Last night the heat went out.
My computer is now cold to the touch.
So glad I don't have to work today.
Gonna make me some pancakes!
Musical concern: Burial
352Sorry this was just so silly...
Right. You've written something as complex and ingenious as Gretchen am Spinnrade or the Hungarian Rhapsodies. Piss off.
Not much. Beethovan's 9th, which quotes "Ode To Joy" is an entirely different matter.
Are you serious? PDQ Bach? That's the Weird Al of classical music. Camp.
Bullshit. In defense of classical musicians they can play other forms... I've known classical musicians to play in klezmer, jazz, Celtic and rock ensembles. Let's see David Yow get up on stage and play Federico Moreno Torroba. Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahaha.
And you could say that and be a totally philistine retard.
El Protoolio wrote:I have listened to and created highly inventive melodic ideas that required a high degree of technical skill to execute, and all within the rock idiom.
Right. You've written something as complex and ingenious as Gretchen am Spinnrade or the Hungarian Rhapsodies. Piss off.
There are only 12 notes both for rock and for western classical music. Melody, complexity and highly polished technical skills are not the exclusive domain of the classical idiom. Just as simplicity is not the exclusive domain of rock. "Ode To Joy"? How much simpler can a melody be?
Not much. Beethovan's 9th, which quotes "Ode To Joy" is an entirely different matter.
Your argument was that rock is not art but camp because you read it in an essay once. What everyone here has demonstrated to you again and again is that rock is art. Serious intent and artistic expression are not excluded from rock music. We have all agreed that some rock has a campy intent just as other artistic expressions have campy intent. Have you ever heard of PDQ Bach? Is that art or is it camp? All I know for sure is that it's classical.
Are you serious? PDQ Bach? That's the Weird Al of classical music. Camp.
I have said and what I believe warmowski is saying is that technical skill and performing complex patterns have nothing to do with creative art. When he or I have asked classically trained musicians to be spontaneous and creative they were incapable of doing so. Couldn't even improv along any of the hundreds of complex scale patterns they knew.
Bullshit. In defense of classical musicians they can play other forms... I've known classical musicians to play in klezmer, jazz, Celtic and rock ensembles. Let's see David Yow get up on stage and play Federico Moreno Torroba. Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahaha.
tocharian wrote:So let's just say rock music is the apex of culture, David Yow is as great a musician as János Starker and be done with it.
We could say that, and that would be a subjective opinion.
And you could say that and be a totally philistine retard.
Ace wrote:derrida, man. like, profound.
Musical concern: Burial
353tocharian wrote:I'm not gonna say anymore after this because I seem to disagree with just about everyone here about talking about art... which is fine.
it's not the length, it's the gersch
Musical concern: Burial
354tocharian wrote:As far as improvising goes... of course it's easier to improvise in rock music. Continuing a circle of fifths or some pattern of chords is much easier than building on a highly inventive melodic idea requiring a high degree of technical skill to execute.
So let's just say rock music is the apex of culture, David Yow is as great a musician as János Starker and be done with it.
Rather let's just make some absurd generalizations, then acquiesce to an equivalence that nobody has proposed, and duck the very question you raised yourself...
You act as though the rest of us have no exposure to classical music or musicians, and don't really understand rock music. Even those of us who have both worked professionally with classical musicians and traveled within rock circles for decades.
It's as though you have created a hierarchy of music based on whether or not its audience wears pearls rather than anything about the music itself. And as for these ridiculous notions regarding rock music's simple forms, where do you think repetitive chord patterns and modulations came from in the first place?
steve albini
Electrical Audio
sa at electrical dot com
Quicumque quattuor feles possidet insanus est.
Electrical Audio
sa at electrical dot com
Quicumque quattuor feles possidet insanus est.
Musical concern: Burial
355tocharian wrote:Sorry this was just so silly...El Protoolio wrote:I have listened to and created highly inventive melodic ideas that required a high degree of technical skill to execute, and all within the rock idiom.
Right. You've written something as complex and ingenious as Gretchen am Spinnrade or the Hungarian Rhapsodies. Piss off.
Read my whole statement. I wasn't talking just about me.
El Protoolio wrote:I have listened to and created highly inventive melodic ideas that required a high degree of technical skill to execute, and all within the rock idiom.
Also I didn't claim to be a genius, I just said I have come up with complex melodies that needed excellent technical execution. And I have done that. Whether they live up to whatever subjective standards you hold or not is irrelevant. What I have done was not the point. The point was complex melodies are not exclusive to classical music. And they are not.
tocharian wrote:There are only 12 notes both for rock and for western classical music. Melody, complexity and highly polished technical skills are not the exclusive domain of the classical idiom. Just as simplicity is not the exclusive domain of rock. "Ode To Joy"? How much simpler can a melody be?
Not much. Beethovan's 9th, which quotes "Ode To Joy" is an entirely different matter.
So what? Sometimes it's simple, sometimes it's complex, that was my point. You just backed me up. Thank you.
tocharian wrote:Your argument was that rock is not art but camp because you read it in an essay once. What everyone here has demonstrated to you again and again is that rock is art. Serious intent and artistic expression are not excluded from rock music. We have all agreed that some rock has a campy intent just as other artistic expressions have campy intent. Have you ever heard of PDQ Bach? Is that art or is it camp? All I know for sure is that it's classical.
Are you serious? PDQ Bach? That's the Weird Al of classical music. Camp.
Well then, all classical must be camp, right?
tocharian wrote:I have said and what I believe warmowski is saying is that technical skill and performing complex patterns have nothing to do with creative art. When he or I have asked classically trained musicians to be spontaneous and creative they were incapable of doing so. Couldn't even improv along any of the hundreds of complex scale patterns they knew.
Bullshit. In defense of classical musicians they can play other forms... I've known classical musicians to play in klezmer, jazz, Celtic and rock ensembles. Let's see David Yow get up on stage and play Federico Moreno Torroba. Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahaha.
Like I said
El Protoolio wrote:We differ from you in acknowledging that there are exceptions to what we have generally experienced. That's how maturity and humility fits in with us. I hope you can find them for yourself someday.
Let's see Federico Moreno Torroba get up on stage and play the Jesus Lizard. Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahaha.
tocharian wrote:So let's just say rock music is the apex of culture, David Yow is as great a musician as János Starker and be done with it.
We could say that, and that would be a subjective opinion.
And you could say that and be a totally philistine retard.
That sure is your subjective opinion.
it's not the length, it's the gersch
Musical concern: Burial
356El Protoolio wrote:We differ from you in acknowledging that there are exceptions to what we have generally experienced. That's how maturity and humility fits in with us. I hope you can find them for yourself someday.
Let's see Federico Moreno Torroba get up on stage and play the Jesus Lizard. Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahaha.
That might actually be really awesome.
Ace wrote:derrida, man. like, profound.
Musical concern: Burial
357tocharian wrote:I'm not gonna say anymore after this because I seem to disagree with just about everyone here about talking about art... which is fine.
When does this start? After your next post? Or the one after that?
it's not the length, it's the gersch
Musical concern: Burial
358dear tocharian, i don't expect that you have and i hope you never will listen to any of my bands.
Musical concern: Burial
359As it turns out, I didn't make pancakes.
Instead I waited till I was unbearably hungry and then walked down to Blakes to get a "barbecue" style Hamburger and overtip my waitress.
Afterwards I wanted some ice cream but not enough to head to the cash machine.
And so I went straight home.
Instead I waited till I was unbearably hungry and then walked down to Blakes to get a "barbecue" style Hamburger and overtip my waitress.
Afterwards I wanted some ice cream but not enough to head to the cash machine.
And so I went straight home.
Musical concern: Burial
360steve wrote:Dishonest? Is the artist (wholly, specifically, or generally) a charlatan? Does he misrepresent himself IN HIS ART somehow?
Well, ignoring that he obfuscates his person (which can only be construed as misrepresenting himself), I don't have any idea. He treats the public side of his music (and interest in him as a person) like a game, in the manner of Julian Schnabel or Jeff Koons or Mark Kostabi. All them are cunts, so I'm inclined to think mister anonymous grime dubstep is a cunt too.
I think that's a bit harsh, and that it's slightly more complex than that, but really we're both just guessing.
My hunch'd be that there are a couple of major motivations; firstly, the tininess of Britain, and coming with that a desire to screw with the media (nowhere to the specialist press to the mainstream press in twelve months, which - I get the impression - doesn't happen as much in the US, though Pitchfork seem to be trying hard to import it), and secondly-and-more-importantly an aspect of the same vein of nostalgia he's mining with his sound.
Burial's music feels intensely nostalgic and very redolent of a very particular place and time. It's a ghostly, hollowed-out version of a deeply London, very pirate-radio, turn-of-the-century sound (UK/speed garage, and before that the dark/tech end of d'n'b), a lot of which was made by anonymous producers - often the same few people working under many pseudonyms - outwith the mainstream music business. I reckon his refusing to put a name to his work is a deliberate nod to that facelessness. It's a very anti-rock aesthetic, almost dehumanised in a way. A lot of electronic music - Autechre, for instance - is starting off from artificiality and abstraction, which is about as far as you can get (in attitude) from a singer with a guitar, isn't it?
Actually, it kinda feels, to me, that comparing rock and electronic music (avoiding the tocharian-vs-the-world thread) is comparing apples and spanners; one's an attitude and approach, one's a technique. Say, a record like Caribou's Andorra - is it electronic? It was made on a computer in his back bedroom, so it's electronic music in method, but it doesn't really sound like that to me - it feels like an (indie) rock album. There's a big grey area. Boards of Canada are somewhere in there too, I guess; they record and resample themselves heavily. A lot of the Morr Music/CCO bands (the Notwist, Ulrich Schnauss et al) are somewhere in that indie-rock-by-electronic-methods space too. It might be sold as dance music in record stores, but it isn't really, not in intent, any more than Eno was/is.
And, maybe, there's sampling and sampling too - lifting single hits, mangling them, and resequencing them into something new doesn't feel the same as lifting entire chunks of someone else's performance. It's got nothing in common with playing the instrument, but it doesn't feel plagiaristic/referential in the same way. Maybe that's just me projecting, though.
Sorry to intrude!