A recipe is food?

endofanera wrote:

This is some heavy evidence for Steve's position, although I'd contend that "Magical Mystery Tour" is not among the Beatle's finest songcraft. Or "songcraft." Whichever you prefer.

I still do not get why we are pulling it all apart into little pieces. Yes, a great song can be performed great or performed like a turd. A great bass line can be played with feeling or phoned in or played poorly. A good recipe can be botched. A beautiful woman can take a bad picture. So what? I think of song craft as all the decisions put into making a song... the words (if there are words), the music, the instrumentation, the arrangement, and the execution. Yes, the execution IS PART OF IT. Why would it not be? THESE ARE ALL PARTS OF THE SONG. It all goes into a the making of a song. It is the craft of making songs.... or 'song craft' if you will. Why are we making it out to be something else? Something bad?

Some opinions in the thread are really puzzling.

Mayfair wrote:

endofanera wrote: This is some heavy evidence for Steve's position, although I'd contend that "Magical Mystery Tour" is not among the Beatle's finest songcraft. Or "songcraft." Whichever you prefer.

I still do not get why we are pulling it all apart into little pieces. Yes, a great song can be performed great or performed like a turd. A great bass line can be played with feeling or phoned in or played poorly. A good recipe can be botched. A beautiful woman can take a bad picture. So what? I think of song craft as all the decisions put into making a song... the words (if there are words), the music, the instrumentation, the arrangement, and the execution. Yes, the execution IS PART OF IT. Why would it not be? THESE ARE ALL PARTS OF THE SONG. It all goes into a the making of a song. It is the craft of making songs.... or 'song craft' if you will. Why are we making it out to be something else? Something bad?

Some opinions in the thread are really puzzling.

Im not sure what my opinion was there, but I think youve hit the nail on the head.

The question is whether "songcraft," as embodied by the composition, separate from its execution, is something that exists and can be assessed as good or bad, as contrasted with the notion that the song is the execution, and the craft is all of it taken together.

The way you put it is the same as the way Steve put it, except that you seem to think there are great songs as considered apart from their performances and arrangements ("a great song can be performed great or performed like a turd") and he clearly doesnt.

Its funny to me that Steve talks about songcraft as the conceit of the non-performer songwriter. The Nashville songwriter, as he put it. Viewing the song as he does, as only an embodiment of a performed moment, is a somewhat parallel conceit, albeit from a recordist's perspective.

The question of whether a song can be good or bad independent of its (recorded) performance is still somewhat unaddressed by yr more holistic (and accurate, I think) idea of the song. I guess the question is whether it has any meaning at all. I mean, hell, what does an unperformed song sound like anyway?

I think I just blew my own mind.

endofanera wrote:I mean, hell, what does an unperformed song sound like anyway?

John Cage?

endofanera wrote:The way you put it is the same as the way Steve put it, except that you seem to think there are great songs as considered apart from their performances and arrangements ("a great song can be performed great or performed like a turd") and he clearly doesnt.

Its funny to me that Steve talks about songcraft as the conceit of the non-performer songwriter. The Nashville songwriter, as he put it. Viewing the song as he does, as only an embodiment of a performed moment, is a somewhat parallel conceit, albeit from a recordist's perspective.

I'm inclined to reject this "recordist's perspective" because, at least insofar as poetry is concerned, it can result in the championing of subpar art. For instance, I've seen some really emphatic, dramatic "performances" of work that, when perused on the page, did not hold up at all. People went wild for the performance, which can be seen (by me) as an elaborate ruse to disguise how piss-porr the work was as language.

The opposite has held true, when I've heard great poets whose work has consistently moved me on the page (Charles Wright comes to mind) give readings that not only did not do justice to the written poem but actually undermined its power.

Of course, the best art consists of great work performed greatly, but just because this is the ideal we so desperately crave does not mean that there haven't been great performances of mediocre work or mediocre performances of "great songs."

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:I've seen some really emphatic, dramatic "performances" of work that, when perused on the page, did not hold up at all. People went wild for the performance, which can be seen (by me) as an elaborate ruse to disguise how piss-porr the work was as language.

Which is why songs are not read from a score, but listened-to.

The written part, "the song," well, fuck it. It's meaningless. Noobody lives in the blueprint of his house. Nobody hears a "song," he hears the instance of its execution. It borders on the delusional to assign value to this starting point, especially since everyone is in agreement that the results are not predicated on (not even predictable due to) the "good song" qualities of a "good song."

Here, let me write an awesome song for you:

Play a C#m in a way that evokes dread in you. Then go ape on a subject of your own choosing, using private language indecipherable to us on the outside. D.C. al Coda.

I guarantee you, if that song is performed well enough, it will be awesome. Of course, like all great songs, it is subject to being performed poorly, and the awesome song is not responsible for those instances of non-awesomeness.

steve wrote:

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:I've seen some really emphatic, dramatic "performances" of work that, when perused on the page, did not hold up at all. People went wild for the performance, which can be seen (by me) as an elaborate ruse to disguise how piss-porr the work was as language.

Which is why songs are not read from a score, but listened-to.

The written part, "the song," well, fuck it. It's meaningless. Noobody lives in the blueprint of his house. Nobody hears a "song," he hears the instance of its execution. It borders on the delusional to assign value to this starting point, especially since everyone is in agreement that the results are not predicated on (not even predictable due to) the "good song" qualities of a "good song."

Here, let me write an awesome song for you:

Play a C#m in a way that evokes dread in you. Then go ape on a subject of your own choosing, using private language indecipherable to us on the outside. D.C. al Coda.

I guarantee you, if that song is performed well enough, it will be awesome. Of course, like all great songs, it is subject to being performed poorly, and the awesome song is not responsible for those instances of non-awesomeness.

You're talking about music. Would you agree that the lyrics of a song can have literary merit above and beyond the instance of them being sung? When I read the lyrics to "I'll Be You Mirror" or any number of Bob Dylan or Neil Young or Stooges songs, I know that these are good words--poetic even--and that they stand up as art above and beyond the music assigned to them. Of course, I prefer to hear them sung, but they're good words in and of themselves, no small achievement.

And, well, if they're already aesthetically viable as language and have a memorable melody to boot, I guess that'd make that a good song.

Could not the position you espouse be colored by one disinclined to value lyrics in and of themselves? Someone seduced more often by the style of the (performed) sounds than by the content (or artistry) of the lyrics being sung?

So why, um, rehearse and perform a song more than once, if one is no better than another?

Not to keep pushing the recipe/song analogy, but (taken from the Mayonnaise C/NC):

Steve wrote:Here is a recipe anyone can use to make a wonderful Sauce Mayonnaise:

Into a stationary blender, crack one egg. Add an extra egg yolk, one garlic clove, a strong quarter teaspoon of cayenne (or a teaspoon of white pepper ground very fine) and either a slight teaspoon of salt or a tablespoon of Tamari soy sauce. Blend at high speed until the garlic is finely divided and the egg begins to froth. With the blender still running, trickle in good olive oil until the mayonnaise thickens and will accept no more oil. (this will vary, but will usually be about a cup.) Stop the blender and add a tablespoon of good vinegar OR the juice of half a lemon. Fold the mayonnaise once or twice with a spatula, which will loosen it considerably. Pulse the blender until the thick consistency returns. Taste If the mayonnaise tastes oily, add more acid (vinegar or lemon juice only. Never combine the two, as this makes for a weird bilious aftertaste). Chill covered for at least 15 minutes. I often add a tablespoon of fresh or dried dill or thyme at the beginning of the process. Don't add the acid at the beginning, as this can prevent the eggs from emulsifying.

Preparing this, I might fuck it up, I might get it right, but it's a good recipe, right? And if I practice, maybe it'll taste really good?

Good songs - good starting points for a live performance, if you will - can make the difference between a good or bad performance, no?

I'd rather hear a band of technically proficient but unimaginative musicians do "Born On The Bayou" than an original song with a weaker structure and less resonant lyrics.

All this talk about the relationship of the song to the performance is good, but is it as good as the guitar solo in the Carpenter's "Love Me For What I Am"? You'll find it on side 2 of "Horizon", an album which says a lot about the Carpenters as a whole. I'm a fan of this record, but no-one could defend their cover of "Please Mr Postman" - if ever you wanted to make the case that their music is ultra-bland bullshit, this song is all the proof you need. But then you've got hits like "Only Yesterday", uncelebrated quality tunes like the aforementioned "Love Me For What I Am" and "Aurora" and "Eventide", the unexpectedly arty pieces which bookend the album - it's quality work, and the way Karen Carpenter animates the best of their material has an appeal I can’t deny.

The interest of their music for me is nothing to do with the band's unfortunate personal history, although it doesn't hurt the band's standing in popular culture. Nor does the song "Tunic (Song for Karen)" - there used to be nothing like Sonic Youth's imprimatur to get the kids to agree on something.