[Dixielandjazz] Free Form Music

[Charles Suhor]

Thanks for your comments, Phil. I appreciate what you're saying, esp. the second paragraph. 
A different way of looking at the larger picture is that "sound" is the broader category, and "music" and "noise" are subsets. We can find ways of mixing those subsets that have aesthetic value. This has long been done, of course. with music that makes integral use of percussion ("sound"). To stretch the idea--one of John Cage's compositions involved having a microphone out in the street piped in to be part of the musical performance. 
"Randomness" has to do with a way of creating in free form improvisation, and even in some written compositions that build in low-strucrurted choices. The musical product might emerge as a tedious mess--beer time!--but if the intuitions of the players become mutually attuned, the result will evolve with shape, even, as one listmate wrote, with a perceivable beginning, middle, and end.
As a spiritual discipline. I try to remember to let every sound in the environment enter as if it were music. This is a useful technique during meditation, and it would be a good way to live all day.

Charlie


On Oct 18, 2014, at 2:19 PM, Phil Wilking wrote:

> And let me speak up (write up?) for the other point of view.
> 
> A very little of "random with little or no melodic or harmonic reference" goes a very long way. It probably is useful to a psychiatrist or psychologist evaluating a patient, but it is not "music." After 20 to 30 seconds of it, I go looking for a beer - and I am not alone.
> 
> This is very different from variations on a theme. Plainly state the theme and then run variations, both melodic and harmonic - even rhythmic, but those variations are not "random," they have a "genealogy" which is clearly traceable back to the original theme.
> 
> To me (us?) "random" sound equals "noise," it is not "music." I use noise to test the response of an amplifier, I certainly do not pay for a ticket to go listen to it.
> 
> Phil Wilking - K5MZF
> www.nolabanjo.com
> 
> Those who would exchange freedom for
> security deserve neither freedom nor security. 
> 
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