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Guest Chaney

Would the Big 'O' be improved with the addition of a forum dedicated to free / avant-garde jazz?  

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My definition of a great thread does not require at all that it be "sustained" - in fact, when the pages get to be too high I think that's a deterrent. "What Are You Listening To Now" is actually something that I almost never look at (because my experience shows this to be a billion people each posting a single name or 3 names - no discussion at all, which is pretty much useless - to me. It serves perfectly the purpose of the thread, though.). So, I would never have known that there was any big avant garde aspect to that thread. But again, it doesn't surprise me because I have a gut feeling from seeing avant garde discussion all over this board that there are folks who are into that stuff. Which is great.

The Listening Now thread is extremely "sustained" - 272 pages at last check. It's not at all a great thread, in my view.

To me, a great thread is about quality, not quantity. It could be just two posts. Actually, it could be just one post. That one post would be very informed, well thought-out, clearly written, and basically - inspired. Of course, usually when that happens, even if there is nothing to say, someone will post if only to say, "Wow. Nice post."

When there's great music to talk about, you share it and spread it around (at least that's my view as an educator). If anything, segregating avant garde topics will lead to less wide discussion - for exactly the reason why only 52 names have created 81 pages of Funny Rat. More than HALF of those folks have only 4 or fewer posts. Wow. That they post at all tells me there is interest. But that they post so little, I think, indicates a problem. And plenty of those 29 are names that I recognize as "Supa Groovers" or "Brides Of Funkenstein" or "Big Mamma Jammas" or "All That AND The Bag Of Chips" or whatever the rankings are, not newbies or lurkers.

I have my own opinions about which members usually end up elevating the quality of threads. I'm sure everyone else has their own opinions as well. Thanks to the posting list, I now learn that some of my own personal picks are practically or *completely* absent from the Funny Rat world. Boy, that's evidence to support my position. These are active members who love that kind of music and aren't participating.

Get those avant garde threads out there in the open - in *every* appropriate forum. That way they will be seen and used.

Mike

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Mike is reading my mind, apparently.

Look - I PLAY the stuff, so I know full well what the effects of "insularity" are, and they aren't beneficial beyond developing a self-caontained community, which is ok, but just for getting started. Once you got that, to keep it there intentionally is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy about how "nobody else likes us". No - nobody KNOW you. Big difference. Maybe most people won't. But some will. Hey - that's life.

Tell you what - by far and away the best recptions that Quartet Out has ever recieved have been at A)a St. Louis elementary school assembly and B)a free outdoor gig at White Rock lake where joggers and other "civilians" heard the music while passing by, decided to sit a spell, and ended up loving the music (for that moment, anyway. But that's good enough). Two situations where nobody knew nothing about the "difficulty" of the music, they just got hit with it, and they liked it. Works for me.

I understand that there's a "social" element to the Rat thread, and I'm more than ok with that (as if it matters). But if the object is to get the music out into "public" view, then there's a better way to go about it, I think.

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No one is keeping anyone else not in the Rat Top 5 from starting threads on this stuff, right?

Anyhow, the general reception of the unknown is hesitant at best at this board. Try it, start a thread - maybe under a newbie moniker to rule out the name factor - and look what happens. Nothing mostly.

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Tell you what - by far and away the best recptions that Quartet Out has ever recieved have been at A)a St. Louis elementary school assembly...

Do they have a website? Is there a forum there? - I could post a couple of recommendations there.

http://www.musicaconcarne.com/

I was more hoping for a St. Loius elementary school website.

Edited by Д.Д.
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For anybody that's hip to "Today's Active Topics" (and chooses to use it), this whole discussion is unnecessary, right? I still don't quite understand why people hop from forum to forum, looking for topics, unless there are multiple forums that they have no interest in (?). T.A.T. seems so much easier, and allows you to keep up with everything chronologically. With the link that's on the bottom of every page at this board, it's truly easy to navigate that way. I forget if I'm in the minority on this... anyway, just an observation, fwiw.

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For anybody that's hip to "Today's Active Topics" (and chooses to use it), this whole discussion is unnecessary, right? I still don't quite understand why people hop from forum to forum, looking for topics, unless there are multiple forums that they have no interest in (?). T.A.T. seems so much easier, and allows you to keep up with everything chronologically. With the link that's on the bottom of every page at this board, it's truly easy to navigate that way. I forget if I'm in the minority on this... anyway, just an observation, fwiw.

:tup:tup:tup

;)

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No one is keeping anyone else not in the Rat Top 5 from starting threads on this stuff, right?

Anyhow, the general reception of the unknown is hesitant at best at this board. Try it, start a thread - maybe under a newbie moniker to rule out the name factor - and look what happens. Nothing mostly.

fwiw, I voted 'no' on starting a new forum, I don't really see the point, unless for the sheer pleasure of annoying Dan, but couw is correct: For the most part, any thread started on an artist who has not been on Blue Note, Prestige, or recorded before 1964 will die a lonely death, very quickly. I've been trying to get more people involved, off and on, but it usually does not work. Take a look at the Album of the Week forum. Rudresh Mahanthappa, while perhaps unknown to most here, is not recording music that is too far out. 5 replies, at least one of them mine. Exploding Customer, 11 replies or so. The Jackie Maclean thread blew past both of those within a day or two of being started.

Threads on anyone from Jemeel Moondoc to Vijay Iyer to Brett Sroka seem to get, at most, three or four replies before ending in a whimper. The recent discussion on Air seems to be going fairly well, which is nice.

You all might be right that a lot of people who don't look at Funny Rat are interested in the music we discuss there but most of them sure as hell don't seem to post when a seperate thread is started, either.

I'll keep posting threads in the "appropriate" forums every now and again but, if it keeps being as frustrating as it has been to get people to join in, I'll most likely keep retreating back to Funny Rat. At least there I know there are a few people who are interested in checking out new sounds and are also willing to post their thoughts and questions.

Edited by John B
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Guest Chaney

(...)

I have my own opinions about which members usually end up elevating the quality of threads. I'm sure everyone else has their own opinions as well. Thanks to the posting list, I now learn that some of my own personal picks are practically or *completely* absent from the Funny Rat world. Boy, that's evidence to support my position. These are active members who love that kind of music and aren't participating.

Get those avant garde threads out there in the open - in *every* appropriate forum. That way they will be seen and used.

Mike

As I've always said, ALL are welcome. If some of your favorites aren't contributing, it's by their own choosing.

saynomore... saynomore... walkaway... walkaway... :rmad:

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I read those artist posts that only get a few replies, if it makes a difference. They're not going to waste! I just don't want to chime in with another of my "duh I don't have it but it sounds cool and I might buy it" type posts, I do enough of those. ;)

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Exactly. For example, a thread about Brotzmann-Parker-Drake had 10 replies, but 157 views. The current Brotzmann thread has 21 replies and 328 views. The most recent Maria Schneider thread had 7 replies and 130 views.

Regarding the point about whether the Funny Rat thread is welcoming, I'd say a thread that is unclearly titled and has 81 pages isn't doing much to make itself welcoming. Apparently it's gone beyond "Peter Brotzmann & Shoji Hano".

Another consideration about long threads is that they make it more difficult to search. Short and long threads get equal space in the search results and I know I'm much more likely to look at something that doesn't have a billion pages where my search term might appear once.

The Us and Them thing is unproductive, too. So-called avant garde music may NEVER be as widely popular as Blue Note hard bop, but so what??? If you were interested in being part of a large fan-base maybe you should have thought about the Grateful Dead or the Beatles or Elvis. Or Garth Brooks. Or the NY Yankees.

Mike

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Another consideration about long threads is that they make it more difficult to search. Short and long threads get equal space in the search results and I know I'm much more likely to look at something that doesn't have a billion pages where my search term might appear once.

tick the display-as-posts box instead of the default display-as-threads when searching.

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The Us and Them thing is unproductive, too. So-called avant garde music may NEVER be as widely popular as Blue Note hard bop, but so what??? If you were interested in being part of a large fan-base maybe you should have thought about the Grateful Dead or the Beatles or Elvis. Or Garth Brooks. Or the NY Yankees.

For ths most part I agree with your points, but the quote I took is where I think you are missing my point. I understand that there is almost no chance Eremite will ever be as popular as Blue Note and I am ok with that. However, the context for this discussion is the splitting of of genres into seperate forums vs. having a/g discussions throughout the rest of the board. My point, in that context, is not that the problem is the lower popularity of avant-garde music, my point is that even though 130 people might view the Maria Schneider thread, if only 7 people bother to post in the thread then why bother leaving Funny Rat? If 5 of the 7 people who posted responses read Funny Rat it would save them a lot of time searching through the rest of the board to have that conversation if it were just added to FR in the first place. Sure, 123 people "might" lose out on the discussion but is it the responsibility of the person starting the thread to make sure as many people as possible read the thread or is it ok for them to hope for as many responses as possible and post where people are more likely to respond?

How did you ever get the idea I had the slightest interest in popularity? I was just responding to you and to others who said that you were interested in this music, but wouldn't wade through 2,000 pages of Funny Rat. Fine...I would honestly love to see all of you join the discussions. But, as I was trying to make clear, that does not happen. For the most part, even if a thread is started in the Artists forum or in Recommendations,etc... all of these people you mention still don't join in the discussions.

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Mike -

basically, I agree with what you are saying, However, I personally find it frustrating to keep starting threads and get zero to a few replies. Hence my last two posts here.

I think you are correct that these discussions need to occur in every available forum and I'm going to keep on trying to spread the word throughout the rest of the board.

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(...)

I have my own opinions about which members usually end up elevating the quality of threads. I'm sure everyone else has their own opinions as well. Thanks to the posting list, I now learn that some of my own personal picks are practically or *completely* absent from the Funny Rat world. Boy, that's evidence to support my position. These are active members who love that kind of music and aren't participating.

Get those avant garde threads out there in the open - in *every* appropriate forum. That way they will be seen and used.

Mike

As I've always said, ALL are welcome. If some of your favorites aren't contributing, it's by their own choosing.

saynomore... saynomore... walkaway... walkaway... :rmad:

I hear you... This has to be one of my most frustrating threads ever. <_<

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Mike -

basically, I agree with what you are saying, However, I personally find it frustrating to keep starting threads and get zero to a few replies. Hence my last two posts here.

I think you are correct that these discussions need to occur in every available forum and I'm going to keep on trying to spread the word throughout the rest of the board.

These are some interesting comments.

I wonder sometimes why some things get dropped and others get picked up.

I'm relatively new--I'm not a BN refugee--but I've always liked this place better than the alternatives.

But I have noticed that there are rifts here (Funny Rat being one of them).

Pace, Chaney, I'm not saying that anyone is excluding anyone else, but I am saying that what we see is that Funny Rat is dominated by five posters or so.

Also, there's a rift between "intellectualizers" and non.

And there's a pretty deep insider/outsider rift that gets rolling in several different permutations: musicians/non-musician; Blue Noter/non-Bner; acknowledged expert/schmo.

The place where this seems to break down is the political forum, where allegiences are worn on sleeves.

Otherwise, I sense a lot of reticense around here on topics musical.

I offer this is an example: Coltrane & Aesthetics thread

I was really surprised by the amount of hostility this thread met with (I expected some--it was an old issue--but not one that I had never seen discussed in an interesting manner).

And I was really happy with the discussion that finally came forth--I learned from it--but I have to say the amount of ad hominem and motive-questioning crap was . . . odd in a board supposedly dedicated to discussion.

What does this point up? That a lot more of this board is wrapped up in "How's the weather" sort of socializing that we'd like to admit? That there's an immediate hostility to anyone who questions the consensus we all like to beleive is under the surface here (i.e. to anyone who brings something up that really inspires what one might call discussion)?

I think there's a certain strangeness to the way people use the media that we run up against. The same one that makes PJ O'Rourke wonder why conservatives listen to Rush Limbaugh.

I Agree With Me.

I think this is a tendency we've got to work against, because it's the natiral tendency, and it makes the board a lot less interesting than it would be otherwise.

Just my thoughts,

--eric

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Mike is reading my mind, apparently.

Look - I PLAY the stuff, so I know full well what the effects of "insularity" are, and they aren't beneficial beyond developing a self-caontained community, which is ok, but just for getting started. Once you got that, to keep it there intentionally is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy about how "nobody else likes us". No - nobody KNOW you. Big difference. Maybe most people won't. But some will. Hey - that's life.

Tell you what - by far and away the best recptions that Quartet Out has ever recieved have been at A)a St. Louis elementary school assembly and B)a free outdoor gig at White Rock lake where joggers and other "civilians" heard the music while passing by, decided to sit a spell, and ended up loving the music (for that moment, anyway. But that's good enough). Two situations where nobody knew nothing about the "difficulty" of the music, they just got hit with it, and they liked it. Works for me.

I understand that there's a "social" element to the Rat thread, and I'm more than ok with that (as if it matters). But if the object is to get the music out into "public" view, then there's a better way to go about it, I think.

Interesting points, Jim.

And related to why I've never posted in Funny Rat! That happens to be the only place on Organissimo where there has been mention of a CD that I actually played on...

[Apologies to Chris Albertson, but I guess you'll have to start giving me the "Berigan" treatment -- I confess, "maren" is not my real name (has strong family ties, though)!]

Anyway, some of the Funny Rat artists constitute a world I spend a lot of time in, and I feel a Funny Divide within myself -- I can comment on musicians I've never known, but when it comes to the world I've worked in, I feel much more reticent...

I hope nobody minds too much! I really value the feeling of friendship I've found here while presenting my "day-job" persona!

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