civilization Phase 3"
(of course one could argue that his entire collection of work is
"serious")
And, he _did_ compose a piece for classical guiatr, in the form of a
Waltz... In fact, two well know CG'ers have recorded
it: David Tanenbaum and Gunnar Spjuth. I am trying to find the issue of
Guitar Player where this was originally published.
Lastly, as pointed out, Roland Dyens has recordered one of his own
compositions "hommage to Frank Zappa" (am still waiting for my copy of
this cd from amazon!).
And, I beleive Frank is finally getting his due as a "serious" composer:
there are at least 16 different recordings of his work on Amazon that
are categorized under "classical music" performed by various ensembles.
>
> I can't he's my favorite 'rock' guitarist - Jimi Hendrix gets my nod for
> that one - but I certainly don't tire of listening to his riffs. I wonder
> if there's a CG transcription of "Black Napkins" anywhere?
>
Well... debatable. Technically I think Frank was far ahead of the
average rock guiatrist; don't get me wrong, I love Jimi, but, well
whatday gonna do?! BTW: Frank ended up with Jimi's infamous Strat from
the Montery Pop Festival! I beleive Dweezil is now playing it.
> Interesting personal note. When Stevie Ray Vaughn died, I was bummed. Saw
> him first in 1984 on Hendrix's birthday, and many more times afterwards.
> Great shows all. I always liked him, but I did not shed tears at learning
> of his his demise. Yet when Frank Zappa died, for some inexplicable reason
> I found myself in a weeklong funk Many tears were shed on my part. I guess
> I just realized what the world would be missing now that a mind of that
> magnitude had left us. (Or more depressingly, how *little* the world would
> miss him - it's a real shame more people didn't "get" him).
>
Understood: Sadly, I had 3rd row tickets to see him on a tour to promote
his work on Syncalvier... but alas, the whole tour had to be cancelled
due to his illness.
> Anyway. Glad to hear of others that share a similar fondness of ol' Frank.
Well, his music is part of "The Big Note" (as he called it) and thus
shall never die!
>
> "Come on Frenchie! SNAP it!"
"The Poodle Bites! The Poodle chews it!" (chews what I should like to
know!) :-)
Cheers!
Greg--
Terlizzi
>probably be considered his first serious full length work (am still
>wondering if Franceso was really an 18th century composr/cellist as the
>Zappas claim!)
Yep. Francesco Zappa is a real 18the century composer and has an entry in the
1982 edition of the Groves Dictionary. Frank Zappa has an entry in the new
version released last year in which he is compared to James Joyce.
So I would rate that Francesco Zappa recording as a performance, as I would
rate Frank Zappa's CD recording (not yet released) of Varese in which he
conducts the Ensemble Modern. Nicholas Slonimsky, the conductor that gave the
first performance of ionisation, said it was the best recording of varese he
had heard!!
BTW, I heard through a friend that there was a project on the table at Sony
for a Zappa CD conducted by Salonen and LA phil but it was cancelled.
Even though there are performances of Mehta, Nagano, Boulez and the Ensemble
Modern of his orchestral music, a new one would have been nice!
md
Dawn and Todd Tipton
"Greg M. Silverman" wrote:
>
> James Calivar wrote:
> >
> > Wow, get this - a Zappa fan in a CG newsgroup! Very cool.
>
> Yeah! Imagine that!
>
>
I enjoy Zappa's music a great deal.
Larry Deack
> Yep. Francesco Zappa is a real 18the century composer and has an entry in
the
> 1982 edition of the Groves Dictionary. Frank Zappa has an entry in the new
> version released last year in which he is compared to James Joyce.
> So I would rate that Francesco Zappa recording as a performance, as I
would
> rate Frank Zappa's CD recording (not yet released) of Varese in which he
> conducts the Ensemble Modern. Nicholas Slonimsky, the conductor that gave
the
> first performance of ionisation, said it was the best recording of varese
he
> had heard!!
I have Francesco Zappa ( the one with the Dog) but for Varese I have Boulez
conducting the NY Phill and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Do you have this
recording of Varese? How do they compare? Not yet released eh? Boulez, Zappa
and Vareze and names forever linked for me. I'd love to hear Zappa's
recording. Zappa doing Ionisation? I want to hear this. I got it with 13
percussionists from the NY phill on the Boulez CD.
Greg M. Silverman
Wow! Who woda thunk it! Thought Franceso was really one of Frank's alter
egos and thus another of his satircal pokes, this time at musicians of
the Classical period.
Well, being at a major research university has its perks, one of which
is access to the on-line edition of Groves, from which the following is
quoted,
"Zappa, Francesco
(b Milan; fl 1763--88). Italian cellist and composer. The
dedication of his six trios for two violins and bass (London,
1765) shows that he had given the Duke of York, the
dedicatee, music lessons in Italy (the duke had been in
Italy from late November 1763 to mid-1764). By 1767, the
year of the duke's death, he had entered his service as
maestro di musica, as shown by the title-page of his trio
sonatas op.2. He then apparently took up residence in The
Hague as a music master. He was still there in 1788,
according to the place and date of a manuscript Quartetto
concertante (in D-Bsb). He had a reputation among his
contemporaries as a virtuoso and he toured Germany in
1771, playing in Danzig and, on 22 September, in Frankfurt.
According to Mendel, he made another concert tour of
Germany in 1781 (though this may be an error for 1771).
Zappa's writing is lyrical, but tends towards a seriousness
of manner in which the galant elements are tempered by a
Classical dignity. His works with obbligato cello
demonstrate an easy familiarity with thumb position
fingerings, slurred staccato bowings and idiomatic string
crossing patterns.
WORKS
Duos: 6 Sonatas, kbd/hp, vn, as op.4a (Paris, n.d.); 6 duos (v,
vc)/2 vn (Paris, n.d.)
Trio sonatas, 2 vn, b: 6 Trios (London, 1765), as op.1 (?The
Hague, n.d.); 6 as op.2 (London, c1767); 6 as op.3 (Paris, n.d.);
6 as op.4 (London, n.d.); 6 sonates (The Hague, n.d.)
Other works: 6 kbd sonatas, op.6 (Paris, 1776), mentioned in
MCL; 6 syms. (Paris, n.d.); 2 romances, 1v, pf, as op.4 (The
Hague, n.d.); 27 pieces, 2 for pf, 5 for 1v, pf, op.11 (The Hague,
n.d.); 2 Sonata a tre, v, vc obbl, b, ed. in Early Cello Series,
xxiii
(London, 1983); other works, A-Wgm, D-Bsb, I-Mc
BIBLIOGRAPHY
EitnerQ
GerberL
MCL
E. van der Straeten: History of the Violoncello (London,
1915/R)
O. Tajetti: 'Francesco Zappa: violoncellista e compositore
milanese', Antiquae musicae italicae studiosi, iii/6
(1987), 9--12"
Suffice it to say, Frank's interpretation of his possible relative's
music is superb... if you don't have this recording, then get it... you
won't be sorry.
Cheers!
Greg--
Greg M. Silverman
>
> >Performs the music of Franceso Zappa could
> >probably be considered his first serious full length work (am still
> >wondering if Franceso was really an 18th century composr/cellist as the
> >Zappas claim!)
>
> Yep. Francesco Zappa is a real 18the century composer and has an entry in the
> 1982 edition of the Groves Dictionary. Frank Zappa has an entry in the new
> version released last year in which he is compared to James Joyce.
> So I would rate that Francesco Zappa recording as a performance, as I would
> rate Frank Zappa's CD recording (not yet released) of Varese in which he
> conducts the Ensemble Modern. Nicholas Slonimsky, the conductor that gave the
> first performance of ionisation, said it was the best recording of varese he
> had heard!!
> BTW, I heard through a friend that there was a project on the table at Sony
> for a Zappa CD conducted by Salonen and LA phil but it was cancelled.
> Even though there are performances of Mehta, Nagano, Boulez and the Ensemble
> Modern of his orchestral music, a new one would have been nice!
> md
Wow! Who woulda thunk it! Thought Franceso was really one of Frank's
alter
egos and thus another of his satirical pokes, this time at musicians of
the Classical period.
"Zappa, Francesco
WORKS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
--
Greg Silverman
g...@umn.edu
EOH Health Studies
UofMN
thomas
Zappa the guitarist and Zappa the composer are two distinct entities
with not much overlap. Most of Zappa's guitar parts are improvised.
When he writes a difficult guitar part, more often than not he hires
a more accomplished technician to play it. I don't know of any
significant solo guitar compositions by Zappa.
Are you familiar with Ralph Towner?
thomas
>
> Perhaps if in the past, Big Names in the CG world had played "Mood For
> A Day" at the Wigmore Hall and Kennedy Center and Chandler Pavilion
> and Concertgebouw, on a Fleta, while wearing a tuxedo and keeping a
> rigid posture and not interacting with the audience, it'd be as big a
> CG hit as Leyenda.......
>
> Anyone care to write an alternate history timeline?
1927--Segovia has a flunky hand him his guitar, and never works again.
Matanya Ophee
Greg M. Silverman
No solo... unless you count the erstwhile "Guitar Waltz"... the duet
Canard D'Jour with Jean Luc Ponty may come as close to this as you can;
yes it is somewhat improvisational, but is that really a bad thing? He
plays a wicked bouzouki on it!
> Are you familiar with Ralph Towner?
American yes! Significant composer and guitarist, yes! Oregon is a very
fine ensemble! He is highly accomplished at both CG and 12-string. I
also guess he and Robert Fripp have also recordered together...
Cheers!
Greg--
Terlizzi
I heard snips of it on the net. It is entitled "the Rage and the Fury"
I don't know why it hasn't been released yet.
md
Terlizzi
These are the 2 reasons I consider him a guitarist/composer.
1) the conceptual gap between electric guitar and classical guitar is rapidly
closing.
2) Alot of his music is composed with the improvisational sections controlled
and juxtaposed. You never get the feeling that Zappa is not in complete
control, no matter what mayhem transpires.
md
Greg M. Silverman
>
> No substantial solos on cg. He does use cg on the Yellow Shark recording.
>
> These are the 2 reasons I consider him a guitarist/composer.
>
> 1) the conceptual gap between electric guitar and classical guitar is rapidly
> closing.
Eh? Please _do_ elaborate. Don't get me wrong, I love electric guitar,
and I think Frank was a phenomenal electric guitarist, but this warrants
further explanation.
> 2) Alot of his music is composed with the improvisational sections controlled
> and juxtaposed. You never get the feeling that Zappa is not in complete
> control, no matter what mayhem transpires.
Yes indeed. And I believe that no modern performer was as well versed in
Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. In a nutshell,
Frank's improvisations were each unto themselves a composition both
written and performed in the heat of the moment. And, thankfully many
of them were notated by Steve Vai in the unfortunately, now out of print
"Frank Zappa Guitar Book" (well worth the mega bucks I had to pay for it
on Ebay!).
Cheers!
Greg--
> md
>
> >Zappa the guitarist and Zappa the composer are two distinct entities
> >with not much overlap. Most of Zappa's guitar parts are improvised.
> >When he writes a difficult guitar part, more often than not he hires
> >a more accomplished technician to play it. I don't know of any
> >significant solo guitar compositions by Zappa.
--
Terlizzi
>rapidly
>> closing.
>Eh? Please _do_ elaborate. Don't get me wrong, I love electric guitar,
>and I think Frank was a phenomenal electric guitarist, but this warrants
>further explanation.
I mean that classical guitarists, the ones that are involved in contemporary
notated music, are performing more and more on the electric guitar. This in
addition to classical playing.
Since composers are writing for electric guitar in orchestral and chamber
settings, as well as solo, a demand has been created for players with expertise
in reading, playing chamber music and following a conductor. Many accomplished
younger players on classical guitar started out as electric guitarists so they
are very comfortable with the instrument and are examining its possibilities in
a "classical" context. By classical, I mean notated, directed and structured
within a certain tradition. It could include improvisation.
If one accepts that classical nylon string guitar and the electric guitar are
on the same footing and are not mutually exclusive, and if one acknowledges the
new trend I described above, Frank Zappa is the most, probably the only,
significant guitarist/composer produced by the USA.
Greg M. Silverman
>
> >> 1) the conceptual gap between electric guitar and classical guitar is
> >rapidly
> >> closing.
>
> >Eh? Please _do_ elaborate. Don't get me wrong, I love electric guitar,
> >and I think Frank was a phenomenal electric guitarist, but this warrants
> >further explanation.
>
> I mean that classical guitarists, the ones that are involved in contemporary
> notated music, are performing more and more on the electric guitar. This in
> addition to classical playing.
Okay... I thought you were alluding to something completely off the
wall, and wacky, almost a silly FS'like argument about common ground, or
something silly! This however is certainly a valid claim and is very
supported through listing of countless examples of both gifted
performers and composers.
> Since composers are writing for electric guitar in orchestral and chamber
> settings, as well as solo, a demand has been created for players with expertise
> in reading, playing chamber music and following a conductor. Many accomplished
> younger players on classical guitar started out as electric guitarists so they
> are very comfortable with the instrument and are examining its possibilities in
> a "classical" context. By classical, I mean notated, directed and structured
> within a certain tradition. It could include improvisation.
>
Okay again...
Classical "Art" music (since classical technically means a specific
period and style), can and should be pleyed on
any instrument conceivable (minus of course any gimmickry). In fact, I
heard an arrangement of Bach's Double Violin Concerto transcribed for
two electric guitars that actually worked. It was done very tastfully
and kind of gave an almost contemporary felel to Bach... but, if I hear
Bach, I would much rather hear his music performed on authentic
instruments, and done by an ensemble, such as the Academy of Ancient
Music, with actual Baroque violin solists.
There however is certainly a lot of contemprary "Art" music music
written for electric instruments, and if the music indeed has melody,
then all the more power to it. Piazzolla is one such example (even
though most of the guitar was perfromed on nylon string CG). A lot of
jazz too, such as Jean Luc Ponty, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to
Forever I think also fits the category of improvised "Art" music within
a mostly electronic setting. Yes, the line is becoming greyed, but still
there is a big distinction between structured electronic improvised
music and it's close cousiin Classical "Art" music.
With Frank, this line becomes even more blurred, especially in such
large scale works as 200 Motels (which of course featured Zubin Mehta
and the RPO as well as former Turtles, Flo and Eddie... here the
distinction is extremely muddy and is thus not classifiable by any one
category: is it "classical" or is it rock and roll or is it jazz?
Would you consider Yes in their better days to be such an exapmle, say
around the time of Tales from a Topographic Ocean? The music was "Art"
and it was very skillfully constructued and performed, but I don't think
you could necessarily compare it to the biopdy of so-called "classical"
"Art" music. It's an apples and apples sort of argument. However, I
would consider several of Steve Howe's solo compositions, "Mood fro a
Day" and ""Surface Tension" to be fine interdmediate works
for the calssical repertoire. In fact, scanning through my copy of
"Steve Howe Guitar Pieces," the cadenza from Sound Chaser looks like it
could ahve been written for cello, probably at grade 7 level.
Did you have any other works and/or composers in mind? Or guitarists.
> If one accepts that classical nylon string guitar and the electric guitar are
> on the same footing and are not mutually exclusive, and if one acknowledges the
> new trend I described above, Frank Zappa is the most, probably the only,
> significant guitarist/composer produced by the USA.
Interesting hypothesis.
Still, my guess is that the two worlds shall never collide, especially
given the recording insutries ignorance and bad marketing. And frankly
(pun intended!), I will play what ever I have the desire to play at the
time... it's just that my current interest is in building a classical
guitar repertoire.
This town is a sealed tuna sandwhich!
Greg--
Klaus Heim
"Terlizzi" <terl...@aol.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:20020119203020...@mb-cr.aol.com...
> >> 1) the conceptual gap between electric guitar and classical guitar is
> >rapidly
> >> closing.
>
> >Eh? Please _do_ elaborate. Don't get me wrong, I love electric guitar,
> >and I think Frank was a phenomenal electric guitarist, but this warrants
> >further explanation.
>
> I mean that classical guitarists, the ones that are involved in
contemporary
> notated music, are performing more and more on the electric guitar. This
in
> addition to classical playing.
> Since composers are writing for electric guitar in orchestral and chamber
> settings, as well as solo, a demand has been created for players with
expertise
> in reading, playing chamber music and following a conductor. Many
accomplished
> younger players on classical guitar started out as electric guitarists so
they
> are very comfortable with the instrument and are examining its
possibilities in
> a "classical" context. By classical, I mean notated, directed and
structured
> within a certain tradition. It could include improvisation.
I fully agree. The least it will do is offer a wider job perspective, with
the many works incorparating the electric guitar into the orchestra:
Stockhausen, Berio, Penderecki, Kancheli - to name a few. It gives us the
chance to play some well-known composers: Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff,
James Tenney, Steve Reich, to name some Americans.
An interesting composer/guitarist in this field is Steve Mackey. While I
would find it somewhat difficult to see some of the tracks on "Lost & Found"
in a classical context ("Dancetracks", a collaboration with Paul Lansky
should fit into your definition, as 'directed improvisation'; "Grungy"
should make a few rock guitarists green with envy), other works of his,
namely "Physical Property" for electric guitar and string quartet and "Tuck
and Roll", a full-fledged concerto for electric guitar and orchestra,
definitely are classical music.
At the moment I am looking at the dissertation "Contemporary Compositional
Techniques for the Electric Guitar in United States Concert Music", by
Robert Tomaro (1994). He looks at the following works in depth:
- Donald Erb "String Trio"
- Francis Thorne "Sonar Plexus"
- George Crumb "Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death"
- Jeffrey Lohn "Dirge"
- Elliot Sharp "Vicious Cycle"
A wide and interesting field with many perspectives.
Klaus
Gary Rodriguez
the classical people have their own NG?
gary
Greg M. Silverman
>
[... snip it out...]
> At the moment I am looking at the dissertation "Contemporary Compositional
> Techniques for the Electric Guitar in United States Concert Music", by
> Robert Tomaro (1994). He looks at the following works in depth:
> - Donald Erb "String Trio"
> - Francis Thorne "Sonar Plexus"
> - George Crumb "Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death"
> - Jeffrey Lohn "Dirge"
> - Elliot Sharp "Vicious Cycle"
>
Sounds interesting; never heard of any of this! Thanks, will ahve to
pick this book up. Which of these recordings would you recommend
starting out with?
Along these lines, what did you think of Miles Davis' Aura project? I
think the compositonal aspects of this piece are in line with what you
were describing...In this case, the imprisational aspects are very
subtle,especially within context of the different color moods set ny the
ensemble.
Also, I think John McGlaughlin's playing on Aura is stellar! Funny thing
though that even though McGlaughlin is a master of the electric guitar,
he still would perform in tradiational settings such as the traditional
guitar concerto setting of his Mediteranean Concerto. Point being that
musicians can certainly perform many contexts, but still treat the
tradional forms respect and adoration...
Cheers!
Greg--
Matanya Ophee
>I fully agree. The least it will do is offer a wider job perspective, with
>the many works incorparating the electric guitar into the orchestra:
>Stockhausen, Berio, Penderecki, Kancheli - to name a few
A few more: Schnittke, Petrov, Uspensky (concerto for electric guitar
and orchestra), and judging by the new DSCH catalogue, also
Shostakovich.
Incidetnally, at reception for Penderecki after his concert here in
Columbus last week, I got a chance to chat with him. No, he does not
accept new commissions until at least 2011, and writing a concerto for
guitar and orchestra is one he thought about before, but deciding not
to attempt it. Too difficult to create the right balance.
Greg M. Silverman
>
> "Klaus Heim" <klh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >I fully agree. The least it will do is offer a wider job perspective, with
> >the many works incorparating the electric guitar into the orchestra:
> >Stockhausen, Berio, Penderecki, Kancheli - to name a few
>
> A few more: Schnittke, Petrov, Uspensky (concerto for electric guitar
> and orchestra), and judging by the new DSCH catalogue, also
> Shostakovich.
which Shostakovich? Is it the piece with Hawaiian guitar that I
previously mentioned (it sounded amplified and hence electric; I would
guess a Danelectro of some model), or is there more in his catalogue?
Spacibo pajolisto!
Greg--
Klaus Heim
"Greg M. Silverman" <g...@cccs.umn.edu> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:3C4ADB9D...@cccs.umn.edu...
> Klaus Heim wrote:
> >
>
> [... snip it out...]
>
> > At the moment I am looking at the dissertation "Contemporary
Compositional
> > Techniques for the Electric Guitar in United States Concert Music", by
> > Robert Tomaro (1994). He looks at the following works in depth:
> > - Donald Erb "String Trio"
> > - Francis Thorne "Sonar Plexus"
> > - George Crumb "Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death"
> > - Jeffrey Lohn "Dirge"
> > - Elliot Sharp "Vicious Cycle"
> >
>
> Sounds interesting; never heard of any of this! Thanks, will ahve to
> pick this book up. Which of these recordings would you recommend
> starting out with?
The Crumb has been recorded, which of the other pieces I am not sure.
A few of Steve Mackey's pieces can be found on the following recordings:
- Steve Mackey "Lost & Found" (Bridge 9065)
- Steve Mackey "Tuck and Roll" (RCA)
- Steve Mackey "Physical Property" (on the Kronos Quartet CD "Short
Stories", CD also contains a piece by Elliott Sharp)
For classical electric guitar music, check out the page of Seth Josel, with
a repertoire list and sound excerpts (his recordings list is a bit outdated,
he has recently recorded Clarence Barlow's "...until..." on the newly
founded label Los Angeles River Records):
http://www.chaconne.de/josel/josel_en.html
Lois V.Vierk's "Go Guitars" for 5 electric guitars is a fascinating piece of
music and definitely one of my favorites. It is being played quite a lot and
there is even an ensemble by that name:
http://www.goguitars.de/
If you want to learn more about music for multiple electric guitars, then
you will have to take a look at Glenn Branca. He writes whole symphonies for
electric guitar ensemble, heavy stuff:
http://www.glennbranca.com/
Klaus
Klaus Heim
"Matanya Ophee" <m.o...@orphee.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:mn0m4ukaq9enhffak...@4ax.com...
> "Klaus Heim" <klh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >I fully agree. The least it will do is offer a wider job perspective,
with
> >the many works incorparating the electric guitar into the orchestra:
> >Stockhausen, Berio, Penderecki, Kancheli - to name a few
>
> A few more: Schnittke, Petrov, Uspensky (concerto for electric guitar
> and orchestra), and judging by the new DSCH catalogue, also
> Shostakovich.
I have never read the scores of any of these works. Listening to some works
which use the electric guitar in the orchestra, it hardly constitutes more
than a filler - I wouldn't be able to hear it, if I didn't know it was
there. It's sustain works well for long, drawn out music - play a note and
let it ring for half an hour.
> Incidetnally, at reception for Penderecki after his concert here in
> Columbus last week, I got a chance to chat with him. No, he does not
> accept new commissions until at least 2011, and writing a concerto for
> guitar and orchestra is one he thought about before, but deciding not
> to attempt it. Too difficult to create the right balance.
In Maren Trekel's book on Siegfried Behrend (2000), a piece by Penderecki is
in the list of pieces dedicated to Behrend: Krzysztof Penderecki "Capriccio
für Siegfried Behrend", 1974 is the date given for the premiere. This is
strange, it is the only reference to this piece.
Klaus
Phillips Guitar Studio
Nicely done.
S.
James Calivar wrote:
> Wow, get this - a Zappa fan in a CG newsgroup! Very cool.
>
> magnitude had left us. (Or more depressingly, how *little* the world would
> miss him - it's a real shame more people didn't "get" him).
>
> Anyway. Glad to hear of others that share a similar fondness of ol' Frank.
>
> - James
--
Phillips Guitar Studio
P.O. Box 836
Boston, MA 02103-0836
phillipsgu...@mediaone.net
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"To study music, we must learn the rules.
To create music, we must forget them."
~Nadia Boulanger
in Copland (1984)
Matanya Ophee
>which Shostakovich? Is it the piece with Hawaiian guitar that I
>previously mentioned (it sounded amplified and hence electric; I would
>guess a Danelectro of some model), or is there more in his catalogue?
I wish I could be more, but I just sepnt a couple of hours looking for
my copy of this catalogue wihtout much success. It will turn up, I am
sure.
DSCH Publishing is a company founded by Irina Shostakovich, the
composer's widow.
http://www.devinci.fr/chostakovitch/VF/editdschfr.htm
There is printed catalogue which includes several works that were only
discovered after his death, and which they plan to publish. As I
recall, some 3-4 orchestral pieces with electric guitar in the
ensemble. I will post the information as soon as I lay my hands ont
hos document.
>Spacibo pajolisto!
ne za shto.
Phillips Guitar Studio
Ditto.
Dawn and Todd Tipton wrote:
> "Greg M. Silverman" wrote:
> >
> > James Calivar wrote:
> > >
> > > Wow, get this - a Zappa fan in a CG newsgroup! Very cool.
> >
> > Yeah! Imagine that!
> >
> >
>
> I enjoy Zappa's music a great deal.
>
--
Greg M. Silverman
>
> Hmm. Heard a brass quintet do an arrangement of Joe's Garage on NPR once.
> Nicely done.
Complete with L. Ron Hoover and the Church of Appliantology and the
central Scrootinizer?! Cool! :-)
Greg--
Greg M. Silverman
>
> "Greg M. Silverman" <g...@cccs.umn.edu> wrote:
>
> >which Shostakovich? Is it the piece with Hawaiian guitar that I
> >previously mentioned (it sounded amplified and hence electric; I would
> >guess a Danelectro of some model), or is there more in his catalogue?
>
> I wish I could be more, but I just sepnt a couple of hours looking for
> my copy of this catalogue wihtout much success. It will turn up, I am
> sure.
>
> DSCH Publishing is a company founded by Irina Shostakovich, the
> composer's widow.
>
> http://www.devinci.fr/chostakovitch/VF/editdschfr.htm
Ocheene interestnayah! Ona is alive...
dbay gavorayou ecli! (hmmm?) Ne gavoryu u skazitee po ruskaya yazeek in
a while! Yah need to repateeseya a bit, da? Kapeesh?
>
> There is printed catalogue which includes several works that were only
> discovered after his death, and which they plan to publish. As I
> recall, some 3-4 orchestral pieces with electric guitar in the
> ensemble. I will post the information as soon as I lay my hands ont
> hos document.
>
Ocheen xorosho! Spacibo!
> ne za shto.
Za? Dah! Pochemu, yah ne skazal po rushkie decyet goda...
Dobre vercheer!
Gregor--
Stanley Yates
>
> "Klaus Heim" <klh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >I fully agree. The least it will do is offer a wider job perspective, with
> >the many works incorparating the electric guitar into the orchestra:
> >Stockhausen, Berio, Penderecki, Kancheli - to name a few
>
> A few more: Schnittke, Petrov, Uspensky (concerto for electric guitar
> and orchestra), and judging by the new DSCH catalogue, also
> Shostakovich.
Another one - I played several years ago - Andriessen's De Staat
- an orchestral piece with two electric guitars that play almost
throughout.
A very good piece, though long and hard. I'd forgotten about it.
Anyone else played/heard it?
--
Stanley Yates
http://www.StanleyYates.com
Klaus Heim
"Stanley Yates" <Yat...@apsu.edu> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:3C4C42DE...@apsu.edu...
> Matanya Ophee wrote:
> >
> > "Klaus Heim" <klh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >I fully agree. The least it will do is offer a wider job perspective,
with
> > >the many works incorparating the electric guitar into the orchestra:
> > >Stockhausen, Berio, Penderecki, Kancheli - to name a few
> >
> > A few more: Schnittke, Petrov, Uspensky (concerto for electric guitar
> > and orchestra), and judging by the new DSCH catalogue, also
> > Shostakovich.
>
> Another one - I played several years ago - Andriessen's De Staat
> - an orchestral piece with two electric guitars that play almost
> throughout.
You played electric guitar?
> A very good piece, though long and hard. I'd forgotten about it.
> Anyone else played/heard it?
I haven't heard this piece, yet. Other Andriessen pieces also make use of
the electric guitar: De Stijl, De Materie, e.g. Always wanted to get round
to buying some of his stuff. And then there's his "Triplum", of course.
Klaus
Matanya Ophee
>"Klaus Heim" <klh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I fully agree. The least it will do is offer a wider job perspective, with
>>the many works incorparating the electric guitar into the orchestra:
>>Stockhausen, Berio, Penderecki, Kancheli - to name a few
>
>A few more: Schnittke, Petrov, Uspensky (concerto for electric guitar
>and orchestra),
And I plumb forgot the most important of the lot: the 1970 concerto
for three electric guitars and orchestra by Sergei Slonimsky. I even
have the music lying around someplace. Slonimsky is the nephew of our
own Nicholas Slonimsky and one of the most important composers in
Russia today. There is a short piece by him in the Russian Collection
Vol. IV.
Terlizzi
>for three electric guitars and orchestra by Sergei Slonimsky.
Did anybody mention the Poèmes de la Mort by Frank Martin for 3 voices and 3
electric guitars?
And how can we forget the Previn guitar concerto which uses electric guitar in
the Jazz band. incorporated in the ochestra.
Didn't Tippett use it too in a piece called the Knott Garden or something like
that?
mark
Greg M. Silverman
Also, a view through through Shostakovich's material shows the existence
of several pieces mentioning guitar and Hawaiian guitar (a Danelectro of
some type using a slide), including several compositions for big band
ensemble with guitar.
Cheers!
Greg--
Gorblimey
Greg M. Silverman <g...@cccs.umn.edu> wrote in message
news:3C4C42AB...@cccs.umn.edu...
Terlizzi wrote:
>
> >And I plumb forgot the most important of the lot: the 1970 concerto
> >for three electric guitars and orchestra by Sergei Slonimsky.
>
and 3
> electric guitars?
> And how can we forget the Previn guitar concerto which uses electric
guitar in
> the Jazz band. incorporated in the ochestra.
> Didn't Tippett use it too in a piece called the Knott Garden or something
like
> that?
> mark
Also, a view through through Shostakovich's material shows the existence
of several pieces mentioning guitar and Hawaiian guitar (a Danelectro of
some type using a slide), including several compositions for big band
ensemble with guitar.
Cheers!
Greg--
As an electric guitar player, I find the use of electric guitars in
classical music an abomination.
Come to think of it, I don't like the use of electric instruments in
musicals either (If they hadn't used a partly electric band for "Phantom of
the Opera" it might almost have been music).
Pete
Greg M. Silverman
>
> Greg M. Silverman <g...@cccs.umn.edu> wrote in message
> news:3C4C42AB...@cccs.umn.edu...
> Terlizzi wrote:
> >
> > >And I plumb forgot the most important of the lot: the 1970 concerto
> > >for three electric guitars and orchestra by Sergei Slonimsky.
> >
> and 3
> > electric guitars?
> > And how can we forget the Previn guitar concerto which uses electric
> guitar in
> > the Jazz band. incorporated in the ochestra.
> > Didn't Tippett use it too in a piece called the Knott Garden or something
> like
> > that?
> > mark
>
> Also, a view through through Shostakovich's material shows the existence
> of several pieces mentioning guitar and Hawaiian guitar (a Danelectro of
> some type using a slide), including several compositions for big band
> ensemble with guitar.
>
> Cheers!
> Greg--
>
> As an electric guitar player, I find the use of electric guitars in
> classical music an abomination.
>
Hmmm I think context is important when making such a statement...
myself, having never heard any of the electric guitar repertoire (other
than Shostakovich's score to "The Golden Hills" -- in which the guitar
was somewhat gimmicky, but I still like coiuld dig what Dimitri was
doing), I cannot say whether this is an abomination or not.
And especially, in a big band setting, electric guitar has been used
since the days of Charlie Christian and Django Reinhart, not to mention
the Al Caiolas, Tommy Tedescos, Frank Zappas, Sal Salvadors, etc., etc.
electric guitar is standard for the repertoire. And best of all, some
big band music is so close in form and structure to many works from the
conteporary repertoire, there is sometimes no significant difference
other than the allowance for freer improivisation.
> Come to think of it, I don't like the use of electric instruments in
> musicals either (If they hadn't used a partly electric band for "Phantom of
> the Opera" it might almost have been music).
>
Well, if you consider "Phantom" to be music, then I can see we have a
disagreement! ;-)
I do remember electric guitar in "Jesus Christ Superstar," but I also
don't let this bias me into not liking electric guitar in a musical,
especially given that Anrew Loyd Weber stradles good taste in
musicality! I am sure there is some fine musical music out there with
electric guitar. What about frank Zappa's Thjing Fish... that works! :-)
Cheers!
Greg--
> Pete
BobN
>Well, if you consider "Phantom" to be music, then I can see we have a
>disagreement! ;-)
Greg, I believe the operative word is "almost". I can only imagine that
Pete is feeling charitable after the weekend's festivities.
>I do remember electric guitar in "Jesus Christ Superstar," but I also
>don't let this bias me into not liking electric guitar in a musical,
>especially given that Anrew Loyd Weber stradles good taste in
>musicality
I'm hoping that you meant to write "strangles good taste..."
There is much common ground here.
Bob
Greg M. Silverman
well, yes that works too, but actually meant to say "is tasteless" or
"lacking in taste" or equivalent phrase
>
> There is much common ground here.
>
Ah, more common ground that CG'ers share... not surprised! But hey, I
like a good musical, such as Okalahoma or
Candide or Carousel or God-forbid Mary Poppins! Andrew Loyd is a
wannabee musical composer!
Cheers!
Greg--
BobN
> Ah, more common ground that CG'ers share... not surprised! But hey, I
> like a good musical, such as Okalahoma or
> Candide or Carousel or God-forbid Mary Poppins! Andrew Loyd is a
> wannabee musical composer!
>
yes, Candide is excellent, as is West Side Story. My favorite is My Fair
Lady. The technical term I use for the Andrew Lloyds and Ottmar Lieberts of
the world is "cheesemeister".
Bob
Klaus Heim
"Gorblimey" <persisten...@yahoo.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:Sk_28.13531$K35.1...@news1.cableinet.net...
>
> As an electric guitar player, I find the use of electric guitars in
> classical music an abomination.
Why? Do you have a misconception of classical music?
Klaus
Greg M. Silverman
exactly... if you haven't even listened to it, how can you place a
judgement on it. From what I've gathered from this thread, it sound
slike a very promising area for exploration for those that want to
experiment in it.
Along these lines, I think what Robert Fripp ahs done with the League of
Crafty Guitarists (LCG) is really cool, but I only like to listen to it,
I have no interest in performing it; yet, at some level I would claim it
influences the way that I play. Minus the use of plectrum, has anyone
tuned their CG in fourths like the LCG does? This could be very
interesting....
doing Bach violin music from actual score might be much easier than the
guitar transcriptions.
Cheers!
Greg--
Bob Ashley
>> As an electric guitar player, I find the use of electric guitars in
>> classical music an abomination.
Klaus wrote:
> Why? Do you have a misconception of classical music?
Maybe Gorby had a hankering and was just looking for a handy sentence in
which to inject the word 'abomination'. And maybe this one just happened to
come along.
Or maybe Gorb's been having some sleepless nights ever since he got suckered
into buying an 'Ab-tronic', one of these electric ab machines from one of
them infomercials. I don't doubt that his disappointment might well get
projected inadvertantly through all sorts of malaises, including that sit-up
(and take notice) of a sentence.
Or maybe his is humble act of self-effacement, offering up notice of his
recognizing the deformities of his own kin, the electric guitar. A
self-barring from a perceived garrison of sanctity, a self-flaggelation, a
drawing of his own blood with whips of braided steel strings.
What is a 'misconception' of 'classical music' but a perception of a
transgression of a licenced conception?
What if Gorbs had replaced 'abomination' with 'birch sprout in a grove of
oak'? Would he find it anyways all? No, but he'd probably step on it, break
its spine, and that way the abomination could go ahead, but unsaid, done
just the same.
***
rib
***
rib
--
Klaus Heim
"Bob Ashley" <ax...@chebucto.ns.ca> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:B87249C5.1CD74%ax...@chebucto.ns.ca...
>
> What is a 'misconception' of 'classical music' but a perception of a
> transgression of a licenced conception?
He probably just wants to keep the electric guitar 'pure' and out of the
hands of those classical types.
Klaus
Gorblimey
Klaus Heim <klh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a2j8io$10g6tp$1...@ID-89355.news.dfncis.de...
Well, that too, but LOL at all those responses.
It's just an aesthetic thing for me. I find that electric instruments (with
the exception of the modern electrically powered church organ) grate when
played with acoustic ones, especially full orchestras. In it's own
environment (and I am including everything from big bands onwards) it seems
fine to my ears, and in a flat out rock & roll band it obviously comes into
it's own, where everthing including the voice is processed in some way, but
in an orchestral setting I find the tone of the electric guitar (and it's
nearly always fuzzed to hell and back) somewhat one dimensional.
"Superstar" was OK, but Lloyd Webber's dad orchestrated it. I find nearly
all of the other Lloyd Webber stuff unlistenable, with the exception of
maybe two songs.
Pete
Bob Ashley
>> What is a 'misconception' of 'classical music' but a perception of a
>> transgression of a licenced conception?
Klaus wrote:
> He probably just wants to keep the electric guitar 'pure' and out of the
> hands of those classical types.
Or maybe he prefers to set his own generic boundaries. Who among us are
without those?
If 'classical' music is permitted to mean anything, then it means nothing.
More charitably I'd offer that Gorby holds to sense of genre which does not
permit him to label a McDonald's restaurant building which sports Doric
columns, an Attic statuary, and displays of Grecian urns, 'classical'.
That said, I agree with your bid for inclusiveness! Gorby's reading of
'classical' is not mine. But in a true spirit of inclusiveness we would do
well to take pains not to exclude a particular reading of 'classical' just
because it is different from our own. To do that is to become a provincial
protectorate of the art we love for its very catholic tolerance.
***
rib
--
Terlizzi
>nearly always fuzzed to hell and back) somewhat one dimensional.
However, the sound of a high quality arch top guitar such as a D'Angelico or
D'Aquisto, or even a Gibson, in the right hands is very pure and fits very well
in an orchestral setting or any setting for that matter.
You have a point, though. I find it jarring when the guitar enters in Mackey's
"Tuck and Roll" but it could be that the writing itself. Murail "Vampyr" is
successful in part because it's solo Rock style electric guitar. Easier to deal
with
I think there is alot of variety the term "electric guitar" .
md
Klaus Heim
A good definition comes from Mark Delpriora:
"By classical, I mean notated, directed and structured within a certain
tradition. It could include improvisation."
This could "mean anything", but when applied to the concrete case, it
doesn't.
Klaus
Gorblimey
Bob Ashley <ax...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote in message
news:B872EF83.1CDA9%ax...@chebucto.ns.ca...
Hold on you lot!
I'm not making a value judgement, I'm merely pointing ou that I find it
jarring and out of context. It is something I hear, not something I have
analysed - to me it sounds like someone scratching their nails down a
blackboard. I agree completely with the point about archtops, but they do
make a much more pure sound than a solidbody electric.
As for MacDonald's with Doric columns, there's one in the Av. des Paulistas
in Sao Paulo.
It's the best looking building on one of the ugliest streets in the world,
and it's a freaking MacDonalds! Yecch! They could have at least opened up a
Ruth's Chris's there.
Pete
Matanya Ophee
>Hold on you lot!
>
>I'm not making a value judgement, I'm merely pointing ou that I find it
>jarring and out of context.
Peter is right to express his own reaction to this sound and to find
it out of context. De gustibus etc.
But I would plead that perhaps this is exactly the kind of sound the
composer wanted, and therefore, we either accept the composition on
its own terms, or dump it in the ash bin.
Personally, I would love to hear Slonimsky's concerto for three
electric guitars and orchestra. I rahter suspect this is not going to
happen anytime soon. But I did hear Uspensky's concerto for a single
electric guitar and orchestra. In recording on pretty bad tape. I
recall I found the sound jarring and out of context. But maybe it was
the quality of the tapes and the quality of my hearing apparatus back
then, some ten years ago. I would give it another listen if I got the
chance.
>It's the best looking building on one of the ugliest streets in the world,
>and it's a freaking MacDonalds! Yecch! They could have at least opened up a
>Ruth's Chris's there.
Whose that? some Bristol on Avon Whimpie?
Greg M. Silverman
>Personally, I would love to hear Slonimsky's concerto for three
>electric guitars and orchestra. I rahter suspect this is not going to
>happen anytime soon.
>
The Slonismky does sound rather intriguing... why don't you think it
will get a performance anytime soon (I assume this is more of that
hyperbole! ;-) )?
I would think a piece like this would be a crowd pleaser and highly
marketable by any orchestra that is up to taking risks -- ahh, there is
the problem! By orchestra, I assume you mean full size, not a chamber sized?
>>It's the best looking building on one of the ugliest streets in the world,
>>and it's a freaking MacDonalds! Yecch! They could have at least opened up a
>>Ruth's Chris's there.
>>
>
>Whose that? some Bristol on Avon Whimpie?
>
It is a chain steak house of some repute. Never have eaten there, but I
hear it is good! Now that reminds me, it is time for lunch!
Cheers!
Greg--
Greg M. Silverman
>> Personally, I would love to hear Slonimsky's concerto for three
>> electric guitars and orchestra. I rahter suspect this is not going to
>> happen anytime soon.
>
The Slonimsky does sound rather intriguing... why don't you think it
will get a performance anytime soon (I assume this is hyperbole! ;-) )?
I would think a piece like this would be a crowd pleaser and highly
marketable by any orchestra that is up to taking risks -- ahh, there is
the problem! By orchestra, I assume you mean full size, not a chamber
sized?
For those interested, Sergei Slonimsky has his bio and his works listed
at http://www.classicalmusic.spb.ru/slonimsky/ , the piece that is
referred to above, I believe is the "Concerto for three electric
guitars, solo instruments and symphony orchestra" written in 1974. He
has written several other pieces with guitar, including "A Chorus Song"
for contralto, flute, oboe, trumpet, balalaika, harmonium, spoons, vibes
and three electric guitars" from 1975 and "Exotic Suite" for two
violins, two electric guitars, saxophone and percussion from 1976.
Dick Schneiders
>>nearly always fuzzed to hell and back) somewhat one dimensional.
>However, the sound of a high quality arch top guitar such as a D'Angelico or
>D'Aquisto, or even a Gibson, in the right hands is very pure and fits very
>well
>in an orchestral setting or any setting for that matter.
>
Unless the "high quality arch top guitar" is played totally acoustically,
(doubtful in an orchestral setting), the "pure" sound you are hearing is far
less a function of the guitar than the pickups and amplification system and the
skill of the guitarist.
I have played several D'Angelico's, a couple of D'Aquisto's and a ton of
excellent vintage Gibson archtops, and they are fantastic instruments. I love
the acoustic sound of archtops from the 1940's and 1950's, but in most settings
they, by necessity, are not played acoustically and the guitar becomes much
more just a pretty face. Even with the period DeArmond floating pickups, while
the sound is certainly warm and fuzzy, it is the pickup, strings and amp you
are hearing and not the guitar.
Dick Schneiders
Matanya Ophee
>Matanya Ophee wrote:
>
>>> Personally, I would love to hear Slonimsky's concerto for three
>>> electric guitars and orchestra. I rahter suspect this is not going to
>>> happen anytime soon.
>>
>The Slonimsky does sound rather intriguing... why don't you think it
>will get a performance anytime soon (I assume this is hyperbole! ;-) )?
No. Just a realistic assessement of the scene. There is this festival
of new Russian music in Seattle this coming February 6 which I might
attend. It is centered on younger composers who write music today. The
piece is not published as far as I know, and the name is not very well
known.
>I would think a piece like this would be a crowd pleaser and highly
>marketable by any orchestra that is up to taking risks -- ahh, there is
>the problem! By orchestra, I assume you mean full size, not a chamber
>sized?
Right.
>It is a chain steak house of some repute. Never have eaten there,
That reminds me. There is one in Columbus, OH, and I did eat there
once. Expensive and noisy. Besides, while not exactly a vegetarian, I
cut down on red meat considerably.
Bob Ashley
> A good definition comes from Mark Delpriora:
> "By classical, I mean notated, directed and structured within a certain
> tradition. It could include improvisation."
>
> This could "mean anything", but when applied to the concrete case, it
> doesn't.
It strikes me askew that during our postmodern tenure of western culture the
word 'classical' is virtually drained of the Greco-Roman allusions it has
held for centuries prior. Most especially onward from the Renaissance
(rebirth of the ancient classical ideology) we have passed through various
'neo-classicalisms', most notable in the visual arts and architecture. All
of them speak to things like 'geometric balance', 'rationality', 'secular
celebration of 'Man' (sic), 'proportion', 'restraint', 'Platonic idealism',
'educated rhetoric', 'democracy' and so forth...ad lib. By these lights we
may dub, as most art historians might, the White House architecture a
neo-classical incarnation of late classicism sprung from the fount of
ancient Greece/Rome. This allows us separate it from the Empire State
building, something, by way of Gorby's historically bereft definition we
could call also 'classical' architecture.
Gorby's definition is also a perfect container for, say, something like
medieval English public torture rituals. This practice was structured,
notated minutely, and directed within the west's compulsive long-standing
tradition of fatal, public humiliations.
Where I arrive, then, is that Gorby's notations may be marginally necessary
in a move towards a definition of classical, they are not sufficient, at
least to my creaking mind. For me, the historical aspect, that which moors
'classical's allusive ties to Periclean Athens or Augustus' Rome, is not a
dispensible article in its definition.
Situating the electric guitar in a symphonic setting, then, we can cite, not
so much as true to any classical tradition, but instead, a quite typical act
of postmodern pastiche, or a postmodern 'historical quotation' set within a
classical field. The seemingly incongruous marriage of modern technology to
ancient Attic values becomes, if anything, is counterclassical, not
anticlassical. This critical perspective is not peculiar to me, being the
pedestrian norm in fields of literature, architecture, culture studies, law,
and the visual arts. The historical dimensions permits of a critical
dialectic to go on between historical periods. By constraining the
definition of 'classical' to its historical habitus we can more easily
situate how each age reinterprets that cradle rocking in ancient 'classical'
Greece.
***
rib
--
Bob Ashley
> Hold on you lot!
>
> I'm not making a value judgement, I'm merely pointing ou that I find it
> jarring and out of context.
That's a sin qua non 'value judgement' struck from an evaluative
perspective. You have your own sense of what properly goes what. I'm not
saying you're saying it's 'bad' or anything like that, only that you 'judge'
the electric/symphonic marriage as incongruous with the general label
'classical'. I agree. Where I part company is with that feeling of shock you
register. On this count, I'm in Klaus's camp that holds to inclusiveness,
whatever label we choose to use.
> As for MacDonald's with Doric columns, there's one in the Av. des Paulistas
> in Sao Paulo.
Ha, ha. Figures.
> It's the best looking building on one of the ugliest streets in the world,
> and it's a freaking MacDonalds! Yecch! They could have at least opened up a
> Ruth's Chris's there.
And that's the thing, ain't it? The classical system of aesthetic and
philosophical values makes an indelible imprint in our system of judging
whatever we make in our material culture. Here, I'm inclined to edge your
way, muttering under my breath that your 'classical' McDonalds is an...
[[[abomination]]]] [[[Shhhhhhhhh!! Don't tell anyone I said that!]]]]]]
Regards,
rib
Terlizzi
md
Bob Ashley
terl...@aol.com wrote on 01/22/02 4:14 PM:
> Iwould just call it "instrumentation"
> md
Yes, well 'instrumentation' is fine to its own pragmatic aim here. I think,
though, that what we were calling into question were conceptions of, or the
setting of borders for, a semantics for 'classical'.
In that context, then, what one might enquire of you, 'Do you consider the
selection of an electric guitar for a symphonic work, that is, your
'instrumentation' selection, strictly something classical in its traditional
sense?' or 'Does your conception of 'classical conventions' require no
addendum, no footnotes to your selection of an electric guitar?' If so, how
might you qualify this sort of selection? If not, then evidently
'classical', for you, permits of a broad, dare I say, ahistorical
definition?
***
rib
--
Greg M. Silverman
I would think a nice vintage 60s Strat with a single humbucker and
proper stereo amplification would sound very well if accompanied by a
skilled orchestra led by someone like Pierre Boulez. I could see the NY
Phil doing this when they were more adventurous.
Of course volume pedal would be part of the equipment... you can get
great bowing-like effects using these. Allow tremelo bars used for
tastful vibrato, too. Absolutely no distortion allowed... and wah pedals
are right out!
Cheers!
Greg--
Klaus Heim
The most important word in Mark's definition, in my mind, is 'tradition',
though he takes a bit of evasive action, by preceding it with the rather
non-descript 'certain'. Let me take a closer look at this 'certain'. I think
when we speak of 'classical music', it is this burdon of tradition we think
of.
What exactly is the burdon of this tradition? I'll do some rephrasing of
T.S.Eliot:
"We cannot refer to "classical" or to "classical music"; at most, we employ
the adjective in saying that the music of So-and-so is "classical". Seldom,
perhaps, does the word appear except in a phrase of censure. If otherwise,
it is vaguely approbative, with the implication, as to the work approved, of
some pleasing archaeological reconstruction. You can hardly make the word
agreeable to English ears without this comfortable reference to the
reassuring science of archaeology."
I understand your positioning of the term classical as inherently
archaeological - this is proof of how this classical tradition burdons us,
or, to rephrase Eliot again: "This historical sense, which is a sense of the
timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal
together, is what makes a composer classical. And it is at the same time
what makes a composer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his
contemporaneity."
The bridge between the classical and the tradition on the one hand and the
contemporary composer on the other, which is built here, is of utmost
importance. The place in time of today's composer - and I would suppose, his
willingness to insert himself into such a classical time-line - is not one
of isolation, but rather one of continuity. This connectivity, this
coherence of art in its totality, goes so far, that "[...] what happens when
a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all
the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal
order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new
(the really new) work of art among them."
The impossibility of freeing ourselves from this tradition, our being
incorporated into it, burdons us not only with the tradition, in whose
boundaries we place our art, but also with a responsibility towards this
monument. This responsibility cannot end with simple conformity to this
tradition, a production of art, which is little more than an echo, or as we
see in some works for guitar written today, which are a negation of the
whole 20th century musical tradition. Eliot says, "to conform merely would
be for the new work not really to conform at all; it would not be new, and
would therefore not be a work of art". So, if I may elaborate, an epigonic
rehash of prior artistic achievements, would not even qualify as art.
When faced with a classical tradition, unthinking conformity becomes
complicity to a negation of this tradition. Ignorance of the tradition also
becomes the same complicity.
Seemingly this constitutes a paradox: while the tradition is inevitable, we
should never fully comply with it. Only in the new, in the contemporaneity
of our own art, can we live fully in this tradition. Simply living in the
tradition, without also fueling it with our own independence, being a
conformist, places us outside that, which we so wish to conform with. In
light of this, it cannot come as a surprise that Lachenmann and Ferneyhough
have been named among the most traditional composers of today.
The composer, as part of the tradition, must always be aware of his own
place within this tradition.
The composer "must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never
improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same." If indeed
the composer has accepted his contemporary place in the classical tradition,
his choice of material must not be limited. In fact, to live within this
tradition, needs a newness of some sort. New material can be dodecaphonic or
aleatoric, but it can also be the use of electric guitars or computers.
The criteria we are looking for is not the newness of the material, but it
is the continuation of tradition in this newness of the material.
Klaus
(Formed after T.S.Eliot's seminal essay "Tradition and the Individual
Talent", published 1922 in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism.
Readable online at http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw4.html)
Joseph Raymond
>
> I would think a nice vintage 60s Strat with a single humbucker and
Whoa!!!! Putting a f___ing humbucker on a vintage 60's Strat is sacrilege!
Joe
Greg M. Silverman
>Bob Ashley wrote:
>
>>in article 20020122161428...@mb-fx.aol.com, Terlizzi at
>>terl...@aol.com wrote on 01/22/02 4:14 PM:
>>
>>>Iwould just call it "instrumentation"
>>>md
>>>
>>Yes, well 'instrumentation' is fine to its own pragmatic aim here. I think,
>>though, that what we were calling into question were conceptions of, or the
>>setting of borders for, a semantics for 'classical'.
>>
For starters, why not use the desinator neo-classical (postmodern brings
all ? In the sense of a modern twist on an old theme? Kind of like how
Prokofiev and Ravel invented own musical languages from the old.
>>In that context, then, what one might enquire of you, 'Do you consider the
>>selection of an electric guitar for a symphonic work, that is, your
>>'instrumentation' selection, strictly something classical in its traditional
>>sense?' or 'Does your conception of 'classical conventions' require no
>>addendum, no footnotes to your selection of an electric guitar?' If so, how
>>might you qualify this sort of selection? If not, then evidently
>>'classical', for you, permits of a broad, dare I say, ahistorical
>>definition?
>>
>I would think a nice vintage 60s Strat with a single humbucker and
>proper stereo amplification would sound very well if accompanied by a
>skilled orchestra led by someone like Pierre Boulez. I could see the NY
>Phil doing this when they were more adventurous.
>
And sure while the Strat idea may work, I think a better choice as an
orchestral instrument, would be either the Chapman stick or a touch
guitar. Here you have instruments that are approaching both the range of
both the piano and the harp, and best of all, music in 2 distinct part
can be written for it. Yes, it would have to be amplified, but I think
it would fit in very well with the modern symphony orchestra as either a
solo instrument or a member of the orchestra
Cheers!
Greg--
Greg M. Silverman
And sure while the modified Strat idea may work (and before I hear you
screaming bloody murder for defacing a vintage Start, let me add that
this would be a hybrid version of a Strat: it would have a vintage 60's
neck with a newer modified body with a rear mounted humbucker, to
provide nice deep resonant sound, and a top qulaity whammy bar!), I
think a better choice as an orchestral instrument, would be either the
Chapman stick or a touch guitar. Here are 2 instruments in
the guitar family that are approaching both the range of both the piano
and the harp, and best of all, music in 2 distinct part can be written
for it and played on it. Yes, it would have to be amplified, but I think
Greg M. Silverman
> Bob Ashley wrote:
>
>> in article 20020122161428...@mb-fx.aol.com, Terlizzi at
>> terl...@aol.com wrote on 01/22/02 4:14 PM:
>>
>>> Iwould just call it "instrumentation"
>>> md
>>>
>> Yes, well 'instrumentation' is fine to its own pragmatic aim here. I
>> think,
>> though, that what we were calling into question were conceptions of,
>> or the
>> setting of borders for, a semantics for 'classical'.
>
For starters, why not use the designator neo-classical (postmodern
brings to mind all sorts of ambiguities)? In the sense of a modern twist
on an old established theme? Kind of like how Prokofiev and Ravel
reinvented their musical languages by reworking the old.
Greg M. Silverman
> Bob Ashley wrote:
>
>> in article 20020122161428...@mb-fx.aol.com, Terlizzi at
>> terl...@aol.com wrote on 01/22/02 4:14 PM:
>>
>>> Iwould just call it "instrumentation"
>>> md
>>>
>> Yes, well 'instrumentation' is fine to its own pragmatic aim here. I
>> think,
>> though, that what we were calling into question were conceptions of,
>> or the
>> setting of borders for, a semantics for 'classical'.
>
For starters, why not use the designator neo-classical (postmodern
brings to mind all sorts of ambiguities)? In the sense of a modern twist
on an old established theme? Kind of like how Prokofiev and Ravel
reinvented musical language from the old.
Greg M. Silverman
screaming bloody murder for defacing a vintage Strat, let me add that
this would be a hybrid version of a Strat: it would have a vintage 60's
neck with a newer modified body with a rear mounted humbucker, to
provide nice deep resonant sound, and a top quality whammy bar so as to
not go out of tune at the drop of a hat!), I think a better choice as an
thomas
> proper stereo amplification would sound very well if accompanied by a
> skilled orchestra led by someone like Pierre Boulez. I could see the NY
> Phil doing this when they were more adventurous.
>
> Of course volume pedal would be part of the equipment... you can get
> great bowing-like effects using these. Allow tremelo bars used for
> tastful vibrato, too. Absolutely no distortion allowed... and wah pedals
> are right out!
Are you hip to Terje Rypdal?
Greg M. Silverman
Nope. Who is Mr. Rypdal when he is at home?
Greg--
Greg M. Silverman
Ahhh... okay, so he's an ECM artist! I listened to a few clips... very
nice stuff!
Cheers!
Greg--
Terlizzi
>though, that what we were calling into question were conceptions of, or
>the
>setting of borders for, a semantics for 'classical'.
>
>In that context, then, what one might enquire of you, 'Do you consider the
>selection of an electric guitar for a symphonic work, that is, your
>'instrumentation' selection, strictly something classical in its traditional
>sense?' or 'Does your conception of 'classical conventions' require no
>addendum, no footnotes to your selection of an electric guitar?'
I think it just depends on how you use the instrument. One could allude to a
vast array of musical styles that could come off as a post-modern pastiche
outside the "classical conventions" that would perhaps require an "addendum"
and "footnotes". You can do that with a violin, too!
One can treat the electric guitar simply as a sound and intergrate it without
the social and stylistic baggage, positive or negative.
the electric guitar could be as "classical" as Messiaen's use of the Ondes
Martenot in Turangalila or the angel scene of St. Francis.
Masterful composers like Jonathan Harvey and Mario Davidovsky
blend and juxtapose electronic sounds with acoustic sounds seamlessly if and
when they want to
The cultural allusion's that excite some and repel others by the use of the
electric guitar are controllable. When I hear Stockhausen's Gruppen I am struck
by the epiphany of a sound, not by the coolness of rocking out on an electric
guitar in a symphony orchestra!
Of course, that is a clean sounding guitar.
When I hear some Mackey i am less convinced.
When I hear Zappa, I am convinced. (e.g. The Black Page #1 on the Lather CD.
That is just a beautiful, quirky, interesting piece of music performed
incredibly well!)
I can hear some of the stuff Fripp does working really well with orchestra.
Like the sound used on the old Fripp and Eno recording.
But, hey, i guess i'm more liberal than I thought!!
md
Bob Ashley
> What exactly is the burdon of this tradition? I'll do some rephrasing of
> T.S.Eliot:
>
> "We cannot refer to "classical" or to "classical music"; at most, we employ
> the adjective in saying that the music of So-and-so is "classical". Seldom,
> perhaps, does the word appear except in a phrase of censure. If otherwise,
> it is vaguely approbative, with the implication, as to the work approved, of
> some pleasing archaeological reconstruction. You can hardly make the word
> agreeable to English ears without this comfortable reference to the
> reassuring science of archaeology."
Thanks for typing out this quotation. Now, Eliot's own 'approbative' style,
sounds rather dated for its primary eloquence on 'archaelogical', that being
all the academic rage in his lifetime. But, he has a point to make about
"making the 'word' agreeable to English ears" and to some extent my ears are
indeed English. And yet his rather flip expression of this point unfairly
diminishes a few hundred years worth of scholarship (long before archaeology
was a professional discipline), both retro and prospectively, who, as an
interpretative community, rely on Periclean Athens as the semantic bedrock
for all things 'classical'.
> I understand your positioning of the term classical as inherently
> archaeological - this is proof of how this classical tradition burdons us,
> or, to rephrase Eliot again: "This historical sense, which is a sense of the
> timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal
> together, is what makes a composer classical. And it is at the same time
> what makes a composer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his
> contemporaneity."
Eliot might have pondered, 'Whither comes my sense of the transhistorical
and temporal?'. Well, he might have tried looking to 'classical' philosophy
or its Renaissance incarnations. His musings are 'classical' in and of
themselves, he appealing to Plato's own timeless, abstract idealism. We know
Eliot as a modernist when he speaks of how 'the classical tradition burdens
us', revealing his ideological bias towards the anti- or counterclassical
movements of modernism.
> The bridge between the classical and the tradition on the one hand and the
> contemporary composer on the other, which is built here, is of utmost
> importance. The place in time of today's composer - and I would suppose, his
> willingness to insert himself into such a classical time-line - is not one
> of isolation, but rather one of continuity. This connectivity, this
> coherence of art in its totality, goes so far, that "[...] what happens when
> a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all
> the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal
> order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new
> (the really new) work of art among them."
Yes, I am certainly persuaded by this description, but it's direct
connection to Gorby's 5-minute recipe for classical, if there is one,
escapes me. You've properly complicated things, a move which begins to do
fair justice to our conceptions of classical. Even the frames of reference
you are drawing are moving us away from art forms not normally dubbed
'classical'.
> The impossibility of freeing ourselves from this tradition, our being
> incorporated into it, burdons us not only with the tradition, in whose
> boundaries we place our art, but also with a responsibility towards this
> monument. This responsibility cannot end with simple conformity to this
> tradition, a production of art, which is little more than an echo, or as we
> see in some works for guitar written today, which are a negation of the
> whole 20th century musical tradition. Eliot says, "to conform merely would
> be for the new work not really to conform at all; it would not be new, and
> would therefore not be a work of art". So, if I may elaborate, an epigonic
> rehash of prior artistic achievements, would not even qualify as art.
The luxury Eliot exploits here is a hindsight history of ideas and art. What
he fails to notice, though, is that no movement in the arts has ever held to
this incongruous perspective of conformity by incomformity. His is decidedly
a 'poetic' perspective, just one of many alternatives we might look to for
ideas. Were Eliot to fall obediantly into the ranks of his own perspective,
he would not have selected the word 'burden', but rather 'liberation'. Too,
Eliot's view here is partial and incomplete for although he is unassailably
right about the 'noncomformity' of 'conformity' in the tradition, there is
also arguably myriad 'conventions'. Without the conformity of conventions,
he, nor you nor I, have a way to identify, discriminate, recognize what we
are talking about. His closing statement, of course, we should dispense
with, for it is transcendental, evaluative criticism of the sort which
merely projects the peculiar anxieties of Eliot's epoch. That is, artists
positioning themselves as magistrates of art, presiding over which
prospective entries to bar or permit entry into art's temple.
> When faced with a classical tradition, unthinking conformity becomes
> complicity to a negation of this tradition. Ignorance of the tradition also
> becomes the same complicity.
I'm friendly to this view, but only from a retrospective, historical
chronicler. In any present moment, however, any artist who might try to
inject this clever, but convoluted line of reasoning into his practice of
art, is a goner. Eliot's rhetoric 'unthinking conformity' (aka 'thinking of
the bewildered herd) is merely a dysllogistic covering for we could recast
this caricature as 'responsible mimesis' or 'contemplative reenactments'.
Again, Eliot is partial, because while he was certainly an innovative poet
he also conformed to hosts of poetic tradition, thematically, prosodically,
allusively. We would not call his conforming to certain stanzaic forms or
line conventions as 'unthinking conformity', but rather, as I've suggested,
'contemplative reenactments'.
> Seemingly this constitutes a paradox: while the tradition is inevitable, we
> should never fully comply with it. Only in the new, in the contemporaneity
> of our own art, can we live fully in this tradition. Simply living in the
> tradition, without also fueling it with our own independence, being a
> conformist, places us outside that, which we so wish to conform with. In
> light of this, it cannot come as a surprise that Lachenmann and Ferneyhough
> have been named among the most traditional composers of today.
I think you're right about identifying the paradox. But, you lose me with
the word, 'should'! From that point you range into the normative and as soon
as you do that you are pressing for a peculiar and local ideology of
'classical'. You are pressing for the very conformity which we are supposed
to be so wary of. Similarly, the word 'only', constrains us, urges us that
there is 'only' one way to conceptualize the ideology. We begin to get all
twisted up in layers of meaning, some of it self-negating. Self-negating
since if we all agreed to do it your way, the only the way we could "fuel"
the tradition would be to conform to its conventions. If we all agreed with
you, we would forfeit the very independence your philosophy esteems.
> The composer, as part of the tradition, must always be aware of his own
> place within this tradition.
>
> The composer "must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never
> improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same." If indeed
> the composer has accepted his contemporary place in the classical tradition,
> his choice of material must not be limited. In fact, to live within this
> tradition, needs a newness of some sort. New material can be dodecaphonic or
> aleatoric, but it can also be the use of electric guitars or computers.
The indelible emphasis on 'newness' is the sharp tattoo of the modernist
principle of transcendental progress. Falsely, it appears to insinuate a
linear evolution of art through its 'newness' principle, supposedly towards
something better or more enriched. Falsely, I say, because the ideology of
'new' clashes with the assertion that "art never improves".
In a nutshell, extracting Eliot's explicit terms, we should inject the 'new'
because it's better to do it even though the results we can expect will be
no better than any other way of doing it. And rest assured, there have
always been others ways great art has come into being never having studied
at Eliot's school.
At bottom, it's a very complex argument, one, as you know that's been going
on now for a few millenia. We're not about to wrap up the project here in
this dinky room, wallpapered with our thoughts, and too, that little stamp
stuck to the ceiling fan, whirling around with Gorby's definition of
'classical' litho'd on it.
***
rib
Gorblimey
thomas <tomb...@jhu.edu> wrote in message
news:7d424f23.02012...@posting.google.com...
> "Greg M. Silverman" <g...@cccs.umn.edu> wrote in message
news:<3C4E1F6C...@cccs.umn.edu>...
> >
> > I would think a nice vintage 60s Strat with a single humbucker
A single pickup Strat?
> and
> > proper stereo amplification
A stereo Strat?
would sound very well if accompanied by a
> > skilled orchestra led by someone like Pierre Boulez
A birdsong-fixated nutter conducting a guy with a Strat?
>I could see the NY
> > Phil doing this when they were more adventurous.
Thank God they're not....
> >
> > Of course volume pedal would be part of the equipment... you can get
> > great bowing-like effects using these.
Variable volume? On a Strat?
>Allow tremelo bars used for
> > tastful vibrato, too.
Tasteful? On a STRAT?
Absolutely no distortion allowed... and wah pedals
> > are right out!
Aaargh. Pass me the valium....
Pete
Greg M. Silverman
>
>Aaargh. Pass me the valium....
>
Nah! Coffee works for me every time! ;-)
Cheers!
Greg--
Bob Ashley
> I think it just depends on how you use the instrument. One could allude to a
> vast array of musical styles that could come off as a post-modern pastiche
> outside the "classical conventions" that would perhaps require an "addendum"
> and "footnotes". You can do that with a violin, too!
Exactly, postmodern pastiche is everywhere! It's _our_ time, after all.
> One can treat the electric guitar simply as a sound and intergrate it without
> the social and stylistic baggage, positive or negative.
Yes, I didn't disagree, noting that one could follow whatever pragmatic
direction one selected, including leaving that social and stylistic baggage
at the semantic airport. If, though, one of one's concerns is meaning at the
airport, then one should hang onto the claim check. My point, simply, that
yours would appear to be launching a brand new argument, one that
interrogates the legitimacy and usefulness of of trying to sketch articles
of meaningful shape for the word 'classical'. When I try to share your
particular, but different perspective, I find myself in complete agreement.
This is not to say, of course, that I cannot switch perches, see another
angle on the question. I'm trying to stick to semantic argument, leaving the
pragmatic aside, temporarily. It's 'suppositional' in other words.
> the electric guitar could be as "classical" as Messiaen's use of the Ondes
> Martenot in Turangalila or the angel scene of St. Francis.
The pivotal word in this assertion is 'could', meaning to me, that yes,
certainly we can imagine the possibility, even argue for it. But what we are
hard-pressed to do here, is to replace the word 'could' with the surer
classificatory 'is'. Were we to do that we arrive at a sentence which
warrants the 'footnote' I mentioned earlier.
'The electric guitar IS as classical as Messiaens use of the Ondes..."
It's a very nice sentence, as sentences go, but let me put it to you that in
many interpretative communities it should raise a few puzzling eyebrows. Not
to say it is wrong, no, not at all, but rather that it is interesting for
it's apparent swerve from what we might expect, for instance, an explanatory
footnote.
> Masterful composers like Jonathan Harvey and Mario Davidovsky
> blend and juxtapose electronic sounds with acoustic sounds seamlessly if and
> when they want to
> The cultural allusion's that excite some and repel others by the use of the
> electric guitar are controllable. When I hear Stockhausen's Gruppen I am
> struck
> by the epiphany of a sound, not by the coolness of rocking out on an electric
> guitar in a symphony orchestra!
If the juxaposition of 'electronic sounds' with acoustic ones, is just run
of the mill, that regular, old classical practice, there is no need to
foreground 'electronic' sounds at all by mentioning them. Here, we find, I
think, a built-in footnote. It alerts that there is a 'difference', a marked
contrast between 'electronic' and 'acoustic', a contrast which heretofore
has been an _unnecessary_ one. Returning to your more pragmatic turn, we
say, and say properly, 'This is not a footnote at all because we are
dispensing with unnecessary baggage'. Back on your perch, I'm nodding
agreement with my pigeon neck. I'm also on your side when it comes to the
aesthetic reception potential of the electro-acoustic marriage.
> But, hey, i guess i'm more liberal than I thought!!
Well, I'd say 'liberal' as goes your open-minded towards letting the musical
tradition unfold unencumbered by pedantry. But I'd also go 'conservative' as
regards your prioritize the pragmatic utility of a rather academic sounding
dialectic.
A split personality, in other words, and in the best sense of the term.
This I write so as to go toward reiterating that there is likely more than
more useful tack to take in sailing a debate, port and starboard.
Appreciate your thoughts.
***
rib
thomas
He also happens to be a "classical 20th century" composer.
I don't know if he's combined his guitar playing with his
large scale compositions, though. Jeff Gower, who used to
post here, would probably know.
"Greg M. Silverman" <g...@umn.edu> wrote in message news:<3C4F04C6...@umn.edu>...
Matanya Ophee
>'The electric guitar IS as classical as Messiaens use of the Ondes..."
>
>It's a very nice sentence, as sentences go, but let me put it to you that in
>many interpretative communities it should raise a few puzzling eyebrows. Not
>to say it is wrong, no, not at all, but rather that it is interesting for
>it's apparent swerve from what we might expect, for instance, an explanatory
>footnote.
This may be true for those interpretaive communities who had never
heard of the Ondes Martenot, or for those who have heard of it,
genuflected three times in the direction of Paris in homage to Olivier
Messiaen, but did not understand the afinity of one electronic sound
maker with another. The semantic baggage of the nomenclature GUITAR,
does get in the way.
As I mentioned before, there will be a festival of new Russian music,
given by the Seattle Chamber Players in Benaroya Hall in Seattle this
coming February 6 throu 10. Among others, will be this:
Wednesday, February 6
Soundbridge Seattle Symphony Music Discovery Center
2:30 - 4:30 - Lydia Kavina, theremin
Masterclass
I am not sure I will make it to the master class, but I certainly
intend to be there for the concert. Next to the theremin, the electric
guitar is a simple device.
Klaus Heim
I have always understood the term 'archaeology' not in a communal sense, but
in an individual one. Not as the actual science of digging up old buildings,
but rather as the personal action of uncovering lost meanings and through
these, traditions. If the terms 'tradition' and 'classical' must be
force-fed to people, then they go down better if they offer the opportunity
of uncovering this tradition. We get the impression of standing on more
stable ground, if we can go look at the Acropolis, or in art, find quotes
from Homer or Aristophanes. The Waste Land opens with some Petronius, which
is a sign for us readers to start digging.
> > I understand your positioning of the term classical as inherently
> > archaeological - this is proof of how this classical tradition burdons
us,
> > or, to rephrase Eliot again: "This historical sense, which is a sense of
the
> > timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the
temporal
> > together, is what makes a composer classical. And it is at the same time
> > what makes a composer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of
his
> > contemporaneity."
>
> Eliot might have pondered, 'Whither comes my sense of the transhistorical
> and temporal?'. Well, he might have tried looking to 'classical'
philosophy
> or its Renaissance incarnations. His musings are 'classical' in and of
> themselves, he appealing to Plato's own timeless, abstract idealism.
Are you surprised by this?
> We know Eliot as a modernist when he speaks of how 'the classical
tradition burdens
> us', revealing his ideological bias towards the anti- or counterclassical
> movements of modernism.
This burden is there, like it or not. Since we do not live in a vacuum, it
can hardly be shrugged off. The distinction Eliot makes is that through this
burden of tradition I am able to map my own position within this tradition.
Without this tradition I would be standing on thin air and would have no
place to dig.
> > The bridge between the classical and the tradition on the one hand and
the
> > contemporary composer on the other, which is built here, is of utmost
> > importance. The place in time of today's composer - and I would suppose,
his
> > willingness to insert himself into such a classical time-line - is not
one
> > of isolation, but rather one of continuity. This connectivity, this
> > coherence of art in its totality, goes so far, that "[...] what happens
when
> > a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to
all
> > the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal
> > order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new
> > (the really new) work of art among them."
>
> Yes, I am certainly persuaded by this description, but it's direct
> connection to Gorby's 5-minute recipe for classical, if there is one,
> escapes me. You've properly complicated things,
Is this not my role?
> a move which begins to do fair justice to our conceptions of classical.
Even the frames of reference
> you are drawing are moving us away from art forms not normally dubbed
'classical'.
Sticking with Eliot and our archaeological metaphors, our 'classical
tradition' is the monument. If the composer inserts himself into this
tradition - "By classical, I mean notated, directed and structured within a
certain tradition." - his work pervades these monuments. In art these
monuments are not immovable stone, but are rather subjected to
interpretation. The new work, built upon these monuments, also changes these
older monuments, giving us a new starting point, from where to dig. By
opening his Waste Land with a quote from Petronius, Eliot not only places
himself firmly within this classical tradition, but also changes it, because
the reader's perception of Petronius will also change. And is it not so,
that sometimes, when a quote from Beethoven is found within a contemporary
piece, we understand it much better, than within its original context?
I have great problems appreciating art, which is not inherently traditional.
And tradition can never be selective, you get either all of it or none. If
you choose no tradition, you are lost. I you choose all of the tradition,
you are burdened: "the historical sense compels a man to write not merely
with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of
the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole literature of
his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous
order." Tradition is always a development, through the ages - a composer
writing a new piece is a part of this tradition. Eliot's question is not so
much, if this or that work of art is to be allowed into the pantheon, no, I
see it more as the question if this work of art is placeable within a
tradition or not. The thought of conventions has not even risen in my mind,
because conventions are evaluative, tradition just is. It is everything that
has gone before. Eliot decidedly speaks out against a subjective and
selective tradition.
> > When faced with a classical tradition, unthinking conformity becomes
> > complicity to a negation of this tradition. Ignorance of the tradition
also
> > becomes the same complicity.
>
> I'm friendly to this view, but only from a retrospective, historical
> chronicler. In any present moment, however, any artist who might try to
> inject this clever, but convoluted line of reasoning into his practice of
> art, is a goner. Eliot's rhetoric 'unthinking conformity' (aka 'thinking
of
> the bewildered herd) is merely a dysllogistic covering for we could recast
> this caricature as 'responsible mimesis' or 'contemplative reenactments'.
> Again, Eliot is partial, because while he was certainly an innovative poet
> he also conformed to hosts of poetic tradition, thematically,
prosodically,
> allusively. We would not call his conforming to certain stanzaic forms or
> line conventions as 'unthinking conformity', but rather, as I've
suggested,
> 'contemplative reenactments'.
Interesting that you bring up the term mimesis. Are you acquainted with the
book of the same title by Erich Auerbach? It is one of the standard works of
comparative literature. I needed quite some time to start understanding
Eliot's arguments, especially in respect to this difficult distinction of
'conformity', 'copying', 'mimickry'. Since this essay and the Waste Land
were both published at around the same time, we can see the poem as an
exemplification of his theoretical ideas. I fully agree with your assessment
of his writing, to me he is very much a traditionalist. I would even go so
far as to say you could skip most of the Western Canon and just read the
Waste Land - a lot of the Canon is in it (that it is hardly decipherable
without a knowledge of the canon is another question).
How then do I understand these minute differences? The artist, rooted deep
within tradition, but at the same time attempting to create something new,
cannot forego this tradition, but he also cannot allow himself to be totally
caught up in it. The former would result in 'traditionless' art, without
contact to the tradition, the latter would simply be a copy. A thin line is
to be walked.
> > Seemingly this constitutes a paradox: while the tradition is inevitable,
we
> > should never fully comply with it. Only in the new, in the
contemporaneity
> > of our own art, can we live fully in this tradition. Simply living in
the
> > tradition, without also fueling it with our own independence, being a
> > conformist, places us outside that, which we so wish to conform with. In
> > light of this, it cannot come as a surprise that Lachenmann and
Ferneyhough
> > have been named among the most traditional composers of today.
>
> I think you're right about identifying the paradox. But, you lose me with
> the word, 'should'! From that point you range into the normative and as
soon
> as you do that you are pressing for a peculiar and local ideology of
> 'classical'. You are pressing for the very conformity which we are
supposed
> to be so wary of.
Fully complying with tradition results in a copy. Creating something new
necessitates not fully complying with this tradition. If our wish is to
bring some new work of art into the world, we must to a degree alter our
state of compliance.
> Similarly, the word 'only', constrains us, urges us that there is 'only'
one way to conceptualize the ideology. We begin to
> get all twisted up in layers of meaning, some of it self-negating.
Self-negating
> since if we all agreed to do it your way, the only the way we could "fuel"
> the tradition would be to conform to its conventions. If we all agreed
with
> you, we would forfeit the very independence your philosophy esteems.
Excellent thinking! Exactly down the lines of what Eliot says about the
poet: "What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the
moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a
continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality."
> > The composer, as part of the tradition, must always be aware of his own
> > place within this tradition.
> >
> > The composer "must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never
> > improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same." If
indeed
> > the composer has accepted his contemporary place in the classical
tradition,
> > his choice of material must not be limited. In fact, to live within this
> > tradition, needs a newness of some sort. New material can be
dodecaphonic or
> > aleatoric, but it can also be the use of electric guitars or computers.
>
> The indelible emphasis on 'newness' is the sharp tattoo of the modernist
> principle of transcendental progress. Falsely, it appears to insinuate a
> linear evolution of art through its 'newness' principle, supposedly
towards
> something better or more enriched. Falsely, I say, because the ideology of
> 'new' clashes with the assertion that "art never improves".
Not better, as I say above, different at most. And surely not linear. What
is 'new', is that what is individual, that which the artist inserts into the
tradition. Having so much of a tradition to base his new work on, who can
say what the outcome will be?
Do you see a development in art? I have not conclusively thought this
through, but I would venture to say, not really. Technically maybe, but art
in itself, how can that evolve?
> In a nutshell, extracting Eliot's explicit terms, we should inject the
'new'
> because it's better to do it even though the results we can expect will be
> no better than any other way of doing it. And rest assured, there have
> always been others ways great art has come into being never having studied
> at Eliot's school.
And what? What am I missing? Either something is a copy or it isn't.
> At bottom, it's a very complex argument, one, as you know that's been
going
> on now for a few millenia. We're not about to wrap up the project here in
> this dinky room, wallpapered with our thoughts, and too, that little stamp
> stuck to the ceiling fan, whirling around with Gorby's definition of
> 'classical' litho'd on it.
Then I'll leave you with Eliot's concluding words:
"This essay proposes to halt at the frontier of metaphysics or mysticism,
and confine itself to such practical conclusions as can be applied by the
responsible person interested in poetry. To divert interest from the poet to
the poetry is a laudable aim: for it would conduce to a juster estimation of
actual poetry, good and bad. There are many people who appreciate the
expression of sincere emotion in verse, and there is a smaller number of
people who can appreciate technical excellence. But very few know when there
is expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem
and not in the history of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal. And
the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly
to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done
unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of
the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is
already living."
Klaus
(All quotes taken from T.S.Eliot "Tradition and the Individual Talent")
John E. Golden
"James Calivar" <amheis...@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:a2avlt$i8j$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net...
> Wow, get this - a Zappa fan in a CG newsgroup! Very cool.
>
> Now I can't say for sure whether Mr. Zappa was a brilliant composer or
not -
> mainly because I don't know nuttin' about composin'. But I CAN say that I
> think Overnight Sensation is one of the best albums produced of all time.
> Evertime I hear it I can't help but crack up. I've also read Frank's
> autobiography several times over (having bought it in hardcover when it
was
> first released), and it leaves me laughing every time.
>
> I can't he's my favorite 'rock' guitarist - Jimi Hendrix gets my nod for
> that one - but I certainly don't tire of listening to his riffs. I wonder
> if there's a CG transcription of "Black Napkins" anywhere?
>
> Interesting personal note. When Stevie Ray Vaughn died, I was bummed.
Saw
> him first in 1984 on Hendrix's birthday, and many more times afterwards.
> Great shows all. I always liked him, but I did not shed tears at learning
> of his his demise. Yet when Frank Zappa died, for some inexplicable
reason
> I found myself in a weeklong funk Many tears were shed on my part. I
guess
> I just realized what the world would be missing now that a mind of that
> magnitude had left us. (Or more depressingly, how *little* the world
would
> miss him - it's a real shame more people didn't "get" him).
>
> Anyway. Glad to hear of others that share a similar fondness of ol'
Frank.
>
> - James
>
> "Come on Frenchie! SNAP it!"
>
>
> "Greg M. Silverman" <g...@cccs.umn.edu> wrote in message
> news:3C48BF21...@cccs.umn.edu...
> > Terlizzi wrote:
> > >
> > > >And we have many examples already. Roland Dyens' Frank Zappa and
> > > >>> Thelonius Monk pastiches
> > >
> > > Frank Zappa is the greatest American guitarist/composer. In fact,
pretty
> much
> > > the only one we have of real accomplishment.
> > > mark delpriora
> >
> > Yes! one cannot argue that (Bernstein, Gershwin, Ives and Copeland come
> > close, but not quite!)! As we speak, I have the Yellow Shark on and am
> > enjoying the strains of the "Dog breath Variations." This is "Art" with
> > a capital "A!" I just ordered The Zappa Album featuring his music
> > performed on baroque period instruments by a Finnish ensemble... should
> > be very cool!
> >
> > If you can get a copy of the Zappa songbook, try playing Igor's
> > Boogie... sounds great on CG! Very much in the style of Stravinsky!
> > Stucco Homes from the Zappa Guitar book works pretty well too! Plus, if
> > you have the Real Book (the ~ahem~ not so legal edition favored by jazz
> > musicians eveywhere), it has good charts of Peaches and Blessed Relief.
> > BTW, the Hot Rats songbook is now available from the Zappa Family Trust
> > (go to the official Zappa web site for oderering)... just got it the
> > other day, but haven't had any time to look at it yet.
> >
> > Long live Frank!
> >
> > Now off to work on variations 9 and 10 of the "tune" that doesn't exist!
> >
> > Greg--
>
>
Joseph Raymond
>
> One can treat the electric guitar simply as a sound and intergrate it without
> the social and stylistic baggage, positive or negative.
Certainly!
> the electric guitar could be as "classical" as Messiaen's use of the Ondes
> Martenot in Turangalila or the angel scene of St. Francis.
The issue is not whether the electric guitar is "classical." The
issue is the sound of the instrument itself which, as Gorblimey said,
in an orchestral setting tends to be unidimensional. Played moderately
through a transistor amp it lacks tonal complexity, or to put it
differently, it sucks. And it doesn't matter whether it's a solid
body or a big plywood "jazz box." It still sucks. Why is this? It's
because the electric guitarist must know not only how to play the
guitar, he must also know how to play the _amp_ as well. Now the
musicians who have mastered this technique are for the most part
rockers. A Strat through an overdriven tube amp in the hands of Jeff
Beck screams like Tebaldi. And that is why I think you mentioned the
Ondes Marenot. You were imagining a cool sound. So, I say if an
electric guitarist can get a beautiful tone, fine. I'm interested. But
if it's going to be fuzz tone with orchestra, then I'd prefer to hear
the sound of that guitar being smashed on the stage.
Joe
Bob Ashley
> I have always understood the term 'archaeology' not in a communal sense, but
> in an individual one. Not as the actual science of digging up old buildings,
> but rather as the personal action of uncovering lost meanings and through
> these, traditions.
Could this be because you are a postmodern child? This perspective I thought
was the breakthough critical philosophy of Foucault, his archaelogy of
ideas. In Eliot's time, though, I think archaelogy was more likely to spin
images of empire, the great white hunters of tombs, the new, explosive
expedition into the past, spoonful by pinch of sand.
> If the terms 'tradition' and 'classical' must be
> force-fed to people, then they go down better if they offer the opportunity
> of uncovering this tradition. We get the impression of standing on more
> stable ground, if we can go look at the Acropolis, or in art, find quotes
> from Homer or Aristophanes. The Waste Land opens with some Petronius, which
> is a sign for us readers to start digging.
Yes, but notice, if you how far we are now from the shores of Gorby's
definition. We are now speaking in 'classical' dialectic, not because of
mere scattered Attic details, but because that tradition is all-pervasive,
swaddling our language at every turn.
>> Eliot might have pondered, 'Whither comes my sense of the transhistorical
>> and temporal?'. Well, he might have tried looking to 'classical'
>> philosophy
>> or its Renaissance incarnations. His musings are 'classical' in and of
>> themselves, he appealing to Plato's own timeless, abstract idealism.
> Are you surprised by this?
No, not surprised. But Eliot's argument seems to be simultaneously modern
and classical, but with a bias toward the modern enacted which is mounted
classical tools of conventional rhetoric.
> This burden is there, like it or not. Since we do not live in a vacuum, it
> can hardly be shrugged off. The distinction Eliot makes is that through this
> burden of tradition I am able to map my own position within this tradition.
> Without this tradition I would be standing on thin air and would have no
> place to dig.
'Burden' is a negative, value laden term permitting Eliot to cast the artist
as the intrepid (male) explorer who plants his flag in the uncharted
continent of a passive (female) tradition. His view is a modernist, a quite
conforming testimony to the naive idealism of 20th-century art. Mainly, I
agree, but not with his selection of terms. I would dub tradition a
liberating conscience, not a 'burden'. And I would remove the artist's
agency in the history chronicles, because it is history, not the artist
which ultimately does the cartography. Eliot does not get to decide how or
where he will be situated by the history or criticism of art. No one these
days is likely to counter the assertion that Eliot is the quintessential
'modernist', his ideas marching as they do, the legions of his
contemporaries. He, though, might have railed up a rejection of such a
preposterous notion. But one can't know a position while it is happening,
decide one's place in the stream of tradition while standing in it.
>> Yes, I am certainly persuaded by this description, but it's direct
>> connection to Gorby's 5-minute recipe for classical, if there is one,
>> escapes me. You've properly complicated things,
>
> Is this not my role?
Yes, one of them I suppose. It's a good thing too.
> Sticking with Eliot and our archaeological metaphors, our 'classical
> tradition' is the monument. If the composer inserts himself into this
> tradition - "By classical, I mean notated, directed and structured within a
> certain tradition." - his work pervades these monuments. In art these
> monuments are not immovable stone, but are rather subjected to
> interpretation.
Then 'monument' is an impoverished metaphor for such a tradition which is
fluid, mutable, and amorphous, and vulnerable to reshaping by
interpretation. But again, 'monumentalism' is 'modernism's middle name,
unable as it is, to resist making a temple of art.
> The new work, built upon these monuments, also changes these
> older monuments, giving us a new starting point, from where to dig. By
> opening his Waste Land with a quote from Petronius, Eliot not only places
> himself firmly within this classical tradition, but also changes it, because
> the reader's perception of Petronius will also change. And is it not so,
> that sometimes, when a quote from Beethoven is found within a contemporary
> piece, we understand it much better, than within its original context?
This is best part of that essay, the idea that new works reconfigure the
tradition. I'm not sure about the understanding a traditional work 'better',
though. Let me suggest that postmodern literary critics do not possess a
'better' understanding of Shakespeare than, say, Mathew Arnold or Kenneth
Burke. Cinematic remakes of Hamlet and Lear do not necessarily endow us with
an advanced critical lucidity for Shakespeare. One may view Eliot's
Petronius quotation or Hollywood's Hamlet as approbations which merely
reshape the tradition so that it resonates nicely with the age's current
anxieties of interpretation of the past. What I'm saying here is not too far
afield from Eliot's message, but neither is it the same point.
> I have great problems appreciating art, which is not inherently traditional.
> And tradition can never be selective, you get either all of it or none. If
> you choose no tradition, you are lost. I you choose all of the tradition,
> you are burdened: "the historical sense compels a man to write not merely
> with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of
> the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole literature of
> his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous
> order." Tradition is always a development, through the ages - a composer
> writing a new piece is a part of this tradition. Eliot's question is not so
> much, if this or that work of art is to be allowed into the pantheon, no, I
> see it more as the question if this work of art is placeable within a
> tradition or not. The thought of conventions has not even risen in my mind,
> because conventions are evaluative, tradition just is. It is everything that
> has gone before. Eliot decidedly speaks out against a subjective and
> selective tradition.
> How then do I understand these minute differences? The artist, rooted deep
> within tradition, but at the same time attempting to create something new,
> cannot forego this tradition, but he also cannot allow himself to be totally
> caught up in it. The former would result in 'traditionless' art, without
> contact to the tradition, the latter would simply be a copy. A thin line is
> to be walked.
I think your question is one not yet answered, least of all by us.
> Fully complying with tradition results in a copy. Creating something new
> necessitates not fully complying with this tradition. If our wish is to
> bring some new work of art into the world, we must to a degree alter our
> state of compliance.
No one is compelled to frame the problem in these terms. If the tradition is
as Eliot casts it, then it is a chronicle of revolutions. Creating something
new, then, is merely a conformity to this tradition. I think he has it right
but I resist the drama of his terminological characters. The history of art
reveals that it more a series of 'recursos' which approach then recede then
approach again the gravity of the classical. I'd offer that you can create
unique artworks, but unique artworks will always be conventional in that
they will either be arriving at or departing from the classical fount.
Conventions liberate the unique artwork lending it intelligibility to its
cultural context.
> Excellent thinking! Exactly down the lines of what Eliot says about the
> poet: "What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the
> moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a
> continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality."
Quite a destabilizing statement by Eliot. I think he's right. But this is, I
think you'll agree, revealing one thing we encounter here, that bone of
contention that circulates in support of copyright ideology. In that view,
tradition is nothing but a passive repository of resources to mine,
reconfigure, and then leisurely discards, claiming his 'unique' work solely
his doing, and not entailing any social payback to the tradition which
filled his toolbox resplendent and pendulous. Terms like 'surrender',
'self-sacrifice', and 'continual extinction of personality' don't carry much
truck these days. I don't blame artists; they're just trying to survive in
a system they didn't conceive, build, or manage. Unfortunately, the powerful
female principle Eliot is advocating becomes a suicide ritual in a
predatorial, patriarchal economy.
> Do you see a development in art? I have not conclusively thought this
> through, but I would venture to say, not really. Technically maybe, but art
> in itself, how can that evolve?
Like you seem to be saying, I also see no development in art, at least in
its grander historical scope, the paleolithic paintings in the Lascaux Caves
being every bit as penetrating and perfect as Charles Schultz's 'Snoopy'. We
find 'permutations' and 're-enactments' but not development, not in a frame
called 'progress'. We flatter ourselves to think our human imagination is
somehow further up the evolutionary ladder than that of our paleolithic
progenitors.
Generally, I'd say we (including Eliot!) probably agree on more things than
not, niggling details of selection of terms notwithstanding.
***
rib
Bob Ashley
scottuns@travel_HYPHEN_net.com wrote on 01/24/02 7:48 AM:
>
>> Like you seem to be saying, I also see no development in art, at least in
>> its grander historical scope, the paleolithic paintings in the Lascaux Caves
>> being every bit as penetrating and perfect as Charles Schultz's 'Snoopy'. We
>> find 'permutations' and 're-enactments' but not development, not in a frame
>> called 'progress'. We flatter ourselves to think our human imagination is
>> somehow further up the evolutionary ladder than that of our paleolithic
>> progenitors.
ST wrote:
> Absolutely flacid-making (male) , errr, fascinating, stuff, Guys !
>
> Alas, my poor little brain hurts now. Question for you, though: you refer to a
> frame called "progress". Thru this frame are you viewing the progress of man
> the individual or man the societal species? I wouldn't want to comment without
> first knowing if my interpretation is flawed. I've been known to ying when I
> should have yanged.
I won't speak for Klaus's angle on 'progress', but mine would refer to
progress in the arts as that self-flattery wrung out of each sequent epoch,
the thinking that the sole purpose of history was to lead up to them.
Of course, this _doesn't_ refer to technology and science, which undeniably
hulks forward. The mistake is to project the epistemics of technics and
logic onto the arts. A most irrational venture, one that most scientists
would be loathe to embark upon, but which some non-scientists take up with
futilitarian zeal.
This is why I hold to principle that there is no useful critical function in
'evaluative' art criticism, that which sets up the critic as magistrate, art
as defendant. A hint that there is no progress in criticism, akin to the
stasis of recursos in the arts, is that critics in every age repeat the
bonehead practice of installing themselves as brokers of art's worth.
So, I think of art as a great historical centrifuge, science as a
progressive cosmic tangent. We need both movements, or, both movements are
just the way they are. The earth orbiting sun, is art, the whole universe
expanding, is science.
For now, the ideology of science has the upper hand. Wait, though, for that
exact moment when the universe begins to shrink back upon itself. Art and
religion will go on habitually circling the same solar imagination it always
has, while science panics. Science will write the next apocaplypse as if
brand new, but art will simply see the narrative as simply another refrain
art has always sung, one epoch to the next. To me there is a comfort in
conceptualizing both those paleolithic cave paintings of 30,000 BC and
Picasso's blue period as absolutely and equally the best art is ever going
to get. This is why only art can take us to the edge of the abyss without
actually going there. Science insists on seeing things with its own one eye.
Darwinian evolution, at least to my mind, has no function in art. 'Single
vision' is 'Newton's sleep', according to William Blake. Art gives us
fourfold vision, and you can imagine for yourself where to locate the fount
of those extra three visionary dimensions. We've always had them, and they
swallow the entire universe, the whole chain of being, in one big gulp.
Art's answer, then, to the Big Bang, is the Big Gulp.
***
rib
--
Greg M. Silverman
>Klaus Heim wrote:
>
>>I have always understood the term 'archaeology' not in a communal sense, but
>>in an individual one. Not as the actual science of digging up old buildings,
>>but rather as the personal action of uncovering lost meanings and through
>>these, traditions.
>>
>
>Could this be because you are a postmodern child? This perspective I thought
>was the breakthough critical philosophy of Foucault, his archaelogy of
>ideas. In Eliot's time, though, I think archaelogy was more likely to spin
>images of empire, the great white hunters of tombs, the new, explosive
>expedition into the past, spoonful by pinch of sand.
>
Hmmmm you are treading on mighty unstable ground by refering to
Foucalt's ideas, postmodern deconstructionist and all... See Karl
Popper's writings on foundations of idealism and dogmatism if you want
to know why post modernist theory is inherently biased and therefore
flawed. :-)
Regards,
Greg--
Bob Ashley
> Hmmmm you are treading on mighty unstable ground by refering to
> Foucalt's ideas, postmodern deconstructionist and all... See Karl
> Popper's writings on foundations of idealism and dogmatism if you want
> to know why post modernist theory is inherently biased and therefore
> flawed. :-)
Of course, pm is flawed! Of course pm theory is inherently bias, so-called
'objectivity' itself being its central target of censure. You are treading
on even thinner ice if you exclude another one of the ridgepole principles
of pm--self-reflexivity. This reflexivity, especially in Derrida,
Baudrillard, Lanham, Kristeva, but mainly coming from pm anthropologists, is
self-negating in many respects, which is exactly why pm attracts the charge
of 'nihilism'. Derrida's very point (not a point, really, but a dialectic
circumspection) was that there are _no_ foundations, including those for
deconstruction, meaning/truth also being infinitely deferred.
The difference between a modernist and postmodernist is that only one is
sure of him/herself.
Seeing as we stand now together on the same patch of thin ice, the most
likely prognostication is that our combined weight will break the ice and we
are both going down to the bottom of the lake. On the way down, the
postmodernist muses, 'Hmmm, just as I expected, the end of us', while the
modernist exclaims, 'How could this have happened? I calculated the ratios!'
***
rib
--
Larry Deack
> if you want to know why post modernist theory is inherently biased and
therefore
> flawed. :-)
All theories are biased and flawed. If you take them as perspectives rather
than absolutes they can be fun and valuable to explore with other like
minded people. No need to read fancy books to be a wise person either. In
fact, too many who venture down these roads are convinced they are the only
people who see things. Ego gets in the way for those who pursue intellectual
games and the complex webs of words they weave become weapons they use to
claim superiority.
In the simple book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse it was the Ferryman Vasuveda
who was truly wise and he only watched the river and the people who asked he
help to cross it. For me, the greatest wisdom this world has to offer is
always with us and all around us.
Gorblimey
Joseph Raymond <experien...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:7b0f7671.02012...@posting.google.com...
(loads of snippage this thread has taken a life of it's own)
>So, I say if an
> electric guitarist can get a beautiful tone, fine. I'm interested. But
> if it's going to be fuzz tone with orchestra, then I'd prefer to hear
> the sound of that guitar being smashed on the stage.
>
> Joe
Tee Hee....so would I.
Watching Pete Townshend bouncing a Les Paul on it's endpin is a joy to
behold.
Pete (plenty of LP's around...if you've got the money)
Gorblimey
>
> "Bob Ashley" <ax...@chebucto.ns.ca> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:B8748B91.1D590%ax...@chebucto.ns.ca...
(Closely argued and certainly challenging argument snipped. I'll resist the
temptation to argue about what a tit-end Eliot was)
> > Yes, I am certainly persuaded by this description, but it's direct
> > connection to Gorby's 5-minute recipe for classical, if there is one,
> > escapes me. You've properly complicated things,
Um, I don't remember writing a 5-minute recipe for 'classical', whatever
that is, but here's one from Delia Smith.
Pete's five minute 'Classical' barbeque marinade (NOT for the no sugar mob).
3 Tbsp soy sauce,
6 Tbsp dry white wine
1 heaped tbsp tomato puree
1 rounded tbsp sugar,
1 tsp mustard powder,
Tabasco (or similar) to taste,
2 cloves garlic, crushed,
Herbs if you want them but ideally this will be just hot & rich.
Freshly ground S&P.
1 campfire guitar, ideally a Framus which you can burn without conscience if
it gets cold.
Pour over spare ribs, marinade 1 hour, grill.
Enjoy!
Pete
Greg M. Silverman
>>"Bob Ashley" <ax...@chebucto.ns.ca> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
>>news:B8748B91.1D590%ax...@chebucto.ns.ca...
>>
>(Closely argued and certainly challenging argument snipped. I'll resist the
>temptation to argue about what a tit-end Eliot was)
>
>>>Yes, I am certainly persuaded by this description, but it's direct
>>>connection to Gorby's 5-minute recipe for classical, if there is one,
>>>escapes me. You've properly complicated things,
>>>
>
>
>Pour over spare ribs, marinade 1 hour, grill.
>
You mean there are many 'Rib's in this group, with at least one to spare
-- doesn't sound very pleasent for the Rib that gets marinated and grilled!
Oh Dog! :-)
Cheers!
Greg--
Greg M. Silverman
>>"Bob Ashley" <ax...@chebucto.ns.ca> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
>>news:B8748B91.1D590%ax...@chebucto.ns.ca...
>>
>
>(Closely argued and certainly challenging argument snipped. I'll resist the
>temptation to argue about what a tit-end Eliot was)
>
Ha! I have certainly heard of Eliot being referred to as a jerk and a
pompous windbag, among a set of other less desirable descriptors, but I
really like "tit-end!" You Brits come up with some of the best insults!
:-)
Cheers!
Greg--