[Dixielandjazz] On the absence of almost everything

[david richoux]

The radio station I work at (volunteer, actually) has been getting all 
sorts of "new music" from all over the world in the last 20 years or 
so, mostly from very independent and innovative people. We add about 20 
new recordings each week and most are nowhere near what you might call 
OKOM (but we do get some traditional flavored additions.) A  common 
thread among a lot of the submissions is the deliberate absence of 
combinations of what we think is essential in music: structures of 
melody, rhythm, or harmony.

Some people think this would result in a jumbled mess of nonsensical 
noise (and sometimes that would be true) but  sometimes there is 
actually something that "works," even to my more traditionally trained 
ears. I am not saying that everybody has to like everything that could 
be called music in one form or another but it is sort of like a Jackson 
Pollack painting - there is something much deeper than what first meets 
the eye or ear in art and music - enjoy it or don't !

20th Century Western music moved quickly from Ragtime to Jazz Age & 
Blues to Swing to Popular to Folk to Rock to Punk to Whatever (often 
blending of many of those roots)   while the "modern classical" has 
dabbled in Music Concrete and other unusual experiments while still 
playing the now antique "Masters" - who knows what the 21st Century 
will sound like after another 100 years? I sure don't, but it will be 
interesting :-)

Dave Richoux

On Monday, Dec 1, 2003, at 19:41 US/Pacific, Charlie Hull wrote:

> How can we not have time for Melody when we have an eternity for 
> repetition
> of the same two-bar rhythmic pattern?  The loop's the thing.  If a 
> recording
> or movie has music with a melody, it has to be buried under the 
> instrumental
> tracks... at least enough that you can't understand the words.
>
> Thanks for listening... I feel better now.
>
> Charlie Hull
>
>
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