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Zorn List Digest         Tuesday, May 12 1998         Volume 02 : Number 365



In this issue:
-
       BECK / UNAUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTION OF SOUND RECORDINGS
       Hendrix
       Re: BECK / UNAUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTION OF SOUND RECORDINGS
       Re: Masada in SF
       Re[2]: Cage
       [none]
       Re: Why Zorn (or anyone else?)
       Re: Why Zorn (or anyone else?)
       Re: Why Zorn (long)
       Re: BECK / UNAUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTION OF SOUND RECORDINGS
       Re: Sharp/Arthur (2)

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

Date: 11 May 98 16:50:31 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Robert C. Auten)
Subject: BECK / UNAUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTION OF SOUND RECORDINGS

Just reminding you all that you can get copies (for only 5 bucks, inc.
shipping) by mailing:  [e-mail]  The disc is awesome, believe
me.


And no I have nothing to do w/ this, just proud that a fellow student could
cause all this brouhaha.


Tom Pratt, youre taken care of, btw.


rob

- -

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

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 14:19:12 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Dragon -------- Frog)
Subject: Hendrix

I was in my car and suddenly and unexpectedly Hendrix was coming out of
my speakers via an NPR station.

I felt tempted to put lighter fluid to my CD collection and never say
another word about music.

Philosophize all you like.

But, give me Jimi.

DG Sinner

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- -

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

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 15:13:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: SUGAR in their vitamins? <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: BECK / UNAUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTION OF SOUND RECORDINGS

On Mon, 11 May 1998, Patrice L. Roussel wrote:

> I hope for them that it won't be the case, because if it is really the way
> things end up, the affair will be immediately closed and they won't have
> any reasons to complain and act like martyrs.

LOL!

well, i spoke with one of the
participants the other week and
apparently the cease and desist
letter was just a matter of course.
Geffen doesn't plan to enforce
or persue the matter. it's
probably a disappointment for
Mr. Hostler, though. he wanted a court
battle so they could, once and for all,
have a definitive court decision
ala 2 Live Crew, setting a legal
precident for his battle against
the copyright law.

hasta.

Yes.  Beautiful, wonderful nature.  Hear it sing to us: *snap*  Yes.  natURE.


- -

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

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 18:21:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gauthier Michelle A <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Masada in SF

Hey Mike,


    Yes-- this is only one show that John decided to do at the last
minute.  Not a tour.  This was pretty much decided only within the past
week!  I'm not sure who will be playing exactly yet... but it should be
nice.


m.

On Mon, 11 May 1998, m. rizzi wrote:

>
> Yesterdays paper had an advert for a Masada concert at Slim's
> in San Francisco on May 30th.
>
> Is this a one-off gig (like last weeks NYC shows) or part
> of a tour?
>
> mike
>
> -
> [e-mail] -------------------------------------- www.browbeat.com
>                    "Another nerd with a soulpatch"
> -------- browbeat magazine, po box 11124, oakland, ca 94611-1124 -------
>
> -
>
>


- -

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

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 17:02:03 UT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re[2]: Cage

<<
At 09:21 PM 5/8/98 PDT, you wrote:
>In which recording I find Cage's "4'33''"?
>Thank you,
>Juan


Why not just perform it for yourself?
>>

I would agree.  Walk outside and perform it yourself.
Cage talks in later literature about how he performs it occasionally when he's
out doing one of his mushroom gatherings or anything else.

I've done it a number of times, the most powerful of which was when my wife was
in labor in the triage room and hooked up to the fetal heart monitor.  The room
was so still and the only sound was this intense, liquidy bulbous, rhythmic
zoom.  Not to mention that particular performance had immense emotional value.

I've done it in other places too.  I like empty buildings and stairwells.  Those
are my favorites.  Places that echo and have interesting mechanical noises.  Old
factories or printing shops.  Stuff like that.

The key is to realize that you're listening and to just stop and listen and
appreciate.  If you done that, you've performed the piece, at least how Cage
interpreted it later on.

PeterR

- -

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

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 18:19:15 -0600
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [none]

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Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 01:41:28 +0200
To: [e-mail]
From: Benjamin Pequet <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Sharp/Alice (1)
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George <[e-mail]> wrote:

>Oooh, baby,  I thought I had said all I could, but I realize there's a
>bit more, mostly for clarification.  But I also want to take the

Alright, my understanding indeed is that most of what you add in your las=
t
posts don't add much to what's been said already. In what you answer
directly to me I often feel like you say what I said already or you phras=
e
exactly what I tried to articulate - so I think we finally got somewhere.
And for now I don't feel like I have much to add. I am glad Joseph
<[e-mail]> joined and gave new impulses and clarifications.

Dammit, have you noticed how ironic it is that the humansystems joins the
conversation and answers to the decisionanalytics of George ?=20

I don't want to quote everything you write and with which I agree George.
Simply to say that I agree wholeheartedly. Nor quote what I can't agree
with and actually repeat what I said already, why I can't agree with you =
on
these ones.=20
Just two or three points, for the sake of being complete I guess, not for
having the last word or something like that.=20

>But we do have choices.  Don't listen to the radio, don't watch MTV,
>don't read the music press.  Explore/Listen/Decide for yourself.  It's
>not a perfect world and not every musician with something worth saying
>gets their worl distributed, but enough do to provide a huge humber of
>choices for active, dedicated listeners.

I join Joseph on his comments to that. And George what you write there is=
 a
bit optimistic I think.=20
But that is merely the point I defend from the beginning, we do have
choices, we do have to make choices. And that's politics in the way that
you finally admitted in your answer to Joseph, we all agree.=20

>> I think you chose to take a definition of what is political and what i=
s not
>> that is less inclusive than mine. In my sense then you don't make a
>> political choice when you think you are making one. But I understand t=
hat
>> you are logical with your way of looking at things.
>>
>
>Benjamin, your definitions or politics and the "post-modern society" are
>so broad and thin that they mean nothing to me.  By defining everything
>as politicial and post-modern you allow nothing to exist outside those
>definitions, allow no opposition with which to sharpen your definition.
>It's circular reasoning; everything is politicial, even the things you
>don't consider political - that choice alone is political.  It's
>tautology and it doesn't hold.

Actually I don't remember posting my definitions of politics or
post-modernism on this list (mainly for the two reasons that I feel I mis=
s
theoretic background of what's been said and written on the topic already=
,
to feel free to post it as 'mine' and that it's not really the point of
this list to get too theoretical, I assumed would lead a bit far and you
would accuse me of talking philosophy and not facts). Okay it probably di=
d
lead us to misunderstandings.
Whatever. I just want to point to the fact that you tell me that my
definitions don't hold but I didn't give my definitions. What I did is I
made statements and I based my statements on what for me was political an=
d
what for me was post-modern. And I explained, I said why for me something
was political or not and I put what you were saying in relation to that.
But I never gave a definition here as such.=20
In clear you can't sum up what I said to the 'everything is in everything=
'
like you seem to do here. I think I've been a bit more subtle than that.
But it's true I don't ask you to follow me that far. =20

>  It's not a shield, Benjamin, one doesn't have to be a musician to
>express and informed opinion.  I'm trying to make clear and emphasize
>that for me, my feelings about music are much more strongly aesthetic
>and craft-oriented that political, something that my training as a
>musician has influenced.  You see that as a political statement, but as
>I write above, seeing EVERYTHING as political makes nothing worth any
>politicial currency.  You harm your own views by by making such claims.

You are saying that we come from different backgrounds and look at things
from different angles. I understand and agree with all that you write,
except of course the last sentence.

>makes.  His ideas are purely aesthetic.  He is just writing music, which
>he describes as "neither tonal nor atonal."  It is what it is.  And he
>adds "the ironic theatricalizing of the past that is post-modernism is
>quite foreign to me."  The guy just wants to make music, free of
>politics and theory.  And he has done so, regardless of how wrong you
>could tell him he is, Benjamin.  This is a long way of saying "Speak for
>yourself," don't presume to describe how music is for everyone.

Same thing. It would be very stupid of me to say Ligeti is wrong. We're n=
ot
talking about the same thing. Or we're talking about the same thing with
different words. Or with the same words, but with different acceptions. I
never said Ligeti is wrong. I didn't know the text you were referring to.=
=20


INTERLUDE

- - When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it
means just what I choose it to mean neither more or less.=20
- - The question is, said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many
different things.=20
- - The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master - that=92s a=
ll.=20
Lewis Carroll









- -

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

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 21:53:18 -0400
From: Brian Olewnick <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Why Zorn (or anyone else?)

Jeff Schuth wrote:

>    I want to know how people listen to their music.

For me, not so much "how" as "why"? Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey,
author of the wonderful book, "Leaps of Faith" (a study of why people
feel the need to adopt supernatural belief systems), put it well when
asked, along with many others, for his most important unanswered
question: "Why is music such a pleasure?"

Now, there's a question!

Brian Olewnick

- -

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

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 19:05:21 PDT
From: "Jeff Schuth" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Why Zorn (or anyone else?)

>From [e-mail] Mon May 11 18:55:09 1998
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>
>Jeff Schuth wrote:
>
>>    I want to know how people listen to their music.
>
>For me, not so much "how" as "why"? Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey,
>author of the wonderful book, "Leaps of Faith" (a study of why people
>feel the need to adopt supernatural belief systems), put it well when
>asked, along with many others, for his most important unanswered
>question: "Why is music such a pleasure?"
>
>Now, there's a question!
>
Yeah, I think that is the more appropriate question Brian; I just found
it to be a difficult question to put into writing.  However, how music
is enjoyed might answer the question: "why is music such a pleasure?"
For people who say, music is personal and enjoyed on a personal level (I
agree with this), then why are certain albums or performers enjoyed  at
such a grand scale?  Or is that just hype?
>Brian Olewnick
>
>-
>
>


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

- -

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

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 22:28:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Christopher Hamilton <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Why Zorn (long)

On Mon, 11 May 1998, Jeff Schuth wrote:

>    I don't think that anyone got the point of my initial comment, so Ill
> just come out and say it: there is hardly any discussion here on the
> actual music.

I suspect the problem was that your original post was so broad.  It seems
unlikely that anyone enjoys music as different as _Locus Solus_ and
_Redbird_ for the same reasons.  Focusing on a specific work as you did in
this post might be more productive.

> Torture Garden can be listened to rather straight forward and
> for pure musical enjoyment--but how should one listen to Parachute
> years, which to many sounds like plain noise

Your choice of albums here is kind of amusing; _Torture Garden_ is pretty
darn noisy, and, while I think it's great stuff, it doesn't hit my
turntable nearly as often as the Parachute stuff hits my CD player.

     Having said that, I think free music and similar-sounding stuff is
usually best approached first as pure sound, without trying to
conceptualize it. I usually respond to this music physically, letting it's
rhythms jerk me around or tapping out little counterrhythms.  I bathe in
the textures.  If I can identify an sound source, I get vicarious pleasure
from the physical production of the sound (at least with certain
instruments).

     On a more conceptual level I listen for interaction, both between
players and between individual players and their earlier selves.  More
specifically with the Parachute material, I try to follow the structure of
the piece as best I can glean it from liner notes and experiences with
other game pieces. Sometimes I think about the performances' similarity to
other music I know: work by Stockhausen or Roscoe Mitchell for a lot of
this stuff.  Or I think about it in the context of Zorn's earlier and
later work.  And a lot of times I sit around and zone out or write to it,
treating it as ambient music.

     What I don't do with this music is slap a generic label on it and
understand it as an instance of a musical type with a prescribed reaction.
_Torture Garden_ (and, to a much greater extent, _Naked City_ and
_Radio_), it seems to me, require this sort of response to a large degree.
The music does its work by playing on that response.  For me, that pushing
of a very intellectual, conceptual aspect of the music to the foreground
short circuits my physical reaction, making it more difficult to listen
for pleasure.  But obviously I'm in the minority here; different people
get pleasure differently.  (Or maybe others find that the genre play makes
the visceral reaction easier?)

Chris Hamilton


- -

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

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 22:36:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Christopher Hamilton <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: BECK / UNAUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTION OF SOUND RECORDINGS

On Mon, 11 May 1998, Rich Williams wrote:

>     From what Ive heard about "Deconstructing Beck" it seems that it would
> easily fall under the category of Parody, and as such, would be
> protected from this kind of prosecution.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm under the impression that parody doesn't
constitute fair use of recorded material.  (The 2 Live Crew/Roy Orbison
case involved parodic use of Orbison's song not his recordings.)  If I'm
wrong, I'd like to be told about it.

Chris Hamilton


- -

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

Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 08:24:51 +0200
From: Benjamin Pequet <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Sharp/Arthur (2)

Joseph <[e-mail]> wrote :

>I think the point that some of us are making is that while the sheer
>sounds of the music are simply sounds, the means of making those sounds
>are deeply entangled in politics and economics -- but then, so is any
>interaction with other people, some of whom control resources (recording
>studios, instruments, performance spaces, publishing companies) that are
>necessary for absolutely any type of music to be heard (with the single
>exception of body-produced sounds made for whoever happens to be within
>earshot). Can you describe any situation, other than that exception (and
>the trivial case in which someone has written markings on paper intended
>to be turned into music but not yet realized), in which that is not the
>case?

and

>It's significant that each choice that you mention is a *negative*,
>choosing not to experience something that is out there already. Can we
>choose to listen to music that no one is performing?

This reminds me of comments made by and on Arthur Doyle after the release
of recordings he had made during his French incarceration, basically
recorded on a magnetophone, in the context of his isolation - and as he
states himself, from the material of his incarceration, explaining later in
the interview that his music exposes him to social incarceration anyway.
Making sense to you ? I would have to listen to that now (Songbook, on
Audible Hiss) and read the interviews again.

And what George <[e-mail]> replies:

>Allow me to qualify first; the means of writing a piece are determined
>by a composer, the means of making the sound of that music is another
>thing.  Our lives to begin with are deeply and irretrievably entangled
>in economics, and music is made out of the grist of people's lives.
>That entanglement is so intrinsic, however, that it it is no argument at
>all to say that all music is economic, it's a tautology.  Might as well
>say our lives our deeply entangled in eating and breathing and shitting
>and that therefore music is as well.  In fact, that is my personal view;
>I know my music is informed by eating and breathing and shitting becuase
>I want it to be, I don't want it to be informed by the economics of my
>life.

This reminds me of:
'I'd like to have the strength to write in this diary things of this kind:
today I shitted this way, I made love this way, I thought this of this or
that person, I wanked, I ate well, I laughed at this stupidity, at that
moment of the day I thought I had some genius, I was flattered by this or
that thing I got told, I hoped to be published in this magazine, by this
editor, I was scared by this thing, etc...'
Michel Leiris 'Journal', 1929

But whatever.
George:

>I have 1,000 CDs of music that will never be on MTV.  I have 1,000 CDs
>of music for which I've never read any reviews of whatsoever.  They are
>actual, physcially existing recordings, a positive presence.  Avoiding
>the mainstream, commercially controlled music media does not negate all
>music choices; there's other stuff out there; listen to those CDs, go to
>those concerts.  That's the "significance" of my choices; I feel like
>I'm having to state the stultifyingly obvious here.  As for your
>question, I'll leave that to the spirit of John Cage.

I'd like to have the strength, George.
Not to make you feel guilty or anything but I have a couple of cds. I can't
afford buying cds and it's been months that I can't even rent them anymore.
It's not really a choice you know.

Not to speak again of the limitations imposed on me by the medias for what
I will listen, I am dependent also on what concerts are programmed in my
country and in what city. I am very much dependent on the train schedules.
Which means I can go to almost nothing. And also I have to screen a great
deal of events lately because I can't pay for them anyway George... it's
true I can take a job that pays enough for me to save up for the cost of
performance, or put my energy into finding a source for funding, among
other methods, or may choose music I know will be cheaper... ).

Not only that the day has been long and that I am falling asleep now
(Joseph ! I think I hear sounds that are not sounded !).

More power to me !
Benjamin


> person/organization.  So a composer can take a job that pays enough for
> them to save up for the cost of performance, or put their energy into
> finding a source for funding, among other methods.  A composer may
> choose to write music they know will be cheaper to peform, but is NOT
> OBLIGATED TO DO SO.


- -

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

End of Zorn List Digest V2 #365
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