can Jason Lescalleet change the world?

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

It seems you might see something fundamental about "music", 60s/70s/80s discourses aside, that makes it uniquely problematic.

the answer to this seems kinda obvious, so forgive me if the following sounds too simplistic.

music is sound developing over time. it might included narrative (like lyrics, but also in other forms). the visual arts have much broader palettes, and while they originally started as mainly static art forms, inherently there's more possible for them.

if music is put in a multidisciplinary setting, it most of the time seems to be serving that setting, and stops being "purely" music. (the same goes for for sculpture and painting btw).

so, whenever you start from a music - plastic arts dichotomy, music tends to be much more defined than the plastic arts, which limits fluidity.

(edit: spelling)

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

I don't think I was ever interested in/drawn to them them because they form a critique of other opiums. And I'm pretty sure experimental music doesn't always intend to do so btw.

Of course. I'd like to believe that it does/has always intended to do so, becauses that's how I got into it.. Maybe that's the kid in me.

On further thought, I might have gotten into experimental music like that too, if you see "having a hunger for the new and a boredom with the old" as a form of critique.

[mynameissally]

It seems you might see something fundamental about "music", 60s/70s/80s discourses aside, that makes it uniquely problematic.

the answer to this seems kinda obvious, so forgive me if the following sounds to simplistic.

music is sound developing over time. it might included narrative (like lyrics, but also in other forms). the visual arts have much broader palettes, and while they originally started as mainly static art forms, inherently there's more possible for them.

if music is put in a multidisciplinary setting, it most of the time seems to be serving that setting, and stops being "purely" music. (the same goes for for sculpture and painting btw).

so, whenever you start from a music - plastic arts dichotomy, music tends to be much more defined than the plastic arts, which limits fluidity.

I'm sort of on the fence here. "music is sound developing over time." I feel like these rigid definitions of what music is are a little more arbitrary than we think. "doing art means displacing art's borders" (some philosopher). Even if we accept your definition of music as fundamental--i'm having trouble problematizing it at the moment--it should still be said that the format of experimental music has remained fairly rigid over the past half century. A few people sitting close together, emitting sounds over the course of an hour produced by the standard set of instruments, punctuated by an applause, etc., you know what I mean. "What else could music be?" is a legitimate question. I think that the artists that I keep coming back to are trying to extend the borders of music. Seth kim cohen's interview with Jarrod Fowler in the last chapter of his book is a great example of this... I'm sure if you know any of fowler's work you know what I'm talking about, but if not I can provide some examples. He considers his work music. In short, music-as-we-know-it is a pretty rigid animal and we generally greet problematizations of music's borders with adversity.


edit: yeah, I would call your interest in experimental music a relatively critical interest. "expanding the taste buds" is politics in my book

[jon abbey]

The orthodoxy you are championing is that of "avant garde" music. Yes?

no, I don't think so.

"electroacoustic improv"?

But such music appears under the banner of Avant Garde music
Though why you dislike the term - what of experimental?

But -

Free improvisation
Stylistic origins Free jazz
Avant-garde jazz
...

"What do we remember about Cornelius Cardew? That he was a brilliant avant-garde composer who pioneered free improvisation "

"After a long phase of experimental and avant-garde work, which inscribed itself in our hearts and still grounds any musical activity"

Thats from your label?
?

not sure why we're talking about this, but while Erstwhile began as a label based in electroacoustic improv, mostly of the duo form, it's been moving away from that for years, although that will probably always be my first love.

but I'm not placing electroacoustic improv or any other area of music, "experimental" or not, above or below any other (although I do have plenty of opinions on the matter, none of those are relevant to what I've said here and I doubt they'd be as predictable as you seem to think), all I'm saying is that music as an area exists, with many overlapping subcategories (including EAI) inside (or mostly inside?). and I'm definitely not arguing for every bit of sound being neatly classified, just pointing out the pretty obvious (to me) fact that a musical component is important for some people to hold their interest, generally including myself.

a much more fascinating discussion along these lines (and one that my wife is writing about currently) is where a release like the 8 disc Manfred Werder/Jason Kahn on Winds Measure would land in this discussion, we had a good (short) back and forth with Manfred, Jesse Goin, and Brian Olewnick about this on my FB page the other day.

[jon abbey]

here's one of the most recent related threads to this, not so much the original post, but where the thread has gone.

http://ihatemusic.noquam.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7264

as for the original post, I still think Gil Sanson's two posts answered it pretty thoroughly.

[jliat]

...

OK. With a half a dozen caveats and provisos. This isn’t a "paper" and though I will proof read – and cutting "it" short. – as its late here – I need to eat and drink…

Kosuth (famously) pointed out that minimalist sculpture – was not sculpture – its tradition was in painting*. Anthony Caro said the same thing. Artists (who were painters) moved into making things on the floor as the expressive possibilities of painting was achieved, fulfilled etc. Reinhardt wasn’t joking when he called his paintings "ultimate". So the move was made because the formal activity was no longer considered viable for making art. So you get land art, conceptual art etc. , you don’t get gardeners and flower arrangers… I don’t think Cage was either a musician or performer but an Artist – and so 4' 33" isn’t about music – is it? A shorthand here before we fall into 'what then is art' black hole - its like a practical philosophy.. with the collapse of modernity in the 70s – 'music' re-appeared. Reich's early work was hardly (minimally!) music. In the visual arts though there was a return to orthodoxy – representational – in parts- the boundaries could not be put back – or were not. Or as you point to Rosalind Krauss- I think more the boundaries of the disciplines – Painting / sculpture had evaporated. Though we do once again have sculpture and sculptors… looking at the likes of Koons and the YBAs its difficult to give these artists such labels -

Music it seems to musicians always comes first. Its never questioned. This is both a strength and weakness – which Seth I think attempts to expose. And in particular a musician has an instrument. And with this a tradition of playing it. Try and think of the equivalent to a piano (for e.g.) in the plastic arts. Music is still arrangements of sounds – which is aesthetic- or has retreated to this. You might then give the equivalent of wanting to see 'pictures' on gallery walls. And sculptures of people on plinths. If you look at some of the more radical musical work of Stockhausen from the 60s or Yoko Ono – you wont *hear* anything! So we might say its not music? I'd argue that point – but perhaps this is too late. Most people think that music is essentially sound – and essentially organized sound. And essences are very powerful idea.Yet to muse – isn’t to make music! And 'musing' seems very appropriate to some of Ono's work. (muse vb. to reflect (about) or ponder (on), usually in silence)

Why didn’t musicians radicalize Cage – because it would mean giving up their 'bad faith'. The essence of what music is. To be a musician is to have an essence – there is that Vimeo of Tilbury…( http://vimeo.com/10698919) yet to be an artist is to 'exist' without an essence.


http://www.see-this-sound.at/works/196

So is Morris a 'musician' a 'sculptor', 'painter', 'carpenter' or artist?

" Initially a painter*, Morris’ work of the 1950s was influenced by Abstract Expressionism and particularly Jackson Pollock. While living in California, Morris also came into contact with the work of La Monte Young and John Cage. The idea that art making was a record of a performance by the artist (drawn from Hans Namuth’s photos of Pollock at work) in the studio led to an interest in dance and choreography. During the 1950s, Morris thus grew interested in dance while living in San Francisco with his wife, the dancer and choreographer Simone Forti.[3] Morris moved to New York in 1960 where he staged a performance based on the exploration of bodies in space in which an upright square column after a few minutes on stage falls over. Morris developed the same idea into his first Minimal Sculptures Two Columns shown in 1961, and L Beams (1965)."

[mynameissally]

^ thanks so much. some things to think about. enjoy your night.

[jon abbey]

jliat, thanks for that attempt, but your examples are all generations old and the discussion was supposed to be about now, like citing the big band era when people are asking about Coltrane and Ayler and Cecil Taylor.

Music it seems to musicians always comes first. Its never questioned. This is both a strength and weakness – which Seth I think attempts to expose. And in particular a musician has an instrument. And with this a tradition of playing it.

so what's funny to me about this bit in this context is that there is so little of this in the EAI and post-EAI world. what are the "instruments" of the much-championed Seoul crew? do most of the people who listen to their releases even know? Keith Rowe, Toshi Nakamura, Sachiko M, all of these musicians have done their best to focus on an instrument with virtually no history behind it before them.

and you say music is "never questioned", I think the opposite. I think in this area it's virtually always questioned, time and again, by the vast majority of 'musicians' (for lack of a better term) involved in it. what your issue really seems to be is that music is sometimes (often?) not totally jettisoned, which is all I have been arguing for (keeping some component or some link, with a very wide range on how that can be achieved).

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

To be a musician is to have an essence – there is that Vimeo of Tilbury…( http://vimeo.com/10698919) yet to be an artist is to 'exist' without an essence.

what does this actually mean?

[jon abbey]

sorry, just looked these up...

"What do we remember about Cornelius Cardew? That he was a brilliant avant-garde composer who pioneered free improvisation "

"After a long phase of experimental and avant-garde work, which inscribed itself in our hearts and still grounds any musical activity"

Thats from your label?
?

wow, are these out of context and poorly attributed. the first is a quote from the LRB reviewing Tilbury's Cardew bio, not sure what that has to do with Erstwhile past my extensive work with Keith Rowe and the two releases with Tilbury.

also (and even more tangentially) I would say it's kind of wrong, I'd attribute the "pioneering of free improvisation" to quite a few people before Cardew got on the list, he wasn't a founding member of AMM.

the second is a quote from Burkhard Stangl trying to help explain the musical path of the Schnee duo, and amusingly is part of their ErstPop press release, a release which deals in song forms (Song Songs).

[Gil Sansón]

Oh, well...

I'm thinking "wouldn't it be nice if could drive this thread alongside Simon's direction? Yes, agree to all your examples. For the sake of brevity (quite relative, really) I could have given the impression that I was offering negative critique, which is really not the case as I'm quite critical of the actual need for dialectics and polarities.

I should have made a few distinctions regarding the work of Cardew and Nono, and perhaps they may seem as the usual suspects and/or heads of Turk, while in a broader context we can see that distinctions aren't always that clear. The examples Simon cites are very appropiate to the discussion as examples of successful integration of art and politics. I would include Cardew's The Great Leraning on the list of successful works in this regard, but perhaps Berio's Symphony is a better example. Great that you mention Stockhausen: the way in which he reacted towards the latest experiments of La Monte Young, Conrad, Cale and company is very informative about the politics of music in the XX century. Eventually Young would fall prey also to the gravitational pull of the tradition and try by all means to exert full control of the music, while Cale and Conrad went on a different direction, but that's a subject for another thread in itself.

One thing I personally find distressing, though, is that while in the sixties and seventies political turmoil generated art and music in direct response to the situation of national and world affairs, while nowadays rock bands like GYBE! seem content to fade away beautifully and also seem to find a moral value in melancholy. Rage seems and sound manufactured. Simulacra seems to be winning at fast pace. I'm as concerned about it than anyone, but so far in my experience the only thing worth following is a good example. And the best example are the people that mean what they say and act in accordance. Paradox remains a guiding principle here. Some artists are better at it than others. Who says you have to make ugly music in order to be radical? Who says one can have both the critical awareness of mind and an ear for beauty and sensuality? Accepting differences means avoiding polarities and either/or dynamics. Also means temporary alliances between groups (the notion of difference calls for many, as in more than three or four, in itself), which neccessarily calls for a civilised language and good manners, however relative due to the many nationalities and mother tongues of the people in the experimental music community. And last but not least, it calls for the acknowledgement that not everyone is up to speed about Deleuzian concepts. In fact, I think that quoting Deleuze verbatim does a disservice. Admittedly, trying to put Deleuzian concepts in a clear and concise manner is not easy, but I think that the readers of this thread (and its contributors) deserve it.

[Hayao Yamaneko]

Kosuth (famously) pointed out that minimalist sculpture – was not sculpture – its tradition was in painting*. Anthony Caro said the same thing. Artists (who were painters) moved into making things on the floor as the expressive possibilities of painting was achieved, fulfilled etc. Reinhardt wasn’t joking when he called his paintings "ultimate". So the move was made because the formal activity was no longer considered viable for making art. So you get land art, conceptual art etc. , you don’t get gardeners and flower arrangers… I don’t think Cage was either a musician or performer but an Artist – and so 4' 33" isn’t about music – is it? A shorthand here before we fall into 'what then is art' black hole - its like a practical philosophy.. with the collapse of modernity in the 70s – 'music' re-appeared. Reich's early work was hardly (minimally!) music. In the visual arts though there was a return to orthodoxy – representational – in parts- the boundaries could not be put back – or were not. Or as you point to Rosalind Krauss- I think more the boundaries of the disciplines – Painting / sculpture had evaporated. Though we do once again have sculpture and sculptors… looking at the likes of Koons and the YBAs its difficult to give these artists such labels -

The problem with this kind of argument is that it bases itself on a completely discredited (if it was ever credited in this naive form) view of history as progress. The implicit notion here is that a development must be continual and towards one end. A handful of musicians in the 70s make music without sound - you pick that as your direction of travel and define anything that moves in another direction as a return to orthodoxy.

Similarly, in your narrative about the visual arts representation becomes orthodoxy. But in fact there are lots of elements, not only representation in the tradition(s) of the plastic arts that you could name as orthodoxy. Some of these elements were not discarded but carried through into non representational avant garde practices. Later some of the traditions that were carried through into non-representational art were abandoned by later artists who worked again with representation.
And of course to complicate this picture there was always art without representation and there were always creative practices without material form - these are not 20th c developments - and art without representation is often doing something akin to representation, or maybe engaging in a problemetised version of representation.

In fact you seem really fascinated by the history of 20th century music, and that's interesting. There's an implicit deference to tradition in the way you're talking about all this which is not in the spirit of the post war avant garde you wish to revive - that deference to tradition could itself be seen as a kind of return to orthodoxy. The point being that your kind of attitude to art and progress becomes an exercise in tail-eating.

I think in fact, both representation, historical excavation and sound vs extra-sonic music are all practices that have ebbed and flowed throughout art history - and they've done so in response to the needs of the moment - the sense of whether some specific past existed that would be worth seizing upon. Revivals of historically discarded tradition are sometimes radical, sometimes conservative - relationship to tradition is not in and of itself, orthodoxy. You need to be sensitive to the context and character of the work/material to make that call about a particular instance.

Again, I'm just arguing against Standard Operating Procedure Ideology - where a template for thinking takes the place of thinking. Another fun definition of ideology - a labour saving means for batch processing culture.

Going back to your other post responding to mine:
-Your analogy with Science (arguing for the way "throwing stuff away" is its modus operandi) is a *massive* simplification. A casual glance at the history of science will show you that in fact it doesn't throw very much away once it's incorperated and it almost never progresses in one tidy direction. At any rate, there's no reason to believe that art should function like science. Einstein doesn't do away with Newton - he just alters Newton's meaning.
- I don't think "Ideology is accepting the current situation" is all that unorthodox an interpretation of "Ideology" and when I suggested that ideology more often comes in the guise of a standard operating procedure, I meant that empirically. I wasn't suggesting that as the orthodox definition from which you were deviating.

But the abandonment of music as – "excersise intelligence and sensitivity to context, material etc." Fine – but what if this 'sensitivity' is to the idea of the transubstantiation of the host?

You've misunderstood what I meant by sensitivity - I don't mean touchy-feelyness and not rocking the boat, not upsetting Christians etc. That's an odd interpretation of what I said, which was:

inviting inconsistency is a really valuable thing, but as with anything, you can't just take that as a standard operating procedure have to excersise intelligence and sensitivity to context, material etc.

I meant that it's not good enough to say "we must above all else assault our traditions" because intelligence is still required - you need to decide when it is meaningful and effective to attack tradition, and which tradition - and you need to know when the contexts require other responses. So again, I meant sensitivity to context, not to peoples' feelings or to "orthodoxy".
If you need a reference from a name thinker to be convinced, Nietzsche nailed this shit in Use and Abuse of History for Life. Adorno's mate Wally B. did some good work extending the thought.

I want to read Simon's post and give it some thought. Seems like some fruitful stuff.

And another voice saying "Good thread - glad it survived the IHM wall of flame"

[Jason Brogan]

deleted

[Gil Sansón]

Great that you mention Manfred's work in relation to this thread! I haven't heard the record on windsmeasure, but I've been seriously engaged in thinking about, performing, actualizing and recording his scores for some time now. Currently engaged on the edition of one of his scores, 2010(1), in a double realisation comprising an essay and a recording of two actualizations of the score. Email exchanges with the composer are very instructive as there are any number of pitfalls regarding his notation. What you think or not think during an actualization of the score is just as important as the presentation of the actualization, which puts the performer in a very interesting position, being unable to transmit the experience, or even the difficulty inherent in it, to anyone else.

There's also the problem regarding the actual need for recordings of these scores. I'm working on a release with a cd of the recording of the actualization. You can't hear my concentration on the sonic evens happening around me at the time, which is the same as to say that you have a recording of the amount of time I spend actualizing the score, but not the act of realization, which remains obscure and can only be hinted at on the essay. But what you have on the recording is a way to proving that even a work like this, that when being actualized leaves no trace, however becomes music by repeated listenings. I actualized this piece many times, sometimes I had a recorder at hand, others did not. The recordings I selected were the ones which could clearly communicate the point in question by way of paradox: the recording as a musical residue of a process in which music is not dominant but in active dialogue with the world, not in reaction to the world but as the world and you in direct relation to the world. The recordings selected for release are not versions of 2010(1), but ratherthe evidence that when we listen creatively and with little expectations much beauty, however humble, can come about, and the score is the root of the music. Also, is pertinent to point out that Manfred's scores have no mention of durations, and the length of my recorded performances responds to my own criteria as to how to deal with the continuity of the sound and an instinctive sense of the tempo required for a better reading. The belief that the selected recordings can show evidence of a thinking process when none of the sounds are in control of the performer may seem preposterous to some, but it's good to bear in mind that most things that are common sense now where once quite radical and faced much resistance, so as long as one respects the intention of the composer one should feel no hindrance regarding the possibility of bringing something and enriching he discourse.

[Jason Brogan]

deleted

[Hayao Yamaneko]

{responding to deleted post above. Makes no sense without it}

Would need to be convinced on Laruelle, but sounds interesting.

Any of your writing online?


Dominic Lash's thesis is very interesting and deals with "non cochlear" aspects of music btw. Not via Laruelle/Deleuze/Brassier/ etc. though.

http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/4668

Hecker:
Speculative Solution sounded great, but I really didn't think much of it as a tool for thinking Meillasoux's "chronics". I'd be genuinely interested to hear why you thought it succeeded.

[Jason Brogan]

deleted

[anasara]

However, I am suggesting that contrary to Kim-Cohen, and using Nietzsche, Deleuze, and Laruelle, it is possible to reject both representation and idealism (without resorting to essentialism).

http://faculty.hampshire.edu/ccox/Cox.J ... Print).pdf

[simon reynell]

Hmm, I was going to come back on a point that Gil raised ages ago, but it doesn’t seem appropriate now. This discussion’s gone on a right old waltz-around. Deleuze meets Jon Abbey; the irresistible force and the immovable object and all that – it was never going to be pretty.

I half-like Deleuze, but I think reading him is a bit like tripping out; it feels really exciting and profound at the time, but next morning you realise that it doesn’t hang together quite so well as you thought (but then it’s been a long time since I’ve either read him or tripped out). But that’s a good clear article, Ansara, thanks for posting that, though I think I remain slightly sceptical.

By the way, Jliat, I know that you’ve taken some flack here, but I do think there’s a problem with your mode of address. It feels like you’re trying too hard to impress, and it comes over as ah, but I know something you don’t, which is a bit annoying. And you can be rather coercive too: like, to be really radical you have to agree with me, or else you’re a reactionary, which is unnecessary, and takes me back to Cardew and 70’s Maoism (which Deleuze himself wasn’t a million miles from, of course).

Anyway, some interesting / challenging thoughts, and I really liked Gil’s description of how he’s been working with Manfred Werder’s scores; can’t wait to hear the results.

[jon abbey]

you only have to look at the year-end list I posted last week to see that I am far from an 'immovable object' in my tastes and postions, a list filled with composed music of different kinds, solo projects and only three duo improv releases out of forty-two titles listed. I have to be convinced, but I do move.