(idm) Re: idm-digest V2 #184

From H James Harkins
Sent Thu, Jun 4th 1998, 15:22

>From: Dunc Chaplin <xxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xxx>

>couldn't agree with you more.  some of the most individual parts of a work
>of art/song are those which are the most traditional - and i don't feel
>that i'm taking a conservative standpoint.  i've been sensing the
>increasing tendency to equate originality with perversity...

I don't see this as conservative--rather, you're putting your finger on the
important balance between "newness" (or freshness, or some other such word)
and *community*. In many ways, the sensation/feeling of community that
music can bring about is opposed to the demands of constant
innovation--even incompatible with those demands, for "community" in this
context depends on group participation in shared expectations. There must
be a balance--too much emphasis on community results in stagnation
(although this is really only an issue in a society driven by the idea of
"progress," whereas many musical cultures around the world don't care a
whit for progress and are perfectly happy), whereas too much emphasis on
innovation results in sterile experimentation for its own sake (all that
dead dull serial music from mid-century, for example--not all of it's dead
dull, of course, but so much of it is completely useless, and it got as far
as it did largely through elitism, posturing and threats from its most
vocal proponents--ugh! Thank heavens for Ligeti, to breathe some fresh air
into that scene...).

By the way, I don't want to prescribe aesthetics for individual artists,
who should be free to do what they want. But the discourse within a
community at large must allow room for all positions on this continuum. It
pisses me off when people uncritically fetishize "originality" without
thinking about what originality means, and without acknowledging that, in
the big picture, the flip side of the coin is absolutely indispensable.

>not that i have
>a problem with the perverse...

Oddly enough, "perverse" is exactly the word I've been using to describe
the track I'm finishing up (should have an .mp3 within the week)--but
what's perverse is not sonic experimentation, but what happens to an
explicit genre reference over the course of the track--"explicit genre
reference" <--> community, which is progressively disrupted/destroyed. I'm
not sure quite what that means in terms of the above position! but it's
awfully clever. I'll post about the .mp3 next week--keep your eyes peeled!
        J

        ________
        \      /        | "I don't want more choices,
H. James Harkins        |       I just want nicer things!"
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           \/           |                             -- Edina Monsoon

"The sky is big enough to let all the clouds pass." -- Kobai Scott Whitney