I met at least two, maybe three people last weekend that I might wish to hear my music if they can.
here some of it is:
Category Archives: Minimalism
Steve Reich minimalist music related stuffs
tail end of a conversation bout music.
tail end of a conversation bout music.
most things don’t “do it” for me… NO, wait, most things don’t do it for me IN THE WAY THAT I WANT at the moment, that is, in the way that SAID THINGS DO do it for me. I like proverbial cocaine. thatis, High Stimulation.
something fun once, is fun a million times too.
hence
African Music
and Minimalism.
And Brazilian Music.
and any (boorbaar) combination of these.
Hey, dig my piece
Capitalism’s Downward Pressure to be mediocre
Still haven’t heard how the Ayn Rand camp defends the fact that capitalism has a downward pressure to produce as little as possible and sell it for the most.
these clowns have to admit at some point that this results in making garbage and presenting it as treasure, the very thing that they accuse socialists of, yes?
“enshrining mediocrity.”
isn’t that what capitalism and oligarchy are doing?
why else is pop music these days nothing but commercial GARBAGE?
ain’t apologizin, eat it. guess I’m old now.
no, I ain’t old, I’m educated and have good bloody taste. never liked most pop music. only reason I liked James Brown (and really, is that pop music? was it ever?) is cause I happen to dig the rhythms and the harmonies and the fact that they repeat a lot. it’s happenstance. if they weren’t as they are, I’d pass over James Brown, as I do a lotta funk that doesn’t have “certain” chords and “certain” rhythmic feels and “isn’t repetitive such that it pulls me in and I want more and more of it.”
still haven’t heard from the Ayn Rand Camp where they get off thinking that capitalism doesn’t unnecessarily (at this point in history) encourage
Willful STINGINESS. rather than actually thinking and actually caring and actually deciding WHAT CONSTITUTES a GOOD JOB at something, a thing WORTH doing.
not just DOING It, regardless of it’s meaning and place in the general scheme of things, if it has one at all.
SEE? I HAVE LEADERSHIP SKILLS!!! hahahaha (this is a joke, but it isn’t)
“James Brown is God.” no joke. not god, just awesome. hows that for a disclaimer.
unpaid gigs are better in ways that matter
… I don’t suppose “UNPAID GIGS” were always a lot cooler in all ways other than money, than PAID GIGS.
but it seems that the model these days is
-teach people to think that chicken-feed is in fact the greatest meal on earth
-pay the poorest people on the planet (children in 3rd world countries, it seems) as little as possible to make the thing, as cheaply as possible.
-sell the stuff for a shit ton of money to said “dumbed-down people who don’t know better”
-completely ignore anything cultural, historic, intellectual, feeling, human, ANYTHING other than this, reducing people who DO care about
anything other than money
pushing those of us who DO care
too desperation in the process.
man, corporations, if all you care about is money
that is a sad fuckin state of affairs man.
I want no part of your jive-ass garbage machine.
go to hell.
I stick with my unpaid but human and communal and enjoyable and life-affirming gigs.
grinding process musical composition thoughts….
shapes, musical shapes… of pieces…. hmmm….
is it event-based….
is it minimalist…
or is it minimalist-TEXTured, with events nonetheless….
which kinda….
maybe reduces if not defeats, the purpose of it not being full-blown minimalist….
so many questions…
and perhaps none of them matter…
“if it sounds good to you, it’s bichen.”
-frank zappa
but is it sounding good to you the ONLY thing that matters….
grr…..
musico-rhythmic interest in minimalist and not
here we go again…. 4 21 15…
what
DOES….
musical interest in a piece
COME from (a piece that happens to be for non-melodic percussion of course.)
ON TALEOLOGY, “EVENTS”, MINIMALISM, MUSICAL INTEREST…
except I’ve nothing to say, as the endless thoughts I’ve had are all unbounded and disconnected and would make no sense would take two many rambling words to even try to say as of yet….
and it’s all TASTE in the end, anyhow…
this somehow reminds me of the skepticism of David Hume… yes?
(I’ll have much more to say about this, but not yet…)
fragment of convers. bout rhythm, not songs
“Reich Steve calls some of this “enacting the percussionist’s revenge.” (he did so by
1. using TWO stringed instruments in music for 18, with SIX percs and FOUR pianos (a perc instrument also, alas.)
2. putting the marimbas and xylos in the FRONT of the orch, and the strings in the BACK, in “the desert music.” and elsewhere. oh
3. having WHOLE NOTES ties to OTHER WHOLE notes in the string parts, while all the ACTION is in the MARIMBAS…. in OTHER PIECES (eight lines, city life, music for a large ensemble, music for 18, you fucking name it.
oh, he was a jazz drummer:)”
this was about my desire as a percussionist NOT to just play whatever is “conventionally appropriate to what the guitar player and singer and bass player are doing, with “my own little aded splash”
but to basically obliterate the relationship (this one anyway) of rhythm to the rest (stravinsky did such a thing with harmony and rhythm in The Rite of Spring did he not?)
and to set it up such that instead of having the drums “accompany” in a more or less subservient role, “actual REAL music (blegh)
have them
be INTEGRAL to the structure of the music itself, have them BE the music.
I mean come ON, I’M A PERCUSSIONIST AND A DRUMMER! I don’t want to always “work for” others, we’ve done that for eons.
we should now try either working together, or have THEM WORK FOR US.
hey, I’m entitled this.
people’ve done it.
various bands and groups and musics from all over in various time periods in various capacities including but not limited to
African Drumming (it usually serves “the dance” (but said dance VERY often mimic EXACTLY the rhythm of the drums:)
Gamelan Music from Indonesia
INdian Music (from INDIA of course.) sometimes a “framework for improvisation”…. whatever…. point being” Tabla Solo music is awesome and I like it in this way.
Steve Reich and some of Philip Glass’s American MINIMALISM particularly their early works.
and of course
BoorBaar – a Percussion Ensemble, my group.
www.boorbaar.com
SEQUENCES OF IDEAS or DEVELOPMENT
on the validity of mere SEQUENCES OF IDEAS, rather than DEVELOPMENT of them, in music, and perhaps in conversation, or even thinking, or living.
I mean, what’s the point of “developing” something… you don’t have to “develop” seeing the sky, you see it, it’s blue, or azul, or whatever, and it’s beautiful. you don’t HAVE to “write poems” about it, or define it, it just IS.
MM! UMPH! why can’t music and sound just BE, sometimes? even in a John Cage sense… not ALL of them (but then again, why NOT all of them?) but bloody hell, if you find someting appealing, just BE with it, as long as you like. no need for a story, an arc, a narrative. no need for TELEOLOGY. just BE. DAMMIT just be.
COLOURS. FEELINGS. THE MOMENT. OVER AND OVER. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS.
ESPECIALLY IF YOU FIND IT PLEASANT.
I DON’T NEED to always be doing something NEW! some of the things I love to do I am happy doing MANY TIMES!!!
like if I was married… I wouldn’t need a new WOMAN all the time… would I?
I should think not, if I loved my wife.
and I don’t need new and different food all the time, even any of it (though in some ways a broader diet than I’ve got would be good, yes.)
some say variety is the spice of life. perhaps, but NO!start with basic contentment, no need to spice things up without things “TO” spice up.
and no I’m not advocating the perhaps materialist life path of the boomers, nor am I advocating maslows “incomplete” hierarchy of needs (he left out “the need to feel alive, in between the lowest two needs, but you couldn’t expect a non-adhd to know about that; it would be like saying that people need “oxygen” for happiness. and water. I mean, duh. he can be forgiven for the crime of having an “IN-UNIVERSE” perspective in his writing (in case you don’t know, that means writing a supposed encyclopedia article from the perspective of a fantasy world, rather than from OUTSIDE it, as is proper. though this does remind me of Fight Club and the device of UNRELIABLE NARRATOR, as used by JAMES JOYCE, yes.)
UNRESOLVED HARMONIES!! I WANT!!!
WHY DON’T I want things to reSOLVE harmonically?
Dammit! LEAVE the #4 THERE! LEAVE THE #4 TRITONE IN PLACE!!! BY ITSELF!!!! IT DOESN’T NEED A BLOODY RESOLUTION!!!