Italy's weak lira lifts exports (and inflation). ++++++++++++++++++++ Finley Breeze Number Three March 29, 1995 ++++++++++++++++++++ In this issue... 1. How I came to stop worrying... - Steve Sliverstein 2. Instruction and Delight - Lise LePage 3. a method to one's moodiness - Dann Medinn 4. You're trying to fool somebody... - Sean Murphy and some randomly determined items coursing through a network of abandoned wires somewhere on the northeast corridor. But first, a word from our sponsor... --------- Welcome back... I'm a little worried about reaching #3, since that was the final issue of _Telegraph_, but I think this might just continue. (I know I promised at least an issue #4 last time, but much has changed between now and then, very little of which has any relevance to the vast majority of the readership. Bear with me for a minute, OK?) This issue is trying to look at ideas related to musical theories and instincts about listening. In retrospect, I wish I had used a word other than "theory" in defining the topic - the catch phrase "music theory" has so many negative connotations that it took over much of the debate contained here, when that really wasn't my intent at all. Something else I've been thinking about lately is introducing some sort of "interaction" in the digest format. Being able to carry on discussions over the course of 2 or 3 issues, rather than seeing all the articles in one bunch, and that being the perceived end of discussion. So, starting with Finley #4, I'm gonna actively provide an opportunity for people to respond to previous issues. (Some of this is spurred by knowing that someone who wanted to write for this issue is caught in a nasty deadline situation at the moment, but it's a generally applicable principle as well.) If you wanted to respond to a particular point or idea mentioned here, or one that _wasn't_ included, please feel free to do so. It may mean that there's gonna be an issue #3a and then a #4, but that's fine with me... it just depends on the quantity of submissions (I was gonna mention quality, but all the submissions to date have been great). So, issue #4. I've put the "marketing" idea on hold - it's a little too technical for me right now. Instead, the "topic" for Finley #4 will be: SOUL. I offer NO suggestions of what should or should not be written. (That's what screwed up this issue, to the extent that it is screwed up...) Take that word as you see fit, run with it, jot down a couple random notes, and send off in my general direction. (Thanks to Dann et al. for the suggestion...) Deadline for submissions: April 30th. That applies to commentary on previous issues of Finley as well as new articles on Soul. Advance warning: I'm gonna be on vacation that last week of April, hopefully without e-mail access for part of it (detoxing every once in a while is a good thing). Anyway, hope this doesn't just rot in too many mailboxes... Grumpy Sean sometime coordinator of FB grumpy@access.digex.net ============== ARTICLES ============== How I Came to Stop Worrying and Love Theory Steve Silverstein First, I should start by saying that in the end, what matters is what you like. Not what someone else thinks you should like. Not what some theory teaches you should be respected. Yes, maybe you should respect things based on some theory, but that doesn't mean you have to like them. And if it's music, it damn well doesn't mean you have to subject yourself to listening to it if you don't like it (beyond giving it a try--if it seems like it should work, it's worth one listen at least, but that's its own can of worms...) So, from here on out I'm going to sound like a pretentious asshole and someone will inevitably complain that all of the writing in this issue is too pretentious and academic. It was worth a try. Anyhow, I'm going to continue, this disclaimer aside. Why do I listen to what I listen to? How can I justify it? I think the folks who appeared in _Caught in Flux_ #3 (How I Discovered Music) give a bit of a hint to how each of us ends up listening to what we listen to. But, in the end, the second question is really important. That I grew up listening to what I did is a big part of my taste today, but in the end, I can't really use something that weak as justification. So, here goes. The biggest thing, I think, is that I want to be able to relate to something. Some musicians, Kenny G being a notable example, make music that no one can relate to, in the notion that it will be completely innocuous. I don't listen to them, and I don't see why anyone should. That's a simple start. Another large category are musicians who want everyone to relate to the most miniscule part of what they do in hopes of appealing to a huge number of people; see: Candlebox, Counting Crows, Pearl Jam. There may be people who genuinely do relate to what they do to a large extent, but as a whole they want their listeners to accept the most superficial relation and gloss over the rest. All of that, though, is really easy to explain. That still leaves billions of musicians, in billions of styles of music. I genuinely believe that Girls Against Boys really make music that they want people to be able to relate to. A lot of people whose tastes I really respect dig GvsB. I don't get it one bit, which is fine. Wingtip Sloat and Labradford I get to pretty extreme degrees. The question, in the end, is why. I think, in part, those two bands sound, to me, like bored suburbanites, which is basically my background and a big part of who I am today. I think I can relate, to a lesser degree, to some bands whom I have less in common with, just because they do such an amazing job of conveying their feelings that, through all of the differences, I still dig them. God is My Co-Pilot may be a good example. Is there some huge way to explain why I dig God is My Co-Pilot but not GvsB? Probably not. To me there are also artists who try to hide behind faux personae in creating their music, and to me, every time this rings as insincere showmanship over sincere art. But that seems a big digression. I should also mention that the fact that I have trouble relating to aristocratic art forms from 200+ years ago should be so obvious I don't need to explain it any further. To discuss people with no blues in them who try to ape a rural black artform is equally ludicrous. Since Sean brings it up, I should also trudge a bit into music theory, which has some relevance to all of this. To me, theory can help musicians and composers share ideas and realize what is out there already. It can provide a common vocabulary. On the other hand, to let theory limit what we do is dumb. To say "you need to resolve that dissonance" is just ridiculous if it's not how you want music to sound. I'm also much more interested in melodies, while traditional theory focuses much more on harmony. I think it's a lot easier to explain the music theory of the noisier and more dissonant stuff that I listen to than to explain why I dig a well-crafted pop song. Again, I think a big part of that is my interest in melody over harmony. I dunno. But I still like (and almost expect) harmonies far beyond major chords even in the most basic of pop songs. OK. I'm going to step off of my soapbox and hope to sound slightly less like the pretentious academic geek that I am in part. Sorry if this one got way out of hand. -Steve =============== Theory vs. Instinct, or, Instruction and Delight Lise LePage Re: Finley Breeze #2? If Weezer is punk, then I'm Satan. First of all, I would like to say that I listen to music with my ears as much as possible, and with my intellect less so. I also listen with my body - you know, you put on headphones but play it through the speakers at the same time. That way, your ears catch all the detail while your body gets rocked by the bass as it rolls through the room on its way to wherever sound waves go when they die (do they die?). That's one of the things that makes a good live set so exhilarating - the full body attack, the total experience (the crush of humanity, the smoke, the expensive bad beer). I have trouble with theory as a valid approach to music. Sounds to me like a method for rationalizing preconceptions, i.e., "I hate rap because it's sexist" or "Classical music sucks because dead white people wrote most of it" or even "Jazz is worthless wanking and nothing more." I certainly grant that it is possible to dislike a genre if, after listening to enough of it, you decide that it just plain sounds bad. But for me, a big part of "getting" music is listening to it, with as little prejudice as possible. How many times have I said "this album sucks" only to discover later, after a few more listens, that not only does it not suck, but it's become my favorite record. (e.g., Beat Happening, Crystallized Movements, Guided by Voices singles, the Grifters' _Soda Pop_). But that raises the question of "what is instinct?" Is it the same as saying that musical taste is innate? From my own experience, that's hardly the case. Musical taste grows and expands with experience. Some of what used to sound great to me still does: Steely Dan, Prince, Springsteen, Neil Young. But a lot of it doesn't (embarassing list follows): the Eagles, for instance, or the Doobie Brothers (except "What a fool believes," I cling to that one). But it's been my experience that as my taste for the likes of Pavement, Guided by Voices, or Flying Saucer Attack grew, my attention span for the mainstream diminished. These days, I can listen to WBCN [Boston's big evil ROCK station - skm] or MTV for about five minutes before boredom drives me out of the room, or over to another station. With the exception of Beavis and Butthead - Punk lives! But I digress. Reading back over this mess, I guess I'm coming down on the side of instinct, which I link with the stimulation of those elusive pleasure centers in the brain. After all, don't we listen to music because it gives pleasure? Theory won't tell you if it _feels_ good. Theory, for what it's worth, is an analytical tool. It will help you write scholarly papers or Bad Subjects articles about pop culture. Putting it another way, if you're like those powdered-wigged cats in the eighteenth century and you want your music to be "instructive and improving," theory may help you decide what is appropriate. But for music appreciation, it ain't worth a damn. No amount of theory is going to make Johnny like opera or Stevie like jazz, especially if they've already decided they hate it. For that kind of coercion, ears work a whole lot better ("You've got to listen to this incredible band!") and even then, you're going to run up against musical instinct (learned taste), combined with whatever it is that scares up musical pleasure in that particular brain. --Lise =============== a method to one's moodiness: th ear wax phenomenon in a postmodernist society Dann Medinn "people that kill communists tend to use bad language a lot." - sam pickering i never understood th whole controversy of this wacky "instinct vs. theory" stuph. relating to music? personally, i think that anybody's relation to music is pretty obvious. music is sumthin to play when yr studying, good fr th background y'know? i mean, ever go to a good party w/out sum loud rock n roll blaring outta th speakers? i know that i haven't. and instinct? what th hell does instinct have to do with listening to nirvana? everybody knows what's cool, right? that's all that counts. th radio stations i listen to, yeah, they play a lot of songs over and over again, but they're th only ones playing, y'know, th good new stuff. because sometimes i get really mad and angry, and then WHCN starts playing rage against th machine, & it's so righteous, y'know? like, this summer i went to lollapalooza and saw green day, before they were all huge and stuph. it was so much phat phun to jump into th pit & kick th shit out of all of these faggots. my girlfriend just got her nose pierced which is really, y'know, fukt up & strange, but it's ok in a crazy kind of way. yeah, we have a station that calls themselves alternative here, but it really sucks. they're always playing jazz or this world crap, which basically all sounds th same, (BORING; if i wanted to fall asleep i'd go to class) and their so-called "progressive rock" shows don't play any rush or s.t.p., just all of these crappy bands nobody's ever heard of. At least th radio stations i listen to play th same song over and over again so i can learn it, buy th cd, and listen to that song in my own room. what's th point of playing all of these no-names? huh? yeah, i'll admit it, i was told that they might be giving away veruca salt tickets this week, so i listened to WHUS a little while (until i practically barfed), and they were talkin about this band w/members of some group called "operation on ivy". that's a perfect example of total stupidity. what th hell is an operation on ivy supposed to mean??? i got sick of it, and changed th station. figure i'll just buy th tickets that night. man, music and beer are just meant for each other. like, there's this awesome new band i've heard recently, and they're totally into drinkin beer. You can tell that they'd be great music at a kegger. i forgot th name, it's a stupid one, like "rancid" or something, but they rock out pretty fucking hard. kinda like offspring, but heavier. that's my music versus instinct for ya. to summarize: music = background radio stuph. social ingrediant. instinct = fucking my girl, getting wasted, sleeping lots, and buying whatever they tell me is cool. and by th way, mike tyson's finally out (stupid bastards), so watch out world! uconn huskies, NUMBER FUCKIN ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! um, xoxo. dann medin owns every husky basketball shirt they sell at th co-op cuz he's cooler than you.xoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoox p.s. i've noticed that a lot of th material i've been writing lately has gotten cynical beyond a point of evil. i'm getting away from it now... don't wanna be redundancy man, forever standing on a pulpit & preaching "see how bad? see see see?" anyways, i wrote this article in this style mostly because it is a reflection of part of me & my reactions to what i see in my atmosphere as a "general consensus response." -- dann =============== You're trying to fool somebody, but you end up fooling yourself... Sean Murphy When I first thought of proposing this topic for an upcoming issue of Finley, I had this wild and insane mental picture of how my writing would work, what the relevant points were, how it all flowed together in this amazing stream of consciousness... this all hit me as I was walking to check my post office box, which was empty as usual... by the time I got home, I knew that there had to be an issue about this stuff. Of course, I didn't bother to write down any of the stuff I thought about while walking to the post office, and now, nearly 2 months later, I've managed to forget all the cogent and salient points I wanted to discuss, leaving behind only a series of disjointed moments. So, that's what I'm stuck offering this time. Some of it finally came toget her, but that was only when I shit-canned 3/4 of what I had originally considered discussing. I'm really out of practice at this writing thing... -- There is no reason to apply a formal analysis in the classical music tradition to most rock music. Doing so serves to trivialize the rock or pop song, while completely missing the point of why that song had been written or performed. Once, in a music text-book, I saw a formal analysis of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" and nearly cried. I then got into something of an argument with my high-school's music teacher, trying to explain that the A-B-A-B-C structure wasn't the point of the song, and he just ignored me, because what was written on that page accurately reflected certain aspects of that song. (This is, however, the same teacher who first exposed me to Stockhausen, Boulez, Cage, and the general notion of arcana. He also taught me how to cut and splice tape and use a reel-to-reel machine, so I'm not actually all that upset with him anymore...) -- Theories were created to explain instincts. "Q: What is common about this class of items that person x likes? A: Well, each one has a similar rhythm. The rhythm is consistent for the duration of the musical selection. It uses certain spacings between tones which seem natural..." ...and so forth. Repeat the process enough times, and you'll create psychotically elaborate constructs that can be taught in classes titled _Species Counterpoint_. -- Music written according to theory without any concern for how it actually sounds is generally pretty horrible. This is fairly true across any of your favorite musical genres. Serialism or 12-tone is an incredibly difficult field to work in. This, however, is not due to the formality of the tone row and the allowed transformations and manipulations. Those formal rules merely set up a rough structure and limits to the composition, and it's OK to move beyond those limits occasionally (cf. the sonnet as a form of poetry). The difficulty of serialism comes when the formalized constructs are used as the complete piece. If you miss the opportunity to use serialism as a guide rather than adopting it as an ironclad code, it can really hard to make that tone row do something other than sound like a mass of notes intentionally picked to have no relation to each other. Milton Babbitt is an incredibly intelligent person. Solid composer. His theories about modern music, however, are pretty frightening. He wanted to build synthesizers not as a new class of sound-creators, but as a controlled system so that he could reproduce his work exactly the same way each time it was performed. There's a tension on this point - "art" such as painting and sculpture simply is created, and observing it is a major reason for its creation. Music and theater, however, are often performed live. In a live setting, it's much more difficult to control what each individual performer will do. Those unpredicatbilities are both good and bad - sometimes it's the misplayed note or broken line that allows the performers to show their skill and talent in recovering. The same priniciple applied to painting, however, would force situations like an interactive Jackson Pollack - each person who enters the museum would have the opportunity to hurl paint at the canvas. (And Pollack is one of the few artists whose work might ostensibly or possibly allow for such in teraction - anyone want to make bets on how personal, individual alterations to the Sistene Chapel would be treated?) Babbitt wanted to elevate his compositions beyond the interactive world, making them more like sculptures in the process. There's a valid point to the approach, but I think it also sterilizes the composition. I don't want to have the opportunity to re-write portions of my Stereolab records, but I also place a high value on seeing them live and seeing how the songs change in that setting. Babbitt's approach, taking serialism to its logical, dead-end conclusion, can be seen in two different approaches to "alternative" music - Depeche Mode and "math-rock." A few years ago, Depeche Mode announced that guitars were irrelevant to music, as anything that could be done on a guitar could be reproduced on a synth and more effectively controlled in that digitized format. Maybe they've got a point, but we canŐt see it because their song-writing skills are virtually non-existent much of the time. (For an odd take on this whole concept, listen to the Smashing Pumpkins' cover of "Never Let Me Down Again" - performed exclusively on guitar, shimmers as much as the original - I wish I knew Martin Gore's reaction to it...) Math rock is yet another pigeonhole used to define a block of moderately similar-sounding bands. Its "hallmarks" are the use of odd time signatures and a jagged, herky-jerky, stop-start delivery of songs. "...aaaangular... an-gu-LAR, motherfucker." The same principles apply here, however - a band which says "ok, today we're gonna write a song in 13/8 time with 6 discrete parts and a tuning based on the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem" is probably NOT writing very good songs. On the other hand, I find it much more likely that bands who have done the 4/4 thing and then decide to try screwing around, not by picking a time signature, but just by letting things develop, are writing good songs out of that uncertainty. Again, there are obviously exceptions to these broad, sweeping generalizations. I'm not purporting to actually know anything about music, I simply feel like talking about it in the hope of figuring out a few things, and learning from what others have to say. [Others have done a much better job discussing Math Rock than I can - so I'm gonna drop the subject here before I look like a completely plagiaristic fool... and then my good friend mr. o'reilly can jump in at this point in the discussion for the next issue...] On a side note, it should be fairly obvious that the entirely Western concept that there are only 12 divisions to an octave is totally ludicrous, as non-western musics and the micro-tonalists within western music have proven. But that's a whole different story which I don't honestly know enough about to even start the discussion. -- To analyze a straightforward pop song, it's not necessary or prudent to look at the grand compositional structure or any of the other traditional methods of breaking up a piece of music. If you must employ these theories, try looking at the relationsh ips between the different instruments. The tones and pitches of the voice as opposed to the bass, for example. How does the bridge relate to the rest of the song? Why is the chorus selected as the chorus? Ultimately, these questions will yield incredibly hollow results, pointing to the fact that a theory must be derived from the class of objects it hopes to quantify. Theories about pop music have to be more touchy-feely due to the nature of the music. This does not mean, however, that pop music is so mething less valid than math-rock or Anthony Braxton's jazz-symphonies or Beethoven. -- People who have invested large amounts of time and energy into one musical theory generally cannot adapt to another. It's like religion or political affiliations - if you can comfortably see the other side of the story, then you probably havenŐt commi tted yourself to your side. Thus, classicists have trouble accepting rock as a valid musical expression and vice-versa. People who are merely looking for a form of music which strikes them in the gut or heart or ear are likely to have less difficulty cr ossing the genres that theorists have built. Lou Reed and Brian Eno have a lot in common with the avant-classical of the late 60s and early 70s, but most devotees of one or the other will shoot you for making the linkage. Building bridges across genres is tough sometimes, but worth the effort. If you're more of a rock person, try listening to Ravel's "Bolero" sometime. Or Bach's organ pieces. You should start to hear familiar elements, like the repeating bass patterns.. . or the entire musical basis for "White Rabbit." But that's just where I see connections - there's plenty of snooty, pretentious classical music, and there's plenty of inspirational stuff, and only you can make the distinctions. Ultimately, it depends on your brain, and if the space is there to actively search out and enjoy things that don't comport to your learned and preferred forms of music. =============== Coursing through the wires... Steve Silverstein: I've decided that while I've been reading a lot about multimethods, multiple inheritance, and the meta-object protocol in CLOS, that somehow falls out of the realm of people's interest. So, instead, I'm going to write about music (sort of). My favorite ARP-2500 (old analogue modular synth) modules are: o Oscillator Module 1004-T (which can have 6 different shapes at once) o Filtamp Module 1006 o Dual Noise/Random Voltage Generator Model 1016 but, none of these compares to the Buchla 200-series, which I'm just starting to figure out. The modules on it I can comprehend plus really dig so far are: o Dual Oscillator Module 258 o 2D Voltage Source (listening to Built to Spill, Wingtip Sloat, Mountain Goats, Nick Drake, etc.) -Steve ++++++++++ dann medinn (obviously) chooses dig, rancid, s.t.p., rancid, bush, offspring, pearl jam (cuz th nu one's so PUNK), and natural light. when smoking crack, enjoys th nu archers of loaf, glazed baby, second story window, mary lou lord, and -still- team dresch. when not overwhelmed by sarcasm and hoop-fever: o bob evans advance cassette fr "bradley suite" o "honeycomb" from th nu helium o yeah, yeah, yeah. th nu quicksand. stop smirking. STOP IT! o second story window lp on gravity o candy machine 7" on wonderland o vitapup 7" o "rodeo jones" from sunny day real estate cd-5 oh yeah, and midterm sleep deprivation. woo. ++++++++ Sean Murphy: o The Clean, _Compilation_ (Flying Nun Europe, 1988?) (the bonus live tracks _are_ worth the import prices...) o Pharoah Sanders, _Tauhid_ (Impulse, 1967) o Kraftwerk, _Radioactivity_ (Capitol, 1975) o Dis-, live in Princeton last weekend o The Dentists, "I Can See Your House From Up Here" (from the _Dressed_ comp, Homestead, 1992) o Joy Division, _Unknown Pleasures_ (Factory, 1979) o Totfinder, "No Whammys" (from the forthcoming WPRB compilation, _a dog so large i cannot see past it_) o Celis White - a wonderful beer... sorta fruity tasting... a great change of pace. o Magazine, _Real Life_ (Virgin, 1979) (especially side one) o David Bowie, "Moonage Daydream" and "Starman" (from _The Adventures of Ziggy Stardust..._, 1972) - you've gotta hear them in succession, though... not just one or the other. ================= In Closing... ================= No extra notes this time. No shouts or props. I could resurrect the "hearty FUCK YOU" category, but that seems rather petty. Finley #4 - SOUL - submissions by April 30, issue should mail around May 7, all dates subject to availablilty, check with your travel agent for details. OFFICIAL INFORMATION SECTION: DISCLAIMER: All material contained within is the responsibility of the original author, as identified by name and electronic address. If there is no clear attribution, then I probably wrote it, and you can bitch at me. This may be reproduced freely, but I'd ask that those doing the re-distribution give credit where it's due. If you've written a review somewhere, I wouldn't mind seeing that, either (feedback and criticism are good. so is self-flagellation from time to time.) QUESTIONS, complaints, comments, etc. about the publication as a whole are welcome. Submissions are even better. Subscriptions are cool, too. All should be directed to: grumpy@access.digex.net As I get a lot of random mail each day, please make it clear at the outset that you're writing about FB, not just for your health or to see if you can send mail from your net-site to mine. Finally, as the inheritor of the Telegraphic mission specifications, I'm also holding onto the Telegraph archives. All three are available from me if you want 'em.