Demolish Serious Culture

[vrfats]

http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/neoism/stock.htm

I think this is an interesting discussion to have here (if nothing else, an amusing story, involving TOPY, Henry Flynt and Tony Conrad going head to head protesting a stockhausen concert).

[ReverendLove]

Sounds like serious fun to me.
Yeah, and TOPY saved the world again.
But it's nearly twenty years ago, Karlheinz is dead and Genesis is still alive.
I wonder what he is doing now.

[Dan Warburton]

http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/neoism/stock.htm
I think this is an interesting discussion to have here

Well, it might be if it referred to something that happened a little more recently (try Mattin - no, wait, we've already had quite enough of that ).. poor old Karlheinz always got hammered. Back in the 70 Peter Schat and a bunch of Dutch communists took him to task, then there was the Cardew book.. He didn't help matters by his comments on 9/11, and didn't endear himself to struggling artists worldwide by writing stupidly expensive pieces like the Helicopter String Quartet (I wouldn't mind that if it actually sounded good - it's absolutely fucking terrible).

[vrfats]

I dont think a discussion on metaphysical cultural hierarchies in the art/music world is in any way outdated or irrelevant today. I also like a lot of stockhausens work (kontakte) and think he explored electronic sound and synthesis in greater detail than anyone before him. I'm not starting this thread to rag on stockhausen, though I do think he provides a decent example in context to the article. Although we dont have many icons of his magnitude today, I still feel like many people consume pieces of art based on the authority of institutions which often survive by alienating their audiences in a certain way making them feel like they aren't a part of a certain culture if they don't get a satori experience, yet I'm not sure making more lowest common denominator or universal art would be a worthwhile response. One thing I find really funny is Henry Flynt using a pretentious institutionalized dialect to criticize the same language of music and justify his hillbilly music : http://www.henryflynt.org/aesthetics/me ... _music.htm That said I really like Backporch Hillbilly Blues vol 1 & 2 and many of his other records. His writing just seems to come from an oddly schizophrenic state of mind when compared to his music.

[Dan Warburton]

So, what exactly are you complaining about here? Stewart Home's an entertaining writer, but surely you didn't fall for the wonderfully loopy post-Situationist Masonic mumbo jumbo of his Neoist manifesto (did you?). This is hilarious stuff http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/neoism/holborn.htm
I didn't find the to tone of the article by Flynt to be pretentious or institutionalized, but in any case he's another oddball choice on your part - if you're out to critique mainstream high art maybe you should find some more mainstream figure to take potshots at. Try Roger Scruton. But first of all, you'd better tell us what your definition of high (as opposed to low) art is. We've had threads on this subject before and they've never amounted to much.

[vrfats]

I think whatever I was talking about is too related to personal experiences to translate well here. Getting more specific would probably just step on more toes and further pushing this down a hole. That said I'm not flattered by your ability to constantly recommend me more correct/respectable authors to justify my views and what approach to take (I think I've been intentionally vague). Sure, you probably assume I don't know what I am talking about and should learn the critical discourses which are acceptable in certain circles. This thread was a mistake(or perhaps the tone of it and topic title), although the story about genesis, stockhausen and henry flynt was amusing and I figured an experimental music community would get a good laugh out of it.

[Dan Warburton]

I think whatever I was talking about is too related to personal experiences to translate well here.

Why bother posting here then?

That said I'm not flattered by your ability to constantly recommend me more correct/respectable authors to justify my views and what approach to take (I think I've been intentionally vague). Sure, you probably assume I don't know what I am talking about and should learn the critical discourses which are acceptable in certain circles.

Erm, yes.

This thread was a mistake(or perhaps the tone of it and topic title), although the story about genesis, stockhausen and henry flynt was amusing and I figured an experimental music community would get a good laugh out of it.

In which case just post the link without comment and we'll read the article, have a good laugh and carry on with our lives.

[vrfats]

Well to clarify and continue this thread, I feel like many people are more passionate about painting a certain cultured image of themselves than making music. The gestures they create often lack passion and are supported by a dialogue or discourse which I feel often has little to do with the human motive for making the expression and often serves to mystify people into feeling a sense of importance. The ego of the artist in these situations generally annoys the living daylights out of me and subtracts from the overall potential for musical ideas or fun. I think many people just feel bored and jaded toward music and no longer feel it. I am generally pretty bored and unmystified by New Music (maybe somebody here can convince me or shed some light on my ignorance).

Its weird seeing many experimental music practices such as the prepared turntable or no input mixer start to become more of traditions than experiments. Overall its probably a positive development since practitioners have the potential to focus more on developing their table(or objects) of sound into instruments that they have a deeper connection with while less absorbed in being a spectacle.
I have started to notice a weird kind of snobbery from people making EAI and free improv (similar to that of many virtuoso musicians) which often seem to shroud their music in the aesthetic of a lofty idea which when truly interrogated feels like an appendage or seems somewhat transient. I think this is something Henry Flynt describes this as a characteristic of western music and stockhausen in his writing and it is in my experience an attitude proliferated by institutions. I wouldn't hesitate to make the leap to say that many cultural institutions sustain themselves on this sort of thing although it is somewhat of a different climate today.

[Charon]

I have started to notice a weird kind of snobbery from people making EAI and free improv (similar to that of many virtuoso musicians) which often seem to shroud their music in the aesthetic of a lofty idea which when truly interrogated feels like an appendage or seems somewhat transient.

I'd be very interested to hear you elaborate on this a bit, maybe with some examples? (not naming names, obviously, unless you really want to get controversial...)

[vrfats]

I feel like the fluidity of thought and playfulness with musical/sonic ideas that makes an improvisation interesting to me are sometimes lacking and replaced by a lofty aesthetic or the ego of the artist. Sometimes the gestures made feel somewhat empty and insecure and the improvisations seem mostly "dead". This only really bothers me when they are elevated in importance through attitude. I have seen a lot of art that is more concerned with replicating the aesthetic of conceptual art (helvetica on white) in order to participate in a certain culture while the content usually amounts to pointing a finger at an issue or a oneliner. This is an entirely different issue but I think it has a lot of parallels and I think a lot of things which have become institutionalized practices suffer from this. In EAI people can sometimes become distracted by the spectacle of a novel method for creating sound and focus less on the content. It is easy to get lost through the mediation of technology. This is also something which when the performer pays attention to can equally make EAI interesting. I do like virtuosity in improvisation a lot (seeing tatsuya nakatani perform was a huge revelation for me). I think it can also embody the politics of punk music as a form and function against the pretension, mystique and exclusivity of certain cultures and become a slightly more democratic form of music. I think it can be a lot of fun when that coexists with virtuosity.

[vrfats]

Sometimes it seems like the music people call experimental surrounding me is becoming more and more polarized into heavily commodified pop forms with effects pedals and the word experimental in the marketing scheme and things like this http://youtu.be/4T4dbDsM_5o (here is a piece http://youtu.be/Pd6B5zLaHiU). That video was originally what moved me enough to start this thread here and what many of my complaints were addressing. I feel like I've been building a foundation learning about the immense past and would love some suggestions of current music that is moving away these trains of thought. I've been reading a lot of the interviews on your site Dan and think it is a very valuable resource today and I really appreciate the time you put in (although i think you are somewhat jaded and bitter). Its a very strange world to negotiate coming up in. Sorry if I seem to complain a lot, I think I am mostly just trying to orient myself.

[Dan Warburton]

Hey, thanks for checking out the interview archive (jaded, perhaps - bored with improvisation a little for sure - bitter, no! why should I be? life's great!) - have you read the Boulez interview yet? http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magaz ... oulez.html 20 years old but it might address some of the concerns you seem to be raising on this thread. From what I understand (though again, I can't be sure), you've posted the Cassidy quartet as an example of something you don't like, "serious" culture you'd like to "demolish"? Thank you for posting the two videos - will get to the Pisaro discussion shortly (as you've brought Michael into this, maybe some other punters here will join the thread) - my knee jerk reaction to the quartet is that it's competently written and well executed but explores an area of string writing that's been explored before (Penderecki, Radulescu and Lachenmann all come to mind). I don't see any need to demolish it. To each his own. Boulez can sit down and dig his Webern, I'll enjoy my well-worn copy of Weather Report's Night Passage.
"Experimental" is a label I find increasingly meaningless, though I know chaps like Matthieu Saladin would probably disagree with me. I'll stick to the Cage definition, which I quoted in the review of Matthieu's book http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magaz ... ext.html#1
"The word 'experimental' is apt, providing it is understood not as descriptive of an act to be later judged in terms of success and failure, but simply as an act the outcome of which is unknown." As the outcome of much music today, be it Wandelweiser or Noise, is hardly unknown, I don't see the term as having much relevance anymore. But enjoy your orienteering, vrfats!

[leroysghost]

You'll notice that the same night, the same quartet performed a Radulescu piece. Music of the concert hall has always been a very narrow lineage that is constantly referring back to itself and undercutting itself etc. and has been running up against the same set of problems for decades (same is true in the visual art world). People have been trying to demolish forever, and at this point it's more or less a matter of taste for those who still decide to participate in that world. It certainly has lost almost all the cultural cache it had in the 60's and 70's and pretty much no one who isn't actively engaged in it could give a shit at this point, so it's a bit like beating a dead horse to still complain about the same old things.

It also has no connection to EAI or anything "experimental".

[vrfats]

It also has no connection to EAI or anything "experimental".

yea i wander off a lot...

[Richard Barrett]

It certainly has lost almost all the cultural cache it had in the 60's and 70's and pretty much no one who isn't actively engaged in it could give a shit at this point

I think that depends a lot on your location and perspective. Stockhausen's Mittwoch sold out for four nights in Birmingham last month. (Dan: being there changed my mind quite radically about the helicopter quartet, for what it's worth!) It would probably be true to say that there are still many more people who give a shit about that kind of music than do about EAI. Not that this is particularly an issue as far as I'm concerned, because those two areas (to name only those) crossfertilise and intertwine with one another in many ways, and I don't find it useful to think of classifying music in terms of genres and subgenres (or in terms of where it's performed). From my perspective it's all connected.

[vrfats]

so it's a bit like beating a dead horse to still complain about the same old things.

I can see how you'd say that but our cultural institutions continue to teach these things and in my experience rarely offer critiques of the culture or ideology that they often seem to be participating in so I dont think its a totally exhausted or irrelevant discussion to have here. At least I haven't heard it over and over again yet. Sure there is no point in demolishing it, that was just an edgy title borrowed from Flynt.

it's competently written and well executed but explores an area of string writing that's been explored before

Perhaps the gestures are also justified by the institution and a tradition. I don't quite trust the type of authority structures which keep these institutions alive and bring this music to the concert hall. I think people like boulez and schoenberg were digressing from that kind of authority (but also acquired and participated in it) more in developing the style (I am not too familar with boulez or the methodology that was used to make the piece I linked so I am just working with some assumptions here, maybe someone can fill me in). However I think boiling it down to creating an individualized aesthetic is an equally dead end (that my generation is largely participating in). I guess seeing many of the ways these things are kept alive and practiced feels like a museum to me or if they use a new technique to arrive at a similar result it often feels like a slightly exasperated search for novelty. I guess what it comes down to is that this music doesnt "move" me. I feel like if I say that people will treat me like I am missing something and reference this that and the other but rarely address the music culture and ideology itself (I guess these are things which are all problematically challenging to talk about and generalize). Sure it does help to have some context(that is partially what i am looking for), heard more poetry in Schoenberg after learning more about his methodology and ideas. Still I feel like many people subscribe to this culture based on the authority of the institution and ego of the composer. I think if it ultimately boils down to a matter of personal preference and taste it is still interesting to ask what motivates this personal preference and where the ideas come from.

(Dan: being there changed my mind quite radically about the helicopter quartet, for what it's worth!)

Sounds like a massive spectacle to me. It seems like it would be fun but in more of a dadaistic way. I dont think stockhausen probably saw much humor in it...

[Richard Barrett]

I dont think stockhausen probably saw much humor in it...

I'm pretty sure he did.

[vrfats]

I'm pretty sure he did.

Its funny to imagine the crowd of bewildered spectators with the composer sitting laughing in his throne watching his string quartet swirl around in the sky.

[Dan Warburton]

Gee, you've really got it in for Stockhausen.. I wonder why. Surely you can't be jealous (as I suspect many of the people who took a dump on him in the late 60s / early 70s were)? Forget the megalomania and the silliness (hard, I know, but try) and name me a composer who was more consistently innovative and influential in the third quarter of the 20th century (Cage excluded.)
That said, I recently struggled through all the Licht cycle and found little to enjoy - but, to be fair, I imagine it's something you have to see live (o lucky man, Richard!), not that it's ever likely to be performed more than two or three times a century.

[jon abbey]

Stockhausen's Mittwoch sold out for four nights in Birmingham last month. (Dan: being there changed my mind quite radically about the helicopter quartet, for what it's worth!)

I think Mark Harwood was raving about these shows also, unless maybe there were London performances also?