Champion Rabbit wrote:

154 wrote:technically sophisticated=hard to play

Yeah, I guess.

In which case 'classical' music or Jazz clearly wins.

I would bet my house against a donut that no classically-trained percussionist could do justice to "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell and the Drells. It is hard to play in a way they probably can't even grasp.

steve wrote:

Champion Rabbit wrote:

154 wrote:technically sophisticated=hard to play

Yeah, I guess.

In which case 'classical' music or Jazz clearly wins.

I would bet my house against a donut that no classically-trained percussionist could do justice to "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell and the Drells. It is hard to play in a way they probably can't even grasp.

'They'?

Are we back at school with the squares over there and the cool guys over there?

Can he majority of rock percussionists do justice to "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell and the Drells?

Do formally trained musicians not have personality and individuality in terms of their performances?

Perhaps they are automatons?

Champion Rabbit wrote:

steve wrote:

Champion Rabbit wrote:

154 wrote:technically sophisticated=hard to play

Yeah, I guess.

In which case 'classical' music or Jazz clearly wins.

I would bet my house against a donut that no classically-trained percussionist could do justice to "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell and the Drells. It is hard to play in a way they probably can't even grasp.

'They'?

Are we back at school with the squares over there and the cool guys over there?

Can he majority of rock percussionists do justice to "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell and the Drells?

Do formally trained musicians not have personality and individuality in terms of their performances?

Perhaps they are automatons?

It mystifies me how you can unquivocally state that "they" are all better musicians than rock musicians, then take offense when equally grand assertions are made about "their" inability to play in specific styles for which "they" are not trained and to which "their" training is not directed. Youre as guilty as (if not guiltier than) anyone here of speaking in sweeping generalities that rather conveniently overlook the many exceptional players of any school; your accusation of some kinda cool/square dichotomy is simply unfounded.

I held my tongue (so to speak) when you made sweeping claims about the universal superiority of jazz and classical/orchestral/academic players and composers and then "wondered" how anyone could have gotten the idea that you look down your nose at rock, but this is just too much. For fuck's sake, if youre gonna keep making beds at least have the decency to lie in them.

hey, my family is here for christmas, and i can't afford to devote any more time to the electrical audio board just now. so, this will probably be my last post to the "hogan's legdrop" thread (in which there are now at least three or four very different strands of argument--hopefully our positions are not being conflated erroneously--and possible points of departure). i'm sorry that my answers are not as exhaustive or detailed as they should be; perhaps i can revisit this later. LAD, i have a feeling you'd be in my camp here, so feel free to jump in.

steve, i agree with all of your points to "champion rabbit" regarding rock music, and you raise a number of things i've never even thought about. eno's argument about the sonic palette of an electric guitar is a good one. of course, your "Jass" paradigm would not have applied to sun ra and his band, or many other fine artists and groups who have worked within that particular idiom.

your response to the sun ra example further confirms my suspicion that we have fundamentally different ways of conceptualizing and thinking about these things. i do not believe that standards of truth and falsity ("bullshitting") can be applied to artistic endeavor in any meaningful way. i do not think that they should. human beings are not "essentially" anything--so how could their art be?--and culture functions as the space in which we are (or should be) maximally free to fashion ourselves.

i do not think there is anything timeless, natural, or genuine about the "authenticity" you hear on an AC/DC record, but that it is a social construction tied to a particular set of historical, cultural, and economic circumstances, along the lines of what has been called "blackness" (soul), "jewishness" (melancholy), masculinity/femininity, etc. it is a relatively recent invention.

at the beginning of the 21st century, the rap music industry runs on its own twisted model of "authenticity," and people die.

steve wrote:Now you've got me interested. What about history is there that invalidates the notion that I can tell when an artist is bullshitting me? If you can make a history-as-context case that this distinction is invalid, I'd love to hear it.

i was referring to something slightly different (one of the pitfalls of these tangled discussions): the fact that history shows a danger in assuming people--or groups of people, or their body of cultural production--are "essentially" anything: evil, degenerate, or otherwise.

i do not think authorial intentions count for much--perhaps they are on par with the purchase price--and i believe that our response to a work of art is always going to tell us (and others) more about ourselves than the work itself.

endofanera wrote:

Champion Rabbit wrote:

steve wrote:

Champion Rabbit wrote:

154 wrote:technically sophisticated=hard to play

Yeah, I guess.

In which case 'classical' music or Jazz clearly wins.

I would bet my house against a donut that no classically-trained percussionist could do justice to "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell and the Drells. It is hard to play in a way they probably can't even grasp.

'They'?

Are we back at school with the squares over there and the cool guys over there?

Can he majority of rock percussionists do justice to "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell and the Drells?

Do formally trained musicians not have personality and individuality in terms of their performances?

Perhaps they are automatons?

It mystifies me how you can unquivocally state that "they" are all better musicians than rock musicians, then take offense when equally grand assertions are made about "their" inability to play in specific styles for which "they" are not trained and to which "their" training is not directed. Youre as guilty as (if not guiltier than) anyone here of speaking in sweeping generalities that rather conveniently overlook the many exceptional players of any school; your accusation of some kinda cool/square dichotomy is simply unfounded.

I held my tongue (so to speak) when you made sweeping claims about the universal superiority of jazz and classical/orchestral/academic players and composers and then "wondered" how anyone could have gotten the idea that you look down your nose at rock, but this is just too much. For fuck's sake, if youre gonna keep making beds at least have the decency to lie in them.

We can pretend that the majority of rock musicians could play a selection of jazz and classical standards if it makes you feel better?



Or maybe we should take a few cherry-picked rock musicians as representative of 'rock' and compare them to Steve's 'automaton' classical players?

Would that be better/fairer?

Maybe it's just the case that rock music, when played with more enthusiasm than talent, sounds better than classical music does when played in this fashion. A very high standard of technical competence is required to make classical music sound passable. Rock music can sound brilliant with a lot less. This makes it a more efficient form of expression. It can also be taken to the same preposterous extremes as classical music.
Some days I'll listen to the Happy Flowers, some days I'll listen to Wagner.
I am ham-fisted to the extreme on guitar, but can keep time and always sound like me. Other people may try to emulate the racket i kick up and fail, they will not sound like me. I am unique. Uniqueness is not an attribute that is desireable in a classical musician. Extreme technical accuracy is essential in classical music. It is an optional extra in rock music. I think that too much of it is a very bad thing in rock music, but that's just me being unique again.
Possibly we should blame Freud.

dave-sidca wrote:Maybe it's just the case that rock music, when played with more enthusiasm than talent, sounds better than classical music does when played in this fashion. A very high standard of technical competence is required to make classical music sound passable. Rock music can sound brilliant with a lot less. This makes it a more efficient form of expression. It can also be taken to the same preposterous extremes as classical music.
Some days I'll listen to the Happy Flowers, some days I'll listen to Wagner.
I am ham-fisted to the extreme on guitar, but can keep time and always sound like me. Other people may try to emulate the racket i kick up and fail, they will not sound like me. I am unique. Uniqueness is not an attribute that is desirable in a classical musician. Extreme technical accuracy is essential in classical music. It is an optional extra in rock music. I think that too much of it is a very bad thing in rock music, but that's just me being unique again.
Possibly we should blame Freud.

Is it not more likely that since technical excellence is demanded in the classical world, that individual traits are simply FAR more subtle?

Is subtlety a BAD thing?

Take two people who are only semi-literate and ask them to write a brief description of a picture; once you are familiar with the 'styles' (typos/grammatical f-ups/limits of vocabulary) of each then if you ask 'em to repeat the task with a second picture you can easily identify the author's 'style'.

Do the same with two highly-literate people and you'll find the stylistic differences far more subtle/less predictable.

Possibly.

Individual subtlety is important when it comes to musicians playing the solo bits (excuse the ignorance of technical terms) in classical music, but fairly irrelevant when it comes to half a dozen violins, or whatever, playing the same thing. It's also subtlety in try to second-guess what the composer wanted them to sound like, which may or may not be an admirable quality depending on your point of view. I reckon that for about 90% of an orchestra, individual subtlety is not a great concern. Personal synergy between 'band' members is discouraged in classical music, and, subsequently, a degree of humanity is lost.

As an English graduate, I've come to believe that the highly literate develop more 'linguistic-ticks' than the semi-literate. Idiots can provide the most wonderful spontaneity, if left to run free.

Okay, okay, okay! So I can't read music! Jesus Fucking Christ! No one asked me to play a sonata, I'm in a punk rock band, fer chrissakes.

Seriously. This whole discussion isn't even apples and oranges, it's apples and beef stew.

dave-sidca wrote:Individual subtlety is important when it comes to musicians playing the solo bits (excuse the ignorance of technical terms) in classical music, but fairly irrelevant when it comes to half a dozen violins, or whatever, playing the same thing. It's also subtlety in try to second-guess what the composer wanted them to sound like, which may or may not be an admirable quality depending on your point of view. I reckon that for about 90% of an orchestra, individual subtlety is not a great concern. Personal synergy between 'band' members is discouraged in classical music, and, subsequently, a degree of humanity is lost.

As an English graduate, I've come to believe that the highly literate develop more 'linguistic-ticks' than the semi-literate. Idiots can provide the most wonderful spontaneity, if left to run free.

You aren't comparing like for like; if you are talking about identifiable 'ticks' in a string section of a large orchestra then you need to compare identifiable 'ticks' in a big 'rock' band like Funkadelic or something. You'll be able to hear the 'ticks' of the 'lead' instruments, but not the bedding.

Listen to a strong string quartet and your'll be able to hear the 'ticks'.