h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So you don't like music then?
What do you do?

On the contrary - my life is devoted to music - All the things described on my space are in fact nothing to do with music - they describe the various ways in which music is misunderstood, mainly through sentiment, and often through the inclination for (often very bad) pianists to show off. Music's often had a very snobbish reputation, mainly through people who like to listen to "proper music" and, often, "non of this modern trash" - what most people don't realise is that those who REALLY understand music, (and the ultimate fact that it is just a collection of sounds and will eventually lead to f**k all) are often the very down to earth types, who will just about listen to everything - the important thing is that they understand what they are listening to on a much more advanced level than 99% of the population. Did that sound too harsh? It's just a very different but ultimately more rewarding state of musical understanding. (and usually only attainable through years of training to be a composer and having your ideals turned on your head)

Edd

hmm, I just think that if people want to spend hours bashing away at a piano till they can play Rach or Brahms then that is their choice. It is not a bad way to be and if they have been culturally conditioned to believe that is what music is then so be it. At least they are making some effort to understand what music means to them. It is a little harsh for you to dismiss them from ever talking to you just because they believe that. Surely there isn't actually error in becoming sentimental about music, it is inherent in human beings in cultures all over the world. Music is part of human experience, emotion can contribute to that.

Surely if you are prepared to listen to just about anything you should be prepared to talk to just about anyone. Of course I agree Andrew Lloyd Webber is the exception.

I don't agree that you can only attain a rewarding state of musical understanding through years of training to be a composer, ultimately because I haven't spent those years and still have a reasonable understanding. And it isn't important to understand you are listening to music on a more advanced level than everyone else, that makes you just as much a snob. Music can add to anyone elses experience of being human as much as yours. The inner meaning of a piece of music can be grasped with intuition or you can spend hours contemplating the form and tonality etc, your listening isn't any more special than anybody elses, just different as humans are.

that was probably the most inciteful answer I have heard yet to my ramblings. Excellent! my point about the rach or brahms is that most people can't really play it, and go round with their nose in the air about the fact they are trying. Don't get me wrong - I'm overjoyed that there are people out there who still listen to music at face value as it were. My opening paragraph was really an attempt to describe a kind of clique to which a lot of "musicians" aspire - that of simple narrow mindedness and blind sentiment.

just about, yes. I sometimes feel (as I have recently encountered on the BBC message boards) that I'm banging my head against a brick wall - for instance a chap I was talking to was saying he was going to do a PhD on Wagner with a title something like "Wagner was the greatest genius of all time" - he then went on to describe all the "things" it does to him - I argued that one should base a PhD on objective, rather than subjective analysis.
What then went on was a series of messages, me spouting all sorts of facts about various things as relevant, and him just spouting sentiment, and quite obviously not listening to a word I said.

hmm. I think it is important to recognise the boundary between the 2nd and 3rd levels of understanding as it were - I don't think I'm a better person for it though - it just means I have to remember it when talking to people who don't - it's hard - for instance if someone at a party maybe, started going on about Beethoven being a romantic composer because he "sounds" romantic I have to stop myself from immediately launching into a musical debate and grinding him into the ground.
Ok ok, I'm impressed you're right - I say it takes years because to be honest, it took me years - I used to be a member of the clique I described above - I've had my ideals turned upside down. When it comes to it though all it requires is an open mind and a realisation that music is just a collection of sounds and/or silences when you come down to it. The rest is all reading...
So are you a musician?

Edd

I want to say how much I hate computers. I wrote such a good reply, it was stupidly long, but I was offline and so when I pressed 'post message' it disappeared. I was not amused.

ROFL. If at first you don't succeed...

Edd

And then of course my brothers hard drive blew up and now his modem is buggered, don't have time just now to write the reply. Not quite sure what ROFL stands for, in fact abosolutely no idea whatsoever. Nevermind eh? Will be back at some point though.

TTFN (tee hee, I do know one or two)

Gup

LOL
er..

LOL = Lots of Laughter
ROFL = Rolling on the Floor Laughing
ROFLMAO = Rolling on the Floor Laughing My Arse Off
ROFLMAOPMPSCTMNASTC = Rolling on the Floor Laughing My Arse Off, P*****g My Pants, Snorting Coke Through My Nostrils and Scaring The Cat



sorry to hear about computer troubles

Edd

I really can't remember what is was I was saying. Something along the lines of whether or not I was a musican all depended on your perception of what one was. I know people who are older than me who have been better musicians than I am now who wouldn't call themselves musicians, because they chose to do something else. But anyway, now I have concluded that I probably am. I am nothing else, other than a student, but I am a student of music. I start my BMus course on Monday, so I am very pleased that I am more insightful than a phd-er. He really must be quite silly to think Wagner was the greatest genius of all time, as surely that is me, just I might not ever get the opportunity to say what it is I am going to say. My life might get cut tragically short when I get to 98 and no-one would ever know. Terrible! And anyway, there is a lot of 'all time' that hasn't passed yet.

Surely you are a better person for having a deeper understanding of music, just not better than anyone else, only yourself. I agree with your point about it taking years from before, just you don't have to train to be a composer, you have to wait till you have the right book dropped into your hands or someone says to you 'have you thought about it like this...' And another thing along the lines of the clique you talk of, it probably is important for that to exist or it might all get a bit subjective. The foundations of music have to be laid somehow, look at where you are (what is it that you do?).

Sorry if I am not objective enough yet, will have to practise that one if I want to get a degree. Need to pay loan cheque in Bank, so I'll be off now.

Gup

LOL - the clique's fine, apart from the tendency of people in it to be at the top of organisational ladders - for that reason I don't take part in college musical events any more. What Uni are you part of?
And yes the word "musician", just like any other occupational title can be made vague by argument - after , what is an ethnomusicologist? And if John Cage's "4'33" is music (which I strongly believe it is), what's music?

I'm at Durham University doing a BMus, in 3rd year. Specialising of course in composition. You? I take it you're not a composer...

Edd

I've only gone and done it again, lost all the words by pressing the wrong button, aargh!

What is Durham like? I take it you must have lots of gloves and scarves. I'm at City University, London. You are quite right I am not specialising in composition, thankfully I am only a first year and don't have to make any decisions like that yet. Oh yeah, and I'm not very good at composition either.

I don't suppose you really need to take part much in college music events if you are a composer. I'm quite interested in the opportunities they have to offer at City though, and the thing is I think people are quite entitled to be at the top of the organisation for the Gamelan Orchestra seeing as that is the way that things happen in Java and Bali.

What are you doing next year? Rumour has it that it isn't too easy to be a musician straight away, well not if you want to make lots of money, which I suppose you don't, otherwise you would be studying accounting.

Gup

if I was bothered about making money, I wouldn't go music
Durham's a lot worse than it's reputation - I could rant for hours but I'm not going to
I don't have any gloves or scarves, but then i am from scotland
Gamelan's cool - i do that - it's not a college organisation here though, it's run by a strange person called pete.
I plan to take a couple of years out, living in york and generally earning some much needed money - I then intend to go on and do a masters and PhD, the masters proabably at one of the conservatiores (hopefully) and then I'll decide on where to do the PhD based on that experience.
Eventually I hope to be a lecturer in composition - it would give me a good base for composition and I could get away with earning money for teaching about that which I love (while avoiding snotty little kids
- although that in itself is an opinion)
so what do you do in the musical sphere? (I can hardly believe you're just doing the course for the crack) do you play an instrument? or are you more of the musicological (allright allright, probably a better word is "academic") inclination?
I make no assumptions, but given your general openmindedness, would I be right in saying that you have a more eclectic taste in music? do you have a favourite era/composer/style? or are you more interested in ethnomuscology? do you, to make a finer point of it, listen to contemporary music?
anyway, must go, good luck with the whole "button" thing next time

Edd

Ok so, I am going to be incredibly careful with my use of buttons today, this is my first attempt and I hope that it stays that way.

Glad that Durham is worse than its reputation, makes me feel better about the fact that they rejected me. Ha! What do they know? From all the pictures it looks like a pleasant place, although it is soooo far away (ok, ok, so Scotland is further).

Don't know if I will do the Gamelan here. Need some time to practise and read books, would be a bit s**t to fail even though I had had lots of good musical experience. Well, actually, it probably wouldn't matter that much, as long as I learned lots of stuff, but to be perfectly honest I am feeling quite snotty cliquey must get a first at the moment, which surely can't be the wrong attitude to take in the first week. I am not saying that I will be disappointed if I don't get one, I just want to put in enough effort so that I am in with a chance.

Hmm, York, don't you need gloves there too? I am also of the take years out after uni school of thought, just I am thinking I'd like to go to Cuba (you don't need gloves and scarves there) oh yeah, and I'll need to repay my loan too of course! The Masters, the PhD and the lecturing (but not about composition surprisingly) are all things I fancy having a go at and writing books and making music and generally having a good time. Yeah, and you are right that you are wrong. I certainly wasn't a snotty kid, besides I think there is a lot you can learn from some of them. It would be interesting to see people with little musical experience learning about music, I agree though that once you get them to about 9 there is an awful lot of snot about.

Do they give you Crack just for doing the course in Durham? I didn't realise it was offered here, chances are it's not, well, not to first years anyway. But anyway, I wouldn't take it even if I was offered; it would make it too hard to concentrate on practise. I think that I probably am here mostly because of my 'academic' inclination. Having said that I have spent so much of my free time 'creating' sound, 'making' music that it seems like a stupid thing to give up now, especially as I enjoy it so much. I think I have quite a big basket and there are plenty of fish to put in it. I am (or will be) first studily a clarinettist, but I play the violin and saxophone as well. I am very interested in all the academic side, but I am not sure yet whether I am more interested in the Ethnomusicology more because I have an engaging lecturer or if the Western side of things is actually dull. I am doing a degree in music because that seems as if it is the next step in what I have been doing, but also the first step in whatever I will do next.

I don't think that there is anything wrong in making assumptions as long as you have sufficient evidence to back it up, which you probably (me making assumptions here of your intelligence) have. The other thing of course being that you are in fact right and I do have quite and eclectic (if that is going to be the word we are using) taste in music. It all centres mainly on Jazz at the moment and that in itself being more specifically stuff like Miles Davis and Charles Mingus in particular at the moment. I have a bit of trouble keeping up with contemporary stuff, I am not sure if you mean in any particular field here ie 'art' music or 'popular' music. There is so much crap you have to wade through listening to radio shows that it is rarely worth your effort. Tend to have gone a lot on word of mouth in the past but no mouths to get the words from at present. Enjoy listening to Radiohead in particular, they're the only band I've really kept up with from my youth, or maybe just the only band that has kept up with me. I haven't really thought too deeply about why I listen to them, in fact there didn't ever seem to be a need to until a friend from Orchestra last year (who is a great Jazz pianist and has gone to RAM to study violin) questioned me about it. But I know that if I did think about it then I could justify it. The same kind of thing goes for contemporary art and jazz. I listen to it if it ever gets found. The 'Perfect Houseplants' are contemporary and I listen to them, I am interested in what they are doing. I am trying to spread my musical tastes a bit though. Being here (in London) will hopefully give me the opportunity to do that, although this is looking less likely with rehearsals from 6-9pm 3 days a week. Going to a gig on Friday at GSMD a Jazz evening with their postgrad students, which is free and hopefully will be interesting. Then home the week after to see the Ben Allison Quintet, who I have never heard of, but they looked interesting in the programme and I get cheap tickets because I'm a student. I am interested in ethnomusicology, I think mostly because of the jazz crossover stuff I have heard, but I think at the moment I know more about the theory than what I want to listen to, which is a first!

Right, I think I should go now, I have been lucky with the button thing for several words now and I don't want to push my luck. I am presuming I'll probably here from you again soon,

Gup

>Don't know if I will do the Gamelan here. Need some time to practise >and read books

do it - nice relaxation period once a week while little cool patterns flow around you... I do gamelan and it has never stopped me practising or reading books (in fact I often take a book along to the rehearsal)

>which surely can't be the wrong attitude to take in the first week

dude you're a fresher - take time out to enjoy yourself - is the first year cumulative in your uni?

>cuba

hmm not my cup of tea really - besides the horrific idea of having to lug all my stuff as well as my piano all the way out there - and then back again to do a masters. Nope, give me a good hot pair of gloves any day

>...them to about 9 there is an awful lot of snot about

that too - and I'm not sure I could put up with "chopsticks", "heart and soul" or •ª¶ª•¢¶#!!! Andrew Lloyd Webber! ever again...

>Do they give you Crack just for doing the course in Durham?

ho ho ho
(sarcastic santa impression to which the word "jolly" does _not_ apply)
"the Crack" is a scottish term for "the fun of it"

>'creating' sound

you can't create sound! you can only stretch it

don't do ethnomusicology unless you're prepared to disagree with _everyone_


>I am doing a degree in music because that seems as if it is the next step in what I have been doing, but also the first step in whatever I will do next.

very cosmic...

>I don't think that there is anything wrong in making assumptions as long as you have sufficient evidence to back it up

... at which point it no longer remains an assumption - it becomes a fact by the sheer presence of the evidence. However if I do not know, but are making an educated guess, that could be said to be an assumption, so long as I am confident that I am right

>Miles Davis and Charles Mingus

Brilliant Did you know Davis was influenced quite largely by Terry Riley?

> I haven't really thought too deeply about why I listen to them

that's what uni's for dude

I did mean both tastes, although in relation to the music course of course then i meant western art music.
Dude you should listen to some Steve Reich - he rocks. There's lots of others you should listen to but I can't be bothered to make a list at the moment

"Crossover" music is a scam - define the difference between "pop" and "art" music ....

anyway gotta go - am currently searching through books of poetry for something to set for a comp. workshop with alison wells in 3 weeks...

Edd

Yeah, but 3 hours every week when I could go home and make lunch. I think I can give the Gamelan a miss because I want to do big band and african drumming as well as orchestra. Then of course I might have some time to do (perish the thought) something that is not musical, like maybe something physical. I did Tae kwondo last year and really enjoyed it, I'd hate to go back at crimbo and to have turned into a lard bucket. So along the Gamelan vein I might do Tai Chi or Aikido, as they don't have a Tae Kwondo club at Uni. Besides, I can always do Gamelan next year. And anyway it isn't about whether or not you practise it is kind of more about how much you can practise, equally I appreciate you are going to say that it is not about how much, but what you practise. Anyway, I'm enough of a social outcast as it is without giving myself more to do. I don't mean outcast actually, I think more drifter, it is me that doesn't bother with them, not that they choose not too bother with me.

No, the first year isn't cumulative, that'd be really crap. You'd have no time to learn anything or make mistakes. Besides, I enjoy learning, otherwise I'd get a job.

Hmm, funny, I'm sure they have pianos in Cuba, in fact they must do, Ruben Gonzalez plays one. Have you never heard of travelling light?

Don't you understand, all you have to do is get somewhere on a committee in Government and reform the music education legislation. You need never hear ALW again. Besides you can choose what you teach them. Granted, 9 is about the age when chopsticks will be thrown at you from every direction, but you don't need to listen. Thankfully I never played it, but I did spend far too much time playing 'merrily we roll along' and 'lightly row'. AAAaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!

Sorry, noone can ever tell when I'm trying to be funny, you probably didn't notice because it was all so crap and unfunny. I will never even look toward the spheres of humour again, I will buy a tweed jacket and... hmm, that isn't funny either. Shut up you gimp (also people often get offended when I am talking to myself). Funnily enough your 'lingo' has crossed cultural barriers and I knew what the word meant. All a result of the BBC getting rid of BBC English and celebrating the dialect of the Eastend. Not that I have anything against the accent that you probably have, it is just that I can't quite remember how I should be speaking myself anymore.

Hmm, surely you have to agree with everyone doing ethnomusicology? Besides it is compulsory in the first year, and probably why I chose this course over any other, not because it is compulsory, just because I liked the approach they seemed to offer.

>>I don't think that there is anything wrong in making assumptions as long as you have sufficient evidence to back it up

>... at which point it no longer remains an assumption - it becomes a fact by the sheer presence of the evidence. However if I do not know, but are making an educated guess, that could be said to be an assumption, so long as I am confident that I am right.

You may have sufficient evidence or all the evidence there is possibly available to make an assumption and still support your argument, however, it is not a fact until you have all the evidence. It is quite acceptable to take all the available evidence and assume something otherwise we would be able to say nothing about anything. Besides, there was probably evidence that you could have used if you wanted to. It would be impossible for my taste in music to be realised as one list, but at somepoint you would be happy enough to assume that what I enjoyed listening to satisfied your criteria of eclectic, but this quite easily would not be what someone else appreciated as fact.

Okso, 'crossover' was probably the wrong term to use, particularly as the only time I heard it used last year really irritated me, grrrr. In fact I am cringing about my failure to command the English language effectively enought to define what I really meant. I am talking really about the acculturalisation and hybridization that makes Jazz kind of what it is (when I am listening to it). I am certainly not saying look at the fantastic way Gershwin has crossed elements of Jazz and Classical to create the wonderful Rhapsody in Blue (far from it in fact, there isn't really any Jazz there at all). What I am saying is look at the way music has evolved; listen to 'Sketches of Spain' by Miles Davis, listen to the fantastic stuff that Abdullah Ibrahim has done. So what I think that I am saying is that I am interested in world music because there are some good things that actually have come from different places that make good music (good music being that which I enjoy). The world would be different without travel and communication. We have very different climates and habitats which influence what we can make music with (that is the instruments we can make) and how we do that. I like the way that some of it has all been mixed up.

Right so. Off now. No buttons failure today, but I have had a little trouble keeping my fingers on the right keys.

Gup

re: gamelan oh well - your choice, but I tell you you're missing out - although I wouldn't mind doing african drumming myself

>I don't mean outcast actually, I think more drifter, it is me that doesn't bother with them, not that they choose not too bother with me.

why?

>No, the first year isn't cumulative, that'd be really crap. You'd have no time to learn anything or make mistakes. Besides, I enjoy learning, otherwise I'd get a job.

yeah but you could learn and have a good time as well - in fact that's what the first year is for - a chance to meet people and revel in the glorious diversity that exists in most universities... One might say that having a good time and meeting people is all part of the learning process...

>Hmm, funny, I'm sure they have pianos in Cuba, in fact they must do, Ruben Gonzalez plays one. Have you never heard of travelling light?

No but none of them is "my" piano - a piano my great aunt left me when she died last term. Besides - why would I want to go to Cuba?

>Sorry, noone can ever tell when I'm trying to be funny, you probably didn't notice because it was all so crap and unfunny

I noticed - chill dude it's not all that bad.

>the accent that you probably have

I have none.. if anyting it's more southern than you might think.

>Hmm, surely you have to agree with everyone doing ethnomusicology?

I think you misunderstood - I do think it's a good idea to do at least a bit of ethnomusicology, if only for the diversity of the subject, however what I meant was that Ethnomusicology, for a large part has nothing to do with fieldwork or other people's cultural music etc, it's almost entirely about writing about what other people jave written on the subject and you quickly find that viortually everything anyone has said on the subject is stock full of loopholes, predjudisms, wrongful representations and loopy theories. Look for instance at the cantometrics system, and how Lomax writes about it and you can pick out a myriad of little uncalled for remarks or potential predjudisms. The worst is the very act of labelling "Western" society and music (although I'm NOT going to go into why). Besides that it's very easy to challenge the very ethic and logic behind the experiment - for instance, is it really likely that there is going to be a "everything equation" to music? or does the "objective truth" of the matter lie in it's very diversity?

anyway, that's enough of my ethnomusicology rant..

> it is not a fact until you have all the evidence

It may not even be a fact then. However it may still be a good guess.
Anyway. enough of that banter too..

>(far from it in fact, there isn't really any Jazz there at all)

what do you define as jazz? I'd say there was, but I'd like to hear your reasoning...

Anyway, hope you are enjoying uni - don't work to hard - go out and meet people - there's no pointin being the mysterious drifter person, believe me, yada yada yackety smackety.
Toodle pip

Edd

>>I don't mean outcast actually, I think more drifter, it is me that doesn't bother with them, not that they choose not too bother with me.

>why?

Hmm, maybe because I don't know how to. I don't want to go through all the 'what's your name?' 'what do you play?' and 'do you actually have a brain?' stuff. Can't really cope with the going to pubs and sitting there looking morose while you can't actually here what is going on in a conversation anyway. Nobody said I wasn't having a good time, just I'm not doing what everyone else is, I don't know how and I don't know if I want to. The meeting people will happen, just I'll take longer about it than anyone else.

>I noticed - chill dude it's not all that bad.

I didn't ever mean to say that it was. But the fact you commented on it, well that kind of means you didn't notice everything, and so I was right to doubt your receipt of my humour (not that it was funny anyway, I didn't say that either).

>Besides - why would I want to go to Cuba?

You probably wouldn't. I doubt they'd let clique members in (tee hee). Along the same lines though, you've had your piano about 6 months, and you couldn't bear to leave it? Isn't that a teency bit cliquey (obviously I wouldn't want to play anyone elses instruments but..) How do you ever expect to learn anything if you don't leave the glove lands of the North? (incidentally, it's been a bit chilly round here recently, London is so much further up than Southampton, so I have purchased myself a scarf).

>>the accent that you probably have

>I have none.. if anyting it's more southern than you might think.

No accent, so where's the crack there?

>I think you misunderstood

I think I didn't misunderstand, I was just being provocative, but not handling myself properly, maybe I ought to think about what I am saying before I speak to you again. Obviously I haven't read enough books, but lets just disregard that for a minute (although you are quite welcome to say 'I win, you haven't read enough books!' at any point). But to have an 'everything equation' you would have to agree with everyone. I don't think this is possible either, but viewing music from an ethnomusicological kind of standpoint is preferable to all the catergorizing and dividing that happens otherwise. Nothing works like this in practise, you could probably say that ethnomusicology was divisive (in fact you did!) but certainly it is an interesting thing to study (if you don't get too involved in the theory of it).

>>(far from it in fact, there isn't really any Jazz there at all)

>what do you define as jazz? I'd say there was, but I'd like to hear your reasoning...

S**t, used that fact word again. Got myself into my own loophole thinking about this one. What I think though is that Improvisation really is the key element to Jazz (though it doesn't 'have' to be there). I think you can't just add a couple of saxes to an Orchestra and then it is Jazz. The loophole came when I was about to say that I think Jazz is about the performer and not the composer and then remembered that I was talking about 'Rhapsody in Blue' and that has quite a substantial piano part which does show off the pianists skills a bit. Hmm, would be quite useful if I had a score or recording to make a comparison with. But there are so many things about Jazz (instrumentation, form, harmony, rhythm, improvisation) that make it Jazz, you don't have to have all of them, but just one or two doesn't make it Jazz. I would say that Jazz has a 'feel' to it, but that isn't going to get me anywhere. Brings me back to an earlier point about boundaries and divisions in music, I don't want to divide them, but I do. Jazz I play on my saxophone, Symphonies I play on my violin, that is the way it works I didn't choose for it to be that way and there is little that I can do to change it (or that I would want to). It kind of comes down to what things sound like and my original point about acculturisation. The influences of world music on Miles Davis and John Coltrane don't stop them being Jazz equally the Jazzy style of 'Rhapsody in Blue' doesn't make it Jazz.

Am having a good time at Uni, not quite drifted enough to call 'mysterious,' don't know exactly why I should believe you, have you ever tried it?

Anyway, off to have lunch now (long overdue, but I think I have stayed away from home as we have a flat inspection today and I don't want to meet weird flat inspectors).

>Toodle pip

Wow, I haven't heard that said in such a long time

Pips and toods to you too

Gup

> The meeting people will happen, just I'll take longer about it than anyone else.

hmmmm


>I didn't ever mean to say that it was. But the fact you commented on it, well that kind of means you didn't notice everything, and so I was right to doubt your receipt of my humour (not that it was funny anyway, I didn't say that either).

No dude, I commented on it because I noticed your lack of self confidence which lead you to comment about your humour - If you really thought the joke wasn't that funny then you wouldn't have said it - I would have noticed the quirky edge of your humour whether you had said it or not - Ok so it wasn't Billy connolly but so what? it's justthe way your mind works - you should be proud of it

>How do you ever expect to learn anything if you don't leave the glove lands of the North?

All right smart ass - you go and socialise 4 hours a night and I'll think about going to Cuba. For a Holiday. As it happens I like Britain - as soon as I think there's any really big advantage to moving to a different country I shall pack my bags..


>No accent, so where's the crack there?

There's a difference between an accent and a coloquialism - besides, even if I did say that one word in a scottish accent (which I don't) would you still be able to call my accent scottish?

>I was just being provocative

or "pedantic"

>although you are quite welcome to say 'I win, you haven't read enough books!' at any point


I win, you haven't read enough books! You have to get involved in the theory - that's what ethnomusicology is about - and yes in a way it is better to look at things from an ethnomusicological standpoint - however that could be equated with loking at things from a purely musicological standpoint - in a way that is much better because you are not implying any sort of social strata o the music. And no - a lot of ethnomusicological prctitioners (e.g. Alan Lomax) are all about categorising, and dividing etc.
In any case - yes do ethnomusicolgy, it's cool - I just wouldn't touch it with a barge poll. Having said that though I'd quite happily pick up and learn any "cultural" instrument you name and learn to play it..


re: Jazz. ok you might say that the core part of jazz would be improvisation - good start. Ok but in order for jazz improvisation to come about you gotta hae a framework on which to hang it - all jazz improvisers have a tune or a set of chords to which they improvise, using a set (although sometimes free) mode. Trust me on his - I'm one of them. Often these are written down, often they exist only in the player's mind. Ok. Now look at your average piece of classical music - what is it? Start with bach - it's a tune, around which chords are hung, and some passing notes or polyphony may be added to make the texture more interesting - these bits however are purely at the composer's disgression - so in a way they might be said to be improvised. Take a specific piece of bach - the prelude in C major - basically a descending c major scale with chords to suit - apart from a kind of natural harmonic progression of the chords, everything else could be said to be "through composed" or in other words, improvised by the composer. Apart from that, when bach sat down and improvised 16 part fugues on the spot, was he playing jazz? no? Oh but some jazz players nowadays insist that that was what he was doing and follow it up by creating jazz pieces based on him. What they are really basing the pieces on are the chord progressions and basic melodies.In Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin is just doing exactly the same thing. He has a set tune and chord progression, and he creates a rhapsody (which is another term for an improvised piece, as is toccata and impromptu - in fact a prelude is just a name for an improvised piece to go before a chorale, based on a section of the chorale's material) based on it - almost in theme and variation style. The difference in these cases is that so far in jazz the performer improvises, and in classical the composer improvises, and in classical it is definately written down and only minimally written down in jazz - fair enough. Now, what happens when "fats" waller writes his jazz pieces down? Do they become classical? When a composer includes a section of free improvisation into his piece (which happenes alot in contemporary music) does that immediately become jazz? Why not?

I think you were more close to it when you said jazz has a feel to it - Boundaries exist in the mind. The boundary between "pop" and "classical" is all about conservatism, and the idea of music for music's sake - however if one person listens to Beethoven for the beauty of his structures, another person may listen to it for the emottions it brings - the first would be listening to it as classical, the second as pop. Hence the clique business. Both are right.

that's what I think anyway

>don't know exactly why I should believe you, have you ever tried it?

definately - spent a large portion of my life "drifting" - it's not worth it - you don't learn anything.

anyway got to go - fringers feezing off
chucks away

Edd

>No dude, I commented on it because I noticed your lack of self confidence which lead you to comment about your humour

Nooooooooooooooooooooo, that was the bit that I was trying to be funny about. hence my suggestion that "I will never even look toward the spheres of humour again, I will buy a tweed jacket and..." dur, not even I would aspire to be dull (what I actually meant then was funny waistcoat and so you didn't realise... I'm sorry, I was being mean not funny). I have plenty of self confidence, just in the past that has led to people being slightly offended as they look at things from a different level from me. Strangely though, I don't think you're too far away.

I wouldn't go to Cuba for more than a holiday, what do you think I am, crazy? Is that 4 hours every night? What would you do for that long? And wouldn't that cost a lot? (in London it is more than 12p for a pint, besides which I don't think I've got the kidneys for it).
I happen to like Britain too and seeing as we are not being bombed or shot at and most of the population isn't starving I'd say there were little real reason for moving elsewhere. Doesn't mean you shouldn't experience what the rest of the world has to offer. There are so many things you could do with your life. Why York?

>There's a difference between an accent and a coloquialism - besides, even if I did say that one word in a scottish accent (which I don't) would you still be able to call my accent scottish?

Of course I could, if you really are Scottish and you really do come from Scotland then that is the way I should like to catergorize the way you talk (see earlier comments about the demise of BBC English) even if you do sound a little like me from all the way down South. Besides are you not proud of your kilts and haggis? I can call your accent whatever I jolly well please especially seeing as I have no evidence otherwise and you can't prove anything either.
nb see earlier comment about people getting offended and not taking things on quite the same level.

>>I was just being provocative

>or "pedantic

mmm, yes probably would agree with you there (but can't quite remember exactly what it was I said)

>I win, you haven't read enough books!

Well, perhaps I shall just have to read some more, but I really don't know how you expect me to do that with my new social life you have created. I don't want you to win, that's not fair, I know you're at least a year older than me (unless you are one of those irritating little imps whose teacher noticed that they could do jigsaws a week before anyone else and couldn't handle them so stuck them up a year) but that doesn't mean that you can win every argument. I know you are from way up North, but that doesn't mean you should always talk from an elevated position (that's why you should go to Cuba!).

Anyway, I understand that that is what ethnomusicology is about, and that is interesting, so is the fact that with it you try to look at other music from an equal base. Although ultimately this isn't possible it's an interesting plan. Besides you must have touched ethnomusicology with a barge pole in the past else you wouldn't know quite so much. Just because you are very objective about why you are studying music (that is you have some kind of ultimate goal) doesn't mean that I can be. Ethnomusicology just seems to be the field that has most congruence with the way my brain is thinking at the moment.
I don't want to be an ethnomusicologist (it takes soooo long to type)
but I am interested in what it has to offer me at the moment. I want to learn about music, and that I see as part of it.

Hmm, even deeper breath taken than on previous attempt.

>all jazz improvisers have a tune or a set of chords to which they improvise, using a set (although sometimes free) mode. Trust me on his - I'm one of them.

What a tune or a set of chords? Didn't realise you got so far into your composition as to actually become the music (do you not think that it could be worked out on a rhytmic base too?)

>when bach sat down and improvised 16 part fugues on the spot, was he playing jazz? no? Oh but some jazz players nowadays insist that that was what he was doing and follow it up by creating jazz pieces based on him.

Aargh! I hate that, "if Bach were alive now, he'd have been a Jazz man" Hmph! It wasn't actually Jazz it was just what he did, he improvised, but that isn't all that Jazz is. Hmm, perhaps I am getting in a bit deep for my lack of book reading. It all comes down to trying to define on an intellectual level something that just is.
Jazz as a word was used to describe a Jazz and then a different Jazz and the word meant different things. We could talk about it till the dodos come home and still be no closer to an agreement (with each other or ourselves) but must carry on, seeing as I've already written the next bit and was just trying to make what I had written make more sense... I appreciate that what he (Bach that is, I know, it is a long time sice I was talking about him) did write (chord structures, harmonies, rhythms) can be used as a good base for Jazz (Jaques Loussieres stuff is grand). But the Bach part of it is not the Jazz, the Jazz is what you do with it. If you take your chord structures and harmonies thing too far then everything would be Jazz (apart from Beethovens later stuff) and we'd never find what we were looking for in a record shop.

>In Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin is just doing exactly the same thing. He has a set tune and chord progression, and he creates a rhapsody (which is another term for an improvised piece, as is toccata and impromptu...

But the thing is that when it is written down, when someone plays the same notes as Gershwin did then they are not making Jazz. In Jazz you compose as you perform, when playing the solo from Rhapsody in Blue you do not, neither do the rest of the orchestra.

> Now, what happens when "fats" waller writes his jazz pieces down?

Then they are not music, they are dots on a page, ready for interpretation.

>I think you were more close to it when you said jazz has a feel to it

But I thought you didn't like people being subjective...
Jazz just is, to me when I listen to or play Jazz, then that is Jazz, if I don't think something is Jazz, well then it just isn't. Don't tell me I'm listening to it as pop, I am not, I am just separating it from everything else, but then if we go back a few posts ago you'll know that what I really like about it is the fact that it isn't separate from everything else. Aaaaaarrgghhhh!!!!!! I'm going round in spheres!

>>don't know exactly why I should believe you, have you ever tried it?

>definately - spent a large portion of my life "drifting" - it's not worth it - you don't learn anything.

So how did you manage to stop drifting? I can tell you're still not quite like everyone else.

>anyway got to go - fringers feezing off

Maybe you should get some gluvses, can be mightily cold up North.

Ought to go too, erm, things to do, people to see, or maybe done enough looking at computer screen for today, besides I've replied to what there was to reply to and I've left a bit more to be said on another day, for 'twould be mightily bad if I ran out arv words to say.

Bye-see-bye

Gup

>I have plenty of self confidence, just in the past that has led to people being slightly offended as they look at things from a different level from me.

that doesn't explain deriding your own humour

>Strangely though, I don't think you're too far away.

hmmm

>And wouldn't that cost a lot?

Only if you drink for those for hours - socialising can involve anything so long as there are at least two people there - you could study with someone...

>Doesn't mean you shouldn't experience what the rest of the world has to offer.

True but that requires a budget, and you don't necessarily have to travel to acheive a rounded sense of variety

> Why York?

1. It's convenient because:-
- it's near Durham (I might stay in this band I'm in)
- it's near my old school
- I know the head of composition at York University
- I know several other people there
- There are several good composition teachers currently in residence there
2. It's a great wee town
3. It's cheap
4. It's not Durham

>really are Scottish and you really do come from Scotland

I was actually born in Devon - my Dad is half irish half english and my mum is fully english. I moved to scotland when I was 5 - so I'm not really scottish, I don't have the accent and I don't (any more) live there either - but I still say "Aye" - does that make my accent scottish?

>not proud of your kilts and haggis?

Never worn a kilt in my life - as for sheeps guts boiled in a stomach - are you?


> nb see earlier comment about people getting offended and not taking things on quite the same level

I see wht you mean - but I did see thejoke and (heavens!) almost laughed - a sort of semi-chuckle but tht's not particularily on another level - it's just a taste for the idea of grownups bickering as it were...


>new social life you have created

read books with people

>I know you're at least a year older than me

probably two actually - how old are you?

>so is the fact that with it you try to look at other music from an equal base

in effect you should be looking at all music from an equal base - that's what "musicology" is about - ethnomusicology is really no different - it just has an emphasis on music from different places...

>most congruence with the way my brain is thinking at the moment

good. Go for it. Enjoy

>What a tune or a set of chords? Didn't realise you got so far into your composition as to actually become the music (do you not think that it could be worked out on a rhytmic base too?)

how can you become music? You are a uman being - flesh and bones - music is sound - sound is a waveform. that's as far as it goes.
Yes you can also base jazz on rhythms, although that tends to be the percussionist's job.

>But I thought you didn't like people being subjective...

Once you have eliminated the objective, there is only the subjective left - besides, you say htat you need it so you can find it in the record store - there again it shows - record stores are created by humans for humans to use - the divisions of genre are purely abstract - that suggests that the division between jazz and classical (as between pop and classical etc.) lies in the mind. You might listen to a bit of jazz in a classical sense, while I might listen to the same bit of jazz in full appreciation of it's jazziness. For instance, what about Miles Davis's "Pharoah Dance" - virtually non of it is truly improvised - that is to say the various players played bits and pieces, sometimes improvising, sometimes playing along - then Miles Davis went into the studio and spent an entire week pieceing together things to make it sound organic and arranged. Is that still jazz?

A label means nothing individually - it's how you analyse it yourself.

>plays the same notes as Gershwin did then they are not making Jazz

...but Gershwin is, isn't he?

> round in spheres

um that would be circles - the implication is of course that in circles you can only go two ways and that whatever way you go you will come back to the same point - when that is translated into 3D you actually have a full gamut of directions, only a few of which will bring you back to the same point.

>So how did you manage to stop drifting? I can tell you're still not quite like everyone else.

I just woke up one morning and thought "I'm doing myself more harm than good - I'm going to stop" and I did. It's the easiest thing to do in the world, once you know how - just pick a part of your persona, any part and examine it - if you find it lacking, then think "right, no more of that then". Gone. Easy. Mind you , you should never think something along the lines of "From now on, I'm going to be..." - that's a good intention - it never work. Just as soon as you realise it, be it. In the words of Richard O' Brian "Don't Dream it, Be It".

So there you go - I don't really know whether I'm anything like anyone else, having never been anyone else to compare myself to.

Anyway, cheerio

Edd