Warning: incoherent ramble
In discussing music with a friend today, and during a sidebar addressing creative context, it occurred to me that I fancy things devoid of style. I like a good Jimmy Page rush as much as the next guy, but I also tend to gravitate toward things that are "new" in all respects. It is not necessarily a matter of choice that I want to hear the employment of amplified household garbage in contrast with a sinusoidal background. It just is.
Somebody called new-ish music "egoless"; I can't remember whom. Nor do I really care for the tag because of its instability. I am, however, fascinated not so much by what I hear on the surface of modern improvisation and composition, but by their byproducts: those elements of the music that occur almost in the subconscious, or as passive accomplice to the parent bold-faced sounds and noise.
In creating new sounds, I wonder how important it is to cut new trails not just in the sounds themselves, but in the generative tools as well? Exactly how much ego can be said to be present in Nakamura's application of the no-input mixing board? Or Sachiko's empty sampler? The use of such instruments and their integration into modern music making, on the one hand, is a logical extension of futurism ("We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice!"). But on the other, isn't the use/creation of such a thing, especially in the confines (?) of art, a most ultimate extension of the self?
Posted by al on December 6, 2003 11:32 AM"Egoless" is, of course, a contentious term and ultimately, imho, usually a misleading one in the sense of its reality as opposed to a well-meant objective. AMM and others tried (and try) to have their sound emerge from the environment, to be _of_ it as well as to enhance it, to subordinate themselves to the room. Enhancing, it will be argued (correctly) involves the injection of at least some ego...But even if there's the implicit acknowledgement of some degree of ego, the reining in of its more showy tendencies strikes some listeners (including myself) as an attractive option. Now, is the reining-in of ego itself an ego-filled act? Hmmmm......
But the consciousness of making the attempt accounts for something it seems to me, even if the result necessarily falls short. Something that's possibly crucial at least insofar as its absence from most music (art).
As to new instruments/sounds, one advantage of using nimbs or empty samplers (at least when first utilized, maybe less so now) is that they lack the "baggage" of others. With no particular tradition of empty-sampler playing, Sachiko is somewhat freer, I imagine, to create what she hears inside without, eg, the problem encountered by a saxophonist having to "not think" of Coltrane or whomever. Of course, I don't think this is an automatically necessary approach by any means but I can see its attraction from that point of view.
yeah, egoless is a simplistic term, and one I used as shorthand on Jazz Corner a while back. a more accurate term is the one Mr.Rowe used last weekend in the recording session with Dorner and Hautzinger, non-soloistic or orchestral.
Posted by: jon abbey at December 8, 2003 1:28 PMMaybe self-effacing.
I kind of like having Hubbub's "Hoop Whoop" on as background music.
Posted by: mke at December 8, 2003 3:32 PMWithout knowing who the artists in question are, or what they are doing, I would think that creating sounds for a recording through a non-musical instrument would be a sort of "hey, listen to what I can do with this box." I don't think anyone can step into a recording studio without ego.
An idea does not require ego. The decision to manifest that idea, or to discard it does.
For someone to try something new, they first have to think that they are capable of creating something new. That requires a sense of pride.
Art is a physical manifestation of the human ego, imagination, and ability to present idea. Too simplistic? Maybe, but I don't believe that art can exist without ego.
Posted by: Cary Ralston at December 8, 2003 4:31 PMI kind of like having Hubbub's HOOP WHOOP as foreground music!
Posted by: dan warburton at December 8, 2003 9:15 PMI don't really like having Hubbub's HOOP WHOOP on at all, after my first time through it. :)
Posted by: Jon Abbey at December 9, 2003 2:31 PM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................