[Dixielandjazz] What they teach in college these days...

[Mike C.]

What's wrong with exploring new ideas and sounds? I mean, in order for 
music to progress and go forward new sounds and ideas have to be 
explored and anaylzed.

Mike



Bill Gunter wrote:

> Listmates:
>
> Ed Danielson posted (regarding an unusual piano performance):
>
>> This can't possibly be good for the piano.
>
>
> and he included the URL to share it:
>
> http://www.coloradocollege.edu/Dept/MU/bowedpiano.html
>
> I looked it up and gave the accompanying mp3 file a listen.
>
> It may be harder on the ears than it is on the piano!
>
> It's quite weird, which is in keeping with the young 
> inquisitive/creative mind which tends to operate on the theory that 
> "the weirder it is the more profound it is."
>
> I'd hum a few bars of the composition for you, but I'm afraid that 
> "melody" is something that tends to get dropped in such creatiions as 
> this.
>
> While not quite as weird as Cage's 4'33" it does capture a bit of the 
> feeling of his Concerto for Prepared Piano.
>
> Also, it isn't what you'd call particularly "danceable" - unless 
> you're into ballet where virtually anything can be interpreted 
> choreographically.
>
> When I'm exposed to stuff like this and told that the performers are 
> exploring the frontiers of music or some such whimsey I tend to get a 
> case of the giggles.
>
> I mean, after all -- if music is nothing more than the noises that may 
> (or may not) be intentionally prresented to us by somebody or some 
> thing then "music" has no meaning which is definable other than 
> "something you can or can't hear."
>
> Where does this leave Beethoven's symphonies, Bach's fugues. Where 
> does this leave our concepts of "musicianship" - where does this leave 
> the discipline of music?  It all just becomes part of the surrounding 
> aural ambience or, in other words, just another form of "noise."
>
> That means we now need a special bracket into which we can place our 
> traditional concepts of music.  And woe to any ignorant peasant who, 
> in his bigoted and arrogant way, regards random noises generated by 
> arbitrary racket producing contraptions as "doo doo!"
>
> If I were to be stranded on the proverbial desert island I think I'd 
> take the collected works of Chopin rather than the collected works of 
> John Cage!
>
> What would you take?
>
> Respectfully submitted,
>
> Bill "Have mercy on my eardrums" Gunter
> jazzboard at hotmail.com
>
>
>
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>

-- 


"There will never come a time when you won't have to practice anymore."
- J.J Johnson (1924-2001)