From Chad Mossholder Sent Fri, Aug 6th 1999, 19:50
From Chad Mossholder Sent Fri, Aug 6th 1999, 19:50
Cage said in "Silence," that he use to resist the term experimental because
he felt that he did all of his experimenting at home, but when the piece was
ready to go live, it was finished, and so, the experimenting was done.
Later, he changed his mind and decided that experimental was an acceptable
term.
I think that anyone who is attempting to push music into new areas is,
and has to be "experimenting" Saying that music is experimental is just
another way of saying, "Hey, you won't here this on MTV"
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jon anderson [SMTP:xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx]
> Sent: Friday, August 06, 1999 11:47 AM
> To: idm idm
> Subject: (idm) words and pretensions
>
>
> listening to cage's sonata xiii for prepared piano -beautifully melodic
> while texturally fascinating and (i hate this word too...) "ambient" -
> i am reminded of another word that sticks in my craw: "experimental".
> cage, i think was experimental. in formal ways - but more so in
> conceptual ways - he explored new territory. but even in his case i
> resist this word, because it seems to imply (at least in my head) that
> other musicians using conventional instruments or compositional modes
> or constraints are not "experimenting". yet the word does seem to have
> meaning... but the contemporary electronic stuff under this banner
> (including, as someone put it, "digital wankery", and noisy stuff and
> fuzz that's supposed to be "challenging listening") is generally not
> "experimental" in any significant sense, if you ask me, at least not at
> this point in time. don't get me wrong, i have no problem with fuzz.
> i love fuzz! but far from experimental, it is now just as normal a
> part of musical vocab as guitars, and in many cases just comes off as
> cliche. it's funny that when someone says "experimental music", i
> immediately have an idea of what it sounds like, which is what tips me
> off that this word perhaps is no longer is appropriate!
> jon
> p.s., of course, i won't mention anything about "idm".
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