Music

I've been revisiting some of my favorite roots music lately, namely Hank Williams, James Brown, BB King, T Bone Walker, Elvis Presley, Albert King, and Howlin' Wolf...and, I'm struck at just how great these artists were, and how vital their music was, and is, and will always be.
I've been listening to a lot of the early stuff, in the case of BB, T Bone, and Elvis, (and in the case of Hank, there was no later music), and man, there's such depth and deep human expression. In fact, Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records, said of Wolf: "When I first heard him, I said 'This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies.'..." Phillips called Wolf his greatest discovery, and this is the man who discovered and recorded Presley, BB, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and more such greats.
Why I'm posting this here is because I hope that we who study, play, and compose non 12 tone music can aspire to create music where the soul of man never dies. We could really use such art now, as the world is in a bad bad place, and appears to be getting worse real soon. And, I've long believed that great art is a wonderful balance to the madness that occurs in the world, and can give people hope for better times, and a more peaceful planet on which to live. I'd like to be part of such art/music, and hoping there is a lot of it in the near future...best in 2007 and beyond...HHH
myspace.com/microstick

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Ohhhh Yeahhhhh... And, I could add so many more to your list.. I just
watched the Blues Bros. movie again recently.. I had forgotten how
much good, uplifting music there was in that flick. Best to you, too!

Robin

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, <microstick@...> wrote:
>
> I've been revisiting some of my favorite roots music lately,
namely Hank Williams, James Brown, BB King, T Bone Walker, Elvis
Presley, Albert King, and Howlin' Wolf...and, I'm struck at just how
great these artists were, and how vital their music was, and is, and
will always be.
> I've been listening to a lot of the early stuff, in the case of BB,
T Bone, and Elvis, (and in the case of Hank, there was no later
music), and man, there's such depth and deep human expression. In
fact, Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records, said of Wolf: "When I
first heard him, I said 'This is for me. This is where the soul of
man never dies.'..." Phillips called Wolf his greatest discovery, and
this is the man who discovered and recorded Presley, BB, Roy Orbison,
Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and more such greats.
> Why I'm posting this here is because I hope that we who study,
play, and compose non 12 tone music can aspire to create music where
the soul of man never dies. We could really use such art now, as the
world is in a bad bad place, and appears to be getting worse real
soon. And, I've long believed that great art is a wonderful balance
to the madness that occurs in the world, and can give people hope for
better times, and a more peaceful planet on which to live. I'd like
to be part of such art/music, and hoping there is a lot of it in the
near future...best in 2007 and beyond...HHH
> myspace.com/microstick
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

"microstick@..." wrote:

"Why I'm posting this here is because I hope that we who study, play, and compose non 12 tone music can aspire to create music where the soul of man never dies."

I was going to let this ride, but reading through it twice and having read many posts from you over the years, I've decided not to. Because the implication of the entire post seemed to be that here's a music where "the soul" is, and that implies that other music has no "soul". Well, it's entirely possible that some people out there make music that doesn't speak to you, and that's fine, it's just not your music. But please don't draw from this the conclusion that their music is without "soul". How do you know what sounds will speak to another's soul? Mr. Haverstick, there are some folk in the tuning community who like to cruise in from time to time, and criticize the work of others around here for being too much theory or too many words, as if some numbers or words could kill the music. But the truth is, that in the face of a phenomenon like music, where speechlessness and making more music are really the only proper responses, simply falling into platitudes and bad poetry about how cool or soulful something may be, is a failure to respond, and does more, in my opinion, to kill the music than a bit of talk about technique. Trying to talk concretely about technical matters is banal and limited, but it can be useful, and while not necessarily for everyone, it has a modest dignity of its own. And in particular, in the realm of musical tunings, when confronted with an overwhelmingly large vector space of possibilities, then using a few numbers to sort through that space is a reasonable and efficient way of getting more quickly to and roadmapping territories that are of potential interest to music making. It is a way of taking sound and music seriously, and disparaging this approach is both anti-intellectual and anti-musical.

Daniel Wolf

There is always a dilemma that any artist faces when confronted with the desire on one hand to with adding in some part to the music of their tribe and on the other end of doing work which might be more easily understood but might be redundant. This is true even in Pop music. Anytime someone finds themselves too far in a new direction, others can be bewildered by what is in front of them. A good example of how one might be able to see such forces is in the case of Schoenberg, whose practice of atonal music he attempted to balance with some conventional forms, even when these forms might not serve him. I believe he did so to keep to both avoid being ahistorical and a desire to do work that was relevant to his tribe. Some of his earlier work, say the 'Five Pieces for Orchestra' are more adventuresome in form than his later work, so it does not appear that he was just stuck with what he had inherited. On the other hand we can take a composer like Shostakovitch who was forced to use more conventional material and would push his forms to extremes. I am thinking of his fourth especially
I read a fascinating quote of Bartok once to the effect that he heard new music of his day as not a move away from emotions , but as finally being free from the few he thought Romanticism was stuck with. Finally composers were free to explore other subtler and emotions we probably have not the words for, maybe other languages do. But it seems in part that only some emotions might exist because of their occurrence in music. Even a composer like Cage i find will break new ground along these lines, even if not his concern. Artist do inadvertent things which is a whole other issue. Surely we can say things outside of that we are sad.

We live at a time where Art is considered irrelevant which makes those who find themselves compelled to go further out requiring more courage to do so. Some others are naturally inclined to stay close to home and add little gems.
Even a simple of a practitioner as Dylan has on occasion taken 1-1V-V and used it in a way where the tonic is IV. or LaMonte use of the blues adds something to that language both in elongating it progressions and introducing rhythmic ideas outside of what he grew up with. I have a thing for Scott Walker who will take a Berman film, "The Seventh Seal' and make a song version of it, or the murder of Pasolini which he does as a love song to a young boy (who ends up killing him but it never happens in the song) , or not being addicted to Herion but being surrounded by those that are, and on top of this being a victim of abuse and having all the making of someone inclined to go this direction. One of the most talented younger composers i have met is obsessed with Britney Spears because of her arrangements, done by an arranger from India who worked in the pop music in that country. I really have never heard her (somehow) to comment but just mention it in the context that like a tree , branches can start to fill in in any space sunlight can get too.

There are many music makers who because of the time they live inherit situations in the overall language where while their work might not be what we call the best, it laid the groundwork for others to build upon.
Here we are apart of one research and development dept and we should not be hard on ourselves if we do not solve all the problems we are confronted with.
Take the first artist who used glass or did collage, they might try to use it like steel or paper and only by doing so do those or those who follow them can so easily see what it is that glass does.
At least those after us will not have to retrace our steps far but will inherit it, only to be confronted with the dilemmas of their time.
Daniel Wolf wrote:
> "microstick@..." wrote:
>
> "Why I'm posting this here is because I hope that we who study, play, > and compose non 12 tone music can aspire to create music where the soul > of man never dies."
>
> I was going to let this ride, but reading through it twice and having > read many posts from you over the years, I've decided not to. Because > the implication of the entire post seemed to be that here's a music > where "the soul" is, and that implies that other music has no "soul". > Well, it's entirely possible that some people out there make music that > doesn't speak to you, and that's fine, it's just not your music. But > please don't draw from this the conclusion that their music is without > "soul". How do you know what sounds will speak to another's soul? >
> Mr. Haverstick, there are some folk in the tuning community who like to > cruise in from time to time, and criticize the work of others around > here for being too much theory or too many words, as if some numbers or > words could kill the music. But the truth is, that in the face of a > phenomenon like music, where speechlessness and making more music are > really the only proper responses, simply falling into platitudes and bad > poetry about how cool or soulful something may be, is a failure to > respond, and does more, in my opinion, to kill the music than a bit of > talk about technique. Trying to talk concretely about technical matters > is banal and limited, but it can be useful, and while not necessarily > for everyone, it has a modest dignity of its own. And in particular, in > the realm of musical tunings, when confronted with an overwhelmingly > large vector space of possibilities, then using a few numbers to sort > through that space is a reasonable and efficient way of getting more > quickly to and roadmapping territories that are of potential interest to > music making. It is a way of taking sound and music seriously, and > disparaging this approach is both anti-intellectual and anti-musical.
>
> Daniel Wolf
>
>
>
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
> -- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/index.html>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main/index.asp> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

Very well said.

Number is adjective, not noun (unless you're into numerology I
guess). It doesn't matter if you call an interval 13/11 or Busty
Mathilda, it's just two different sets of symbols. What it IS, is
the sound.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf@...>
wrote:
>
>
> "microstick@..." wrote:
>
> "Why I'm posting this here is because I hope that we who study,
play,
> and compose non 12 tone music can aspire to create music where the
soul
> of man never dies."
>
> I was going to let this ride, but reading through it twice and
having
> read many posts from you over the years, I've decided not to.
Because
> the implication of the entire post seemed to be that here's a
music
> where "the soul" is, and that implies that other music has
no "soul".
> Well, it's entirely possible that some people out there make music
that
> doesn't speak to you, and that's fine, it's just not your music.
But
> please don't draw from this the conclusion that their music is
without
> "soul". How do you know what sounds will speak to another's soul?
>
> Mr. Haverstick, there are some folk in the tuning community who
like to
> cruise in from time to time, and criticize the work of others
around
> here for being too much theory or too many words, as if some
numbers or
> words could kill the music. But the truth is, that in the face of
a
> phenomenon like music, where speechlessness and making more music
are
> really the only proper responses, simply falling into platitudes
and bad
> poetry about how cool or soulful something may be, is a failure to
> respond, and does more, in my opinion, to kill the music than a
bit of
> talk about technique. Trying to talk concretely about technical
matters
> is banal and limited, but it can be useful, and while not
necessarily
> for everyone, it has a modest dignity of its own. And in
particular, in
> the realm of musical tunings, when confronted with an
overwhelmingly
> large vector space of possibilities, then using a few numbers to
sort
> through that space is a reasonable and efficient way of getting
more
> quickly to and roadmapping territories that are of potential
interest to
> music making. It is a way of taking sound and music seriously,
and
> disparaging this approach is both anti-intellectual and anti-
musical.
>
> Daniel Wolf
>