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I don't think I have any particular insight into whether a song is good or bad in some Platonic sense.

The past is another culture. Trying not to understand it, while evaluating its music for its "eternal verities" (can't remember the exact phrase Chas used), is the equivalent of a Senegalese trying to evaluate Gospel music solely against his own background of Mbalax and Islam; a load of bollocks.

Opposition to culturally-relativistic aesthetics need not rest on Platonic metaphysical assumptions , as it can arise among those sharing the desire to naturalize aesthetics . Many wishing to naturalize aesthetic values stop at the cultural level instead of continuing down to the level of human nature , largely out of antagonism ( rooted in political commitments ) to what they see as the essentialism of such a concept . Evolutionary psychology has helped provide an explanatory framework for studies demonstrating cross-cultural , trans-historical standards of beauty ( both of persons and of landscapes ) , so why are we to suppose that something similar could not be possible with musical aesthetic values ? If we accept the psychological nativism of Chomsky's linguistic universals , aren't we obliged to be open to the possibility of aesthetic universals ? Strictly speaking such an aestheticism would not be universalist or absolutist , since it would still be relativistic in the sense that it would be relative to human beings and the contingency of their evolutionary development .

This is a particularly difficult post for me, Chas, because I don't understand what you mean by "naturalize aesthetics", which seems to me to have two related, but opposing, meanings. The ordinary meaning of the word "naturalisation" is a process by which a person becomes a citizen of another country. An alternative meaning is to make natural and since you mention human nature and Chomsky later on, I'm going to guess that what you're talking about is internationalisation.

Chomsky is of the view that humans are "hard wired" for language and that all human languages have the same deep roots in this wiring. And you go on to say that there may be similar hard wirings in relation to aesthetics. OK, I'm not going to argue with either of those views, because I think they're probably right, too. The point I think I want to make is that, despite this universal hard wiring, languages are still mutually incomprehensible, their common roots buried so deep they are of little practical use in day to day circumstances. You have to study long and hard to grasp a foreign language. Just so, you have to study long and hard to grasp what Braxton called the "cultural aesthetic thrust" of a foreign culture, even a bit. And, while it's clear that there are common roots, the weight of the particular culture completely overwhelms them. I think that this is perhaps less so in music than in other aesthetic areas, though I don't know. What I feel pretty strongly is that, unless you can develop a feel for the particular, you're unlikely to be able to penetrate to the universal.

Have you read Taine's "History of English literature"? Most literary critics and historians rubbish it because they say Taine left out personal genius and thus treated Shakespeare and Skelton the same. But Taine's avowed intention in writing was to find out, through a study of the literature, what it was like to be English; not to make critical assessments and put writers into a league table. Thus, studying poor writers was, to Taine, every bit as important as studying the great writers. I would personally go further and say that poor artists of any discipline are more important to study from the point of view of gaining an understanding of a foreign cultural aesthetic thrust, because they are more representative of the culture than the geniuses. In my view, too many people (and I'm not pointing the finger at you, Chas) limit themselves to the geniuses and I believe this limits their ability to judge.

MG

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What I feel pretty strongly is that, unless you can develop a feel for the particular, you're unlikely to be able to penetrate to the universal.

Same here.

And I don't think that the opposite holds nearly as true, because we got all kinds of "world music" & "one world" types walking around dropping pellets of cluelessness like some many cultural Johnny Appleseeds.

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I would personally go further and say that poor artists of any discipline are more important to study from the point of view of gaining an understanding of a foreign cultural aesthetic thrust, because they are more representative of the culture than the geniuses. In my view, too many people (and I'm not pointing the finger at you, Chas) limit themselves to the geniuses and I believe this limits their ability to judge.

More important? Hmmmm....not so sure I can agree with that, especially "poor" artitsts, especially not in quantity...

"Average", I could go with, though...

But as important, yeah, definitely, because, "regular" gives "genius" more properer, more fullerer context, and vice-versa. And knowledge with out context isn't really as much knowledge as you want out of the deal, I should think.

Otoh, the syndrome of certain music fans knowing the minutae of every "Funky 45" collection ever issued and knowing only the hig(est) points of James Brown, Stax, etc. (or even claiming some "superiority" for the former group over the latter) is the type of phenomenon you get when "context" becomes an end unto itself rather than a tool to understand everything about a particular set of circumstances, from the lowest to the highest.

Balance. You gotta have balance...

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I would personally go further and say that poor artists of any discipline are more important to study from the point of view of gaining an understanding of a foreign cultural aesthetic thrust, because they are more representative of the culture than the geniuses. In my view, too many people (and I'm not pointing the finger at you, Chas) limit themselves to the geniuses and I believe this limits their ability to judge.

More important? Hmmmm....not so sure I can agree with that, especially "poor" artitsts, especially not in quantity...

"Average", I could go with, though...

But as important, yeah, definitely, because, "regular" gives "genius" more properer, more fullerer context, and vice-versa. And knowledge with out context isn't really as much knowledge as you want out of the deal, I should think.

Otoh, the syndrome of certain music fans knowing the minutae of every "Funky 45" collection ever issued and knowing only the hig(est) points of James Brown, Stax, etc. (or even claiming some "superiority" for the former group over the latter) is the type of phenomenon you get when "context" becomes an end unto itself rather than a tool to understand everything about a particular set of circumstances, from the lowest to the highest.

Balance. You gotta have balance...

Yes; I'm happy to go with average, if you like that word better. Though, if you put average in the context of jazz, or even just Texas saxmen, who's average? Clifford Scott? Curtis Amy? Don Wilkerson? King Curtis? Al Abreu? Shelley Carroll? Harold Land? Booker Ervin? John Manning? Fathead? Buddy Tate? Budd Johnson? Big Jay McNeely? Wilton Felder? Arnett Cobb? Illinois Jacquet? Hershel Evans? etc etc (I was going to add, You? but we'll leave that to one side :)) What I meant by poor was people who simply didn't perform at the genius level, who I think are probably more representative. I don't think there's anyone who came out of that South Western tradition one would say performed at that level except Prez, who wasn't from that region, but came up as part of it, and Ornette, who was in some ways so far away from that tradition that comparisons are silly. The point is that anyone can hear the Texas approach/style in ALL those musicians, including Prez and Ornette. But if you just listened to those two, without all those others, I doubt that you'd get a clear idea of what it was/is.

There's a level at which competence is acceptable (or better), originality is personal and vision is representative, rather than groundbreaking/transcendent.

Now, you'll know that that area is my target in my own collection :) But, the converse of what you said about genius needing context is also true - the representative also needs the context of genius (so I do have Prez, Ornette and others in my collection - happy for people to say not enough; donations acceptable). Similarly, the example you used of obscure funk 45 nerds.

MG

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I don't think I have any particular insight into whether a song is good or bad in some Platonic sense.

The past is another culture. Trying not to understand it, while evaluating its music for its "eternal verities" (can't remember the exact phrase Chas used), is the equivalent of a Senegalese trying to evaluate Gospel music solely against his own background of Mbalax and Islam; a load of bollocks.

Opposition to culturally-relativistic aesthetics need not rest on Platonic metaphysical assumptions , as it can arise among those sharing the desire to naturalize aesthetics . Many wishing to naturalize aesthetic values stop at the cultural level instead of continuing down to the level of human nature , largely out of antagonism ( rooted in political commitments ) to what they see as the essentialism of such a concept . Evolutionary psychology has helped provide an explanatory framework for studies demonstrating cross-cultural , trans-historical standards of beauty ( both of persons and of landscapes ) , so why are we to suppose that something similar could not be possible with musical aesthetic values ? If we accept the psychological nativism of Chomsky's linguistic universals , aren't we obliged to be open to the possibility of aesthetic universals ? Strictly speaking such an aestheticism would not be universalist or absolutist , since it would still be relativistic in the sense that it would be relative to human beings and the contingency of their evolutionary development .

This is a particularly difficult post for me, Chas, because I don't understand what you mean by "naturalize aesthetics", which seems to me to have two related, but opposing, meanings. The ordinary meaning of the word "naturalisation" is a process by which a person becomes a citizen of another country. An alternative meaning is to make natural and since you mention human nature and Chomsky later on, I'm going to guess that what you're talking about is internationalisation.

Chomsky is of the view that humans are "hard wired" for language and that all human languages have the same deep roots in this wiring. And you go on to say that there may be similar hard wirings in relation to aesthetics. OK, I'm not going to argue with either of those views, because I think they're probably right, too. The point I think I want to make is that, despite this universal hard wiring, languages are still mutually incomprehensible, their common roots buried so deep they are of little practical use in day to day circumstances. You have to study long and hard to grasp a foreign language. Just so, you have to study long and hard to grasp what Braxton called the "cultural aesthetic thrust" of a foreign culture, even a bit. And, while it's clear that there are common roots, the weight of the particular culture completely overwhelms them. I think that this is perhaps less so in music than in other aesthetic areas, though I don't know. What I feel pretty strongly is that, unless you can develop a feel for the particular, you're unlikely to be able to penetrate to the universal.

Well, I was on the bus yesterday and listening to these three women talk in this foreign language. I couldn't make head or tale of it because it was foreign, but I also heard something universal in it - like women chattering among themselves - which was also foreign to me (being male). I said that and we made a connection.

Have you read Taine's "History of English literature"? Most literary critics and historians rubbish it because they say Taine left out personal genius and thus treated Shakespeare and Skelton the same. But Taine's avowed intention in writing was to find out, through a study of the literature, what it was like to be English; not to make critical assessments and put writers into a league table.Thus, studying poor writers was, to Taine, every bit as important as studying the great writers. I would personally go further and say that poor artists of any discipline are more important to study from the point of view of gaining an understanding of a foreign cultural aesthetic thrust, because they are more representative of the culture than the geniuses. In my view, too many people (and I'm not pointing the finger at you, Chas) limit themselves to the geniuses and I believe this limits their ability to judge.

MG

I don't think there is such a thing as an eternal English identity. Just like I don't think there is such a thing as an eternal Jazz identity. They change over time and are contested (PM word) within any specific time. There's also that line about geniuses being ahead of their time and the one about them transcending their time (which I think is certainly true). Both these tend to suggest that there was something in Taine's view for negative reasons. But that still leaves you with the contested thing.

Also studying poor artists (or perhaps craftsmen) tells you how not to do a thing. But I'm not sure they tell you a whole lot about how to do it. Or, indeed, what's in good art - or Jazz - or anything.

I think there are decent, functioning people (or artists) out there and they can tell you something about Society (or art). But I wouldn't call them exactly average - and I certainly wouldn't call them poor.

But treating such people as "the truth" is unfair to their limited horizons.

Simon Weil

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I don't think there is such a thing as an eternal English identity. Just like I don't think there is such a thing as an eternal Jazz identity. They change over time and are contested (PM word) within any specific time. There's also that line about geniuses being ahead of their time and the one about them transcending their time (which I think is certainly true). Both these tend to suggest that there was something in Taine's view for negative reasons. But that still leaves you with the contested thing.

That's what I said.

Also studying poor artists (or perhaps craftsmen) tells you how not to do a thing. But I'm not sure they tell you a whole lot about how to do it. Or, indeed, what's in good art - or Jazz - or anything.

Well, it depends what you're studying them FOR. You certainly wouldn't expect to get lessons in how do do something.

I think there are decent, functioning people (or artists) out there and they can tell you something about Society (or art). But I wouldn't call them exactly average - and I certainly wouldn't call them poor.

But treating such people as "the truth" is unfair to their limited horizons.

Simon Weil

Poor and average are probably (certainly) bad expressions to use. I tried, by talking about Texas tenor players, to illustrate what I meant. I'm not sure there's a word that encompasses it.

MG

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Also studying poor artists (or perhaps craftsmen) tells you how not to do a thing. But I'm not sure they tell you a whole lot about how to do it. Or, indeed, what's in good art - or Jazz - or anything.

Well, it depends what you're studying them FOR. You certainly wouldn't expect to get lessons in how do do something.

There is a school of thought (OK a book) that says if you want to learn how to write radio plays, study ones that don't work. On that basis, I studied a couple of TV dramas - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - and - The State Within. Both have an espionage theme and are well regarded. TSW is recent (2006); TTSS is from the late 70s.

First off: the style. TSW is frenetic, TTSS is languid. This is line with the current fear that if you give audiences a moment ot breathe, they rush off and join another channel. Or, to put a more positive spin on it, TSW reflects the fraught society we now live in (I'm sure the film-makers' intent).

Less equivocally, TSW is full of flashy camera angles and cuts you don't need - giving the sense that the film-makers have less than full confidence that their story is going to hold the audience's attention without these sorts of artificial flavourings (Jazzing it up). In their interview in the linked documentary, the writers suggest that they themselves were somewhat dubious about the credibility of the thing. It originated in a producer's idea rather than in any compelled statement the writers wished to make.

TTSS started off as a book by John Le Carre, who had been a spy. So he had internal knowledge. TSW is just written by TV professionals. There is tremendous inner consistency to TTSS - a kind of integrity - which I would ascribe partly to that. The TV dramatisation takes the basic materials of the novel and really distills them. When you (OK I) look back on TSW it is just tremendously incoherent. Full of stock characters and a premise which is just plain stupid, it is just very obviously not written by insiders.

See, that's where I think a bad work can't tell you anything. TSW just knows nothing about the world that it attempts to describe.

I think there are decent, functioning people (or artists) out there and they can tell you something about Society (or art). But I wouldn't call them exactly average - and I certainly wouldn't call them poor.

But treating such people as "the truth" is unfair to their limited horizons.

Simon Weil

Poor and average are probably (certainly) bad expressions to use. I tried, by talking about Texas tenor players, to illustrate what I meant. I'm not sure there's a word that encompasses it.

MG

These guys have something to say from within their own particular cultural milieu. That produces (I guess) that particular style. Kind of the solution of how to play Jazz in that sort of situation, it has a kind of integrity.

Integrity is the word. Inner coherence struggled for.

Simon Weil

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edc forgets who's 'signature' it was in but they quoted this insipid asswipe Ethan Iverson-- something to the effect that you like always like the music you enjoyed as a 13-year-old...

which is fucking ridiculous!! speak for yrself, dumbass-- esp. in ye olden dayes when before free music ubiquity, there were lots of kids who likely were not exposed to that which they would REALLY value later, be it 5-10-25 years down the line. that he tries to justify his own horseshit via sich unctuous sophism is only the most obvious clue the guy's a lightweight (no matter what his "mass" (i ain't talkin' the heavy stuff like Machaut, Josquin or Bach in H-moll either.)

i kinda still dig Baraka despite all his +/- qualities & early on he was a serious comer in literature but does anyone doubt Cecil > smarter than him? probably knows as much-- or more-- about poetry too.

Well, speaking personally, I don't think that's necessarily wrong. What he actually said was,

Face it: whatever you dig at 13, you will dig for the rest of your life.

What he DIDN'T say, which you seem to have got out of the statement, was that whatever you dug at 13 would be ALL you'd dig for the rest of your life. Of course, you move on. But I still like to listen to Fats Domino, whom I first heard in 1956, when I was twelve. Just as I still feel fondly about the first girl I kissed (&etc) soon afterwards. And I bet you do, too.

MG

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If what you're saying, Clem, is that I was lucky enough to be young when Fats (and Little Richard, and Jerry Lee and Bo and a few others) were around and in their prime (and, well, sure I know I was lucky) but that it would have been a different pic if I'd been a kid in the eighties, because the best I could have taken away from the era would have been Prince, well, you're still wrong :)

First, people like Fats etc were very much the exception back in those days. I actually don't remember (thank Gawd) much of the music from that period; but I do remember it was shite.

Second, the eighties weren't worse. Of course, my perspective on the eighties isn't that I was a teenager then; but my daughter was. I think Prince is worth taking with you as you grow. I never got any of his records but think you were possibly a bit too dismissive. Michael Jackson is rather less interesting, but still I can see why people would hve fond feelings towards his stuff a quarter century later. But you forgot (YOU FORGOT!!!!) RICK MOTHERFUCKIN' JAMES!!!!! Now, if I'd been a teenager then - and I was in my forties and he still got through - that would be the stuff to take into the future as an honoured and well loved piece of ones past.

Third, and this is a more important difference maybe, in my day, Fats & co brought a new kind of paradigm to me (and the rest of us). There was no one (at least, not if you were living in England, or outside the ghetto, for that matter) before them. In the eighties, people like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder were still powerful forces in popular music; still capable of forming a nucleus around which a person's taste could be formed and develop; not, as you seem to suggest, fit for the trashcan.

MG

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right-- Prince or Grandmaster Flash, say, was really the best you could do, which was great & way back but without cable or a family record collection... there were plenty of people caught in Top 40/AOR hegemony who at most tolerated parts of both but ditched 'em as soon as they found what they really loved, be it punk, post-punk, noise, jazz, blues, hillbilly, folk, psyche ... which was not really heard outside the Airplane or maybe some Hendrix on oldies stations. Beatles muzak don't count, tho' eventually you could hear some solo John Lennon besides "Imagine" if you spun the dial right. Rick James was neither here nor there, really; sort of the black Eurythmics in that regard & as one who-- personally-- learned to relate to women via a couple-years-older lady neighbor with an extensive Ohio Players (& Neil Young, oddly enough) collection...

Yes, you ditch the stuff you DON'T like, whatever it happens to be. If you're saying that the situation in America is that people don't have the opportunity (or maybe the motivation) to find what they DO like until after they're well past 13, and that what they THINK they like at 13 they may turn out not to like at all, well, OK.

MG

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I'm not reading this whole thread, sorry, but did anyone stop to think that one's brain/mind is not fully formed enough at age thirteen to make critical judgments of taste (or that much else), and that said rejection of top-40 tunes occurs a few years later precisely because critical thinking development has finally begun to occur?

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I dunno, the interesting thing about hearing Cecil do "This Nearly Was Mine" or "What's New," or Dolphy do "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise" is the way they implied or played around the theme in oblique reference whilst using the thematic or chordal structure as a basis for improvising in terms way-out.

Stating the obvious is not necessarily the way to go, y'know?

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Well yeah, sure.

I just "don't understand" (menaing that I do, but...) why it's so hard for anybody to accept that somebody might play any song simply because they like it. No tricks, no gimmicks, no irony, no nothing other than that hey, I like this song, it'll be fun to play.

I mean, I could make an album of Perry Como songs that I like and I'm sure that there would be a lot of people who thought I was being some kind of smartass or something, but hey - I like "Magic Moments". I like "Wanted", I like "Catch A Falling Star". Etc. etc. etc.

It ain't brain surgery folks. Sorry.

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Well yeah, sure.

I just "don't understand" (menaing that I do, but...) why it's so hard for anybody to accept that somebody might play any song simply because they like it. No tricks, no gimmicks, no irony, no nothing other than that hey, I like this song, it'll be fun to play.

I mean, I could make an album of Perry Como songs that I like and I'm sure that there would be a lot of people who thought I was being some kind of smartass or something, but hey - I like "Magic Moments". I like "Wanted", I like "Catch A Falling Star". Etc. etc. etc.

It ain't brain surgery folks. Sorry.

My Mum liked Perry Como, but this is going a bit too far, Jim. I know you're only trying to keep at the front of the posts list...

MG

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Tejas-- yes, in theory, & in practice but Iverson doth protest sooooooooooooooo much...

Yeah, and he's definitely on the receiving end of the "this ain't brain surgery, folks" directive, especially since he totally misses the reality that the same reason the he records some of the shit he does is the same reason that some other people record some of the the shit they do.

It really ain't brain surgery. Really, it ain't. Cat talks about "do the math", well ok, let's start here - 1 + 1 = 2.

I kinda all proceeeds from there, if you know what I mean.

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Well yeah, sure.

I just "don't understand" (menaing that I do, but...) why it's so hard for anybody to accept that somebody might play any song simply because they like it. No tricks, no gimmicks, no irony, no nothing other than that hey, I like this song, it'll be fun to play.

I mean, I could make an album of Perry Como songs that I like and I'm sure that there would be a lot of people who thought I was being some kind of smartass or something, but hey - I like "Magic Moments". I like "Wanted", I like "Catch A Falling Star". Etc. etc. etc.

It ain't brain surgery folks. Sorry.

My Mum liked Perry Como, but this is going a bit too far, Jim. I know you're only trying to keep at the front of the posts list...

MG

No man, I like those songs/records. Really, and it is just that simple. I heard them as a kid, liked them then, and have found no good reason, compelling or otherwise, to stop liking them. Yeah, I know - Perry Como, whitebread sweaterboy, middle class pablum, etc etc etc, but oh well about all that. That's sociology, not music. The records and the songs still please me, not profoundly or deeply or anything Artistically Valid, but oh well about all that too.

If I had a choice between being in a room full of people who underthink shit vs a room full of those who overthink shit, I honestly don't know which room I would take. Probably the underthinkers, if only for the uncomplicated sex.

But either way... damn.

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Well yeah, sure.

I just "don't understand" (menaing that I do, but...) why it's so hard for anybody to accept that somebody might play any song simply because they like it. No tricks, no gimmicks, no irony, no nothing other than that hey, I like this song, it'll be fun to play.

I mean, I could make an album of Perry Como songs that I like and I'm sure that there would be a lot of people who thought I was being some kind of smartass or something, but hey - I like "Magic Moments". I like "Wanted", I like "Catch A Falling Star". Etc. etc. etc.

It ain't brain surgery folks. Sorry.

My Mum liked Perry Como, but this is going a bit too far, Jim. I know you're only trying to keep at the front of the posts list...

MG

No man, I like those songs/records. Really, and it is just that simple. I heard them as a kid, liked them then, and have found no good reason, compelling or otherwise, to stop liking them. Yeah, I know - Perry Como, whitebread sweaterboy, middle class pablum, etc etc etc, but oh well about all that. That's sociology, not music. The records and the songs still please me, not profoundly or deeply or anything Artistically Valid, but oh well about all that too.

If I had a choice between being in a room full of people who underthink shit vs a room full of those who overthink shit, I honestly don't know which room I would take. Probably the underthinkers, if only for the uncomplicated sex.

But either way... damn.

Sorry, I was trying to be funny and keep a straight face...

MG

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