In the upshot the music that has been forgotten was the music that played safe and hence simply reproduced the same thing over and over again. If anything has any prospects of survival, then it will only be music that is not concerned with safety. This has led to a shift in the meaning of the experimental. The need for security today, unfreedom and heteronomy, exhausts itself in the town-row and serial productions which conserve the timbre and the harmonics of the experiments of yesterday...
The avang-garde therefore calls for a music which takes the composer by surprise, much as a chemist can be surprised by the new substand in his test-tube. In future, experimental (and improvised) music should not just confine itself to refusing to deal in the current coin; it should also be music whose end cannot be forseen in the course of production...
The idea that the composer was able to imagine every last detail in advance is a legend which every composer finds refuted when he hears his own orchestrated sounds for the first time.
Adorno, Verse une musique informelle, p. 303
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Moss and cactus are friends.
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So which music was forgotten again?
Are 'we' making music like 'we' are making everything else? You know, as cheaply as possible with planned obsolescence, on a production schedule, as a vehicle for marketing, as a catalyst for other more lucrative non-musical revenue generators--that sort of thing.
Repeatability as cornerstone of mass production--am I getting that right?
Michael Brecker's tune "Suspone" (from the heavily fetishized Don't Try This At Home) stands out for both it's harmonic singularty and ensemble virtuosity. But it's rhythm changes. That's 1930, pal. Bill Dixon was 5 years old.
While Suspone is memorable, it is memorable because it is so ostentatiously and agonizingly forgettable (because it played it safe by choosing Rhythm Changes as vehicle.) Hands up, who of you remember Suspone?
Ok then.
+ + +
Music that takes the composer by surprise.
As a wee tot I played the acoustic bass in the school orchestra. Simandl book and all that crap. Period six orchestra was pretty predictable, though certainly not unenjoyable. A few years later, Dixon's ensemble, though conceptually cohesive, was not predictable. Even if the instrumentation was the same, even if we were rehearsing the same 'piece' the (better) solos were always unpredictable, which in turn informed and influenced (changed/different/surprise!) the rest of the piece. The opposite of unfreedom and heteronomy as it were.
Having had entry level experiences in both--music that takes me by surprise and music that doesn't--I (still) choose surprise music. Many with the same experience choose the other. Why is that?
Is it a question of focus--and by focus I mean the ability to hear the micro versus the macro. Perhaps orchestral musicians (for example), who grind out the chestnuts year after year can hear shifts and nuance that only they (orchestral musicians) can hear an appreciate. A person could do worse than play the hits in a dealing orchestra with a great conductor.
Yet the fact is, there are musicians who play repertoire and there are people who don't. What are the deciding factors? Class? Geography? Diet? Political affiliation?
And are they the same musicality? Really?
Can someone who has dedicated their life to repertoire (Joshua Bell for example) as a result/product of that musicality automatically function convincingly with a rhythm section of, say, Rashid Bakr and William Parker. How about Laurence Cook and Alan Silva?
What would it mean if Joshua Bell's chances of functioning convincingly in either of those ensembles were about as good as Arthur Doyle functioning convincingly with the blah blah blab blab orchestra? Does it mean the two musics are equal? Does it mean the two musicians are equal?
The avang-garde therefore calls for a music which takes the composer by surprise, much as a chemist can be surprised by the new substand in his test-tube. In future, experimental (and improvised) music should not just confine itself to refusing to deal in the current coin; it should also be music whose end cannot be forseen in the course of production...
The idea that the composer was able to imagine every last detail in advance is a legend which every composer finds refuted when he hears his own orchestrated sounds for the first time.
Adorno, Verse une musique informelle, p. 303
+ + +
Moss and cactus are friends.
+ + +
So which music was forgotten again?
Are 'we' making music like 'we' are making everything else? You know, as cheaply as possible with planned obsolescence, on a production schedule, as a vehicle for marketing, as a catalyst for other more lucrative non-musical revenue generators--that sort of thing.
Repeatability as cornerstone of mass production--am I getting that right?
Michael Brecker's tune "Suspone" (from the heavily fetishized Don't Try This At Home) stands out for both it's harmonic singularty and ensemble virtuosity. But it's rhythm changes. That's 1930, pal. Bill Dixon was 5 years old.
While Suspone is memorable, it is memorable because it is so ostentatiously and agonizingly forgettable (because it played it safe by choosing Rhythm Changes as vehicle.) Hands up, who of you remember Suspone?
Ok then.
+ + +
Music that takes the composer by surprise.
As a wee tot I played the acoustic bass in the school orchestra. Simandl book and all that crap. Period six orchestra was pretty predictable, though certainly not unenjoyable. A few years later, Dixon's ensemble, though conceptually cohesive, was not predictable. Even if the instrumentation was the same, even if we were rehearsing the same 'piece' the (better) solos were always unpredictable, which in turn informed and influenced (changed/different/surprise!) the rest of the piece. The opposite of unfreedom and heteronomy as it were.
Having had entry level experiences in both--music that takes me by surprise and music that doesn't--I (still) choose surprise music. Many with the same experience choose the other. Why is that?
Is it a question of focus--and by focus I mean the ability to hear the micro versus the macro. Perhaps orchestral musicians (for example), who grind out the chestnuts year after year can hear shifts and nuance that only they (orchestral musicians) can hear an appreciate. A person could do worse than play the hits in a dealing orchestra with a great conductor.
Yet the fact is, there are musicians who play repertoire and there are people who don't. What are the deciding factors? Class? Geography? Diet? Political affiliation?
And are they the same musicality? Really?
Can someone who has dedicated their life to repertoire (Joshua Bell for example) as a result/product of that musicality automatically function convincingly with a rhythm section of, say, Rashid Bakr and William Parker. How about Laurence Cook and Alan Silva?
What would it mean if Joshua Bell's chances of functioning convincingly in either of those ensembles were about as good as Arthur Doyle functioning convincingly with the blah blah blab blab orchestra? Does it mean the two musics are equal? Does it mean the two musicians are equal?