I think you're generalising. I know a lot of people who are academics and still work in the industry on a regular basis. I can't speak for the university she attended, though. Yes there are a lot of people who are professional students/teachers in that they may have read all the books but don't have that special something real experience can provide. It just definately isn't all of them.

Regardless, if she's been giving more practical skills to be able to better explore her own ideas, it really shouldn't matter who gave them to her. If she can't move past the fact that the people who taught her this aren't her cup of tea.. Im not sure that's their problem, but hers. Definately not sure that it is YOUR problem..

I dunno. I kind of had a negative reaction to this thread from the time you said " I got into a fight with my friend about HER approach to making music" What does it matter the way someone explores and creates, and what does it matter if you don't agree with doing it the same way? Can't you find something else to bond over?

What, I'm suchfriends now? I think your reality is a lonely one.

I've grown to like pbradley a bit.

Or at least, accept him a bit more. I don't think he means badly.. he just speaks all of his thoughts out loud.

Well, I'm forming my own opinion of him, which is seperate than yours. As he has one of me. Which is also probably seperate than yours.

The second any being takes themselves too seriously, it starts to really sap at the original life-force.

Its the same for very physically attractive men+women. If the second they open their mouths, they indicate in whichever ways how their 100% main objective in this giant clusterfucked simultaneous spewing orgy of life is themselves above everything else......it actually makes their attractiveness drop quite a bit in the blink of an eye.

Its the same thing with art. Thats why the point is not for anyone else though, right? right? eh? (no, for most). (not to leave out that reactive factor of art. But its not always part of the piece. And sometimes that form of art blows its own chunks, too.)

Edit, and I'm not trying to get into a gene fight, either. I know that there is an element of survival to any humans endeavors. I guess what I'm describing are those heapings and heapings of protective and obscuring life-matter layerings that can sometimes get in the way of a persons quest to create.

well i know her approach is up to her, but i think it is most likely to leave her making lame work and i know she can do better. it wasn't so much a fight as a discussion anyway and it was enjoyable.

Arts-teaching should focus more on the developing of different skills/techniques, without overshadowing the student's learning/artistic development with the philosophical approach the tutor seems to think is the most approriate. The ideal would be having a neutral approach to teaching how to produce art, by making sure that various techiniques are presented, explained, exemplified (manually and with books), and then put into practice in the classroom. Within that process, ideally a student determined enough to develop their own artistic vision should work out their own way of producing art all their own with a sense of worth, rather than just messing around.

The major problem with this in Britain is that you have that law which gives academics complete intellectual liberty, initially enforced for a good cause, but ended up being abused by too many academics with too poor ideas and keen on exploiting what they perceive is the dominant way of thinking, or something like that. This I was told by my friend, who is a senior researcher in a London university.

Stop thinking so much.

Music students really are some of the most lazy, narrow-minded, counter-productive, opinionated for the sake of it people I have ever come across from any academic enviroment. Much more than the visual arts.

That's the way I was thought is the right way you learn drawing at college. Once you got the hand, and practiced ad infinitum, you can start developing the form in more personal ways.

I already have one of you and it is fairly charitable. We used to get along so well! I suppose any barbs to you from me could only be traced to a lack of indulging concern on my part. I certainly can pick up the slack on that end if you'd like.

There are people who draw well without formal training because it comes natural to them. It could be that they have particularly developed observational skills which they are able to translate on paper without much effort. In a teaching enviroment, though, you're not in a place where you're meant to be left to your own device. The very point of it is to that someone there will teach you something that will come in handy when you want to find what your style of choice is. Experimentation and all that is fine, and certainly it should be encouraged, but a solid foundation in drawing/painting certainly can help a future artist making their mark with more vigour.

very fact of a piano; they must question the tones of its keys, question the music on its rack, and, above all, they must question, constantly and eternally, what might be called the philosophies behind device, the philosophies that are really responsible for these things. Good grades in school are the result of a less commendable ability, and no aspect of the musical scene could be more depressing than the prospect that those with the ability to get good grades in school, to copy others, to absorb and apply traditions with facility, shall hold the fort of "good" music.
Music, "good" or not "good," has only two ingredients that might be called God-given: the capacity of a body to vibrate and produce sound and the mechanism of the human ear that registers it. These two ingredients can be studied and analyzed, but they cannot be changed; they are the comparative constants. All else in the art of music, which may also be studied and analyzed, was created by man or is implicit in human acts and is therefore subject to the fiercest scrutiny—and ultimately to apÂ*proval, indifference, or contempt. In other words, all else is subject to change.
Implicit in the man-made part of the musical art are (1) an attitude toward one's.fellow man and all his works; (2) a source scale and (3) a theory for its use; (4) more than occasionally a vocal design; (5) a complexity of organized tones which we call a composition; (6) a musical instruÂ*ment or instruments; (7) a powerful emotional reaction to the composition.
These disparate ingredients, which operate through various degrees of the conscious and premeditated and the unconscious and spontaneous, are listed above at random and for three reasons: (1) because twenty-four years of work in this musical field gives me no answer to the question of priority as regards chicken versus egg; (2) because, therefore, any rational sequence would require defense; and (3) because at this point of discussion sequence is unimportant and defense impertinent.
The creative individual, in developing the man-made ingredients and in examining the God-given, finds the way to a special kind of truth. This truth is the product of each new day, of each complex organism, its singular environment, experience, and emotional needs. It is the realization of the daimon.
Musical creators have been, and are, the exponents and the victims of system, philosophy, and attitude, determined for them by textbooks and classrooms, and by the atmosphere in which they grow; in short, by their milieu. Consequently the later history of Western music is of one system, one philosophy, one attitude, and it is characterized by successive bodies of practitioners made up of multitudes of innocent believers and sprinklings of individualists who are frequently unequal to the struggle—the struggle of fundamental dissent with the musical practicalities.
The canons of music do not comprise a corpus juris, common or codified, and the prevailing attitude is a symptom, a danger signal, of possible decay that no person imbued with a spirit of investigation can perceive without misgivings. Investigators and experimenters are at least as reverent toward our European heritage as the average music lover—probably more so, because they are acolytes of the creative spirit that has produced such phenomena as the past three hundred years of Western music. But it is a dynamic reverence.
In a healthy culture differing musical philosophies would be coexistent, not mutually exclusive; and they would build from Archean granite, and not, as our one musical system of today builds, from the frame of an inherited keyboard, and from the inherited forms and instruments of Europe's eighteenth century. And yet anyone who even toys with the idea of looking beyond these legacies for materials and insight is generally considered foolhardy if not actually a publicity-seeking mountebank. The door to further musical investigation and insight has been slammed shut by the inelastic and doctrinaire quality of our one system and its esthetic forms.
Under the circumstances it is not incumbent upon a composer to justify his investigation, his search. The burden of explanation for dissatisfaction rests elsewhere. It belongs to those who accept the forms of a past day without scrutinizing them in the light of new and ever-changing technological and sociological situations, in the light of the interests that stand to profit by the status quo, and in the light of their own individualities, this time and this place.
This time and this place offer today's composer an inestimable advantage over the composer of even a hundred years ago; for the agent that is able to free music from the incubus of an external body of interpreters is now actually with us. Having entered the age of musical recordings—and recordings constantly improving in fidelity—we have only to grasp the opportunity for a truly individualistic and creative music. Never before in the history of the art has the composer been able to hope for a situation at all similar to that of the visual artist, who paints a picture only once. Until recently the composer has had to gear his creative faculties to the traditions, comprehension, and practice of the only body capable of giving his work life—the body of interpretive musicians who alone had it in their power to paint and repaint his picture.
That time is past. The creative musician can now play his music for a record—once—and with a good performance and a good recording be content to end the effort right there. The record requires no body of inÂ*terpretive musicians to perpetuate it; hence it need not be of great concern to the composer that his theories are not widely understood, that his notaÂ*tion is a cryptogram to everyone but himself and his little group, that he has built instruments which perhaps may never be touched again. These were only his tools—his paints and brushes—and there the picture is, on the record. It might please his ego if he thought others would use his tools, but —fundamentally—what matter?
Twenty-four years ago, when I first began groping for answers to problems of intonation, I was a composer. I am still a composer, and my every musical act has been geared to that premise. Not a ratio of vibrational lengths has been put on paper nor one piece of wood glued to another which did not have as its ultimate objective the creation of music.
The music which is the result of this groping has been in the process of composition for seventeen years, and virtually every presentation of it has prompted numerous questions about its acoustical basis, its sociological postulates, its historic antecedents, and its compositional mechanics, the sum total of which cannot be treated adequately in less than a volume such as this.
The work is not offered as a basis for a substitute tyranny, the grooving of music and musical theory into another set of conventions. What I do hope for is to stimulate creative work by example, to encourage investigaÂ*tion of basic factors, and to leave all others to individual if not idiosyncratic choice. To influence, yes; to limit, no.
This is not to say that my attitude toward this work is objective. Objectivity would imply a lack of passion and a complete disinterest, which, if it is not an anomaly in any human being, is at least an anomaly in a composer faced with the subject of music. However I may have weighed the virtues and the shortcomings of the formulas and theories I propound, I expect—and welcome—just as intense a scrutiny of them as I have endeavored to project upon the work of some of my musical predecessors and contemporaries.
Since 1928, when a first draft of Monophonic principles was completed, the work has undergone many evolutions. In its original form it was compounded of a measure of experimentation on violins and violas and an even larger measure of intuition. In time greater knowledge of similar work by others led to several revisions in which history and the comparative aspects were stressed, although the basic principles remained unchanged. Now I have concluded, as with theses propped by the Bible, that any musical attitude can be justified by historical precedent, and that an individual experience in a given medium is by far the best substantiation conceivable. Consequently, what the book contains of history and comparative analyses is presented to clarify the bases of present-day practice and of possible expansion in the future, and not as a basic factor in the evolution of this theory and its application, except in the most general sense. The basic factors are still: experience, intuition.

"The basic factors are still: experience, intuition"-

applied within or without a framework of form/structure/tradition?



-Just a note on the music students thing... I just finished 3 years studying jazz and almost everyone there hated Ornette and Sun Ra... what the fuck?

Do you practice your music instruments before you play live/record?

I think "learning" was in inverted commas for a reason.

I've never really practiced, when I play it's trying to come up with songs or recording songs.

I was wondering because the stuff you do with scissorshock is less structured than what you do with Robes. Do you play live without practicing, just improvising the music on the spot?

Haha, I think you got that backwards. Robe. is just improvised drone, edited in post. Scissor Shock is like 1000 riffs I've had in my mind for a while put together in a context that makes sense to me. They're both pretty loose though.

Where I'm from it's always interesting to see the Academic-Noise/Experimental scene mixing with the Punk/Self-Taught-Noise/Experimental scene. So many disapproving looks, so much cynicism for people who are pretty much playing the same kind of thing.

I reakon at some level the punks are afraid of the academics with the 'chops' and the academics are afraid of the punks cos theyre speaking a language that they don't understand.

It's all music, the best players can just absorb what theyre hearing, absorb it within themselves and then spit out something new, either a new twist or something completely unique.

So, I assume that with Sissorshock the assemblage of of these ''1000 riffs'' doesn't follow any particular compositional method, just some ''random'', yet ''structured'' method instigated by your artistic subconscious?

Do you practice before you play live?

I don't think it's random, I think if you listen to the "songs" haha... you can tell they're not random. There's thought put into it, but it probably makes more sense to me than anyone else.


No, I don't practice.

here's a great track to illustrate my point:
http://freedownloads.last.fm/downloa...%2Bdetuned.mp3

haha

It's loose but it's.. structured in certain ways.

Yeah, that track is highly composed.

It definitely is.

I know you're being sarcastic but if you're actually listening to it, you'll see elements that reoccur later, it's actually pretty cool.

For example, notice the riff at 3:26 that is a faster version of the earlier riff. There's lots of reoccuring riffs, amidst some looser jamming shit.

If by composed you mean mixed together, yes, it is composed. The actual music being played (not the sounds that have been processed) still seem random and improvised to me. Reminds me a lot of the music of that CEX guy, or some records on Caipirinha

Ah. I can gurantee it's not improvised though.. it is loose. I let mistakes stay in for example. Oh, well, I guess certain layers are improvised but the basic structure was played straight through and had been in my head for months..

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by ''loose''. You had a vague idea of what you were going to go for before you played it/recorded it, perhaps?

In other words, I'd let mistakes stay in. THere are little fills and whatnot that I hadn't planned on, I just went with it.

By the way, I'm not implying that the way you work is wrong, I'm just curious.

I got one more track here

http://www.archive.org/download/scissorshock_teasetheskeleton/03-ScissorShock-CalculusAnotherFuckingLie_64kb.mp3

It's extremely composed.

It's only 3mb.

watch out for that double bass!

Ok, I'll give it a listen in a bit.

thanks

as a life long drawing freakshow, and a graduate of art school with a Bachelors in Fine Arts, I can say that everything being said in this threa dis true. EVERYTHING, even the shit that negates the other shit

Of course in art school and music school there are pedantic know it alls who base their self worth on how much theory/history they know. so what? those people are necessary, and may become great historians of art or music, or great critics, or great popularizers of such things.

Of course there are teachers that try to get everyone to fit a certain mold. so what? the point is to learn the "rules" and then you can bend or break them at will, but you do so with knowledge and intent behind your actions, not with random crap.

I can teahc anyon eto draw. drawing is not an inate talent. anyone can draw. drawing is the ability to see and the ability to use your fingers to recreate what you see. it should be as integral to being human as reading and writing is. Sady, it is not, because too many people have been brainwashed into thinking that only thos with obviously natural talent are worthy of making art. that is bullshit.
drawing is a tool, and therefore it's proper use must be learned. Most of the arts require some form of drawing ability, even if just to plan ahead what you are trying to do.

snobs will be snobs, and artsy or music snobs are some of the worst, but frankly, so what? so they feel better than others because they have specialized klnowledge. does not every endeavor do the same? Do not musicians in bands rarely talk to other non-musicians? This has been the case in my 20 years of concertgoing. most guys in bands will chit chat with fans but they will have long doawn out conversations with you about music if you tell them you are also in a band.

arts education suffers currently from the same thing all education suffers from, and that is a focus on rote learning instead of on creative critical thinking. Rote learning is a foundation, and is thenput to use in critical thinking, but if it never gets past the rote, it stifles creativity.

and going back to the earliest of human history, almost every single artist was TAUGHT by someone, even the cave artists were taught by their elders. art has to be handed from generation to generation either directly by teachers or indirectly by the opersonal study of art. either way, it is learning. sure ther are savants out there , self taught artists making crazy shit, but they too use all of art history, all the art they ahve ever seen, whether it is book illustrations, magazing photos, or paintings on walls, to learn from.

Sway you are a genius!!!

ASP, I'm just gonna pull you up on this, if you are going to post a big slab of text that is not your; which this isn't; at least reference it 'cos people may want to read the authors work in context outside of a few paragraphs.

This is more composed for sure. It does sound a little less random than other scissorshock things I've listened to before. I find it odd that the Robes stuff is less composed cause it seems to have a more linear direction than the Shocks.

It's a Harry Partch piece. I'd be surprised if anyone thought ASP wrote it, but I did think the same thing as you. Partch isn't really a 'writer' either.

Your words are too much for me my friend/rival. Im sick as hell right now and I can't fake being intelligent.