[avantgarde1]

you do have a very nice point, and i agree, but i was trying to steer it away from what atari started and kinda stick to the topic at hand.

[Sheriff Rhys Chatham]

My bad, man.
But as far as audacity goes I like it because of it's simple interface and it's audio effects. I didn't notice any effects on reaper, may just be me.

[StevOK]

You should put two "i"s in "Jingot". I think it would be cooler as "Jiingot". You could even add a "D" at the beginning, making it "Djiingot".

[avantgarde1]

not a bad idea, although i really want the name to start w/ a j, but the extra i is nice

There is an enormous amount of people who can play conventionally that are shit, and there is an even bigger amount of people who purposely decide not to learn how to play or at least dedicate time and practice to they're doing who are even ghastlier. There isn't much of an argument here. If you don't have any talent, don't fool others and, more importantly, yourself. If you have it in you, choose whatever mean of expression your artistic inclination asks you to. If you are just pissing about with music, eventually you'll get tired and bored of even trying, eventually.

[Sheriff Rhys Chatham]

I think that can go along with everything.

[Florya]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

What?

You jave no leg to stand on.

Have fun with your limited palette of musical expressions.

Have lots of motherfucking fun with your cacophony.

It's like someone saying, "well, you know, I'm a painter, but ah, I only fingerpaint."

You don't even wanna learn. With no knowledge of the chromatic scale or anything, one isn't even able to "jam the note" like Sonic Youth and so many other bands.

DOUCHE

Speaking as someone who has owned and 'played' many guitar shaped sound generators, sometimes with strings, oft times without, I feel I must come to the defense of us 'douches'.

My interest in the guitar is not in the sound it makes in its conventional 6/12 string format, nor is it in the variations in the tunings of those strings. It is in the sound that can be produced by using a guitar in an unconventional way.

That being said, I find your comments, offensive as they may be to some, refreshing in their candour.

[atari 2600]

I never said it was about choosing sides of playing in standard or not playing in standard. In fact, the discussion so rapidly degenerated into nonsense and aburdity no such finer point was ever made. So it's not about choosing sides of whether one plays in a more conventional way or a less conventional way.

Can we get clear on that, Florya and sarramkrop?

I made the painting analogies because they are apropos. One simply must learn the basics before making good art...period.

On the guitar, one must play in open tunings, one must play in standard tuning and understand the guitar and the chromatic scale. Now one can know the chromatic scale and tune a guitar however they want, but to know what notes comprise basic chords which make the basic sounds, you gotta know open tunings and standard.

And once this basic knowledge is absorbed one can go into alternate tunings and what have you or whatever they style of guitar playing they can envision. One can use both more conventional and alternate tunings together in a compostion, or one can opt to use only alternate tunings or any manner of experimental guitar set-ups if that is where your musical art takes you.

Or, as many here seem to feel, one can just ignore the basics of how to play the instrument and just pretentiously claim that they are above it and doggedly insist that they never need learn anything about the guitar other than what they find out on their own. Pick your path. But, again, realize, just as Savage Clone also told you, that without some level of knowledge of the instrument, which was all I was espousing as a recommendation to the exceedingly pretentious avantgarde1 as an obvious requirement, it is highly unlikely that one is going to do anything really worth a damn and one is only kidding themselves. Modern art is more about process than craft, so there is more leeway nowadays, I understand that (I don't understand why anyone who "knows" me even somewhat would think I wouldn't), but overall, it's just common sense. avantgarde1 said he didn't know chords, hence, he doesn't have a clue about the most fundamental of guitar basics, namely, the chromatic scale and the progression of notes on the neck on any given string depending on how it's tuned.

So don't label me as being on this side or that side in a simplistic black and white fashion that reeks of demogaugery and don't, as you two have, imply as much either. I'm someone that put The First Original Silence as my pick for number one album of 2007. Don't judge me as being in this camp or that camp when all I've done is attempt to offer sound commentary and common sense advice. avantgarde1 asked for "help." I was in the process of giving him help of an applicable and most useful variety before I was called a "douche." Sorry it's such anathema to those that have expressed derision at my posts. One would think both of you would know me better after years of posting here and give me more of a benefit of the doubt before rushing to some black or white judgement. I know all either of you meant to do is to state your well-formed opinions, but the implications of your writings seemed to disregard a lot of where I was really coming from in favor of presenting your own blanket viewpoints exclusively.

[Florya]

It's not often that you go on the defensive Atari, but it's good to see you have a softer side!

Please be assured that I am not deriding your opinion, just expressing mine.

I understand your argument, and in many ways agree with it, but only in as much as it applies to a musician who wishes to use a guitar in a 'conventional' manner. I apply the term 'conventional' in a very loose way, and would define it as the process of producing sound by the manipulation of strings.
Personally, I find the sound of an acoustic guitar burning on a campfire as interesting as the sound of one being played by a guitar virtuoso.
I enjoy the sound of a stringless electric guitar with a vibrator jammed in the whammy bar springs as much as I enjoy listening to one being played by Carlos Santana or manipulated by Lee Ranaldo.

By your fairly narrow definition of what constitutes the playing of a guitar, a stringless guitar cannot be tuned, and therefore cannot be played - this is obviously not the case.
The sounds that I have produced over the years using guitars have rarely required them to be strung or tuned, or even touched, but they were played nonetheless. Sometimes to destruction.

So I agree with you that if you're intending to play a guitar in the conventional manner then yes, a basic grasp of chord structures is probably a good thing.
But if your intention is never to play chords, then learning them would be a waste of time.

[atari 2600]

Personally, I find the sound of an acoustic guitar burning on a campfire as interesting as the sound of one being played by a guitar virtuoso.

Forgive my curtness, but this really sounds like a personal problem. I mean, it really, really does. Is your "art" done with the intention of shock value? It certainly seems that sentence was concocted out of a need to shock. I will hope it was an exagerration made for effect.

By your fairly narrow definition of what constitutes the playing of a guitar, a stringless guitar cannot be tuned, and therefore cannot be played - this is obviously not the case.

My "fairly narrow definition?" That's a laugh...it's more like a case of your personal exceedingly liberal definition of the guitar and guitar playing.

The sounds that I have produced over the years using guitars have rarely required them to be strung or tuned, or even touched, but they were played nonetheless. Sometimes to destruction.

Now we get into both the literal and philosophical definition of exactly what a guitar is. Because if you're "playing" a guitar without strings, Florya, you might as well add whatever gizmos or whatever method to your madness you've got going there to a piece of wood or whatever instead. Why don't you just "play" a department store mannequin or a stuffed rainbow trout?

It certainly seems you're using the guitar shape merely as a prop.

Is it some sort of political statement you've got going there? ...something about the phallocentric nature of guitars? (haha) I know, I know you're some sort of Fluxus enthusiast, right? Hey, remember Woody Guthrie: This Machine Kills Fascists. Ya know, Woody did just a wee bit more for culture than the Fluxists did.

I swear, as fucked-up as this board is, I never expected a reply as bonkers as yours. It's not so much as what you do is completely bonkers as is the off the wall way you stated your so-called "argument" in all seriousness. And just in case anyone is in the dark, I'm someone that likes a lot of performance art and performance artists.

I surely didn't want to get into name-calling again, but damn, that shit left me no choice, Mr. Fluxus Maciunas.

[Glice]

At the risk of (etc).

1. If you fiddle about with the guitar, fuck with the tunings you will have a better understanding of how notes relate to each other (i.e., in terms of intervals and how those vibrations make you feel) than in a purely formalised sense. Personally, I know which intervals make me feel like wrong, but the ability to describe that in formal terms is only the ability to describe that in formal terms; I've hated the same intervals for years.

2. The inability to formalise your dislike of certain relations between notes is no bad thing.

3. The discovery, and understanding of sounds qua sounds is fine, and necessary to a musical exploration.

4. The explicit admission 'I don't know how to play/ I don't know how to play chords' doesn't mean people don't know how to play chords; play more than one string simultaneously and you're playing a chord; play more than one string in succession and you're play an arpeggiated chord.

5. 'I don't know any chords' means 'I don't have the ability to describe a chord'. A formalised music, in this sense, means merely the musical chops to describe a chord. Until you get into microtones, musical language is merely the means to describe what happens in standard tuning.

6. None of this means fuck all. Please enjoy playing your instrument - additionally, please don't send me any of your music, I probably won't enjoy it.

[atari 2600]

6. None of this means fuck all. Please enjoy playing your instrument - additionally, please don't send me any of your music, I probably won't enjoy it.

I'll go with this one especially, because I might as well be Screaming At The Wall. heh

Still no word of from the Carrot Top of guitar players yet.

And that's for the best. Hopefully this can be dropped because it's been really ridiculous.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Glice

6. None of this means fuck all. Please enjoy playing your instrument - additionally, please don't send me any of your music, I probably won't enjoy it.

http://www.myspace.com/suchfriendsaredangerous

(who knows, maybe you will..)

[Glice]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

http://www.myspace.com/suchfriendsaredangerous

(who knows, maybe you will..)

Hey, tell you what - as no-one else has ever solicited my opinion explicitly, I haven't told them that I've listened to their music and think it's entirely shit. I have, believe it or not, listened to most people's music who post on this forum, at least the regulars.

And most of it is shit.

And because you've solicited an opinion, I'm going to tell you - no, it is not subjective. Yes, your music is shit. Please never, ever step anywhere near a microphone again.

I'm quite deadly serious. You really are shit.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Glice

Hey, tell you what - as no-one else has ever solicited my opinion explicitly, I haven't told them that I've listened to their music and think it's entirely shit. I have, believe it or not, listened to most people's music who post on this forum, at least the regulars.

And most of it is shit.

And because you've solicited an opinion, I'm going to tell you - no, it is not subjective. Yes, your music is shit. Please never, ever step anywhere near a microphone again.

I'm quite deadly serious. You really are shit.

its that happy go lucky attitude and complete and utter lack of cynicism that makes albums go mutli-platinum to begin with.

[Florya]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Forgive my curtness, but this really sounds like a personal problem. I mean, it really, really does. Is your "art" done with the intention of shock value? It certainly seems that sentence was concocted out of a need to shock. I will hope it was an exagerration made for effect.



My "fairly narrow definition?" That's a laugh...it's more like a case of your personal exceedingly liberal definition of the guitar and guitar playing.



Now we get into both the literal and philosophical definition of exactly what a guitar is. Because if you're "playing" a guitar without strings, Florya, you might as well add whatever gizmos or whatever method to your madness you've got going there to a piece of wood or whatever instead. Why don't you just "play" a department store mannequin or a stuffed rainbow trout?

It certainly seems you're using the guitar shape merely as a prop.

Is it some sort of political statement you've got going there? ...something about the phallocentric nature of guitars? (haha) I know, I know you're some sort of Fluxus enthusiast, right? Hey, remember Woody Guthrie: This Machine Kills Fascists. Ya know, Woody did just a wee bit more for culture than the Fluxists did.

I swear, as fucked-up as this board is, I never expected a reply as bonkers as yours. It's not so much as what you do is completely bonkers as is the off the wall way you stated your so-called "argument" in all seriousness. And just in case anyone is in the dark, I'm someone that likes a lot of performance art and performance artists.

I surely didn't want to get into name-calling again, but damn, that shit left me no choice, Mr. Fluxus Maciunas.

Carrot Top here.

Apologies for the delay in replying but I live in a different time zone from your good self and was probably sleeping whilst you were composing your tirade.

I've never given a thought to the phallocentric nature of guitars. Is that some sort of description of the way people pose with their instruments?

There is no politcal dimension to my response either.

It is merely an honest description of the ways I have used guitars to produce sounds that guitars wouldn't normally make.

I will admit that I have used a guitar, complete with strings to produce sound, and I have used 'alt tunings' but don't ask me to tabulate the chords - I have no fucking clue what they were. All I know is that the sound was good.

I don't find the notion of burning a guitar to see what it sounds like in the least bit shocking, so no, it wasn't said for shock value. After all it wasn't like it was your guitar that I threw on the fire was it? You should try it some day, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Atari, you're just going to have to get used to the fact that not everyone agrees with you. Ranting and name calling does little to enhance your argument, and the vehemence with which you endow your vitriol could be perceived by others as slightly 'bonkers'.

In your opinion I'm a lunatic - I respect that opinion whilst opposing it in the strongest possible terms. Were we ever to meet I'm sure that you would change your opinion, although as a precaution you need to know that I would be wearing a stab vest.

I will not be responding to any further comments that you make on this topic, you and I have hijacked avantgarde1's thread for too long now.

Might I suggest you go and have a glass of water. I'm off to my shed to bite the heads off a few kittens.

[avantgarde1]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

avantgarde1 asked for "help." I was in the process of giving him help of an applicable and most useful variety before I was called a "douche."

i asked for help thinking of a name for my "output", and you proceded to say this as yr first "post" on this "thread" (did i get it right that time?):

"Those were not "threads", those were posts, but I'm not surprised at your choice of words; after all, you're yet another person who has testified at this board that they can't (or do not want to learn how to) make chord shapes on a guitar."

so you tell me that how that was you giving me "help of an applicable and most useful variety".

[atari 2600]

I never had a chance to proceed. I did eventually relate more helpful information than anyone else has in this thread if you'll care to read it. If I write a long post then people may not read it. If I write a series of shorter posts to those that are engaged in reading the thread, then people will naturally absorb more information.

As I also wrote several times, I never got a chance to get to a lot of what I wanted to, and only got around to it later after your comically queer little spat with me.

[avantgarde1]

that makes no sense what so ever, you didn't even begin to answer the question. you remind me of a politician: you get asked a question and you beat around the bush and say everything but what someone asked you. good job sir.