All music issue - part 1: the guitar Sutras of Piratanjoni
I keep getting requests for musical advice, and that's pretty difficult without knowing someone's entire existential situation. Let me start with what I know best, the Guitar, and maybe some of this will filter out in a useful manner.
By, say, 1920, In western pop music, a term that includes the Blues, R&B, everything except that humorless, gelded, carnegie hall jazz and classical guitar, a place had to be invented for the guitar in the orchestras of the day -there wasn't the link to the rennaisance and baroque periods kept alive by Lorcas boys. Most of the early guitarists wound up playing clarinet and horn parts. By the time Rock'n Roll became a houseold word, there was an emancipation. [-though it still goes on, especially in the country music of today]
Once you've run the gamut of that, and don't want to define yourself by what others already played, there seem to be a handful of places to turn - the violin family; trancsribing everyday conversations into notes; Ethnic music with a different harmonic structure [there was a vogue for Hebrew, then Chineese folk songs not long ago]
And, some go to the post rock world of horns, which I think of as a regression -
I always sort of feel that a guitarist has gone bad when you catch them listening to Coltrane sides. . . .
Then there comes the Rebellion against the repeated figure.
We were luckier than most instruments, because the electric guitar was the first instrument that developed timbres beyond itself. This is where Hendrix, then Adrian Belew, and on to Reeves Gabrels today, led us into the realm of pure sound. . . .
At this stage, It gets a bit like Inyat Khan, whose 'mysticism of sound' is a must read. [isbn 81-7769-019-1] Hendrix always maintained he played with his ears, not his hands, which is maybe the best advice on any instrument. Once you've had a few bizarre, ecstatic 'in the zone' experiences, it's hard to go back. At this point there's not alot of difference between music and Alchemy. Transformation and revelation are what you're playing with instead of notes.
By, say, 1920, In western pop music, a term that includes the Blues, R&B, everything except that humorless, gelded, carnegie hall jazz and classical guitar, a place had to be invented for the guitar in the orchestras of the day -there wasn't the link to the rennaisance and baroque periods kept alive by Lorcas boys. Most of the early guitarists wound up playing clarinet and horn parts. By the time Rock'n Roll became a houseold word, there was an emancipation. [-though it still goes on, especially in the country music of today]
Once you've run the gamut of that, and don't want to define yourself by what others already played, there seem to be a handful of places to turn - the violin family; trancsribing everyday conversations into notes; Ethnic music with a different harmonic structure [there was a vogue for Hebrew, then Chineese folk songs not long ago]
And, some go to the post rock world of horns, which I think of as a regression -
I always sort of feel that a guitarist has gone bad when you catch them listening to Coltrane sides. . . .
Then there comes the Rebellion against the repeated figure.
We were luckier than most instruments, because the electric guitar was the first instrument that developed timbres beyond itself. This is where Hendrix, then Adrian Belew, and on to Reeves Gabrels today, led us into the realm of pure sound. . . .
At this stage, It gets a bit like Inyat Khan, whose 'mysticism of sound' is a must read. [isbn 81-7769-019-1] Hendrix always maintained he played with his ears, not his hands, which is maybe the best advice on any instrument. Once you've had a few bizarre, ecstatic 'in the zone' experiences, it's hard to go back. At this point there's not alot of difference between music and Alchemy. Transformation and revelation are what you're playing with instead of notes.
posted by friars | Friday, January 20, 2006
2 Comments:
Pirata, What did Lorca and Manuel de Falla do? They loved music, what is more--they sought to promote and preserve music shuned by thier compatriots. Yet, I think thier work can be easy misunderstood in the process of being summeristic; especially if we believe there is an ultimate and describable objective to the art called music. Were they then guilty of distinction of taste--there own. Like Richard Wright said about writing (paraphrase): when it is pressed into politics it is overburdended.
They celebrated music--including Cante Jundo, with influence that came to hatch in Spain.
Is there an objective to music? If we criticize shallow expression, or historic returns, it suggests the opposite is only subject to aesthetic praise. What I mean is it remains rooted in taste--subjectivity; while maintaining a supposed excuse of objective reality. This I think is erroneous, and intellectualy a hold over from Plato (and his ideas absorbed into Christianity)--the quest for an ultimate and enforcable truth, i.e. an impersonal truth--a wrong turn based on the practical rule of law (which is of course made of compromise--read "influence", or culture, the one which persists.
l'a-ro
"tommy's too young, bobby's too drunk, i can only sing one note... Shut Up!"
--paul westerberg
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