can Jason Lescalleet change the world?

[jliat]

One reason – a possible reason – why music (electronic / improve EAI- whatever) has lost its potency – to shock – stimulate – change, is that as a medium for change, invention and novelty – especially regarding the structures of aesthetic music, is that these have been pretty much been done. Columbus' achievement was spectacular, and world changing (ethics debateable) but travelling from Europe to America now isn’t quite the same. The achievement isn’t so great (though there is some) and its "world changing" effect not so great or obvious – though there is some.

Exposure to these musics like exposure to some bacteria – we become immune. And music might have a limited grammar anyway. You could ask why the Novel no longer causes such social effects – as did say the publication of Ulysses or Lady Chatterley's Lover. The reasons could be that in some terms they succeeded – pushing the envelope might reach a limit or terminus – and (or) the activity could fail. After all the peace movements and 1968, things didn’t change. Within painting for instance- doing anything new / revolutionary was pretty much impossible after the 1960s. Kosuth's article is good on this. And specifically the trajectory of Art and Language. Which was most avant-garde and politicized. In the UK its practices were actually banned in art schools in the 1970s. The group imploded anyway, reaching the limits of incomprehension etc.

There was also the assumption that 'progress' (political, technological, ideological) was not limited. As a child i was shown that the future was either nuclear annihilation, or we would be living in some space station and colonising the stars. Obviously neither happened. General meta-narratives collapsed. I think the pleasure thing also became important – people just wanted a good time, whether listening to EAI or buying shares or holiday homes.

The idea of 'making it new' – became out of date.

So I don’t think you will find a venue where the radical nature of the 60s could be found. There wont be another Woodstock, and in the UK Glastonbury is now an event venue alongside Wimbledon, Cowes week and the Henley Regatta.

I haven’t the space here to fill in all the gaps. There is now a strange reluctance to take post-modernism seriously … but no clear arguments against it – other than the hedonism of 'just doing it' And posting animated gifs - publishing best selling books on the use of the apostrophe…. I imagine the shade of red for the flag being uppermost in 21stC Marxists mind (joke BTW).

I feel like you are trying to find some mountain to climb for the first time. Been done- perhaps to death.

http://www.thehimalayanadventurecompany ... /index.htm

"If you’ve ever dreamt of reaching the summit of Everest, read on......"

But don’t be too depressed –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Horga ... ournalist)

"The Death of Proof" and The End of Science

[dave quam]

"Anyhow, of course there are some really poor people making really good art, but they're not the majority and have never been. "

I can't think of anything EVER said about music that I disagree with more.

[Dohol]

"Anyhow, of course there are some really poor people making really good art, but they're not the majority and have never been. "

I can't think of anything EVER said about music that I disagree with more.

+1

[jon abbey]

"David Sylvian is re-releasing an expanded version of Amplified Gesture, a documentary on improvisation first released in 2009. The expanded version includes an additional section which asks contributors about the political questions arising from their playing"

http://www.thewire.co.uk/news/21913/dav ... ed-gesture

[Steven Reynolds]

not an intellectual like so many here and FWIW, I *still* love free jazz (first love after the age of 30) and think some of being played is *still* fresh, exciting and relevent.

but as some know, I've listening to a bit of music over the year - and I don't want to hear about the *cause* - as it is certainly not my cause - so I am no choir.

about 4 pages back - as I read most of this thread today - been away from the board for a while

but the *idea* that all the musicians playing free improvisation, EAI, avant-garde or whatever are preaching 'politically to the choir' is nauseating.

what makes anyone think that we can all be pigeonholed to some radical political bent (mostly left is assumed as per always) just because I like the *sound* of the music - methinks that viewpoint has MUCH more validity than the other which taken to the extreme ends up with NO music - see previous pages - when as Jon rightly points out, it is no longer music - as many or most of us are listening for the SOUND - me unlike many others who love improvised music in different forms - I have no interest in most other intricate and advanced visual arts - I love MUSIC - live or on record.

later...
still

Coming Down The Mountain

[negative potential]

but as some know, I've listening to a bit of music over the year - and I don't want to hear about the *cause* - as it is certainly not my cause - so I am no choir.

[...]

but the *idea* that all the musicians playing free improvisation, EAI, avant-garde or whatever are preaching 'politically to the choir' is nauseating.

Steve, did it ever occur to you that attitudes like yours might actually be the reason why some artists feel obligated to make political statements in the first place, regardless of their lack of efficacy?

Your attitude is that of the spoiled patron: "shut up and play your instrument." Do you think musical artists are mere servants who exist to offer you aesthetic satisfaction, who shouldn't trouble you with their perspectives on society?

One reason so many artists like Max Roach felt obligated to speak out in the 1960s was precisely to challenge this sort of complacency in the audience.

To dredge up something from the recent past, I remember all the hissy-fits at Jazzcorner when John Tilbury announced he would not visit the United States anymore. Like entitled children feeling angry about being denied a treat. On the one hand, it probably did not have much effect, since the people who already shared Tilbury's politics didn't need to be reminded of something they already know, but the interesting thing is the reaction by people on the right end of the spectrum, like you. I haven't dug up your post yet at the time, but I remember it being along the lines of, "why can't Tilbury get beyond politics and play for the audience that loves him so much", as if what he had to say about the Iraq war was a mere triviality, and not a core belief and principle. It's funny, because you don't actually realize how insulting it is that you think an artist's deeply-held principles are somehow subservient to your musical enjoyment.


Edit: I just found Steve's original post on Jazzcorner, and it's just as condescending and insulting toward Tilbury as I remember:

what I think is that life is much too short - and that when one of the greatest, most unique voices of this little world get's caught up in someone's nationality (not like you chose it, no matter how much we might see all these issues differently)- and god (jah - for Sisco) know we all do - it is a damn shame that so many people get all caught up in it - hey I have and ma fighting some battles here that make all of that stuff seem so trvial - I just sure wish Mr. Tilbury knew how important what he does and has done means to some of us - does he?

or doesn't it matter?

why does it matter if we agree on politics - why is is it that important in the large scheme of things?

Post here.

[simon reynell]

Mynameissally, I've re-read your posts in this thread. As I understand it you're keen to become involved in some kind of activism of a leftist nature, but you’d rather do this in relation to the world of experimental music than in traditional social campaigning (e.g. Occupy) as you feel a deeper/ longer-term commitment to the former - in spite of apparently having had some negative experiences at concerts in NYC. However, you aren’t taken with (or convinced by) experimental music that tries to incorporate ideological elements in order to bring about social change, and are much more interested in music that ‘changes the world’ in a more oblique way – by “reengaging with the materials of musical experience….(and thus) training the listening subject’s ‘engagement facilities’ outside the musical experience” (eg Cage and early AMM). You wanted to check out what IHM as a community (ha!) thought about this and whether we felt that ‘Jason Lescalleet can change the world’.

So here are my thoughts, although some of it just repeats what others (eg Schiksalgemeinschaft, Faster, RF Korp or Negative Potential) have already said.

Starting at the end: your idea that experimental music can force the listener to ‘re-engage with the materials of musical experience’ and that this process may lead them to re-engage with the outside world in new ways. Now it’s possible that some such process does occur; people here have said things along the lines that ‘yes, Jason has changed me, and I’m in the world’, and I think a lot of us would like the kind of relationship that you’re describing to exist. However, the process as described is very imprecise, and can’t be objectively observed or measured, so any evidence for its existence remains anecdotal and purely subjective. Moreover,even assuming for the moment that such a process of re-engagement from the ‘puzzledness’ of experimental music to the politics of the outside world does occur for some people, is there any guarantee that the resulting transformation will make the listener more left-wing / radical rather than more right-wing / conservative? So, given the lack of certainty around all of this, I think it would be really problematic if you based your future activism on something that is only a vague and uncertain hypothesis. [Sorry if this sounds harsh; I don’t mean it to be, and as I say, I’ve often wanted some such relationship as you describe to exist, but having puzzled about it a fair bit over the past 40 years, I’m just not convinced that it does]

Following on from this, I’d say that there is nothing intrinsically left-wing about experimental music. It’s a sociological fact that many of the people who play and / or enjoy it are left-wing, and I think this was even more true in the early days of free improvisation in the 60’s, as well as amongst the composers of the post-war classical avant-garde. But those are contingent, historical facts, not a necessary effect or correlative of something in the music itself. I like and hugely respect Eddie Prevost, but I feel that his writings have been a long, continuing quest to pin down some necessary relation between improvisation and a materialist socialist politics, but that they are ultimately based on wish-fulfilment, because no such necessary relationship exists (this doesn’t mean that his books aren’t worth reading…) Logically the fact that even one person here is apolitical is proof that there is nothing necessarily leftist about the music itself (just as Stockhausen’s bizarre politics are proof on their own that the music of the post-war avant-garde wasn’t intrinsically leftist). But even in cases when you know that all the musicians involved in a performance have left-wing views, it remains true that there is nothing intrinsic to the music itself that is socialist. [The musicians could, of course, use texts or lyrics to try to inscribe a particular political viewpoint into their performance (as with the singing of The Red Flag in the Casa Corp disc), but (a) that takes us back to the ideologically-loaded music that you’re not interested in, and (b) within improvised music at least, the use of lyrics or texts is so rare (and often so frowned on) that the apparent meaning of any text is likely to be draped with several layers of irony or distanciation (as with a randomised radio grab), so that when Kurzmann does sing The Red Flag, I really don’t know how serious he’s being.]

So I’ve kind of worked backwards to the beginning of my summary of your position above: your desire to become an activist, but in the arena of experimental music rather than in a more explicitly political campaign. On this I agree with Schik and Negative Potential: WHY?
If your concern is to help transform the world in a progressive direction (and, yes, it needs it!), then (a) why on earth choose an area of struggle that involves only a tiny number of people, and so only has a very limited potential for changing anything, and (b) why choose an area where most of the people are already well to the left of society as a whole? If you really want to change the world, wouldn’t you be much better off getting involved in a campaign on an issue that affects hundreds of thousands of people, and where there’s real political work to be done persuading lots of folk who don’t already have views broadly similar to your own? (That is a question I’d love to ask Mattin as well, by the way…) I can’t preach here because I haven’t been seriously involved in any political campaigns for 20 years, but really, if you want to change the world, then do the difficult thing and get out of the comfort zone of this tiny sub-sector where lefty-liberal, arty views are pretty much common currency, and start looking for ways of persuading people with right-wing, racist or homophobic attitudes to change their ideas.

As I say, I’d love to put that to some of the soi-disant radicals who seem to like nothing better than lecturing / provoking / challenging / denouncing us experimental music people for being complacent, religious, conservative etc. It’s not that those questions shouldn’t be asked – of course they should. But, as Faster said above, most of us are already trying to dig out our own particular path to find something that’s new, challenging and different (in fact we arguably make a fetish of whatever's new and challenging). And we’re also pretty quick to challenge ourselves and each other (sometimes to excess IMO) when we feel that something’s being taken for granted or ignored or is simply unjust. But the way in which those radical conceptual criticisms of the sector are articulated often appears so smug and self-righteous, and ‘uncharitable’ (as Faster put it), that I wonder what it is that is motivating these critics. Are they really bothered about changing the world, or do they just get an ego-boost from being provocative and appearing clever, maverick and superior? Some would say that they’re motivated by money because, with the way arts funding is organised these days, it’s easier to get a paid gig if you wrap what you’re doing in a conceptual blanket (however frayed and tangled it actually is). But I don’t think that anyone is working around this sector primarily for the money…. So I’m sure that they are sincere in a way – and they are certainly driven, but I suspect more by a set of opaque psychological issues than a desire to actually get involved in the messy nitty-gritty of changing the world. So please don't become another of them.

Finally a suggestion: one of the good things about the experimental music scene is that – seeing as it’s so small – the 'stars' are accessible to listeners in a way that the superstars of the pop or indie worlds aren’t. At the Amplify 13 weekend you will have the chance to not only listen to, but also meet and talk to Keith Rowe, Christian Wolff and Michael Pisaro, all of whom are pleasant and approachable people, all of whom are very definitely on the left, and all of whom have thought long and hard about all of these issues while also producing some great music over the past decades. Why not ask them?

[negative potential]

Simon, I really like your post and agree with most of it, however I want to disagree strongly with one statement:

start looking for ways of persuading people with right-wing, racist or homophobic attitudes to change their ideas.

A comrade of mine, a veteran political organizer, tirelessly says that the purpose of mobilization and organizing is not to persuade people who disagree with you. The purpose of organizing is to mobilize the people who already agree with you in a broad sense but who are not convinced that their efforts will change anything. It's about convincing people who see the problems that they can help to do something about them.

This is an important distinction. People's deeply rooted values, ethics, political attitudes, etc. are usually not the result of rational argument. That's not to say that they're irrational, it's just that people's ideas are as much a result of their experience, and not just of hearing the right arguments. The right arguments are important, but more often than not, rational argumentation is more a process of strengthening and clarifying ideas one already holds. There are strong arguments for any number of positions; if people changed their minds every time they heard a convincing argument, their views would never be stable.

Successful social movements are always, at least initially, about mobilizing a critical mass of people who are already convinced of certain ideas, but who are not convinced that they can transcend the powerlessness they feel to actually do something. Once a movement reaches that critical mass, then it convinces people who are wavering or undecided. Once those people are convinced, then there is the actual mere possibility of convincing people whose views are diametrically opposed.

So I wouldn't waste a minute of my time trying to convince somebody who holds views diametrically opposed to mine. If they want to know what I think, I'll gladly state my case and try to put my best argument forward, but I don't expect anything from the encounter. That isn't the constituency that activism attempts to reach.

[bryan]

Starting at the end: your idea that experimental music can force the listener to ‘re-engage with the materials of musical experience’ and that this process may lead them to re-engage with the outside world in new ways. Now it’s possible that some such process does occur; people here have said things along the lines that ‘yes, Jason has changed me, and I’m in the world’, and I think a lot of us would like the kind of relationship that you’re describing to exist. However, the process as described is very imprecise, and can’t be objectively observed or measured, so any evidence for its existence remains anecdotal and purely subjective. Moreover,even assuming for the moment that such a process of re-engagement from the ‘puzzledness’ of experimental music to the politics of the outside world does occur for some people, is there any guarantee that the resulting transformation will make the listener more left-wing / radical rather than more right-wing / conservative? So, given the lack of certainty around all of this, I think it would be really problematic if you based your future activism on something that is only a vague and uncertain hypothesis. [Sorry if this sounds harsh; I don’t mean it to be, and as I say, I’ve often wanted some such relationship as you describe to exist, but having puzzled about it a fair bit over the past 40 years, I’m just not convinced that it does]

This is an excellent response, and not just for the thoughts on politics and experimental music, but for mynameissally to be able to write a clear thesis paper. In other words, a new thesis would help.

Also,

Successful social movements are always, at least initially, about mobilizing a critical mass of people who are already convinced of certain ideas, but who are not convinced that they can transcend the powerlessness they feel to actually do something. Once a movement reaches that critical mass, then it convinces people who are wavering or undecided. Once those people are convinced, then there is the actual mere possibility of convincing people whose views are diametrically opposed.

I'm lead to the thought that perhaps the very polarizing techniques used by both the left and the right to mobilize their respective political base have resulted in the sort of oblique (or lack of) political engagement we see in experimental music. For me, I do not think that political or conceptual statements should be left out of music, on the contrary I want music that engages with life and is not preciously treated. However, what has been acceptable in politics - appealing to emotion in order to convince of a rational argument - is the type of manipulation that I dislike in music and/or feel that it tends to backfire. For examples of backfire (probably bad ones, sorry) off the top of my head see Paul Ryan and his love of Rage Against the Machine and violent frat boys and Fugazi. With music, it seems natural to get lost in the delivery and not remember the semantics.

[negative potential]

I'm lead to the thought that perhaps the very polarizing techniques used by both the left and the right to mobilize their respective political base have resulted in the sort of oblique (or lack of) political engagement

I'm all for polarization. I don't believe in the notion that the "correct" idea is some sort of mythical average between two opposed positions. I make no apologies for that.

That doesn't mean I believe in hectoring people, or insulting them or being impolite, but I also don't believe that the best outcome is simply a compromise between two opposed positions.

To take an example: health care is a fundamental human right. People who oppose universal health care also oppose a fundamental human right. Now, I don't necessarily think that everyone who does so is a fundamentally "evil" person. However, I do think they hold fundamental deplorable ideas, and I'm not interested in compromising on issues like that. Transformative social movements are not based upon compromise. How would one have "compromised" on issues like abolishing slavery, women's suffrage, labor rights, or abolishing Jim Crow? You can't, because there is no compromise to be made.

On the other hand, I've become increasingly ambivalent about attempting to make political statements through art. Partially for the reasons you state, but also because I think such attempts are ineffective. A major pop star who takes a clear and unambiguous position on a particular issue might cause a public debate or discussion, but experimental musicians working in a micro-niche are unlikely to have much of an impact on anything. So one can attempt to integrate the political statement in the work of art itself, like Mattin does, trying to conceptualize the role of the work of art in its social context, or one can simply make direct political interventions, like Tilbury did with boycott of the US. I don't think either has much of an impact, the most one can hope for is that it prompts people to think, but I'm not holding my breath. All the Pro-Bush Tilbury fans on Jazzcorner like Steve never changed their minds even when their musical hero made his statement, thus illustrating precisely the complacency Tilbury referred to when he said that perhaps people like Condolezza Rice like to unwind with a nice Morton Feldman piano performance in between waging wars. So you have to respect Tilbury's integrity in his willingness to alienate his "fans" over a fundamental issue.

[RJMyato]

we could use this thread as the basis for a redo of the cosmopolis movie, mattin can play the "theory expert" and we can have some feldman playing in the scene where jon abbey tries to buy the rothko chapel

[faster]

mattin can play the "theory expert"

heh I'm going to read those as scare quotes.

[RJMyato]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODWojrWevlo

pic of robert pattinson in front of screwed up records

[Hayao Yamaneko]

Excellent post Simon, though I agree with Negative Potential's point about convincing the unconvinced.

Makes me think of a Neal Stephenson quote (Snow Crash) I read last night

The important thing is, Hiro, that you have to understand the Mafia way. And the Mafia way is that we pursue larger goals under the guise of personal relationships. ... This is how we avoid the trap of self-perpetuating ideology. Ideology is a virus. So getting this chick back is more than just getting a chick back. It's the concrete manifestation of an abstract policy goal. And we like concrete — right, Vic?"

I don't know Stephenson's politics, I think he might be a bit of a centre right libertarian on some things - but who knows. Funny quote, that like most of these things carries a mixture of the aposite and the not quite correct. Sometimes even if you're trying to do X, the best way to go about it isn't to fixate on X. Especially when X is particularly unwieldly.

I think that (and what's said in the posts above) is interesting when you think about music that has visibly participated in recent politics.

One of the big tracks of the occupy movement in London was Skeng by The Bug, Killa.P and Flow Dan.
Superficially the explicit political content of that is pretty regressive - thug libertarianism - survival of the fittest machismo. But the political meaning it ends up having is different from that. In the context it's played in it takes on a kind of mythology of power that lets people gather around it, pumps up peoples' confidence. It has an instrumental and affective meaning that's different from its putative content.

Skeng is perfectly keyed to all that - the song participates in a language of self affirmation and social identity that people feel emotionally connected to, it has a slow relentless swagger that feels like a physical distilation of confidence. And it's "their" music - it hasn't been in films, it hasn't been marketed at them in that way. Like seemingly all songs that have taken on that role through history - Turpin Hero or whatever else , there's alot in there that's simplistic and a bit morally questionable.

So the song ends up being like a flag, a concrete expression of abstract ideals whose relation to those ideals is messy and historical, a little uncomfortable and in good part more a matter of practice and affect than signification or rational argument. (If you really need a bit of Deleuze to back this up then the passage on the Refrain will do nicely.)

Which is interesting for this thread, because nobody could write a track with the intention of it becoming that (weird) kind of political anthem. Art like Skeng is powerful because of context, and often most powerful when it manages to viscerally articulate either the way people see themselves, the way they see the world. When it manages to distill a pattern out that's already at least half familiar to people.
*Obviously* that's not the only kind of art there is, and it might't be the art that all of us like best, I'm not arguing for it as the best kind of art. But I think it's fairly obvious why that kind of art is the kind that works best in the political arena.

Often the kind of art a lot of us like is explicitly trying to avoid doing the kind of things that makes a track like Skeng capable of being used the way it was used at Occupy. You could see that avoidance as an (in some ways) political decision.
And while I'm sure The Bug, killa P and Flowdan didn't set out to make a political song - perhaps they were out to make something that gave vivid sonic form to a mood and a lifestyle and an environment. And I think that is a political decision too, in its way.

Beyond that initial decision though - in either case it's hard to see where the politics comes in to the music - and the efficacy all comes down to context, skill and a bunch of perhaps largely apolitical factors. I think that's hard to get away from.

I wonder if sometimes politics gets added to music because music has such a resonance for people, is such a powerful form that we can feel like that resonance ought to be tied to some more concrete meaning that can stand up to the affect of the music. People do it with landscapes, memories, lust, etc. etc. and sometimes politics.
I don't think that impulse is always wrong, where it's honest. I think it can even intensify the music - but often, and particularly with politics, it can seem to distract the musician from pursuing the affect that seemed so powerful in the first place.

[Seth]

I think musicians often have heartfelt political positions because they often don't have much money, which makes them more likely to care about what is done to them by others. Quite often the reason they don't have much money is related to them pursuing music, and there's a certain amount of guilt or anxiety that arises from pursuing the latter at the expense of the former. It makes sense to want to direct that anxiety into activism; it also makes sense that musicians might find the displacement activity of pseudo-activism through music pretty seductive. It maintains all the benefits of being a fulltime musician without putting them or their spare time at risk through real political activity, while giving them the sense that they're engaged and 'doing something.' It's not hard to see why people link these things, which is why it's valuable when people see through it and resist trying to tie things up with a neat musicotheological bow.

[Hayao Yamaneko]

Yeah, I think that's pretty plausible as an explanation too.

[Steven Reynolds]

And although I strive in my life to be non-political or even apolitical, of course I am not.

I strive for this viewpoint/attitude in my life to get myself closer to inner peace. I do realize that the post dug up by my pal Alex has me urging someone (Tilbury) to put aside their beliefs to pacify or satisfy me or someone else.

That being said, that post was written many years ago so I may have changed quite a bit from that time.

In addition, it can be quite offensive to me that I would seem to viewed as inferior or even a neanderthal by some since my political viewpoints are mostly diametrically opposed to those espoused by Alex, Keith, Eddie, John, etc.

and that some who know a bit about the way I think or fell about such things would automatically decide that therefore I am that racist, neanderthal because, of course, all who think or feel the way I do MUST be that person.

nice to see the little post regarding Sun Ra...

peace and blessings

[mynameissally]

So I’ve kind of worked backwards to the beginning of my summary of your position above: your desire to become an activist, but in the arena of experimental music rather than in a more explicitly political campaign. On this I agree with Schik and Negative Potential: WHY?

also, I got a private message this morning:

talking about how you want to do political music because it is more likely to bring you personal fame and enjoyment ("rather than be a blip in the occupy crowd or whatever") actually comes across as way more selfish and indulgent than even the apolitical aestheticist stuff. [...]

(the notion that I am doing what I'm doing to cover up my "white guilt")

Let me clarify something, which will be a trivial personal detour in the context of the current discussion (which is actually very interesting).

I am writing a manadory 100ish page paper for school. I do not even have the option to write it on something more relevant without spending $90,000 to change my major and spend another two years at this school.

detour: I went to a lousy public school in a relatively conservative town, assumed I was a "liberal" in high school without knowing what that term actually implied (this is 4 years ago), and had about 50 wealthy piano students that I taught to play Chopin. I went to a competitive conservatory for music education for a year, and became disillusioned by classical music, to say the least. I became interested in historical experimentalism like any other 19 year old. I also had a socialist prof for a core class who affected my thinking quite a bit at this point (said musicology is the most important thing one can study today. weird!). I transferred to a very "hip" school--as a music major--with a well known experimental music dept/faculty. I became further disillusioned and fed up with experimental music for reasons that should be clear (I had some kind of latent radical attitude that was not being aided by my field recordings and protools assignments, or something). But this is my major, and I need to get my BA and get out of here.

I by no means plug my ears when my activist friends discuss occupy/etc. I've recently become barely well versed enough to join in. If I made it sound in this thread like I've closed myself off to the option of investing my life in something other than music, then these claims of white guilt are justified, but that was a little stupid of me to imply. My involvement with a small community as opposed a dauntingly large one has nothing to do with a desire for easy "personal fame and enjoyment," sorry for that cringeworthy impression. Nonetheless, while my roommate gets arrested, drops out of school, and I stay home reading ranciere, I don't think I'm wasting my time. In the long run, I think reading all this intellectual nonsense is (probably) a better idea than throwing myself into protests and occupations at such a young age.

There's still time for me to write a long paper on Chopin, or put on a concert of atmospheric protools compositions. For someone who (reluctantly) chose such a stupid major, I'm doing what I can.


Thanks everyone for the slew of interesting responses over the past day.

[faster]

I think musicians often have heartfelt political positions because they often don't have much money, which makes them more likely to care about what is done to them by others. Quite often the reason they don't have much money is related to them pursuing music, and there's a certain amount of guilt or anxiety that arises from pursuing the latter at the expense of the former. It makes sense to want to direct that anxiety into activism; it also makes sense that musicians might find the displacement activity of pseudo-activism through music pretty seductive. It maintains all the benefits of being a fulltime musician without putting them or their spare time at risk through real political activity, while giving them the sense that they're engaged and 'doing something.' It's not hard to see why people link these things, which is why it's valuable when people see through it and resist trying to tie things up with a neat musicotheological bow.

Yeah, some truth to this. And some cynicism.

[simon reynell]

Very good review by Richard P of Mattin's latest release, Improkup!, including a defence of him against my harsh words above. On this project Mattin certainly is being serious about trying to change the world in a small way, nor is he being confrontational towards the improvised music scene - though I still don't think I'll be buying it: http://www.thewatchfulear.com/?p=8252