Re: [MMM] Re: Definition of pop

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>wrote:

>
>
> I think that pop can definitely be progressive.

I'm cc'ing metatuning, where this rightly belongs, please respond to my rant
over there :)

.....True Mike, but then in my book at least, I don't call it pop anymore, I
call it art. It's very rare, in my not-so-humble opinion. What's the saying?
If 90% of people like a painting, it should be burned, because it must be
bad?

I don't quite agree with that as an airtight universal, but there a pretty
heavy grain of truth in it. I'd say it's probably true in at least 90% of
cases.... ;)

I'm utterly amazed at the stuff that passes for digestible music in many
circles. The general public demand way more nutritional value in even their
food nowadays than they do in what hits their ears. It's, as ever, often
superficial or sentimental rubbish that gets heaped with praise. Turn on any
random radio station now vs. 1948, or even 1979, and wow, the vast
difference in general interest of what comes out is amazing. Any semblance
of art for art's sake in music anymore is all but gone in favor of marketing
campaigns and American Idol style cheese. We are told that arts education
should be dismantled right-wing, backed by the same corporations filling
these radio stations with empty noise designed to lobotomize the public.
They lobotomize with right-wing talk shows and completely empty corporate
music. It makes me endlessly depressed to think about it, and the greatest
move I ever made for my sanity was to take myself off of the cable TV grid
entirely. Only well-picked movies reach my brain.

But what do we expect? The same people seek to elect Sarah-gun-toting-Palin
to grand empress of the cosmos....everyone's gone completely nuts.

Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.untwelve.org

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

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 1:29 AM, Aaron Krister Johnson
<aaron@...> wrote:
>
> I'm utterly amazed at the stuff that passes for digestible music in many
> circles. The general public demand way more nutritional value in even their
> food nowadays than they do in what hits their ears.

Right, but what's "value?" As I said in my last message - there is a
tradeoff that happens as you learn more, where the continued
acquisition of imperfect models to see the world leads to the
combination of
a) a synthesis of more previously thought random and insensible
information into an actual working model
b) the discarding of other information to make things conform to the
model when they may not perfectly

As a result, rather than hearing music as sounding fresh and
invigorating, we just fit it into our schema for "crappy 2010 pop
music." We've found the common thread that ties together most of
modern pop music, and so we're not hearing anything "new" when we hear
it anymore.

Why do we derive our pleasure from hearing something new? I don't
know, because we like creation? The answer to that question could go
on forever. But instead of finding ever-increasing subtle shades of
variance and "newness" within the realm of modern pop music - which
folks like my 12 year old nephew continue to get better and better at
- we just lump the whole thing together into the "modern pop" box,
because we've listened to tons of music that sounds 100% completely
different. Hell, we've been driven towards exploring microtonal music
just to find something different!

> We are told that arts education
> should be dismantled right-wing, backed by the same corporations filling
> these radio stations with empty noise designed to lobotomize the public.
> They lobotomize with right-wing talk shows and completely empty corporate
> music. It makes me endlessly depressed to think about it, and the greatest
> move I ever made for my sanity was to take myself off of the cable TV grid
> entirely. Only well-picked movies reach my brain.

I just try to understand the simpler psychological explanations for
behaviors like this, that's all. Empty noise designed to lobotomize
the public... this is what the public wants. Teen girls feel sexually
repressed and gravitate to stuff like Lady Gaga. They feel they live
in a world of traditionalism that frowns on female sexuality, and
gravitate towards stuff like that to get away from it. Meanwhile, the
conservatives in this country feel like the first group is out of
their f*cking minds, because they feel they're in a world of sexual
debauchery where Hollywood glamorizes prostitution and the like. I
went to Haiti for a little bit - they definitely did not think of
America as a country that looks down on sex, that's for sure.

Who's right? The left thinks that the media has a bias towards the
right because of Fox News, the right thinks that the media is
predominantly left-leaning except for Fox News. Who's right? (Academic
studies show that the media is generally pretty center but tend to shy
away from stories that are critical of the parent media companies, so
I guess that's who's right).

> But what do we expect? The same people seek to elect Sarah-gun-toting-Palin
> to grand empress of the cosmos....everyone's gone completely nuts.

Have you heard about Donald Trump yet? :) Some key phrases from that
are "It's about time we elected a businessman to run this country."

-Mike

Rock and pop is as wimpy as one can become.
Its practitioners are the most narrow minded musicians i run across.
It is as close to the tea party as one can get as far as music is concerned.
It is as relevant to the present as big band music was in 1950.
What it can talk about and express on an emotional level is trivial.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 17/03/11 4:29 PM, Aaron Krister Johnson wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Mike Battaglia<battaglia01@...>wrote:
>
>>
>> I think that pop can definitely be progressive.
>
> I'm cc'ing metatuning, where this rightly belongs, please respond to my rant
> over there :)
>
> .....True Mike, but then in my book at least, I don't call it pop anymore, I
> call it art. It's very rare, in my not-so-humble opinion. What's the saying?
> If 90% of people like a painting, it should be burned, because it must be
> bad?
>
> I don't quite agree with that as an airtight universal, but there a pretty
> heavy grain of truth in it. I'd say it's probably true in at least 90% of
> cases.... ;)
>
> I'm utterly amazed at the stuff that passes for digestible music in many
> circles. The general public demand way more nutritional value in even their
> food nowadays than they do in what hits their ears. It's, as ever, often
> superficial or sentimental rubbish that gets heaped with praise. Turn on any
> random radio station now vs. 1948, or even 1979, and wow, the vast
> difference in general interest of what comes out is amazing. Any semblance
> of art for art's sake in music anymore is all but gone in favor of marketing
> campaigns and American Idol style cheese. We are told that arts education
> should be dismantled right-wing, backed by the same corporations filling
> these radio stations with empty noise designed to lobotomize the public.
> They lobotomize with right-wing talk shows and completely empty corporate
> music. It makes me endlessly depressed to think about it, and the greatest
> move I ever made for my sanity was to take myself off of the cable TV grid
> entirely. Only well-picked movies reach my brain.
>
> But what do we expect? The same people seek to elect Sarah-gun-toting-Palin
> to grand empress of the cosmos....everyone's gone completely nuts.
>
> Aaron Krister Johnson
> http://www.akjmusic.com
> http://www.untwelve.org
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 2:23 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> Rock and pop is as wimpy as one can become.
> Its practitioners are the most narrow minded musicians i run across.
> It is as close to the tea party as one can get as far as music
> is concerned.
> It is as relevant to the present as big band music was in 1950.
> What it can talk about and express on an emotional level is trivial.

By this, do you mean that it once was relevant, but isn't anymore? Or
that it's always been full of narrow-minded practitioners?

-Mike

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 17/03/11 5:21 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> America as a country that looks down on sex, that's for sure.
>
> Who's right? The left thinks that the media has a bias towards the
> right because of Fox News, the right thinks that the media is
> predominantly left-leaning except for Fox News. Who's right? (Academic
> studies show that the media is generally pretty center but tend to shy
> away from stories that are critical of the parent media companies, so
> I guess that's who's right).
>
there is no representation of the left on main stream media.
Fox news is not right, it is pure fascism. and so what you call the left is the left.
It ain't so. what studies the hermitage foundation.
When was the last time you saw Chomsky on TV compared to glenn beck or sarah palin.?
What you call left might be pro obama, but he is not left at all.
>> But what do we expect? The same people seek to elect Sarah-gun-toting-Palin
>> to grand empress of the cosmos....everyone's gone completely nuts.
> Have you heard about Donald Trump yet? :) Some key phrases from that
> are "It's about time we elected a businessman to run this country."
that is a pure fascist idea!!!! This is what mussolini thought too!
the business men were the once that destroyed the US and robbed it blind and you think putting them in power is an idea to even consider.
Every thing that has been privatize is a disaster. All they care about iis prfits and look at therior news about Japan.
Who cares that tens of thougsands are dead or dying, they all care about as to how that effect the numbers.
They are souless pigs and should be thrown to give them garbage.

> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 2:39 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> there is no representation of the left on main stream media.
> Fox news is not right, it is pure fascism. and so what you call
> the left is the left.
> It ain't so. what studies the hermitage foundation.
> When was the last time you saw Chomsky on TV compared to glenn
> beck or sarah palin.?
> What you call left might be pro obama, but he is not left at all.

I tend to agree, but I was making more of a statement about the
subjective nature of value.

> >> But what do we expect? The same people seek to elect Sarah-gun-toting-Palin
> >> to grand empress of the cosmos....everyone's gone completely nuts.
> > Have you heard about Donald Trump yet? :) Some key phrases from that
> > are "It's about time we elected a businessman to run this country."
> that is a pure fascist idea!!!! This is what mussolini thought too!
> the business men were the once that destroyed the US and robbed
> it blind and you think putting them in power is an idea to even
> consider.
> Every thing that has been privatize is a disaster. All they
> care about iis prfits and look at therior news about Japan.
> Who cares that tens of thougsands are dead or dying, they all
> care about as to how that effect the numbers.
> They are souless pigs and should be thrown to give them garbage.

I just thought it was funny. "It's about time we elected a businessman
to run this country." Right, because that's never happened before...

-Mike

Technology offered it an uncontrollable dynamic for quite a while.
That has since dried up.

Personally i would like to see music move toward something people do together as opposed to something that is consumed.
it is better when it is something that is done.

This is actually little bit harder to do in person with electronics than it was with acoustic instruments.
If technology and thought was put into that direction, i think it would be worth while.

I owe allot to it, but i am disappointed that if i was younger, i don't think i could survive in it now.

Until a few years ago my entire musical life was in rock clubs and venue except for the exceptional show outside of it.
It was extremely hurtful to hear refer to my work as ambient, new music, classical etc and this is just because of my age when i n fact my work was never presented in those world. that those on the list subscribe to the most narrow view of what things are is unfortunate.
i can assure you this world is as hostile to me as this one now.
I m sorry i digress.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 17/03/11 5:24 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 2:23 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> Rock and pop is as wimpy as one can become.
>> Its practitioners are the most narrow minded musicians i run across.
>> It is as close to the tea party as one can get as far as music
>> is concerned.
>> It is as relevant to the present as big band music was in 1950.
>> What it can talk about and express on an emotional level is trivial.
> By this, do you mean that it once was relevant, but isn't anymore? Or
> that it's always been full of narrow-minded practitioners?
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 2:54 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> Technology offered it an uncontrollable dynamic for quite a while.
> That has since dried up.
>
> Personally i would like to see music move toward something
> people do together as opposed to something that is consumed.
> it is better when it is something that is done.

What do you think about improvisational music then? What do you think
about jazz, jam bands, etc?

> Until a few years ago my entire musical life was in rock clubs
> and venue except for the exceptional show outside of it.
> It was extremely hurtful to hear refer to my work as ambient,
> new music, classical etc and this is just because of my age when
> i n fact my work was never presented in those world. that those
> on the list subscribe to the most narrow view of what things are
> is unfortunate.
> i can assure you this world is as hostile to me as this one now.
> I m sorry i digress.

Your music is definitely not "ambient," I don't think I've ever heard
that said before... What genre would you put it in?

-Mike

I apologize that i shift the conversation to myself. It is not appropriate and really i don't want to discuss it!

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 17/03/11 5:54 PM, Kraig Grady wrote:
> Technology offered it an uncontrollable dynamic for quite a while.
> That has since dried up.
>
> Personally i would like to see music move toward something
> people do together as opposed to something that is consumed.
> it is better when it is something that is done.
>
> This is actually little bit harder to do in person with
> electronics than it was with acoustic instruments.
> If technology and thought was put into that direction, i think
> it would be worth while.
>
> I owe allot to it, but i am disappointed that if i was
> younger, i don't think i could survive in it now.
>
> Until a few years ago my entire musical life was in rock clubs
> and venue except for the exceptional show outside of it.
> It was extremely hurtful to hear refer to my work as ambient,
> new music, classical etc and this is just because of my age when
> i n fact my work was never presented in those world. that those
> on the list subscribe to the most narrow view of what things are
> is unfortunate.
> i can assure you this world is as hostile to me as this one now.
> I m sorry i digress.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> /^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
> Mesotonal Music from:
> _'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
> North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island<http://anaphoria.com/>
>
> _'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
> Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
> <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>
>
> ',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',
>
> a momentary antenna as i turn to water
> this evaporates - an island once again
>
> On 17/03/11 5:24 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 2:23 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>>> Rock and pop is as wimpy as one can become.
>>> Its practitioners are the most narrow minded musicians i run across.
>>> It is as close to the tea party as one can get as far as music
>>> is concerned.
>>> It is as relevant to the present as big band music was in 1950.
>>> What it can talk about and express on an emotional level is trivial.
>> By this, do you mean that it once was relevant, but isn't anymore? Or
>> that it's always been full of narrow-minded practitioners?
>>
>> -Mike
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>>
>> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>>
>> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>>
>> To post to the list, send to
>> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Kraig Grady>"I apologize that i shift the conversation to myself. It is not  appropriate and really i don't want to discuss it!"

Certainly, it's not just you.  It's at least me also and probably at least a handful of others as well.  To others on the list "what has your music been mislabeled as...and what do/did you intend it to be?...and what artists/songs in existance would you compare your work to so far as artistic style/goals?"

I think we can most if not all agree on one thing: genre-stereotyping is NOT good for music as an artform.

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

Improvisational music is wide reaching in how it can be applied. I use as the main method in my class here.
There are those though that like to be told what to do, and a music should be able to incorporate that too.
With any practice it is important to remember what it can and can't do.
One is not going to end up with doubled unison melodies in improv. so there should be ways to do that. i do know one person who uses some graphic notations and wanted players to play together in rhythm. and they complained they couldn't he insisted and finally told them to look at each other and do it and they did.
Games and instructions can determine allot. The one instruction that sounded best so far was when they were told to play only when they thought someone else was going to play [on a percussion instrument] starting a long tone at the same time with their voice and hold it for as long as they can. It was less atonal than one might imagine since the students were inclined toward tonal music.

one the most useful exercise is one i learned from Delcroze methods and i still find it challenging.
one decides on a meter and one person plays a rhythm for one bar and everyone else repeats it a bar later but the leader continues playing so everyone has to listen while they are repeating what was done before.

A piece like Riley's IN C while only partially improvised really goes really bad if you try to introduce more controls on the piece besides the original instructions.
Everytime i have seen it done, it was a disaster.

Microtones can be approached in a game like in that one chooses a set of pitches and adds them one at a time with a set length and that determines what happens next. so it is the sound that guides it.

a 150 years ago people performed chamber music in their homes as a way of hearing music, often with little or know audience.
and Jazz was like this too in many ways yet it has developed to a highly skilled practice.
Still i see no reason that music could not incorporate those type of skills along with simpler ones as say as the accompaniment.

The method in which music is done will change the way it sounds more than anything i can think of. Technology has given the individual the power to be an orchestra every time and maybe we can have music with 50 orchestras, but maybe we don't need all that to do what we can as a group.

The damn world is falling apart as we speak and the best way for all of us to not be killing each other might be to play music together.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 17/03/11 5:57 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>
> What do you think about improvisational music then? What do you think
> about jazz, jam bands, etc?
>
>