organisch

[rachmiel]

i'm very passionate about the socratic method of inquiry/learning: ask question after question, get answer after answer, but always keep going ... deeper, into the heart of the matter. all 'conclusions' are relative, metaphors.

That's one of the things I really like about you Rick, you seem genuinely interested how others feel about things. You also seem to have no bias with respect to the words and music of others.

i AM truly interested in how others see the world. fascinated even. helps mitigate my native hermithood and curmudgeonliness. and in terms of biases ... if you believe, as i do, that EVERYTHING is a kind of metaphor (even 'hard' belief systems like science, time, physicality), then lots of biases simply fall away ... because there is no 'foundation' for them to derive stability from.

[rachmiel]

When it comes to my music irl I essentially won't give a straight answer, and am more smart-assed and reticent than you or your former teacher it seems. Which is interesting: I don't have much of any investment into what other people think of my music as it's just not part of my make-up somehow, and yet my reaction to inqueries about it (not here, irl) is startlingly similar.

maybe you feel words will diminish your music? if you invest an entity with your full being (intellect, heart, soul) how could words ever do anything but dilute it?

@i8u: is jancivil being snobbish? I don't think speaking with the idiom one is accustomed to is being snobbish;

the language is not the issue for me. in fact, i get a kick out of how 'poets' like him and you write. the issue is in the attitudes that seem to lie in, and sometimes behind, the words.

@rick: you didn't ask another question ;) If only my consciously-provokative music provoked this much consciousness raising... :?

your songs are without question provocative. i believe you've changed, for the better, the ethos of the kvr music cafe. just a little (your kind of music could never make sweeping changes) ... but enough to make a difference.

[Voidoid Surrealist]

downtown dude and uptown urbanite can both make exquisite music and both have a lot to learn from each other. only they're at constant war ... wildly defending their territories and hating (fearing) what lies beyond.

I saw an interesting documentary on "downtown art" on OvationTV called The Lowdown on Lowbrow a couple of night ago. Obvioulsy, it goes both ways, but it was amazing (and to me, saddening) to see the level of hatred/fear that things like conceptual art can inspire within the downtown scene.

[rachmiel]

downtown dude and uptown urbanite can both make exquisite music and both have a lot to learn from each other. only they're at constant war ... wildly defending their territories and hating (fearing) what lies beyond.

I saw an interesting documentary on "downtown art" on OvationTV called The Lowdown on Lowbrow a couple of night ago. Obvioulsy, it goes both ways, but it was amazing (and to me, saddening) to see the level of hatred/fear that things like conceptual art can inspire within the downtown scene.

yes. it goes both ways. just because downtowners are 'iconoclastic' and cool and groovey doesn't mean they're openminded. some of the most rigidly didactic and exclusionary musicians i've ever met were downtown-to-the-hilt jazz improvisers.

[runagate]

<------------------downtown improv jazz snob that happens to not live anywhere near Manhatten, own an acoustic instrument or even make music semi-related to such

@ musical provokation: I'd be devastated to make music that became someone else's template. I don't even like being complimented, but have gotten to the point where if someone does it who makes music I respect I won't bitch about it

[jancivil]

jancivil, i've ignored your various ad hominems (weakly disguised as sincere questions and comments). but if you don't start playing nicer, instead of seeing 'if you can take me' ... i'm going to stop playing altogether with you.

well, I am revisiting this thread as you asked me exactly what you said on part of it, elsewhere; my, you did get a bit upset, I didn't know, I had quit watching it. I assure you I am too busy for 'if you can take me' even if I thought that sort of thing meant anything. If I didn't have any interest in you as a musician, I wouldn't have bothered with this conversation. I am guilty of acting as a critic. mea culpa.

> SO: a statement such as I write for MUSIC itself, I have to ask: is it a subject or an object this music? Or, is it ineffable, inexplicable, such as the convention many like to name "God"? If so, how is it that one can write *for* it, in any pure sense?

i'll gladly respond to this, but not until i believe that you're asking it for the right reason: a sincere desire to understand me. i'm interested in discussing, passionately ... but not sparring or playing the dozens.

Yeah, I am trying to understand you. Understand this about me: I am not a writer. To call attention to myself as a writer would mean a kind of hubris.

Read the above question: how would I have formulated it if I weren't close to this very assertion I have challenged? I kinda sorta decided what I decided, and refuted myself on it. I am interested to hear another's - your - argument, if only as a sort of mirroring.

jan

[jancivil]

Top thread, but jancivil is being as snobbish as the snobs he professes to hate.

I kind of need you to show how your thinking works on that. Linguistically, I think it's somewhat like calling someone an anti-bigot bigot.

0) I have a reaction to a certain school of thought, a camp I have been not only exposed to, but for a minute was a member of. I have also examined my thought on this, self-critically, in this very part of the discussion.

My initial post this discussion was: a statement referrring to a musician, Pierre Boulez;
1) who shows 100% disdain for a whole AREA of music which he has little to no experience with as a listener or as a player, due to a set of abstractions, a whole school of thought which was popular among intellectuals when he came of age.

(IE: I don't stand aside from a school of music that has decided that entertaining music = less than substantial music. I used to stand inside that circle, and I repudiated myself on it.)

these two actions, 0) and 1), are equivalent, HOW?