Fw: the function of some music

["Scott M2" <scott@dreamstate.to>]

As sometimes happens - this reply from Tim
was sent to my addy instead of the LD list.

I thought he made some good points - particularly
" 1) Terminology which is excessively inclusive or
exclusive can be meaningless or at best artificial."
I recently bought a copy of the Royksopp "Melody A.M."
CD as I heard a very funky track by them playing in the
store. The clerk then confidently decribed it to me as
an ambient album - which I discovered it is not at all.
The misuse of the term (relating to the music genre)
is leading towards making it "meaningless" to most
people who hear the term.

Cheers,
Scott M2

http://www.dreamSTATE.to
ambientelectronicsoundscapes
http://www.THEAMBiENTPiNG.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Nelson" <psychle62@yahoo.com>
To: "Scott M2" <scott@dreamstate.to>
Sent: Saturday, 07 June, 2003 9:48 AM
Subject: Re: the function of some music


> --- Scott M2 <scott@dreamstate.to> wrote:
> > In Eno's original definition of Ambient Music, which
> > appeared in early
> > copies of Music For Airports, he declared "Ambient
> > Music must be able
> > to accomodate many levels of listening attention
> > without enforcing one
> > in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is
> > interesting."
> 
> That's correct, and it's true for Eno's own music and
> for music created by others who'd been influenced by
> him, and is also true in many cases regarding
> composers who weren't really influenced by Eno. But as
> Dr. Z points out, the label 'ambient' is often applied
> to other music as well which doesn't exactly fit Eno's
> definition. Satie (an influence on Eno) wrote some
> pieces which *were* specifically intended to function
> as incidental backgrounds and *not* be listened to
> attentively, while at the other end of that continuum,
> there are numerous musicians today calling their work
> 'ambient' when it is definitely intended to be played
> loud and in your face. There's 'ambient house' and
> 'ambient dub'. Deutsche Grammophon even has a
> compilation of so-called 'ambient' works by Barber,
> Tchaikovsky, Rodrigo, Beethoven, Mahler, Elgar,
> Albinoni and Vaughan Williams.
> 
> All the recent discussion about 'style' and 'genre'
> leads me to the following observations:
> 1) Terminology which is excessively inclusive or
> exclusive can be meaningless or at best artificial.
> 2) Many (perhaps all??) works fit into multiple,
> simultaneous categories.
> 3) Multiple criteria may be used to categorize music;
> while you *can* group artists/musical pieces by
> whether or not they use looping techniques, that
> doesn't mean that the music will sound the same or
> even similar.
> 4) Many artists work in various styles, whether
> separately or in combination.
> 5) The very characteristics which distinguish a piece
> and give it its own identity (in many cases making it
> worth listening to) can complicate attempts to
> categorize it.
> 6) Likewise, there's the 'Heraclitus factor': as
> music, technology, fashions, et cetera, as well as the
> very language used to describe things continue to
> evolve and change, 'meaning' is not fixed and
> equivocation is inevitable.
> 7) If you call Green Day's style 'pop' instead of
> 'punk', their guitarist will get upset and try to
> punch you.
> 
> Shakespeare said something about what to call roses...
> 
> -t-
> 
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