I have never understood the so-called need for order which has led, if not to the invention of twelve-note technique, at least to the current apologias for it. It is also worth reflecting on the reasons which lead people, no sooner have they reached open ground, to create the feeling that it's time for order to be restored, instead of breathing a sigh of relief that such works as Erwartung (Vade Mecum) and even the Elektra (umm, how about In Flourescence) could be written, works which are incomparably closer to the actual conscious and subconscious of contemporary listeners than any artificially imposed style...
I am unable to discern any guarantee of truth in this eternal recurrence of the need for an order based on known systems; on the contrary, they seem rather to be the symbols of perennial weakness. They internalize the social compulsion oppressing them in their supposed kingdom of freedom, the realm of artistic production, and on top of that they confuse it with the innate vocation of art. The immanent, transparent laws that spring from freedom and the capitulation to an invoked order are mutually incompatible. The contradiction between the power of order and the impotence of human beings cuts them off from their own yearnings, yearnings for which art could assume responsibility. For all the oppressiveness of the actual and spiritual world, they do not really want things to change. They continually reproduce the authoritarian mechanisms within themselves, in the belief that you cannot dispense with the conventions, even when their validity has long since been exposed and even though culture fails to generate anything remotely similar to them any more. This is the dark secret of the Classical ideal, the authentic formalism. In Stravinsky (and Frank Zappa) this attitude is atoned for to a certain extent, because he lets the cat out of the bag, naming the conventions for what they are, instead of claming any musical substantiality for them by false pretences. It is where that is done that the rot sets in.
Adorno, Vers une musique informelle, p. 291-292
+ + +
Wow.
+ + +
A friend came to visit recently. We went to have drinks at a restaurant in town. It was once a firehouse. Now it has bright yellow stucco and large timbers holding up purposeless minarets. In the front of the building, there are three garage doors. That afternoon it was warm enough to open the center door, giving a perfectly unobstructed view of a gas station connected to a 7-11.
The restaurant had one of those situations where they got commercial free musical content from some 'provider.' Before each song, the germane data (artist, record name, label, web-site and 1-800 number of the service provider) appeared in in a plain white font in the corner of a black screen. We must of listened to about 10 songs that afternoon, of which only two stood out. One was by John McLaughlin, the other by Dave Douglas. The rest entirely ignored and forgotten, whereas with Douglas and McLaughlin, I merely forgot the titles. Pulitzer quality journalism, I know. The McLaughlin reminded me of Adventures in Radioland on qualudes (I am a fan of both) and I remember the Douglas really gave that one chord what for before returning to the head, and by "giving that one chord what for" I mean playing the shit out of the trumpet against a pedestrian harmonic backdrop.
Douglas and McLaughlin stood out as they evinced a musicality and technique far and above the rest, as well as a well considered approach to their group sound. They clearly cared, as evident in the recording and instrumentation. The rest of the songs sounded like robot parts being shaken in a can. Douglas' and McLaughlin's groups sounded like groups, as opposed to what was, at best, so called humans playing at so called jazz.
Light years ahead, and yet still entirely in the middle. What does that mean?
The music (McLaughlin and Douglas included) seemed unanimously ignored though not resented by patrons and employees. I didn't take a poll, so I can't say with any certainty.
Mind you, this is not meant as an attack on either artist, but instead a peek at a curious phenomena which for me raised the question:
Did McLaughlin/Douglas compose those particular selections with with me, restaurant patron facing 7-11 talking about divorce, head cheese and rental cars over drinks and 'appies', as the intended audience? Did McLaughlin or Douglas, 'at the time of conception' (so to speak) point their radionic/sound concept imaging machine on a bright yellow-stucco once fire house restaurant with horrendous carpeting filled with people who aren't listening?
This is not judgement, these are questions.
If the answer is no, then what does that mean? Is that evidence of something that is working or is it evidence of something gone horribly awry?
At least there weren't any lyrics. Oh I do hate that at a restaurant.
+ + +
They internalize the social compulsion oppressing them in their supposed kingdom of freedom.
Music as Stockholm syndrome?
What are the factors that motivate a musician to do a music that has already been done? That also is not judgment. It must be something. Some like to do music that has already been done, some don't. Why does that difference exist?
+ + +
The immanent, transparent laws that spring from freedom and the capitulation to an invoked order are mutually incompatible.
New moratorium: no more attempts at combining the transparent laws that spring from freedom and the capitulation to an invoked order. No more. The end. Halas.
You want invoked order? Fine. You want transparent laws that spring from freedom ("there is always a form"--Bill Dixon) then you can have that too. Should we not keep them separate so that they don't spoil one another?
+ + +
Is anyone else picking up on the similarity of Adorno's and Reich questioning of why people choose unfreedom?
Has anyone else read Wilhelm Reich in Hell by Robert Anton Wilson? Our visiting friend brought me a copy of that, as well as a number of other things, like The Burden of the Past and the English Poet by W. Jackson Bate, Blindness and Insight Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism by Paul de Man, A New Theory for American Poetry by Angus Fletcher and Children of the Mire by Octavio Paz. Chocolate footballs to throw against the virtual cell wall for a life time! Thank you visiting friend!
I am unable to discern any guarantee of truth in this eternal recurrence of the need for an order based on known systems; on the contrary, they seem rather to be the symbols of perennial weakness. They internalize the social compulsion oppressing them in their supposed kingdom of freedom, the realm of artistic production, and on top of that they confuse it with the innate vocation of art. The immanent, transparent laws that spring from freedom and the capitulation to an invoked order are mutually incompatible. The contradiction between the power of order and the impotence of human beings cuts them off from their own yearnings, yearnings for which art could assume responsibility. For all the oppressiveness of the actual and spiritual world, they do not really want things to change. They continually reproduce the authoritarian mechanisms within themselves, in the belief that you cannot dispense with the conventions, even when their validity has long since been exposed and even though culture fails to generate anything remotely similar to them any more. This is the dark secret of the Classical ideal, the authentic formalism. In Stravinsky (and Frank Zappa) this attitude is atoned for to a certain extent, because he lets the cat out of the bag, naming the conventions for what they are, instead of claming any musical substantiality for them by false pretences. It is where that is done that the rot sets in.
Adorno, Vers une musique informelle, p. 291-292
+ + +
Wow.
+ + +
A friend came to visit recently. We went to have drinks at a restaurant in town. It was once a firehouse. Now it has bright yellow stucco and large timbers holding up purposeless minarets. In the front of the building, there are three garage doors. That afternoon it was warm enough to open the center door, giving a perfectly unobstructed view of a gas station connected to a 7-11.
The restaurant had one of those situations where they got commercial free musical content from some 'provider.' Before each song, the germane data (artist, record name, label, web-site and 1-800 number of the service provider) appeared in in a plain white font in the corner of a black screen. We must of listened to about 10 songs that afternoon, of which only two stood out. One was by John McLaughlin, the other by Dave Douglas. The rest entirely ignored and forgotten, whereas with Douglas and McLaughlin, I merely forgot the titles. Pulitzer quality journalism, I know. The McLaughlin reminded me of Adventures in Radioland on qualudes (I am a fan of both) and I remember the Douglas really gave that one chord what for before returning to the head, and by "giving that one chord what for" I mean playing the shit out of the trumpet against a pedestrian harmonic backdrop.
Douglas and McLaughlin stood out as they evinced a musicality and technique far and above the rest, as well as a well considered approach to their group sound. They clearly cared, as evident in the recording and instrumentation. The rest of the songs sounded like robot parts being shaken in a can. Douglas' and McLaughlin's groups sounded like groups, as opposed to what was, at best, so called humans playing at so called jazz.
Light years ahead, and yet still entirely in the middle. What does that mean?
The music (McLaughlin and Douglas included) seemed unanimously ignored though not resented by patrons and employees. I didn't take a poll, so I can't say with any certainty.
Mind you, this is not meant as an attack on either artist, but instead a peek at a curious phenomena which for me raised the question:
Did McLaughlin/Douglas compose those particular selections with with me, restaurant patron facing 7-11 talking about divorce, head cheese and rental cars over drinks and 'appies', as the intended audience? Did McLaughlin or Douglas, 'at the time of conception' (so to speak) point their radionic/sound concept imaging machine on a bright yellow-stucco once fire house restaurant with horrendous carpeting filled with people who aren't listening?
This is not judgement, these are questions.
If the answer is no, then what does that mean? Is that evidence of something that is working or is it evidence of something gone horribly awry?
At least there weren't any lyrics. Oh I do hate that at a restaurant.
+ + +
They internalize the social compulsion oppressing them in their supposed kingdom of freedom.
Music as Stockholm syndrome?
What are the factors that motivate a musician to do a music that has already been done? That also is not judgment. It must be something. Some like to do music that has already been done, some don't. Why does that difference exist?
+ + +
The immanent, transparent laws that spring from freedom and the capitulation to an invoked order are mutually incompatible.
New moratorium: no more attempts at combining the transparent laws that spring from freedom and the capitulation to an invoked order. No more. The end. Halas.
You want invoked order? Fine. You want transparent laws that spring from freedom ("there is always a form"--Bill Dixon) then you can have that too. Should we not keep them separate so that they don't spoil one another?
+ + +
Is anyone else picking up on the similarity of Adorno's and Reich questioning of why people choose unfreedom?
Has anyone else read Wilhelm Reich in Hell by Robert Anton Wilson? Our visiting friend brought me a copy of that, as well as a number of other things, like The Burden of the Past and the English Poet by W. Jackson Bate, Blindness and Insight Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism by Paul de Man, A New Theory for American Poetry by Angus Fletcher and Children of the Mire by Octavio Paz. Chocolate footballs to throw against the virtual cell wall for a life time! Thank you visiting friend!
copyright, © 2007 Stanley Zappa
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