From: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (Zorn List Digest) To: zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: Zorn List Digest V3 #863 Reply-To: zorn-list Sender: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk Zorn List Digest Wednesday, March 27 2002 Volume 03 : Number 863 In this issue: - Re: wiper music Re: music defined (indeterminacy) Re: WIPERMUSIC Re: music defined (indeterminacy) RE: music defined (indeterminacy) Re: music defined (indeterminacy) Re: music defined (indeterminacy) Re: wiper music Re: music defined (indeterminacy) Re: music defined (indeterminacy) Re: music defined (indeterminacy) Re: wiper music Re:Zony Mash returns Re: Re: music defined (indeterminacy) Re: Fwd: Fred Frith mailing list zamboni is music!? re: "challenging" music--a pragmatist's perspective ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 22:01:59 +0000 From: "Kurt Gottschalk" Subject: Re: wiper music ok, i thought i was being damn clever, but maybe i was just obtuse. the point had been made that it is the intent of the creator that makes something art, which is a difficult standard to apply. if little skip turns on the ignition with the intent to hear the wiper music, it perhaps is art. but if he's just appreciating the sound after his mother turns on the wipers, he's not involved in the creation, so it's just sound? > > if skip's mom turns on the wipers on another trip to piano lesson, with >skip > > enjoying the rhythm but not saying anything to his mother, who is >anxious > > about driving in the rain and running late, it is not music. > > > > if skip's mom stops to run into the drugstore, and little skip, sitting >by > > himself in the car, turns the ignition back on to listen to the wipers, >it > > is music. > >So, uh, Skip's mom, stepping out of the car, makes the wipers into >music, then makes them stop being music when she gets back in? While >Skip is sitting in the exact same seat, listening in the exact same >way to the exact same objects and processes creating the exact same >sounds? > >-- >| jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt | >| New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems | >| http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html | >| Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | >| Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | > _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:00:13 -0800 From: "s~Z" Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy) >>>Say what you want, but the audience is definitely the last factor in the art chain.<<< Absolutely last. >>>If the nature of composing is to communciate, the reaction of the audience who chooses to be communicated to is as elemental as the impetus felt by the composer felt when he designed the thing.<<< I think Moby Dick was a great work of art during Melville's lifetime. The fact that it communicated nothing to his audience was irrelevant from an artistic perspective, and unfortunate from a financial perspective. - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:06:15 -0800 From: skip Heller Subject: Re: WIPERMUSIC on 3/27/02 1:57 PM, Kurt Gottschalk at ecstasymule@hotmail.com wrote: > skip: > But as for "are they all music?" (the wiper variations, I mean), I'm not so > sure. If you don't even remotely percieve that it could be music, how do > you know it's bad music? > > point being that i don't object to anyone calling it music. whether or not > it's good is what matters. > > a painter friend of mine considers traffic lights to be the most beautiful > artworks of the 20th century. not sure i agree, but you'd get further > arguing with him by saying they're bad art than that they're not art at all. > > kg I should have said that part better. I meant that, once a thing is percieved/presented as music, it's up to whoever is hearing it to make a judgement call as to whether it's good music or not, which they only can do when it's put before them as music. To paraphrase Mr Zappa, without the frame, it's just some stuff stuck to the wall. skip h - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:04:11 -0800 From: "s~Z" Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy) >>>But if that's the thing to be heeded, why go through the time, aggro, and expense to mount ensembles and present it to an audience.<<< Because of what happens to and among musicians when they play together. The audience also participates in a live performance, but some of my most memorable concert experiences have been played before but a very few audience members, and had we all walked out, the music would have continued. - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 17:27:38 -0500 From: "Zachary Steiner" Subject: RE: music defined (indeterminacy) There is a question that I'm left with as a result of this heavily discussed issue: What is the differentiation between "bad music" and "noise?" I call a lot of what my roommate listens to (alt-rock, faux metal, etc) "bad music," but he calls a lot of what I listen to "noise." Why is the undesirable sound that he listens to bad music in my mind and not the same true for him (not just him but a great many people)? I'm curious. Zach - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:33:20 -0800 From: skip Heller Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy) on 3/27/02 2:00 PM, s~Z at keithmar@msn.com wrote: >>>> Say what you want, but the audience is definitely the last > factor in the art > chain.<<< > > Absolutely last. > >>>> If the nature of composing is to communciate, the reaction of > the > audience who chooses to be communicated to is as elemental as the > impetus > felt by the composer felt when he designed the thing.<<< > > I think Moby Dick was a great work of art during Melville's > lifetime. The fact that it communicated nothing to his audience > was irrelevant from an artistic perspective, and unfortunate from > a financial perspective. > well, often enough we have a time-delay factor. But it would be absurd to argue that Melville -- or Nathaniel West or Esquivel -- didn't eventually find the right audience. Either way, he had to create the thing before it could be received, and the audience had to be there to recieve it. skip h - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:48:05 -0800 From: skip Heller Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy) on 3/27/02 2:04 PM, s~Z at keithmar@msn.com wrote: >>>> But if that's the thing to be > heeded, why go through the time, aggro, and expense to mount > ensembles and > present it to an audience.<<< > > Because of what happens to and among musicians when they play > together. > > The audience also participates in a live performance, but some of > my most memorable concert experiences have been played before but > a very few audience members, and had we all walked out, the music > would have continued. > > What happens with/for the ensemble in the course of the music is still happening before the audience. As to if the audience walks out, I'd say they rendered their verdict as to whether or not they felt the journey was worth it. If one guy is left sitting there, enjoying it, then it works as art for him. But the rules of art are so subjective that it's unwise to think you can take some finite art yardstick and say "If it fits in this definition, it's art, otherwise, it ain't." Ultimately, it's up to the individuals who encounter the work -- and not the composer --to decide whether if fulfilled its purpose or not. sh - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 17:37:57 -0600 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: wiper music On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 10:01:59PM +0000, Kurt Gottschalk wrote: > ok, i thought i was being damn clever, but maybe i was just obtuse. the > point had been made that it is the intent of the creator that makes > something art, which is a difficult standard to apply. if little skip turns > on the ignition with the intent to hear the wiper music, it perhaps is art. > but if he's just appreciating the sound after his mother turns on the > wipers, he's not involved in the creation, so it's just sound? Well, it's always sound. How he listens to it determines whether it's music *to him*. In the absence of a listener (which may include a composer siting alone), the question of whether there is music is not meaningful. Can there be love in a room with no one in it? Hmm, this suggests (thinking out loud here) that to say something is "music" is an emotional reaction to sound, and thus it is impossible to say whether something standing alone is or is not music. When we say that something "is music", we often mean that someone has created a sound object (or a score or method for creating one) in the hope that someone (which may be only the person who made it) will perceive it and have that reaction. Or that someone has perceived a sound not made by a person and had that reaction. And then there's metaphor... - -- | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt | | New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems | | http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html | | Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | | Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 17:42:34 -0600 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy) On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 02:00:57PM -0800, skip Heller wrote: > The inner call thing is only one part. But if that's the thing to be > heeded, why go through the time, aggro, and expense to mount ensembles and > present it to an audience. Maybe the argument is that the composer is > ultimately the passenger, except he winds up being the backseat driver, > because the factors that govern his technique -- as conceptualist, composer, > bandleader, player -- ultimately define the outcome of his work. Or, if they have experiences like some scriptwriters, the composer has lost control over the keys, and is trapped, bound and screaming, in the trunk as someone else drives the car over a cliff. - -- | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt | | New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems | | http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html | | Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | | Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 17:45:39 -0600 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy) On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 02:48:05PM -0800, skip Heller wrote: > What happens with/for the ensemble in the course of the music is still > happening before the audience. As to if the audience walks out, I'd say > they rendered their verdict as to whether or not they felt the journey was > worth it. If one guy is left sitting there, enjoying it, then it works as > art for him. I was recently in a trio performance for a single audient. One of the best shows of the tour. And Comma's first performance (in a record store in Frederick, MD) had only a tiny crowd, so the performers, organizers, and audience were all able to go out to dinner together afterward. - -- | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt | | New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems | | http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html | | Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | | Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 15:00:07 -0800 From: "Patrice L. Roussel" Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy) On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 17:45:39 -0600 Joseph Zitt wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 02:48:05PM -0800, skip Heller wrote: > > > What happens with/for the ensemble in the course of the music is still > > happening before the audience. As to if the audience walks out, I'd say > > they rendered their verdict as to whether or not they felt the journey was > > worth it. If one guy is left sitting there, enjoying it, then it works as > > art for him. > > I was recently in a trio performance for a single audient. One of the > best shows of the tour. And Comma's first performance (in a record > store in Frederick, MD) had only a tiny crowd, so the performers, > organizers, and audience were all able to go out to dinner together > afterward. Even better, if there is nobody in the audience, you can even save the effort (and money) to go the place to perform! Patrice. - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 23:10:40 +0000 From: "Kurt Gottschalk" Subject: Re: wiper music >to say something is >"music" is an emotional reaction to sound, and thus it is impossible >to say whether something standing alone is or is not music. When we >say that something "is music", we often mean that someone has created >a sound object (or a score or method for creating one) in the hope >that someone (which may be only the person who made it) will perceive >it and have that reaction. Or that someone has perceived a sound not >made by a person and had that reaction. this i like! _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 00:15:56 +0100 (MET) From: Emmanouil Papagiannakis Subject: Re:Zony Mash returns hi I saw them last week in Amsterdam. I had not noticed that it would be an acoustic version actually. I have only "Cold spell" CD, so I am not an expert on them. The show was pretty cool. Really groovy, mostly consisting of nicely thought melodic pieces, I especially liked the guitar work. During one of the songs they went wild creating a nice noise-sheet, really psychedelic. I didnt recognize any of the pieces (but I am bad at it anyway...). Overall a worth-seeing concert. manolis PS: lookig forward to SEX MOB does BOND tomorrow! - --------------------------------------------------------------------- E. Papagiannakis Vrije Universiteit Tel: +31 20 4447934 FEW, N&S Fax: +31 20 4447999 Biophysics De Boelelaan 1081 www.nat.vu.nl/vakgroepen/bio/english 1081 HV, Amsterdam The Netherlands - --------------------------------------------------------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 01:00:39 +0000 From: "Bill Ashline" Subject: Re: Re: music defined (indeterminacy) From: "Patrice L. Roussel" Subject: Re: music defined (indeterminacy) On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 16:17:08 -0600 Joseph Zitt wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 02:06:38PM -0500, Michael Berman wrote: > > well then any person encountering random sounds can determine its music if they hear it as such, which just made the 'audience' the 'artist'. no? > > Yes. Is that a bad thing? No. And if somebody wants to call plumbing litterature, and another scubadiving poetry. Why not? As long as people feel happy, they can call anything they want the way they want. And if the communication gap keeps on increasing, that's the fault of people who are calling a chair a chair. Did I get it right, Joseph? Patrice. - ------------- These are called "analogies" Patrice, not linguistic overextensions. Calling a chair a "chair" is relatively simple. Calling a sound "music" is far less so, and certainly a point of contestation. Plumbing is clearly not the same as writing fiction and scuba diving is certainly different than writing poety. But one who scuba dives and plumbs for a living might find "poetic" and "literary" elements to their activity and might be compelled to draw an analogy or use a metaphor to describe it. Language isn't falling to hell. It's doing what it always does: It moves. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 20:19:01 -0500 From: "Silent Watcher" Subject: Re: Fwd: Fred Frith mailing list yeah, i have the same problem. i tried to post twice recently and after a few days or weeks, the message was sent back undeliverable... dave _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 21:27:25 -0400 From: mwoodwor Subject: zamboni is music!? FOr those of you debating about what constitutes music, you should all check out the aquarius records website - their feature album of the week is a 22 minute 'drone music' piece that is thought to be entirely comprised of sounds made by a zamboni machine (not sure if everyone knows what that is, I'm from Canada so I certainly do, it is the machine that goes over the ice between periods of a hockey game). It is EXCELLENT, and if the 'zamboni' be good music, I think just about anything can be......... - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 01:42:56 +0000 From: "Bill Ashline" Subject: re: "challenging" music--a pragmatist's perspective "Challenging" music is music that comes outside your frame of reference and forces you to deal with it on different terms than what you are accustomed. It communicates by not communicating (that is, in the expected forms). It forces you to do more than just "receive" it. It demands more investment. Some music makes the demand and we deem it unworthy of our investment. Other music makes the same demand, and we accede to the demand. We put in time. We listen again and again. Sometimes the music yields to the investment; sometimes not. Sometimes it yields itself to one person's investment but not another's. Sometimes we get frustrated at the lack of yield; write a review, "evaluate" the work based on the expected "yield," not realizing it simply didn't yield itself to "us." Sometimes we join a community of others and find it's yielded itself to no one or very, very few, and we "judge" it as bad. "It didn't yield to the community of judges" = the polite definition of "bad" art. "It didn't have an immanent "yield" to yield" = impolite (and unpragmatic) definition of "bad" art. What is the yield when it "yields?" Aural comprehension; emotive agitation; aesthetic satisfaction. Something completely outside language, except for the language of music, whatever that is. Is "challenging" music that yields more worthy as art than "less challenging" music that yields? No, unless one is invested in avant-snobbery. Is "less challenging" music that yields more worthy as art than "challenging" music that doesn't yield to me? No, unless we find ourselves as part of the "community of judges." ("Not being part of the community"--Just a fancy way of saying no one takes your opinion seriously [unless they are your friend, obviously]). Are the temporally local "community of judges" always right? No, only of the communities that follow in subsequent years confirm them again and again. Who decides, the artist or the audience? They both do. The lesson of "challenging" music is that we shouldn't always trust our initial reactions, considering such music always requires a reconfiguration of our sonic coordinates first. The question to always ask: are we capable of reconfiguring our sonic coordinates? If so, how often? _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com - - ------------------------------ End of Zorn List Digest V3 #863 ******************************* To unsubscribe from zorn-list-digest, send an email to "majordomo@lists.xmission.com" with "unsubscribe zorn-list-digest" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "zorn-list-digest" in the commands above with "zorn-list". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from ftp.xmission.com, in pub/lists/zorn-list/archive. These are organized by date. Problems? Email the list owner at zorn-list-owner@lists.xmission.com