Originally Posted by noumenal

I grew up hating literary criticism. I loved reading, but I couldn't stand the wankering that we would do in English class - making conjectures about symbolism and so on.

However, music theory is copletely different. When I do music theory, I don't try to figure out what music means, that would be pointless. I just try to figure out how it works and doing that makes me a better musician, but more importantly, it makes me enjoy the music more. Listening to music is one thing, but listening after having played it and analyzed it is completely different. The reason I love music theory is because of the power it has to help me understand and enjoy music more.

Some people think that doing this is like learning how a magic trick is performed - that it takes away something from the experience, but this is completely wrong. If you haven't had the epiphany of understanding how a particular piece of music does what it does, you're missing out. I agree that music is "emotional and spiritual", but it is also intellectual and it isn't magic.

This distrust of academia is disturbing. The academic study of the arts has fallen behind, I'll give you that. It needs to catch up, particularly in music. But it's difficult because people don't want to change. On both sides. Rock music could benefit from a different viewpoint as well. However, I think that the tactic that a lot of academics take towards pop music is stupid as hell. All they talk about are the lyrics and sociological aspects - and this is the kind of crap that T&B is talking about. I shit on that stuff. But it would be great for rock music if there was a more systemized attempt to understand it musically. Ultimately, it would make for better music. IMO, rock music has yet to produce anything that can come close to the greatest music in the classical tradition. And it never will if people keep viewing music as magic that ought not be dissected.

Originally Posted by truncated

I’m picturing Thurston reading our Sonic Gossip section – “Little do they know I wrote half that album on the shitter.”

Originally Posted by noumenal

I grew up hating literary criticism. I loved reading, but I couldn't stand the wankering that we would do in English class - making conjectures about symbolism and so on.

However, music theory is copletely different. When I do music theory, I don't try to figure out what music means, that would be pointless. I just try to figure out how it works and doing that makes me a better musician, but more importantly, it makes me enjoy the music more. Listening to music is one thing, but listening after having played it and analyzed it is completely different. The reason I love music theory is because of the power it has to help me understand and enjoy music more.

Some people think that doing this is like learning how a magic trick is performed - that it takes away something from the experience, but this is completely wrong. If you haven't had the epiphany of understanding how a particular piece of music does what it does, you're missing out. I agree that music is "emotional and spiritual", but it is also intellectual and it isn't magic.

This distrust of academia is disturbing. The academic study of the arts has fallen behind, I'll give you that. It needs to catch up, particularly in music. But it's difficult because people don't want to change. On both sides. Rock music could benefit from a different viewpoint as well. However, I think that the tactic that a lot of academics take towards pop music is stupid as hell. All they talk about are the lyrics and sociological aspects - and this is the kind of crap that T&B is talking about. I shit on that stuff. But it would be great for rock music if there was a more systemized attempt to understand it musically. Ultimately, it would make for better music. IMO, rock music has yet to produce anything that can come close to the greatest music in the classical tradition. And it never will if people keep viewing music as magic that ought not be dissected.

Originally Posted by truncated

But I just can’t help myself.

Does it ever cross your mind that when you postulate on the meaning of an SY (or any band for that matter) album/song/lyric/relationship/quote/etc., if that band were reading those theories (which may very well be the case here), they’re shaking their heads and laughing?

I realize that part of the point of ‘art’ is its subjectivity, its proclivity to interpretation. I know that’s the very purpose behind some of it.

However

When we start threads like “Do you think ‘Little Trouble Girl’ is an ironic comment on modern gender roles” blah blah blah, I can’t help but think, my god, are we presumptuous fuckers, thinking we have the right to impose our theories on someone else’s creation.

I mean really, who the fuck am I to think I can for even a MOMENT guess what’s going on inside their heads when they’re recording an album? I know it irritates the hell out of me when other people presume to know what my behavioral motivations are.

I’m picturing Thurston reading our Sonic Gossip section – “Little do they know I wrote half that album on the shitter.”

While ‘art’ is a form of universal expression, conversely, it can also be highly personal to its creator. Naturally its patrons are going to espouse theories on its various aspects, but I wonder if a band thinks

We shit it out
You ingest it
Then digest it
Fucking like it
Or don’t

These are just random unformulated thoughts that will likely get me ostracized, but so be it.

Originally Posted by Bertrand

Once I wrote a play that eventually got to be produced in front of an audience. I wrote the text, described what was going on, and so on. Then the director agreed to add a dancer in the play to please someone. It didn't please me. It was partly fucking the continuity up. My friend shuddered and said, let's see what comes out of it.
My mother told me, after seeing the play, that she had appreciated the dance moment, and told me how we had beautifully evoked something that was in the text by letting that girl (a pest) dance. As if we had had a goal. It puzzled me and made my friend smile.
One night, an actor said one of his lines in a very beautiful way. I congratulated him, he told me he had no idea of what I was talking about. I told him what I had grasped from his interpretation of the line I had written. He laughed out loud when I told him what line it was. The line was : "Yes".

Originally Posted by truncated

But I just can’t help myself.

Does it ever cross your mind that when you postulate on the meaning of an SY (or any band for that matter) album/song/lyric/relationship/quote/etc., if that band were reading those theories (which may very well be the case here), they’re shaking their heads and laughing?

I realize that part of the point of ‘art’ is its subjectivity, its proclivity to interpretation. I know that’s the very purpose behind some of it.

However

When we start threads like “Do you think ‘Little Trouble Girl’ is an ironic comment on modern gender roles” blah blah blah, I can’t help but think, my god, are we presumptuous fuckers, thinking we have the right to impose our theories on someone else’s creation.

I mean really, who the fuck am I to think I can for even a MOMENT guess what’s going on inside their heads when they’re recording an album? I know it irritates the hell out of me when other people presume to know what my behavioral motivations are.

I’m picturing Thurston reading our Sonic Gossip section – “Little do they know I wrote half that album on the shitter.”

While ‘art’ is a form of universal expression, conversely, it can also be highly personal to its creator. Naturally its patrons are going to espouse theories on its various aspects, but I wonder if a band thinks

We shit it out
You ingest it
Then digest it
Fucking like it
Or don’t

These are just random unformulated thoughts that will likely get me ostracized, but so be it.

Originally Posted by truncated

But I just can’t help myself.

Does it ever cross your mind that when you postulate on the meaning of an SY (or any band for that matter) album/song/lyric/relationship/quote/etc., if that band were reading those theories (which may very well be the case here), they’re shaking their heads and laughing?

I realize that part of the point of ‘art’ is its subjectivity, its proclivity to interpretation. I know that’s the very purpose behind some of it.

However

When we start threads like “Do you think ‘Little Trouble Girl’ is an ironic comment on modern gender roles” blah blah blah, I can’t help but think, my god, are we presumptuous fuckers, thinking we have the right to impose our theories on someone else’s creation.

I mean really, who the fuck am I to think I can for even a MOMENT guess what’s going on inside their heads when they’re recording an album? I know it irritates the hell out of me when other people presume to know what my behavioral motivations are.

I’m picturing Thurston reading our Sonic Gossip section – “Little do they know I wrote half that album on the shitter.”

While ‘art’ is a form of universal expression, conversely, it can also be highly personal to its creator. Naturally its patrons are going to espouse theories on its various aspects, but I wonder if a band thinks

We shit it out
You ingest it
Then digest it
Fucking like it
Or don’t

These are just random unformulated thoughts that will likely get me ostracized, but so be it.