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Re: What's experimental?



Hi all,

My Concept of "experimental" music is fairly broad.

But it is a heck of a lot more than merely coming to a gig unprepared 
and without any particular idea in mind as to "material."

If you "make it up as you go along" but still everything sounds 
more-or-less like a 3-minute pop song that's not very experimental.

If you do the above and add a recursive loop or ebow drone it's not 
really any more "experimental" than if you'd added a kazoo.

Experimental music need not be random or atonal or devoid of accessible 
melody - though it often might seems to be in practice.

I think some of us are used to, or are influenced by the labels that 
the music press often give to artists they don't quite know what to do 
with.

Take Adrian Belew for instance, lovely man, great guitar player, 
totally innovative and one of a kind - they often call him 
"experimental."

While I certainly love most everything he does, and though he may have 
some waaaay "out there" experimental moments - still nearly everything 
he does fits fairly neatly onto a standard pop/rock formula.

Highly tweaked? Yes it is!

Experimental? Probably not in the truest sense.

We're all technology hogs here.

But going out and buying the latest, greatest esoteric music technology 
(instrument, appliance or software) will not make one of us any more 
"experimental" per se than if we'd used the same money to buy dental 
floss.

That is unless we'd figured out ho to make inventive music with dental 
floss (I suppose).

It's what you play and what your concept of what music **MIGHT BE** 
(potentiality) that makes it "experimental" in my book.

It can be done by the most simple means and even no technology at all 
for that matter.

It can be done without even an "instrument" if it comes to that.

It's an openness . . . and something that happens in the mind . . . an 
attitude . . . inventiveness.

An awareness that even the world around you is producing "music" every 
moment.

Every sound you hear.

It's tuning into and becoming a part of that (for me) and inventing new 
"music" right along with the cosmos.

--
tEd ® kiLLiAn

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that 
you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. 
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. 
Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain

http://www.pfmentum.com/PFMCD007.html
http://www.CDbaby.com/cd/tedkillian
http://www.guitar9.com/fluxaeterna.html
http://www.indiejazz.com/ProductDetailsView.aspx?ProductID=193
http://guitarplayer.com/article/y2k6-international-live/Jun-07/27768

Ted Killian's "Flux Aeterna" is also available at Apple iTunes