Re: Monkey Music

["future perfect" <artmusic@gte.net>]

The key words in my post were 'for me'. I know that lots of people can
appreciate music on all levels no matter who performs it. For some reason, 
I
can't. Also, with 20 years of schooled guitar and music studying, it is 
hard
for me to not listen to the music, and try to figure out where it came 
from.
If I know someone's body of work, for me, I seem to appreciate the music
more in context. I am also more liable to sit there and listen to it, and
not write it off as 'noise showcasing the limitations of the performer'. 
For
that reason, I got into experimental music by way of jazz and rock. There
were musicians I studied, and I bought their recordings- then they went all
'weird' on me, and I liked it.

Sometimes I hear something and I don't know if I think it is good. I have 
to
look outside the music for help in this area. How does this fit in with the
artist's body of work? Is this CD just a contractual obligation for the
artist, consisting of outtakes, etc? Do I have any evidence that the artist
has studied music and their instrument? Does it influence my own studies? 
Do
I think this way to justify those music comp classes I took, and the 
endless
hours of lessons?
I can't seem to listen to stuff these days with entirely fresh ears-kinda
like an ad exec that looks at commercials.
Well the good thing is that there is all types out there, and we can
appreciate the way we each view experimental music without thinking it is
'wrong'.

Dave Eichenberger
*********************************************************************
'Future Perfect' - art music
http://home1.gte.net/artmusic/



>>
>> For me, it is easier to listen to free music if I know the 'noise' being
>> made isn't just a limitation of of the performers involved. In other
words,
>> I can enjoy Thrakattak because I respect what the muscians involved are
>> capable of.
>
>See, this is an extremely problematic issue for me.  It smacks of what
>I'd call the emperor's new clothes syndrome -- the music in quesiton is
>judged more on the pedigree of the players than on the actual sound
>that's produced.
>
>At this point in time, I've got very little patience for music that
>needs some sort of extra-musical justification in order to have it hold
>up -- be it the intellecual conceptualism behind an experimental project
>that doesn't hold up on its own, or the straight-ahead pedigree that
>gives a jazz player the licence to then play "out" and not be chastized
>by his peers, or the talk of "breakbeat science" and "progression"
>that's used to pass of the profoundly stiff and boring sounds of a lot
>of modern drum & bass.
 >
>--Andre
>