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Zorn List Digest       Wednesday, March 27 2002       Volume 03 : Number 860



In this issue:
-
       Re: music defined (indeterminacy)
       Re: music defined (indeterminacy)
       Re: music defined (indeterminacy)
       Re: was floodgates part II
       new ZU cd???
       Re: music defined (indeterminacy)
       Re: music defined (indeterminacy)
       Re: john cage - floodgates part II
       solo guitar
       OT:
       Re: john cage - floodgates part II
       Re: music defined (indeterminacy)
       Re: music defined (indeterminacy)
       Re: well well well
       Re: solo guitar
       FRED FRITH comments on NAKED CITY LIVE CD

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 10:45:32 -0800
From: skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy)

on 3/27/02 11:06 AM, Michael Berman at [e-mail] wrote:

> well then any person encountering random sounds can determine its music if
> they hear it as such, which just made the 'audience' the 'artist'.   no?

Ideally, yes -- or at least an equal participant in the process.  No
trashing required.

(This, BTW, was the situation Glenn Gould spoke of as ideal)

skip h


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 10:42:49 -0800
From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy)

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 13:53:26 -0500  "Michael Berman" wrote:
>
> but this was just the Dada response to that type of view- for Duchamp and I
> think influenced Cage. the sky or a unirinal is art if you say it is, sign
> it or present it as such.  thus random sound, bird chirping, SILENCE with
> random audience noise is music if presented as such.

And we all know how serious Dada was, right? At least it has allowed people
to build a career on its spirit. Duchamp might have enjoyed that :-).

    Patrice.

- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 10:48:06 -0800
From: skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy)

von 3/27/02 10:27 AM, Patrice L. Roussel at [e-mail] wrote:

> Like I said, we have two words (sound and music) to qualify two different
> things.
>
> I love listening to the sound of water running down a river, but I do not
> call that music. It is a pleasant sound.
>
> If the sound of squeaky wipers is used in a musical context, that's another
> story. But by themselves, they are just sounds, usually the clue that you
> are in your car waiting for the rain to stop.
>

I'll give you a convoluted ntion of why I think this.

When I was eight or nine, I used to take piano lessons, and we would drive
to the lessons in my mother's 1963 Thunderbird.  If you know Philadelphia,
then you know that spring has a patch of full-tilt downpours.

If you know 1963 T-Birds, you're likely aware that the track that houses the
windshield wiper blades is paper thin.  Somehow, the passenger side blade
got slightly bent one way, the driver side, slightly another.

The result was that the left-right motion of the wipers was given to
non-regularity.  But the left wiper (which seemed to move first) would have
a low-end thump (like a kickdrum), then, as the wipers dragged across the
glass, a few bumpy sounds, ending with the right blade making a high-pitched
moaning sound (as squeeges make).  The length of the "phrase" would vary,
depending on how hard it was raining or if we hit a puddle, but the phrases
were all tracable and had accents, would occur in a random pattern, but
there was certainly a stock of repeating patterns and it got to a point
where I could recognize most of them.  I could notate them all (I heard 'em
so many times).

Now, I sensed these things as musical patterns.  They weren't designed as
music by any stretch of the imagination.  But I processed them as music.
And, if you heard my attempts at the piano, you would agree that these
patterns were infinitely more musical than the Beethoven that followed.

skip h


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 13:37:50 -0600
From: Joseph Zitt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: was floodgates part II

On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 10:11:32AM -0800, skip Heller wrote:
> on 3/27/02 10:56 AM, Joseph Zitt at [e-mail] wrote:
>
> > I tend to use opportunities for more concentrated listening for the newer or
> > more challenging recordings.
>
> Just what does "challenging" mean? I'm not being obtuse, either.  What's the
> challenge offered?

It's those where I get the feeling that there's something happening that
I'm not getting, or that I want to explore more deeply (often as
a way of learning to improve my own work).

The former case is often when I am following the recommendation of
someone whose tastes I respect. If, for example, you or Steve Smith
would recommend something highly and, on first listen, I couldn't hear
it in the music, I would often make a point to listen again with
greater concentration to hear more clearly what was going on. The
latter would be, for example, a closer listening to a dense work to
hear what the parts were doing (I spent some itme yesterday dissecting
an Ornette Coleman recording to hear how the pieces fit together,
which was revealing -- there was a lot more interconnection that I had
heard at first) or, in another case, listening to a sparer piece, such
as a Meredith Monk solo, to hear how it was put together.

- --
| [e-mail]           http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt |
| New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems        |
|                            http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html |
| Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls  http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt |
| Comma: Voices of New Music    Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 18:49:08 +0000
From: "Arthur Gadney" <[e-mail]>
Subject: new ZU cd???

Hey guys,

has anybody heard the new ZU cd "IGNEA" which was released recently???

As you might recall Zorn was very tripped out by their debut CD "Bromio" a
few years ago and called it the coolest new thing around. I thought it was
great, but think they might be capable of more...!!

Cheers,

NP: Johnny cahs early stuff
NR: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-creationscience.htm




_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 18:52:21 +0000
From: "Kurt Gottschalk" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy)

for what it's worth, the role of randomness is often overplayed within
cage's music. it is central, but it's not the sole factor. he said that his
role is deciding what questions to ask, and that the answers were already
computed on stacks of paper on his desk.

those answers are the radomly generated patterns, set up through i ching,
coin toss, inconsistent surfaces on sheets of paper, etc.

but cage is not the litmus test, nor the lowest common denominator, for what
is or isn't music. and this conversation is (no offense) proving my initial
point. arguing about the definition is semantics; arguing about good or bad
is the boogie stop shuffle. someone could say 'those crickets are very
musical,' no? so would you say that something could be musical without being
music? yes, you could, and i can see how the argument would go, but is that
the most interesting thing there is to talk about about music?

to rely again on the whipping post, some of cage's stuff is really
beautiful. some of it is annoying. although i wouldn't usually use such
terms, for purposes here, i would defend some of it as 'good' and call some
'bad.' what makes it good or bad (to me)? again, that's where lie the
import.

"sounding constructed" is not necessary to me, but then i like alot of
improv (something cage deplored). "sounding communicative" internally/or
externally (that is, among players or toward myself) is more important, but
still not necessary. and neither of those terms are easily defined either.

good music is sounds what sound good to me when i hears 'em.

kg

_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:07:14 -0500
From: Mark Saleski <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy)

i've always thought that music is an ears-of-the-beholder sort of thing.
this is closer to what skip is getting at.

didn't zappa say something like that? if you perceive something as
music, then that's what it is.

the problem with requiring that a conscious mind be behind the
organization of sounds is that it requires the listener to "get it". for
me, i may indeed "get" something...it just might not be what the
composer had in mind.

Patrice:


>I am not sure that I follow you. If the sounds are manipulated and organized
>that's getting close to music.

>My point was more against the philosophy that *ANY* sound is music. For me
>there is a need for a conscious mind behind the sounds (preparing, organizing,
>ordering them, etc) for the sounds to become music.


skip:

>Now, I sensed these things as musical patterns.  They weren't designed as
>music by any stretch of the imagination.  But I processed them as music.
>And, if you heard my attempts at the piano, you would agree that these
>patterns were infinitely more musical than the Beethoven that followed.


- --
Mark Saleski - [e-mail] | http://www.foliage.com/~marks
"Music is spiritual. The music business is not." - Van Morrison



- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 13:51:44 -0600
From: Joseph Zitt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: john cage - floodgates part II

On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 10:18:56AM -0800, Patrice L. Roussel wrote:
>
> On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 12:56:36 -0600  Joseph Zitt wrote:
> >
> > that doesn't apply. (OTOH, while I disagree with the repeating riffs
> > that William Winant does at points, I notice that he did the same when
> > performing the piece *with* Cage, as recorded on "John Cage at
> > Summerstage", which I think you'd enjoy.)
>
> There is a sweet statement from Joelle Leandre in one of the last THE WIRE
> issues (her blindfold test). It is about Cage using melody.

I haven't seen it -- shops out here don't tend to carry The Wire, so I
grab several months at once on infrequent trips to NYC, etc. What did
she say?

> Which means that there is only one bastion left: forcing Derek Bailey to
> acknowledge that his dream was to be a second Tom Jones.

In a world where John Zorn produces an album of Burt Bacharach covers,
anything is possible.

- --
| [e-mail]           http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt |
| New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems        |
|                            http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html |
| Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls  http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt |
| Comma: Voices of New Music    Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 19:03:11 +0000
From: "Arthur Gadney" <[e-mail]>
Subject: solo guitar

>For me, the ultimate solo guitar music have album is the first Doc Watson
>on
>Vanguard, or Rev Gary Davis' PURE RELIGION.

can you share a bit moer info or descriptions about this? I don't have the
slightst idea...

Cherrs,


NP: Still old Johnny Cash stuff. Too bad he sucks now.
NR: http://www.edge.org



_________________________________________________________________
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http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 19:04:52 +0000
From: "Arthur Gadney" <[e-mail]>
Subject: OT:

Hi!!

Anybody know anything about the band Hand Made Techno with Will Calhoun and
and occational Bill laswell collaborator Jaron Lanier?? They play around New
York City....

Thanks!!!

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 11:06:29 -0800
From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: john cage - floodgates part II

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 13:51:44 -0600  Joseph Zitt wrote:
>
> > There is a sweet statement from Joelle Leandre in one of the last THE WIRE
> > issues (her blindfold test). It is about Cage using melody.
>
> I haven't seen it -- shops out here don't tend to carry The Wire, so I
> grab several months at once on infrequent trips to NYC, etc. What did
> she say?

Cage had written something quite melodic and Joelle expressed some
amused surprise. Cage answered with his famous smile.

    Patrice.

- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 11:10:10 -0800
From: skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy)

on 3/27/02 11:07 AM, Mark Saleski at [e-mail] wrote:

> didn't zappa say something like that? if you perceive something as
> music, then that's what it is.
Zappa said "If it can be concived as music, it can be executed as music."

> the problem with requiring that a conscious mind be behind the
> organization of sounds is that it requires the listener to "get it". for
> me, i may indeed "get" something...it just might not be what the
> composer had in mind.

The composer is only the first step in the process, tho.  He may drive the
cab, but -- my opinion and only that -- the passengers are the ones who
decide whether or not they made it to an appropriate destination.

skip h


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 13:16:31 -0600
From: William Crump <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy)

Kurt Gottschalk wrote:

>   someone could say 'those crickets are very musical,' no? so would
> you say that something could be musical without being music? yes, you
> could, and i can see how the argument would go,

I think this answers Skip's question about the windshield wipers very
well. The wiper sounds were very musical, AS THOUGH THEY HAD BEEN
ORGANIZED AS MUSIC. Back to the definition of music I learned, I think
that the concept of "organization" of sound is very loose. If Skip,
having recognized the wiper sounds as musical, wanted to convey that
musicality to a friend, said, "Hey, listen to this cool rhythm track,"
and turned on the wipers, these sounds would change from being MUSICAL
to being MUSIC. The act of turning on the wipers is the act of
"organization of sounds and silences." I'm almost embarrassed to write
something so fundamentally obvious, except my wife and I argue
(pleasantly) about it all the time.

> but is that the most interesting thing there is to talk about about music?

Sure, sometimes. But sometimes it's that bass part, on that song, you
know the one -- on that album from 1970-something, right? -- that makes
me want to get all sweaty and nasty, but we won't go there.

William Crump




- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:06:44 -0600
From: Joseph Zitt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: well well well

On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 11:08:40AM -0600, William Crump wrote:

> Music = the organization of sounds and silences.

A good one, and it leaves open the issues of whether the organization
is done by the composer or (as in the case of listening to traffic and
rivers as music) the listener.

- --
| [e-mail]           http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt |
| New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems        |
|                            http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html |
| Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls  http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt |
| Comma: Voices of New Music    Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 11:21:15 -0800
From: skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: solo guitar

on 3/27/02 11:03 AM, Arthur Gadney at [e-mail] wrote:

>> For me, the ultimate solo guitar music have album is the first Doc Watson
>> on
>> Vanguard, or Rev Gary Davis' PURE RELIGION.
>
> can you share a bit moer info or descriptions about this? I don't have the
> slightst idea...
>
> Cherrs,
>

Doc Watson may be the ultimate guitar god.  He's fr North Carolina, and he
definitely was indoctrinated into the fiddle tune rep. that we associate
with that region. His flatpicking renditions of that stuff "Under The Double
Eagle" etc remain definitive, and are about as high and pure an expression
of the art of guitar as we have.  He was the one that legitimized the guitar
as a solong instrument in bluegrass, and guys like Clarence White and Norman
Blake rightfully idolize him.  He's up there with Earl Scruggs and Benny
Martin as an ultimate in that kind of improvising.

His fingerpicking is no less dazzling.  "Doc's Guitar" took the Merle Travis
style took a whole next plane, and "Deep River Blues" still ranks as
possibly the definitive fingerpicking performance on record.

He was discovered in the early sixties by the folkies who thought they had
found a pure, unaffected folk genius.  They were 2/3 right.  he'd been
playing electric guitar in Top 40 country bands thru the fifties.

I didn't mention he's blind since birth.  But -- if this tells you anything
about the his tendancy towards ingenuity -- he had the first house with
electricity in his county.  He did the wiring himself.

Gary Davis (also blind) was a huge influence on Fahey and just about any
other fingerpicker worth naming (Bromberg leaps to mind).  he had a kind of
bastard ragtime style that defies description, and a rhythmic drive that
still floors me (twenty-five years after I first heard him).  He also had a
voice that would scare Ray Charles.  "Samson & Delilah" and "You Gotta Move"
are pretty much definitive.

skip h


- -

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

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 19:18:06 +0000
From: "Arthur Gadney" <[e-mail]>
Subject: FRED FRITH comments on NAKED CITY LIVE CD

I guess this goes without explanation.....

Arthur Gadney wrote:

>Hello Fred.
>
>Perhaps you won't mind me asking you a question then. I'm just wondering
>about the upcomming Naked City live CD on Tzadik. We've been through the
>possible release of more live Henry Cow stuff on the mailing list several
>times and I'm wondering if the same thing applies here. Meaning do you all
>get a say about what you want released or does Zorn decide? I remember you
>were not happy about the sound quality on the Henry Cow stuff, did you have
>any similar say on the Naked City releases?
>
>If you happen to have the knowledge, perhaps you could tell if what the
>future plans are? Is this going to be a series of releases, like the Masada
>ones? Might we get a "live" version of the long rumored "Radio Part 2"??
>
>If you don't mind, I will forward your answer to the John Zorn mailing list
>where people are dying for more info :-)
>
>Cheers and thanks!

From: Fred Frith <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
To: Arthur Gadney <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Mailing list?
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 11:14:15 -0800

Different situation. Naked City was John's band, not a collective. So I
don't
have a say, and don't ask for one!  No idea what's in the pipeline, but I
look
forward to it!
Fred


_________________________________________________________________
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- -

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

End of Zorn List Digest V3 #860
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