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Looper's Delight
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Quoting Daryl Shawn <highhorse@mhorse.com>: > ...the opinion that art is anything that is created with the /pure > /intention of evoking an /aesthetic /reaction... > But I don't entirely agree that the merit of Art is based on > subjective, isolated emotional reaction. I don't think it fallacious to > state as a point of fact that Bach was a great composer, Shakespeare a > great writer, Van Gogh a great painter, Michelangelo a great sculptor, > all of whom created great works. My own emotional reaction isn't a > solid basis to argue otherwise. There are criteria other then personal > emotion to judge art; innovation, craft, and the perception of value > over a period of time, fr'instance. > > Having said that, nobody can tell me what I /should/ like, or what > /should/ have value to me. I'm not a fan of Mozart, yet to label his > work as trash isn't for me to say. This post resonates with many of my feelings about art -- in fact, I feel the same way about Mozart. I appreciate it however I am not thrilled with it. I find Bach thrilling. For me to assert that "Bach is better than Mozart" would be to state my own bias rather than anything useful about the music. I tend to approach the creation of music as a "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration" activity. However, the hope is that the listeners, upon hearing the finished work, will be moved in some way without being aware of the "perspiration" aspect of the work. Thus, I approached the question "What do you think is necessary in order to have an excellent composition" as a technical question -- a kind of composer-to-composer dialog. For instance, if I hear someone doing great looping work and I want to do the same thing, I will likely want to know what kind of equipment and setup the person is using. I may want to ask the person how they manage certain things (say pedal presses or avoiding feedback from microphones, etc). I will listen to the music to figure out how it is organized. This is not to deny a spiritual and/or aesthetic goal -- most of us hope that people will like or love our music. We hope our music reaches people at some level. My statement in an earlier post: "Be true to yourself" was meant as a possible way to reach listeners and do music that may be regarded as "excellent". A subjective statement about music such as "that music is great" or "that music is garbage" is a statement about the listener's reaction to the music. There have been times where I have played Bach fugues and a few people complained. Their complaint didn't make the fugues "bad" -- the complaint had more to do with a gap between what they expected and what I played. Some people simply don't like contrapuntal music. Perhaps I should have played Mozart. :) -- Kevin