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tocharian wrote:

ERawk wrote:Are you instrumentally inclined? Have you ever played with a group of musicians, whether it's a large orchestra or a 4-piece band?

Yes. When I was 12 I received a full scholarship to study oboe at Mannes Conservatory in New York. I then moved to Washington DC and studied with the principal oboist in with National Symphony Orchestra for 7 years. The pressure was unreal, and in fit of teenage pique I quit.

Your characterization of classical musicians is inaccurate. Any professional classical musician can improvise, as well as play music by ear and sight-read highly complex scores. They're trained to do all three.

Listen, I like rock music. I don't think it's art. That's my right. You can go ahead and furnish a list of bands you think make great art, but I'll probably find them tedious, limited or totally camp.

And yes, as my friends near their 30s and seriously engage in serious matters such as careers and family, they are losing interest in rock because they don't find it nearly as satisfying as other forms.

In any case it is just silly to go around saying, yes rock is art but, no I don't want to read up on what people have written about art or be able to talk about it in any kind of intelligent way.

So go ahead and self-righteousize yourselves into oblivion. I am frankly surprised at how seriously you all take this. Rock is doomed indeed.

And I thought i was a snob...

steve wrote:

geiginni wrote:On the flip side, I do find this so called "Rockism" equally offensive from its seeming declaration that Rock is the final evolution of musical art and thus its highest elevation. Bullshit on that count as well.

Who has ever said this thing? This thing you are calling bullsiht on, that "Rock is the final evolution of musical art and thus its highest elevation," who ever said that? I think you made it up in order to call bullshit on it.

Steve, I cannot quote such a thing directly and thus did not do so. However, my perception of what has been written in much of the music press over time, i.e. Pitchfork, etc... has lead me to the conclusion that this is the attitude of those who consider themselves "authorities" on music, much less so than actual musicians themselves.

Since so called "Rockism" is largely a product of music journalism, which is arguably bullshit in and of itself; that attitude is bullshit and belies the overall ignorance of those who write about music.

Colonel Panic wrote:What Tocharian is basically doing is accusing Steve of "rockism" ( a somewhat valid charge, perhaps)...

While this is a made-up word and can probably mean whatever you want it to mean, I still think this is nonsense, that I am somehow "rockist." This term seems to have been made up to create a fictional enemy of broad taste, someone who only likes rock music and only because it is rock music. To rail against this non-existent class, it needed a name, and the name chosen was "rockist."

Anyone who thinks I belong in this class, even "somewhat," ought to be able to explain both what the term means, and why it applies to me.

Please have at it.

Cranius wrote:

Skronk wrote:

Cranius wrote:

NerblyBear wrote:To dismiss rock as being a lesser art form than classical music or poetry makes a tiny bit of sense to me, but I still strongly disagree with it.

You mean minor art form, which significantly different to 'lesser'. The distinction is crucial.

Why should there be a distinction?

Because distinctions are important when trying to be accurate in your speech.

Rock could be considered 'minor' in relation to say classical music, but that is not to say that it is 'lesser' or less adequate. In the same way that slang is minor to the Queen's English (the major/dominant form).

Skronk wrote:I think it's inevitable that "minor" ends up as "lesser".

Erm...actually the converse its true. Minor usually ends up as the greater.

It sounds silly, but the major form is continually 'bastardized' by the minor, if we hold with the analogy of language. It's just the way cultural things travel. Punk is an example of the minor form usurping the major (i.e. overblown 70's stadium Rock).

I don't think it's that important to the debate here, though. But if people want to discuss hierarchies of musical forms then it's important to think of how forms within the perceived hierarchy relate and change each other.

Isabelle Gall wrote:

that damned fly wrote:i hope kitsch would be decided by the artist and not the audience.

FYP

did you fix my post, for my pleasure, or fellate my privates.

i'm ok with all of the above.

Oh this burial was really rabbish....

steve wrote:While this is a made-up word and can probably mean whatever you want it to mean, I still think this is nonsense, that I am somehow "rockist." This term seems to have been made up to create a fictional enemy of broad taste, someone who only likes rock music and only because it is rock music. To rail against this non-existent class, it needed a name, and the name chosen was "rockist."

Anyone who thinks I belong in this class, even "somewhat," ought to be able to explain both what the term means, and why it applies to me.

Please have at it.

All words are made-up at some point is my weasel caveat, but I have a strong dislike of this term. I've good friends who are far more immersed in electronic and dance music than me, and I've been subject to this condescension when I've talked about current rock bands that I like: "you are such a rockist". I was going to cut and paste a short rant that I wrote on this to the friend who's most guilty of using this vague term, but having looked it up it is somewhat embarrassing. I was quite annoyed at the time. I'll post an edited excerpt anyway:

I wrote:I am complaining – “of course”, to some of you – about this cumbersome title that speccy elektroniaks choose to foist above those of us who like music that rocks.

The cumbersomeness is deliberate: it seeks to muddy then freeze the vitality of the rock it denigrates, implying a staid movement behind the adjective, a rockism. Rock is no longer a “movement”, never was when good, so keep your own movements to yourselves; your movements are personal. There’s an odour of defensiveness, of frantic swatting at illusory assailants to this aggressiveness (surely dance is meant to transcend such machismo?); they have erected an ideological barrier; we are presented with a po-faced either/or.

....

Alongside this is another snidey, sniggering unsaid, in the –ist, which in the contexts in which “rockist” arises, links the word closer to sexist and racist, than, say, humanist, Marxist, Capitalist, Solipsist, or Desist. A dumb, unexplained sniffle of a cheap shot, this fraud, I’ve noticed, appears to help foster a bewildering sentiment of victimhood amongst some wielders. The poor, huddling, mo-po-mo masses, besieged by lager puking black leather jacket rockist monsters, potential rapists one and all... Diddums.

What this unfortunately murky writing hints at, I think, is the lack of definition to the word. It seems to exist purely as an insult to be wielded by mainly male, reasonably well-read fans of electronic music (quite popular with Wire writers I believe), who feel they've moved on from rock except in the most ear-bleeding extreme manifestations - at least from the tiny sample who I've heard use this term.

It is an insinuation which, in the usage that I'm familiar with, contains hints of sexism accusation. Since I have not seen a definition of it, I will have a brief go:-

A rockist is an insult directed towards someone which accuses them of:

1. liking rock music more than any other kind of music;
2. having an irrational hatred of sample-based music;
3. being male;
4. having lurking problems with being around women;
5. being white; and
6. never dreaming of living in Hackney.

I apology for this poverty of description, but I only have the insult in personal context to go from.

steve wrote:someone who only likes rock music and only because it is rock music.

Not as rare as you´d think.

Re: Jazz = outgrowing rock (I think this is relevant, but I make no guarantees).

One of the things I find to be really funny about all this anger over rock vs. jazz specifically is that both forms experienced a similar evolution over a similar time frame (Jazz started in the late 1800s, proto-rock, the 1940s [but in earnest, the '50s]).

Rock saw post-punk in the form of the Minutemen, This Heat, etc. (1980s)

Jazz experienced a similar rise of technical and creative giants such as Charlie Parker and Bix Beiderbecke. (1920s-1940s)

Jazz was often very crude in the beginning, just like rock. For every Jelly Roll Morton, there were like 100 jazz guys playing the turn-of-the-century equivalent of "Louie, Louie." Something like Ragtime consisted of the same musical pattern used by about a million doudes.

Miles Davis quit Julliard and Art Pepper resisted formal musical training out of a fear that he would lose the soul that he gained from learning how to play his horn by feel in the streets. Similarly, guys like Tim M. and Andy C. "don't know" how to play their instruments...they just know how.

Eventually, BOTH forms became band-oriented. BOTH forms became very technical (at least in Electrical Audio circles...let's just pretend Nickelback never happened). BOTH forms came to attract a demanding, specific, rabid audience. Jazz may often require a certain virtuoso...but rock requires a mastery of one's equipment and an ability to work an audience into a frenzy (if you're a punker [i.e. not the Dirty Three or Slint]).


Instead of the minimalism we find in Kind of Blue, we get Neil Young/Crazy Horse, Slint, Shellac, blah blah blah...


This argument has been pretty simplified, and maybe there's something similar in the "Graduation Cap" thread, but I've always enjoyed jazz and rock for similar reasons.

Bernardo wrote:

steve wrote:someone who only likes rock music and only because it is rock music.

Not as rare as you´d think.

Okay, name a couple. I can't think of anyone.