ftp.xmission.com/2014.06.ftp.xmission.com.tar/ftp.xmission.com/pub/lists/zorn-list/archive/v02.n319

Internet Message Format | 1998-04-08 | 21KB

From: [e-mail] (Zorn List Digest)
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Zorn List Digest V2 #319
Reply-To: zorn-list
Sender: [e-mail]
Errors-To: [e-mail]
Precedence: bulk


Zorn List Digest        Thursday, April 9 1998        Volume 02 : Number 319



In this issue:
-
       Re: wynton marsalis
       Re: Music Scores
       Re: wynton marsalis
       "put blood in the music"
       Re: Residents
       Re: Music Scores
       Re: wynton marsalis
       Re: wynton marsalis

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 12:33:34 -0800
From: George Grella <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: wynton marsalis

Peter Risser writes:


> I think what we've got here is the Music School vs. the Music Lover.  I've
> noticed a lot
> of music school people, who are very interested in learning a trade, ie: playing
> an intstrument,
> are NOT interested in expanding their musical experiences.  When they say
> someone like Wynton is a genius,
> it probably has everything to do with excellent technique and nothing to do with
> the reasons music
> lovers tend to listen to music: honesty, emotion, new ideas, interesting
> techniques, great tunes, etc.
>

I have to object to this, calmly, but strongly.  I am a music school
person, with instrumental training that began in my early teens that
culminated in a Masters in composition from a conservatory, and as such
a person, I can say that such a generalization is foolish and dead
wrong.  Music shool people spend their time, in years, and their money,
in tens of thousands of dollars, to do something they love.  If there is
a "trade" in playing instruments, then let me in on it, because myself
and many, many thousands of musicians would love to find these jobs.

The hundreds of "music shool" peers I've been around were expanding
their entire repertoire of musical skills; playing their instrument,
deepening their knowledge of theory and harmony and history, sharpening
their listening, their ensemble playing and their experience of the
entire repertoire of music.  The scope of music is so vast that no one
could become an expert in all of it, so of course people make their
choices as to what really moves them, but they learn to be musicians.
And as musicians, they are a lot more capable of hearing honesty,
emotion, new ideas, great tunes and especially interesting techniques
than "music lovers."  In all my years in musical life, 20 some now, I
have never seen the variety, depth and adventurousness in music that I
find in conservatory ANYWHERE in the public of "music lovers."

It's the "music lovers" whose dollars are supporting all the dishonest,
emotionless, trite, cliched and dull pop music [of all stripes and
styles] that deluges the world today.  It is the "music lovers" whose
dollars lead to the "top 40" programming of classical organizations like
the New York Phil [their new season schedule is just appalling,
seemingly dictated by the marketing department], while musicians gnash
their teeth in frustration over not getting anything that is risky.  And
it is the "music lovers" who find Wynton Marsalis a "genius," when to a
musician, her certainly is not.  Capable on his horn, yes, able to write
exceedingly derivative jazz pieces, yes . . . uninteresting to music
shool people, absolutely.

gg


- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 12:47:01 -0800
From: George Grella <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Music Scores

Michael Sherry writes:


> With Zorn's focus on music for films, has there been much discussion here
> about scores for movies?  I am not talking about the movie compilations
> using lots of different rock numbers but the more organic music composed
> for movies yet capable of standing on its own, such as the scores by
> Bernard Herrmann.  And can anyone recommend great movie scores from now
> or yesteryear?  I heard that Psycho and oddly enough seventh Voyage of
> Sinbad were particularly good.
>

There's a lot of great movie music out there, organic movie music, young
and old.  I'll try not to be too redundant with what other people
have/will say:

Herrmann is a giant, and there are many recordings available, including
collections which are great for movie music.  There's recent one on Sony
which includes suites from "Psycho," "Vertigo," "Fahrenheit 451" and
"Taxi Driver."  You can also get the complete "Vertigo" recording, which
is one of the greatest movie scores ever.  There's another collection on
RCA, and two on London, including one for science fiction movies; that
one has the "Sinbad" music as well as "Journey to the Center of the
Earth" and "The Day The Earth Stood Still," with it's eerie Theremin
part.  The RCA and other London CD have a lot of overlap; I would
recommend the Sony as covering them both.  There's also another
collection on Milan, but again, a lot of the same stuff [although it's
not the same conductor/orchestra each time, for whatever that's worth].

There's two collections of Morricone themes, just the main themes alone,
on Virgin.  Plus you can also get his scores for many westerns and for
"The Mission," which should have won the Oscar [for original score,
Herbie Hancock was given the Oscar for arranging standards, and writing
no original music, for "'Round Midnight"].  Elmer Bernstein and Jerry
Goldsmith have been mentioned, I would add recordings of "The
Magnificent Seven" and "Chinatown" respectively, although good luck in
finding the latter; I had to pay $32 for an import LP a few years ago.

Marco Polo lable has a series of new recordings of movie music,
including Delarue's work for Truffaut and a couple CDs of Arthur
Honnegger's work for several movies.  There's famous film music by
Prokofiev and Shostakovich, of course.  Ry Cooder has done a lot of geat
music for Walter Hill; "Trespass" has been recommended, and maybe
someday we'll all be able to get "The Long Riders" CD.  There's also two
recent recordings work by Howard Shore for "Naked Lunch," with Ornetter,
and "Crash."

Soundtracks, not just the pop-marketed stuff, are becoming a bigger part
of music sales, so that means that there is more and more stuff
available, fortunately.

gg


- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 16:43:27 -0400
From: "Chris Barrett" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: wynton marsalis

>Peter Risser writes:
>> I think what we've got here is the Music School vs. the Music Lover.
>>
>George Grella writes:
>I have to object to this, calmly, but strongly.  I am a music school
>person, with instrumental training that began in my early teens that
>culminated in a Masters in composition from a conservatory, and as such
>a person..........

>And as musicians, they are a lot more capable of hearing honesty,
>emotion, new ideas, great tunes and especially interesting techniques
>than "music lovers."  In all my years in musical life, 20 some now, I
>have never seen the variety, depth and adventurousness in music that I
>find in conservatory ANYWHERE in the public of "music lovers." >etc.

I think we have a couple of point of views that are too absolute.  I have
been a musician for over 15 years, but with very limited formal training.
My father had extensive formal training and over his twenty year career (he
hasn't played professionally much in the last 15 years or so) included
stints most notably with Buddy Rich among others.  He definitely had much
more formal training than I did, and was a much more accomplished musician
in almost every way than I was at the same age, and still much more than I
am currently.  My point is this, he has little to no appreciation for much
adventurous music.  He has evolved into a fan of (shudder) Kenny G among
others.  Granted Buddy Rich was not really much of an innovator, but I'm
trying to prove a point that really, music schooling doesn't really make
the difference in someone's ability to appreciate different types of music.


My biggest issue is with a key component of George's argument, which seems
to imply that only a conservatory (or similarly formally) trained musician
can truly appreciate (good/adventurous) music, and that "music loving"
non-musicians like only "crap" (or at least shallow "top 40").  Let me know
if I interpreted this wrong.  If I didn't, then I have to completely
disagree.

I have many friends who do not know the first thing about music who love a
wide variety of music, much of which, after seeing everyone's lists,  is
appreciatedon this list.  I also have known formally trained musicians
(some very amazing players) who only appreciate or recognize a narrow area
of music.

Ultimately my point is this...music training in itself does not teach one
everything about music, in fact all it does teach you in many ways is how
to express yourself in a way  that others will understand you.  Knowing
where a piece changes key, how it modulates, what time signature its in, or
any number of different possibilities does not mean you are going to like
or even understand the composer's intent in the same way that not knowing
those things does not mean you cannot like a piece of music.  I've always
felt that musicians, as a whole, can be quite elitist about that fact.
I've also felt that musicians often do not always have the best ears when
it comes to hearing a complete piece of music (as opposed to a cool part or
modulation or whatever).  I think this is most obvious when you speak of
the Steve Vai's and other shred/rock players or the Spyro Gyras and  Dave
Weckyls or whatever.

I guess in the end I'm trying to say that just cuz you're a monster on your
intrument it don't mean you automatically got taste too and just cuz you
don't know nuthin 'bout the formal structure of music don't mean you don't
understand the music -- you just might have difficulty expressing your
understanding to others. (whew)

- -Chris

"Anyone can enjoy music, it's disliking it that takes training"  - Philip
K. Dick



- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 17:38:45 -0400
From: [e-mail]
Subject: "put blood in the music"

>There is some footage of this floating around. It was a part of a
>documentary called "Put Blood In The Music" that was aired on PBS about
>10 years ago. Besides the Spy vs Spy clip, there is a scene shot inside
>Zorn's apartment as he goes through his LP collection.

does anybody have a copy of this? please respond privately. thanks
                                                                jason


[e-mail]


- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 16:38:09 -0500
From: Phil Plencner <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Residents

Well, I happen to like the CD with both Duck Stab and Buster & Glen on it a lot.  It has
the song contantinople on it, plus other great songs like Bach Is Dead,Birthday Boy and
Sinister Exaggerator (later covered by Primus on Misc. Debris...by the way I think a lot
of the vocals on Duck Stab, among other Residents albums, sounds similar to how Les
Claypool sings...)

The album FingerPrince is also quite good.  I happen to like the 6 movement "ballet"
called Six Things To A Cycle.  Its mostly percussion and weird vocals.
For a broad overview of the Residents, the 2CD "Our Tired, Our Poor, Our Huddled Masses"
collection is quite nice.  It has a lot of their early "classic" stuff as well as some of
their newer works.  Many of the albums were put onto this collection in the form of what
they call a "Concentrate".  They take portions of the original album and paste it
together into one continous song.  I think it works pretty well....

Phil



- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 15:10:32 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Dave Trenkel)
Subject: Re: Music Scores

My favorite movie scores, in no particular order:

Howard Shore: Dead Ringers, Music from the films of David Cronenburg -
George Grella mentions "Naked Lunch" and "Crash", which are both excellent,
but this disc is essential for the material from "Scanners", massively
creepy electronics and strings. Shore is a fantastic comnposer.

Jerry Goldsmith: Planet of the Apes - Generally I think Goldsmith is kind
of a hack, but this score, a serial piece for a percussion-heavy orchestra,
is pretty cool. Parts sound remarkably like Harry Partch.

Scott Johnson: Patty Hearst - I think this has been out of print for a
while, but it's a very cool piece interweaving vocal loops from the films
dialog with some very nice minimalist compostions.

Morricone: Hamlet - Morricone is great, what can I saw, this is perhaps my
favorite. For cheese value, find his score to "The Excorcist 2"

Carter Burwell: Fargo/Barton Fink - Burwell's elegant scores have always
seemed a bit out of place in the Coen Bro's films, but they stand on their
own very well.

Ry Cooder: Trespass - Yeah, I know it's not cool to like this on this list
since Zorn was screwed out of this score, but this, with Cooder, Jim
Keltner and Jon Hassell, is one of my favorite records of pure atmosphere,
if you program around the country and blues tunes at the end.

Uh oh, is this another top 20 thread in the making....

________________________________________________________
Dave Trenkel : [e-mail]  : www.peak.org/~improv/

"...there will come a day when you won't have to use
gasoline. You'd simply take a cassette and put it in
your car, let it run. You'd have to have the proper
type of music. Like you take two sticks, put 'em
together, make fire. You take some notes and rub 'em
together - dum, dum, dum, dum - fire, cosmic fire."
                                            -Sun Ra
________________________________________________________



- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 15:35:47 -0800
From: George Grella <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: wynton marsalis

Chris Barrett writes:


> My point is this, he has little to no appreciation for much
> adventurous music.  He has evolved into a fan of (shudder) Kenny G among
> others.  Granted Buddy Rich was not really much of an innovator, but I'm
> trying to prove a point that really, music schooling doesn't really make
> the difference in someone's ability to appreciate different types of music.
>
>
> My biggest issue is with a key component of George's argument, which seems
> to imply that only a conservatory (or similarly formally) trained musician
> can truly appreciate (good/adventurous) music, and that "music loving"
> non-musicians like only "crap" (or at least shallow "top 40").  Let me know
> if I interpreted this wrong.  If I didn't, then I have to completely
> disagree.
>

Yes, you did interpret me wrong.  What I saw and responded to was some
musical snobbery that I have seen too often and can't stand; this
fallacy that training and chops = no heart and no ears.  Garbage.  I
don't feel my expression was absolutist, because I don't feel that way,
but perhaps I expressed myself badly.  But I can say this, absolutely,
that for anyone who has any appreciation for music, musical training is
a good thing, any amount of it.  Personal taste may run to, and stick
to, Yngwie Malmsteen, but that's taste, and has nothing to do with being
a "music schooler" or a "music lover."  Which also gets to my point; you
can't denigrate taste in music, and bad music existing and people loving
it [whatever you feel is bad] by saying that the people who love bad
music are "schoolers" who can't hear what "lovers" can.  That was the
post, and that's my response, plain and simple.  Sorry if I indicated
that only trained musicians can be adventurous, I know that's not the
case; I was merely being hyperbolic.  But I don't feel it hyperbolic to
say that denigrating taste by excusing it as that of a "music schooler"
is on the same level of discourse as George Bush calling Dukakis a
"car-carrying member of the ACLU."  So what?  I can't stand Respighi and
Michael Nyman, what does that have to do with ear training and
dictation, theory and analysis, history, lessons and practicing,
orchestration, being required to know and play music of all centuries?
Does that mean I can't love music?  Tell me I can't.  I'll be paying off
my love of music for years to come.

gg


- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 18:59:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ken Waxman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: wynton marsalis

I think what Chris was trying to address is the concept among SOME
trained msuicians that only they can understand exactly what's happening
in certain musics. The sort of falacy that you really aren't appreciating
Jim Hall or Ed Bickert or whomever because you don't realize that he just
snuck a quote in from "Hothouse" in the middle of bar 23 of "God Bless the
Child" (just made that up for a bad, quick example).

The other fallacy when it comes to some sort of music, including
the creative, improvised stuff we like, is that only critics and "fans"
can't appreciate it, "true" musicians have the training to know what's
going on.

This is particularly funny when you recall that the main people who put
down both Monk and the early avant garde were musicians of the older
school -Roy Eldridge, Kenny Dorham, Andre Previn, Sonny Stitt, Buddy
DeFranco etc. My supposition was because they how the instrument SHOULD
sound when they heard Ayler or Monk or whomever not making those sounds,
they felt they couldn't properly be playing music.

I have more faith in the many people I know who have no musicial
training, but who like or dislike certain musics because they reach
them on a visceral level.

Ken Waxman
[e-mail]











On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, George Grella wrote:

> Chris Barrett writes:
>
>
> > My point is this, he has little to no appreciation for much
> > adventurous music.  He has evolved into a fan of (shudder) Kenny G among
> > others.  Granted Buddy Rich was not really much of an innovator, but I'm
> > trying to prove a point that really, music schooling doesn't really make
> > the difference in someone's ability to appreciate different types of music.
> >
> >
> > My biggest issue is with a key component of George's argument, which seems
> > to imply that only a conservatory (or similarly formally) trained musician
> > can truly appreciate (good/adventurous) music, and that "music loving"
> > non-musicians like only "crap" (or at least shallow "top 40").  Let me know
> > if I interpreted this wrong.  If I didn't, then I have to completely
> > disagree.
> >
>
> Yes, you did interpret me wrong.  What I saw and responded to was some
> musical snobbery that I have seen too often and can't stand; this
> fallacy that training and chops = no heart and no ears.  Garbage.  I
> don't feel my expression was absolutist, because I don't feel that way,
> but perhaps I expressed myself badly.  But I can say this, absolutely,
> that for anyone who has any appreciation for music, musical training is
> a good thing, any amount of it.  Personal taste may run to, and stick
> to, Yngwie Malmsteen, but that's taste, and has nothing to do with being
> a "music schooler" or a "music lover."  Which also gets to my point; you
> can't denigrate taste in music, and bad music existing and people loving
> it [whatever you feel is bad] by saying that the people who love bad
> music are "schoolers" who can't hear what "lovers" can.  That was the
> post, and that's my response, plain and simple.  Sorry if I indicated
> that only trained musicians can be adventurous, I know that's not the
> case; I was merely being hyperbolic.  But I don't feel it hyperbolic to
> say that denigrating taste by excusing it as that of a "music schooler"
> is on the same level of discourse as George Bush calling Dukakis a
> "car-carrying member of the ACLU."  So what?  I can't stand Respighi and
> Michael Nyman, what does that have to do with ear training and
> dictation, theory and analysis, history, lessons and practicing,
> orchestration, being required to know and play music of all centuries?
> Does that mean I can't love music?  Tell me I can't.  I'll be paying off
> my love of music for years to come.
>
> gg
>
>
> -
>
>

- -

------------------------------

End of Zorn List Digest V2 #319
*******************************


 To unsubscribe from zorn-list-digest, send an email to
       "[e-mail]"
 with
       "unsubscribe zorn-list-digest"
 in the body of the message.

 For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send
 "help" to the same address.  Do not use quotes in your message.

 A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
 subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "zorn-list-digest"
 in the commands above with "zorn-list".

 Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from ftp.xmission.com, in
 pub/lists/zorn-list/archive.  These are organized by date.

 Problems? Email the list owner at [e-mail]