cbostrum (01/29/83)
I dont think one could reasonably accuse peterr of "overintellectualising" the subject (of minimalist music). Whats wrong with trying to figure out whats going on with a piece of music? It seems to me that there is almost an anti-intellectual attitude that is always popping up here in this newsgroup. Any attempt to make some point with music other than in lyrics is greeted as pretentious hype (witness "this women is about as creative as a toothpick"). I dont think laurie anderson is pretentious. I dont think robert fripp is pretentious, i dont think steve reich is prententious and i dont even think glenn gould is pretentious. (well, maybe they are just a little). The most serious point the last three musicians are trying to make (and I exclude anderson because I mean I have heard these musicians attempt to make this point verbally outside their music) is that the trichotomy made between listening, performing, and composing music is a somewhat artificial one. Now reich and fripp have attempted to do this with a notion of music as a gradual process, and gould by blurring the performing process and claiming things like "there is no reason to record a work unless you do it **differently**" (thus being a sort of composer) and shunning the listening to and performing of music as a public activity. I think that all three musicians have been forceful and articulate at making their points. One thing i dont really understand is what is the essential criterion for identifying the so-called minimal music. I really dont detect enough similarity between, say, talking heads and steve reich to include them in the same class. (I wouldnt, but people seem to want to). If there is interest, I will post some of Reichs apology to this group. Perhaps then there will be some understanding of these amazingly creative toothpicks.
elf (01/31/83)
cbostrum's illustration of how some artists are attempting to redefine the traditional listener/performer relationship was very good. There is little to add to that except that the technology to which our listening environment is linked, i.e. records, turntables, etc., impose obvious limits wrt how much this relationship can be altered. There's only so much one can do. I've noticed an unconscious change in the way I listen to a lot of music: as sensation, form, and process--very much the Reichian spirit of things. Do we all listen modally? That is, I have different listening modes for pop, blues, classical, and funny music. On "minimalism", I don't know. I mean, you read record reviewers who say that your average white boy pop band has "African influence", which seems to mean that the drummer happens to bang on a Ghanian drum every once in a while. I believe Reich called himself a "structuralist", not a "minimalist". Just listen to his new album, "Tehillim", and you'll see the problems in labelling a composer. Oh sure, Tehillim has repeated phrases, etc., but the musical devices employed are right out of the Renaissance: imitation, canon, augmentation, etc. And there's lots of melody to boot. Yet the album feels like a logical progression for Reich. It's all a very clever synthesis of old forms using new processes. I think I'll keep on calling this kind of music "funny music". The adjectives "new", "avant-garde", "contemporary", etc. just don't cut it. "Funny music" sounds neither pretentious nor overly-intellectual, and it illustrates the general spirit I tend to have when I approach the music. I remember what the Penguin Cassette Guide had to say about Reich's "Drumming": "frankly, I think some listeners may not be able to take this work seriously". How can a reviewer be completely misguided yet somehow (accidentally) be vaguely correct? Eugene Fiume utcsrgv!elf U of Toronto