Skip Heller wrote:
-- being able to play means being able to project your ideas on you
instrument, and having enough tecvhnique to do it cleanly and consistently....you're either doing it real good or not. It's more like arranging, and there's a lot of technique involved in arranging....Assembling music is not easy....You need precision..... Constant precision -- regardless of media -- is chops. It's about hitting your mark reliably, and nobody ever had a better batting average for this than the Ramones, who I think had the perfect technique for all time.
Skip, I don't like the way you've overdetermined what constitutes "technique", it's like you're courting predictability or manageability of aesthetics. Reliable? Who wants music that is "reliably" "precise", in just about _any_ sense of that word? I personally don't need more than a short tape of Ramones precisely because they were so, um, "reliable". Nothing is wrong with an artist basically doing one thing, workkking with one vocabulary, and even then with a vocabulary that she didn't invent, but refining is refining, and the examples Biill gave (SachikoM and John Wall) would seem to me to be pretty far from refining, more about defining. As they define what can be done with their chosen materials, they are establishing the very grounds of what is "good" and what "isn't". Aren't you saying that something is done well or it isn't, and pretty much falls on the spectrum, from the get-go, from the moment someone's ears receive it? I don't think it's decided like that. Gene Ammons was good because of the tradition he was working within, and the way his abundant personality just burst its walls in hurry to get out of that horn; John Hartford and Bill Evans were wonderful because of the way they made acceptable and even natural the "unnatural" way they bumped up against the inner membrane walls of their respective genres, allowed for cross-pollination from other places. SachikoM and John Wall work very similarly, with very few important differances, but among those differences, the implicit call for listeners to walk to tightrope, with little to hold on to. It's confrontation in a way, where the initial, natural response of the listener is, "I don't even know if this is music or not, much less whether it is good. By the way, what is "good"? What do I mean by that?" Then, of course, it's a short jump to "What does ANYONE mean by 'good'?" The effect, at its best, for me at least, is the euphoria of independence, it's that punk-ass feeling: total freedom to listen, clean ears, a form of baptism, taking that first breath back above the surface. Really bad experimental music (IMHO) makes me feel like I'm being lectured. Speaking of which, I'll shut up now, albeit with the last parting thought: I'm bothered by your view (as I received it) that in order to appreciate something's "precision", "reliability",and quality, in the context of it's technique, then something NEEDS to be codified from the get go. There is plenty of music that is interesting to listeners, esp. critical listeners, BECAUSE of its total lack of constancy in precision and unreliability in terms of cleanness. Furthermore, how on earth are we to know whether a person's ideas are effectively, much less cleanly and precisely, being comunicated in their music? We can't read their minds. Interference happens along the way, certainly between instrument and listener, btu also between perfromer and instrument. But you never actually said that music had to have technique. It just seems that when the T-word is used, it applies to widely-understood and codified systems of _techniques_. When we say "technique", we aren't just referring to a specific type of motion/approach/attack, we are speaking of a general body of such motions, we are referring to a person's entire method as judged against predetermined standards. But I'm pretty with your comments on arranging. They apply crucially to experimental composers like Bernhard Guenter, even more than they would to someone like Duke Ellington (whose experiments have had much longer to soak into our collective thinking). -----scott np: Edward Ka-Spel, KHATACLIMICI CHINA DOLL __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com
on 7/7/02 11:41 AM, thesubtlebody at thesubtlebody@yahoo.com wrote:
Skip, I don't like the way you've overdetermined what constitutes "technique", it's like you're courting predictability or manageability of aesthetics. Reliable? Who wants music that is "reliably" "precise", in just about _any_ sense of that word?
If I pay money for music -- or sports, for that matter -- I want to be assured of a certain amount of quality control. Yes, I want unexpected results. But I also want guys who are in shape for any challenge they may face.
I personally don't need more than a short tape of Ramones precisely because they were so, um, "reliable".
Sort tape or no, they hit and never miss.
Nothing is wrong with an artist basically doing one thing, workkking with one vocabulary, and even then with a vocabulary that she didn't invent, but refining is refining, and the examples Biill gave (SachikoM and John Wall) would seem to me to be pretty far from refining, more about defining. As they define what can be done with their chosen materials, they are establishing the very grounds of what is "good" and what "isn't". Aren't you saying that something is done well or it isn't, and pretty much falls on the spectrum, from the get-go, from the moment someone's ears receive it? I don't think it's decided like that. Gene Ammons was good because of the tradition he was working within, and the way his abundant personality just burst its walls in hurry to get out of that horn; John Hartford and Bill Evans were wonderful because of the way they made acceptable and even natural the "unnatural" way they bumped up against the inner membrane walls of their respective genres, allowed for cross-pollination from other places.
I see what you're saying, but you I think just made my point for me. Gene Ammons (believe it or not), Bill Evans, and John Hartford were each technicians of the highest order. I don't think any of them would have had the impact they had on their respective instruments if they weren't each masters. Certainly they would not have been able to impose their personalities so strongly if they weren't each in posession of a technique in good enough shape to take whatever they heard in their heads and manifest it as stuff their fingers could act on at will.
SachikoM and John Wall work very similarly, with very few important differances, but among those differences, the implicit call for listeners to walk to tightrope, with little to hold on to. It's confrontation in a way, where the initial, natural response of the listener is, "I don't even know if this is music or not, much less whether it is good. By the way, what is "good"? What do I mean by that?" Then, of course, it's a short jump to "What does ANYONE mean by 'good'?" The effect, at its best, for me at least, is the euphoria of independence, it's that punk-ass feeling: total freedom to listen, clean ears, a form of baptism, taking that first breath back above the surface. Really bad experimental music (IMHO) makes me feel like I'm being lectured.
I couldn't agree with you more. But I think it's pretty obvious, whether you're watching a chef, a basketball player, a folksinger, or Ellery Eskelin, that you can tell who's really got the goods, even if you're not familar with the medium at hand. I think people who don't know from classical piano can tell the difference between Liberace (who could actually play real well when he forgot he was in showbiz) and Glenn Gould. The thing I took away from the punk aesthetic -- which I grew up in -- was that good execution really separated the men from the boys. I'm not talking about execution in terms of gnat-notes. I'm talking about clarity. What did Gang of Four and the Jam each have that outshined so much of what was around 'em? The ability to put the idea across clearly. If you don't think Ikue Mori has that, you're nuts.
Speaking of which, I'll shut up now, albeit with the last parting thought: I'm bothered by your view (as I received it) that in order to appreciate something's "precision", "reliability",and quality, in the context of it's technique, then something NEEDS to be codified from the get go. There is plenty of music that is interesting to listeners, esp. critical listeners, BECAUSE of its total lack of constancy in precision and unreliability in terms of cleanness.
I think some things should be codified, if I am paying to encounter them. I don't want the Lakers to hire just anyone. I want Laker-quality on the court, just like when I go see Ellery I want the sidemen to be up to the job. I want a certain standard of quality attatched to the name. The Lakers, Cecil Taylor, Raymond Carver -- we're talking about people whose technique is formidable enough that when intuition steps to the fore, technique is there to support it and carry it through to its highest available conclusion.
Furthermore, how on earth are we to know whether a person's ideas are effectively, much less cleanly and precisely, being comunicated in their music? We can't read their minds. Interference happens along the way, certainly between instrument and listener, btu also between perfromer and instrument.
True in the sense of a singular enounter, but ask yourself this -- how long do these people stay in business if they can't offer it up reliably? What Sun Ra played was not arbitrary. If he muddled his articulation , it's because he was going for something less specific. Artistic impulse without craftsmanship is pissing in the wind and hoping the weather doesn't blow it back on you.
But you never actually said that music had to have technique. It just seems that when the T-word is used, it applies to widely-understood and codified systems of _techniques_. When we say "technique", we aren't just referring to a specific type of motion/approach/attack, we are speaking of a general body of such motions, we are referring to a person's entire method as judged against predetermined standards.
Being able to express yourself on your instrument (no matter what the instrument) with a minimum of compromise between conception and execution is a pretty fair standard to apply across that board, I think. I feel that much to be universal. Conception is a personal thing and you can't really impose a yardstick on it. What Hank Shocklee concieves is probably different from what Oscar Peterson concieves. But the level of craft on both parts is high.
But I'm pretty with your comments on arranging. They apply crucially to experimental composers like Bernhard Guenter, even more than they would to someone like Duke Ellington (whose experiments have had much longer to soak into our collective thinking).
Just wait til the world catches up to Dorothy Wiggin. sh NP: NUGGETS (v/a)
I couldn't agree with you more. But I think it's pretty obvious, whether you're watching a chef, a basketball player, a folksinger, or Ellery Eskelin, that you can tell who's really got the goods, even if you're not familar with the medium at hand. I think people who don't know from classical piano can tell the difference between Liberace (who could actually play real well when he forgot he was in showbiz) and Glenn Gould.<<<
If you don't think Ikue Mori has that, you're nuts.<<<
Interesting observations from one who puts the audience as final arbitrator in the assessment of the quality of art. Now 'who' is it that 'really has the goods?' Glenn Gould and Ikue Mori. And if the audience doesn't think so, the audience is nuts.
on 7/7/02 1:47 PM, s~Z at keithsz@concentric.net wrote:
If you don't think Ikue Mori has that, you're nuts.<<<
Interesting observations from one who puts the audience as final arbitrator in the assessment of the quality of art. Now 'who' is it that 'really has the goods?' Glenn Gould and Ikue Mori. And if the audience doesn't think so, the audience is nuts.
I by no means said those were the only two. But they are each very, very formidable, and to deny either of them that would be nuts, and I believe that without reservation. Secondly, with regard to Ikue, chose her as an example of someone whose musciality -- because of her instrument -- has not been given full credit, because how you play it involves techniques that are less apparent than those applied to a horn or piano. But I think the audience -- espec one that claims to be more enlightened than the audience for more popular music -- has the final say. has to. They're the body to whom the stuff is communicated. Without an audience, an artust is talking to a wall, Incidentally, out of that whole email, I'm surprised that this is own the only part with which you took issue. skip h
on 7/7/02 11:41 AM, thesubtlebody at thesubtlebody@yahoo.com wrote:
Skip, I don't like the way you've overdetermined what constitutes "technique", it's like you're courting predictability or manageability of aesthetics. Reliable? Who wants music that is "reliably" "precise", in just about _any_ sense of that word?
If I pay money for music -- or sports, for that matter -- I want to be assured of a certain amount of quality control. Yes, I want unexpected results. But I also want guys who are in shape for any challenge they may face.
I personally don't need more than a short tape of Ramones precisely because they were so, um, "reliable".
Sort tape or no, they hit and never miss.
Nothing is wrong with an artist basically doing one thing, workkking with one vocabulary, and even then with a vocabulary that she didn't invent, but refining is refining, and the examples Biill gave (SachikoM and John Wall) would seem to me to be pretty far from refining, more about defining. As they define what can be done with their chosen materials, they are establishing the very grounds of what is "good" and what "isn't". Aren't you saying that something is done well or it isn't, and pretty much falls on the spectrum, from the get-go, from the moment someone's ears receive it? I don't think it's decided like that. Gene Ammons was good because of the tradition he was working within, and the way his abundant personality just burst its walls in hurry to get out of that horn; John Hartford and Bill Evans were wonderful because of the way they made acceptable and even natural the "unnatural" way they bumped up against the inner membrane walls of their respective genres, allowed for cross-pollination from other places.
I see what you're saying, but you I think just made my point for me. Gene Ammons (believe it or not), Bill Evans, and John Hartford were each technicians of the highest order. I don't think any of them would have had the impact they had on their respective instruments if they weren't each masters. Certainly they would not have been able to impose their personalities so strongly if they weren't each in posession of a technique in good enough shape to take whatever they heard in their heads and manifest it as stuff their fingers could act on at will.
SachikoM and John Wall work very similarly, with very few important differances, but among those differences, the implicit call for listeners to walk to tightrope, with little to hold on to. It's confrontation in a way, where the initial, natural response of the listener is, "I don't even know if this is music or not, much less whether it is good. By the way, what is "good"? What do I mean by that?" Then, of course, it's a short jump to "What does ANYONE mean by 'good'?" The effect, at its best, for me at least, is the euphoria of independence, it's that punk-ass feeling: total freedom to listen, clean ears, a form of baptism, taking that first breath back above the surface. Really bad experimental music (IMHO) makes me feel like I'm being lectured.
I couldn't agree with you more. But I think it's pretty obvious, whether you're watching a chef, a basketball player, a folksinger, or Ellery Eskelin, that you can tell who's really got the goods, even if you're not familar with the medium at hand. I think people who don't know from classical piano can tell the difference between Liberace (who could actually play real well when he forgot he was in showbiz) and Glenn Gould. The thing I took away from the punk aesthetic -- which I grew up in -- was that good execution really separated the men from the boys. I'm not talking about execution in terms of gnat-notes. I'm talking about clarity. What did Gang of Four and the Jam each have that outshined so much of what was around 'em? The ability to put the idea across clearly. If you don't think Ikue Mori has that, you're nuts.
Speaking of which, I'll shut up now, albeit with the last parting thought: I'm bothered by your view (as I received it) that in order to appreciate something's "precision", "reliability",and quality, in the context of it's technique, then something NEEDS to be codified from the get go. There is plenty of music that is interesting to listeners, esp. critical listeners, BECAUSE of its total lack of constancy in precision and unreliability in terms of cleanness.
I think some things should be codified, if I am paying to encounter them. I don't want the Lakers to hire just anyone. I want Laker-quality on the court, just like when I go see Ellery I want the sidemen to be up to the job. I want a certain standard of quality attatched to the name. The Lakers, Cecil Taylor, Raymond Carver -- we're talking about people whose technique is formidable enough that when intuition steps to the fore, technique is there to support it and carry it through to its highest available conclusion.
Furthermore, how on earth are we to know whether a person's ideas are effectively, much less cleanly and precisely, being comunicated in their music? We can't read their minds. Interference happens along the way, certainly between instrument and listener, btu also between perfromer and instrument.
True in the sense of a singular enounter, but ask yourself this -- how long do these people stay in business if they can't offer it up reliably? What Sun Ra played was not arbitrary. If he muddled his articulation , it's because he was going for something less specific. Artistic impulse without craftsmanship is pissing in the wind and hoping the weather doesn't blow it back on you.
But you never actually said that music had to have technique. It just seems that when the T-word is used, it applies to widely-understood and codified systems of _techniques_. When we say "technique", we aren't just referring to a specific type of motion/approach/attack, we are speaking of a general body of such motions, we are referring to a person's entire method as judged against predetermined standards.
Being able to express yourself on your instrument (no matter what the instrument) with a minimum of compromise between conception and execution is a pretty fair standard to apply across that board, I think. I feel that much to be universal. Conception is a personal thing and you can't really impose a yardstick on it. What Hank Shocklee concieves is probably different from what Oscar Peterson concieves. But the level of craft on both parts is high.
But I'm pretty with your comments on arranging. They apply crucially to experimental composers like Bernhard Guenter, even more than they would to someone like Duke Ellington (whose experiments have had much longer to soak into our collective thinking).
Just wait til the world catches up to Dorothy Wiggin. sh NP: NUGGETS (v/a)
participants (3)
-
skip Heller -
s~Z -
thesubtlebody