From Dunc Chaplin Sent Wed, Jun 3rd 1998, 22:45
From Dunc Chaplin Sent Wed, Jun 3rd 1998, 22:45
this post from "Heatsink" is probably the most interesting thing i've read in a while... >rather to make *mine* the best it can be. No-one can help or choose what >influences they have, and while I`m not going to blatantly steal from another >track, I`ll readily use techniques pioneered by others in my own tracks. How i'm not sure if i'm understanding you right, but it has always seemed to me, consciously choosing "influences" is a natural stage in the making of an artist/musician - it usually leads to "adolescent posturing". it's outgrowing this attachment to one or two writers/musicians, or even say, a certain period/style, when an artist/musician becomes so-called "mature". you bring up an interesting point about "precursors", though, a word that has become indispensable in a critic's vocabulary. for example, naming a current-day musician's precursors - say, We for example - i'm sure we could all enumerate a heterogeneous list in which all resemble We in some way; however, if i'm not mistaken, not all of them would resemble each other. this second fact is the more significant. in each of those musicians listed, we would find We's "idiosyncrasy" to a greater or lesser degree, but if We had never formed and recorded some songs, we would have never perceived this quality; in other words, it would not exist. the poem "Fears and Scruples" by Browning foretells Kafka's work, but our reading of Kafka perceptibly sharpens and deflects our reading of the poem. Browning did not read it as we do now. get it? my basic point is that the word "precursors" should be cleansed of all connotations of polemics or rivalry, imho. the fact is that every writer/musician *creates* his own precursors. his work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future (see either T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and The Individual Talent and/or "Points of View"). in this correlation the identity or plurality of the men involved is unimportant. >original is the Aphex Twin anyway? Not very. And if, by drawing influences >from others I actually branch off and come up with something different/original, >then great. Chances are, if you spend all your time trying to come up with >something totally original, you`ll end up with something totally shite. 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...not that i have a problem with the perverse... just a thought, please don't flame my mailbox (again, unless you're from Cambridge, MA). Dunc. p.s. next week, i'll tell you all the story of Ishmael Reed and the 18 year-old Victor Hernandez Cruz failing spanish class...