The Search for Quality

[mayan]

The discussion on some other thread about how limitation of choice can actually foster productivity and creativity put me in a contemplative mood.

As someone who works in "experimental" realms -which (for myself) I define as each piece having it's own interior logic (or lack thereof), the above thread (and the thread on ambience) yanked me back to a continuing internal debate - what gives "quality" to a piece where all or most "rules" of melodic, harmonic, thematic and rythymic structure have been chucked-aside in favor of -well- -er- the great yawp of individual vision.

I ponder this often. Is what I'm doing noodling? Musicturbation? I'd like to think not -and actually but a lot of time into my pieces sonically and production-wise - and I'd like to believe that my pieces do not repeat themselves but is this just in the eyes/ears of the beholder? In other words, when there's no structure or traditional discipline what bench-marks does one have for assessing the quality of a piece?

I doubt that I'll quit what I'm doing and go back to traditional three minute pop songs...an exquisite discipline, IMHO. I don't think there's right or wrong answers. I'm just wondering how others approach this. Although I totally eschew labels as failures of the imagination, I'm interested in what criteria (other than production-type issues) people use to assess ambient/glitch/IDM/congenitally bizarre music.

[Stupid American Pig]

as with any art form, you have accessable and not as accessable examples of it. that doesnt make anyone of them valid or invalid. I have often wondered why I make music. I will probably never do it professionally.(In the traditional sense anyway), but that never distresses me for long. I just enjoy doing it, even if nobody likes it. I will quit when I quit having fun, or when the trickle of creativity in my head dries up...

[dystonia_ek]

My basic criteria is that it has to give me those little shiver-up-the-spine, hairs-standing-at-attention feeling. The first music to do this to me, that I can recall, was Ligeti's 'Requiem' as used in Kubrick's '2001', which I saw with my father when I was 6. That music scared the shit out of me at the time, especially combined with the cold, cryptic imagery. At the same time there was much beauty in it. I tend to look for, and try to make, sounds that have the same effect on me now as Gyorgy did then.
Some might disagree - there are quite a few artists out there who are aiming for some sort of (probably unattainable) absolute objectivity, and who have produced some striking work in the process (i.e. Francisco Lopez). There are others for whom it's a multilayered mind game (i.e. The Hafler Trio). Or people who mount an attack on the very idea of music... I guess it's hard to pin down ultimately, which is why there's so much disagreement about, and within, these areas.

[xoxos]

I have often wondered why I make music.

to distract you from the horror of your culture and give you something to assume the validity thereof upon.

[clueless]

I have often wondered why I make music.

...

because he likes it

[shamann]

what gives "quality" to a piece where all or most "rules" of melodic, harmonic, thematic and rythymic structure have been chucked-aside in favor of -well- -er- the great yawp of individual vision...when there's no structure or traditional discipline what bench-marks does one have for assessing the quality of a piece...what criteria (other than production-type issues) people use to assess ambient/glitch/IDM/congenitally bizarre music.

It's worth remembering that prior to the Austro-Germanic Romantic period (beginning mid/late 18th c) music was generally considered either illustrative (think Bach, variations, fugues, etc) or functional (devotional, communal/balladry, meditative, ceremonial, etc). So useful to try to move away from the prevailing individualist/naturalist doctrine long enough to consider what function/use do you have in mind for your music/sound/noise.

Structure is as structure does really, doesn't have to imply hierarchy or quality as some might have you believe. Often structure is used to imply the proper structure, the acceptable and formal way, which is very different. Leave that crap up to the chest beaters and move on with your noise making.

Worthwhile to not take it all so serious either, not hinge material goals on the creation of sound. It should be a bit of a gas really. My mother recently asked me what my end goals were for making music. She was getting at career/finance/whatever, but all I could answer was to make music. Part of the problem is the commodification of music, it's designed to prevent us from thinking of music as anything but a product or source of entertainment. Consider if you were to go record some Balinese gamelan ceremony, suddenly you own copyright over that recording of a centuries old communal utility. Come again? Same argument I guess as that against land ownership, but at least with music we have a fighting chance to save it.

My music is a communal tool, a means for me to share/interface with others, that's what the Cafe and web pages do for me. It's also meditational, made to clear my head, focus my thoughts, distract me, introduce me to human construction/language in the form of more raw elements. To my shame, I haven't been able to shake off my inclination towards the grand gesture, so it fills that function for me too, my banner/salute, my rock star moment (sad and shameful, I know).

Quality can be sussed to some degree situationally, but overall one man's shit is another man's shinola. Arguing over it is just trying to establish empire.

Cheers,
Steve

[Stupid American Pig]

I have often wondered why I make music.

to distract you from the horror of your culture and give you something to assume the validity thereof upon.

Thanks! thats a deeper explanation that I wouldve though of

[ouroboros]

@Shamann

Hey, thanks. That was a great read; educating and motivating, too. The kind of thing that keeps me coming back here for more!

@ xoxos
while I am inclined to agree, I think even culture is pretense to avoid our fear of death. Look inside yourself, Luke.

[mauseoleum]

oh, my, some deep blahblahblah - maybe you're *basically* just trying to heal your mind with your *music* - so don't ask yourself silly questions like above one and just go with your instinct.

[clueless]

I have often wondered why I make music.

...

because he likes it

maybe i should rephrase it

I have often wondered why I rub my cock.

...

to distract you from the horror of your culture and give you something to assume the validity thereof upon.

damn you xoxos!

[herodotus]

Part of the problem is the commodification of music, it's designed to prevent us from thinking of music as anything but a product or source of entertainment. Consider if you were to go record some Balinese gamelan ceremony, suddenly you own copyright over that recording of a centuries old communal utility. Come again? Same argument I guess as that against land ownership, but at least with music we have a fighting chance to save it.

The commodification of music has done more to bring more music to more people than any other force in history.

I appreciate the philosophical point here, and I agree that music suffers when the creator is too concerned about what others will think (or how much they will pay.)

But if some one (like Mantle Hood, say) hadn't "commodified" balinese gamelan music we wouldn't even know what is.

Now I will shut up before I derail anything.

[shamann]

But if some one (like Mantle Hood, say) hadn't "commodified" balinese gamelan music we wouldn't even know what is.

Well, commodification may have brought a variety of music to widespread masses, but there's no evidence that music in some form wasn't already with them. Quite the opposite in fact. Maybe they didn't have gamelan music, but instead they had roaming balladeers, trance rituals, water songs, shanties, jigs or whatever.

It also served to divorce music from its participatory and social functions somewhat. Consider devotional music. What if the Lord's Prayer in the Christian faith had been commodified, if the only access you had to perform it was through buying it in some fashion? How many gospel hymns written in 1985 have become devotional standards in the Christian faith? Or what if shamanistic trance rituals required you to pay 5 bucks in advance? The perception of those acts changes once it becomes a financial transaction.

I don't want to be regressive, you can't erase what has already happened, and there are good things to come from globalization. But commodification thrives on singularity, and a lot of people only think of music now as serving one function. I just think we should try to consider the full breadth of music's application.

It's not cut and dry, of course, but as musicmakers, we don't only have to think of what we do in terms of the music industry (I'm a professional/I'm hobbyist). Where's the "I'm a devotionalist"? option in the list, or "I'm a communalist"?

Cheers,
Steve

[herodotus]

Well I guess I failed in my whole "make a quick, non-thread-derailing post" attempt.

shamann wrote
"What if the Lord's Prayer in the Christian faith had been commodified, if the only access you had to perform it was through buying it in some fashion?"

If the only way to access it were to buy it one might argue that the the faith had some problems to begin with.

But I honestly don't think that "commodification" has ever limited anyone's choices, nor do I think that it has ever killed anything that was strong and vibrant.

But I really am going to shut up now. Because this is getting political, and I don't want to get involved because one of my few articles of faith is....

[Lunch Money]

I thought this was going to be a post about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Interesting reading, though.

[herodotus]

One last thing.

shamann wrote:
"I just think we should try to consider the full breadth of music's application."

AMEN BROTHER!!!!