Musically speaking, the so-called “British Invasion” of the late 60s and early 70s were interesting times. It wasn’t so much that Americans couldn’t ‘rock and roll’ with the best of them, it’s just that the British had tapped into a resource that the Americans had overlooked. Was that resource a particular piece of equipment, a new recording technique or possibly a different rehearsal technique? No. That resource was a man; and that man’s name was Robert Johnson.
To those who cut their chops on the early 60s UK R&B scene, Johnson’s recordings were both a primer and a master class on guitar playing. Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Cream, The Who and The Stones all cite Johnson as a major influence. Zeppelin covered many of his songs and Clapton recently released a disc of Johnson’s music.
I recently listened to Robert Johnson’s complete recorded works, and through the popping and hissing of the vinyl one word seems to summarize this amazing listening experience: passion. This is a man who lived his blues. This is the raw experience of unedited, unrefined poetry that scares the fainthearted and even makes the most sure-footed slip. One man, one guitar, one take. An unrefined voice and some incredible, if unpolished, guitar playing. If you don’t believe me, here is what Eric Clapton wrote of Johnson’s recordings:
“Up until I heard his music, everything I had ever heard seemed as if it was dressed up for a shop window somewhere, so that when I heard him for the first time, it was like he was singing only for himself, and now and then, maybe God.”
Robert Johnson, (1911-1938) who lived and died in poverty, probably contributed more to the Old School sounds of the late 60s and early 70s by allowing his passion to be experienced and communicated. One cannot imagine Zeppelin without the yelps of Plant or the excess riffs of Page. Or, concerning another passionate practice, what would a Who concert been like without the destruction of instruments and equipment on stage? This leads me to the point of this post: What has happened to unbridled passion in popular music these days?
The studio is so antiseptic, the recording software so manipulative these days, that we continue to churn out songs, perfected by the computer and void of passion and danger. Oh yes, I do know that there are some bands out there that still live and perform and record on the edge, but they are too few and far between. Passion is so very necessary to drive an audience of any size, and particularly a large audience. The passionless perfection of today’s popular music has created a vacuum in our society that feeds mediocrity at all levels. Today, almost anyone can make a “perfect” recording; but can they make a great recording, or even a good one? Do we get out and play our instruments because we are “flawless” at the technique, or because we have “something to say?” – something we are passionate about.
So, I still tip my hat to Mr. Robert Johnson; a man with a flawed voice, raw and bitter poetry, questionable lifestyle habits, and great yet unrefined guitar chops. A man who cranked out a total of 29 short songs and recorded them in a hotel room in Dallas over the course of a very few days. A man who changed the face, sound and style of popular music forever, because he had something to say…and he was passionate about it!
In this day, may you have the strength to be passionate. Leave “perfection” for the mediocre and strive, rather, to be a voice crying out in the wilderness. Have something to say…and say it Loud.
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Saturday, February 20, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Technologicalmegatimemonster
How many can remember when advances in technology promised to save us so much time? This information age would speed up communication to such a point that we would have oodles of free time on our hands--Automation would bring us the three-hour work week--and we would have hover-cars by 1999.
Certainly technology has given us a great deal of prosperity and a standard of living that few generations have known. But it has come with a high price, that being the spending of so much time on that which ultimately does not matter, and stifling truly intelligent, artistic and spiritual development. Rather than writing, we "tweet." Rather than reading, we are fed the non-stop assault of fast-cut video images. Rather than composing, we can simply cut and paste musical samples. Rather than taking a picture, we take hundreds of digital shots and photoshop them afterwards. Rather than meditating, we simply ignore.
What I'm getting at is that we often no longer consider what we do; we (as Nike coined) just do it. And "it" consumes so much of our time! We update blogs, websites, facebook, etc.; we watch our HD TV, listen to I-pods, Google everything, run apps on whatever, stay glued to e-mail and even text each other while avoiding personal communication! Our time is truly stretched thin; and there are a few things for which we no longer have time.
Those things include exercising the intellectual, artistic and spiritual side of our being--
We no longer have to think since thinking is done for us. The "so called" intellectual elite will take care of all of our problems, so there's no worries. And if there are any worries, you're obviously thinking too hard! Just ask our government--Washington truly believes that its elected officials were put into office to solve our problems--in essence, to think for us so we don't have to bother with that discipline.
We no longer have to create. We have programs that create for us. Whether it's visual art, music or written word, it's all just a click a way. It may not be of pristine quality, but it is "good enough." I remember when I first took a church gig, and it was expected of me to arrange, compose, rehearse and present the music. Now a days, not only is all that taken care of with a subscription service, but if one doesn't present the "ready-made" arrangements, then you are not like everyone else and are therefore suspect of unsatisfactory work.
And we have taken a true hit spiritually. Not only in our churches and families, but even in our world view and our understanding of literature and art. One simply cannot comprehend the bulk of western thought apart from the spiritual backdrop of its writers and poets. I remember my high school piano teacher explaining to me that you can see in the late works of Beethoven a man seeking God. When I recently performed Ives' Concord Sonata, I spent much time trying to comprehend the spiritual dimension of its namesakes--Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott and Thoreau. Even a reading of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings reveals a world view founded in the spiritual journey that is life; and who can begin to fathom the works of DaVinci apart from the relationship between God and man?
Yes, this technologicalmegatimemonster has delivered a higher standard of living--but it is a non-thinking, in-artistic and soul-less standard of living. It is a construct that requires us to make a concerted effort to prioritize our intellectual, artistic and spiritual development. In other words, we must make time for that which is truly important, lest we allow our lives to be consumed by the tyranny of the urgent. The tyranny of the urgent really isn't that urgent; but it does consume so much time!
(And when are we ever going to get those hover-cars?)
Certainly technology has given us a great deal of prosperity and a standard of living that few generations have known. But it has come with a high price, that being the spending of so much time on that which ultimately does not matter, and stifling truly intelligent, artistic and spiritual development. Rather than writing, we "tweet." Rather than reading, we are fed the non-stop assault of fast-cut video images. Rather than composing, we can simply cut and paste musical samples. Rather than taking a picture, we take hundreds of digital shots and photoshop them afterwards. Rather than meditating, we simply ignore.
What I'm getting at is that we often no longer consider what we do; we (as Nike coined) just do it. And "it" consumes so much of our time! We update blogs, websites, facebook, etc.; we watch our HD TV, listen to I-pods, Google everything, run apps on whatever, stay glued to e-mail and even text each other while avoiding personal communication! Our time is truly stretched thin; and there are a few things for which we no longer have time.
Those things include exercising the intellectual, artistic and spiritual side of our being--
We no longer have to think since thinking is done for us. The "so called" intellectual elite will take care of all of our problems, so there's no worries. And if there are any worries, you're obviously thinking too hard! Just ask our government--Washington truly believes that its elected officials were put into office to solve our problems--in essence, to think for us so we don't have to bother with that discipline.
We no longer have to create. We have programs that create for us. Whether it's visual art, music or written word, it's all just a click a way. It may not be of pristine quality, but it is "good enough." I remember when I first took a church gig, and it was expected of me to arrange, compose, rehearse and present the music. Now a days, not only is all that taken care of with a subscription service, but if one doesn't present the "ready-made" arrangements, then you are not like everyone else and are therefore suspect of unsatisfactory work.
And we have taken a true hit spiritually. Not only in our churches and families, but even in our world view and our understanding of literature and art. One simply cannot comprehend the bulk of western thought apart from the spiritual backdrop of its writers and poets. I remember my high school piano teacher explaining to me that you can see in the late works of Beethoven a man seeking God. When I recently performed Ives' Concord Sonata, I spent much time trying to comprehend the spiritual dimension of its namesakes--Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott and Thoreau. Even a reading of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings reveals a world view founded in the spiritual journey that is life; and who can begin to fathom the works of DaVinci apart from the relationship between God and man?
Yes, this technologicalmegatimemonster has delivered a higher standard of living--but it is a non-thinking, in-artistic and soul-less standard of living. It is a construct that requires us to make a concerted effort to prioritize our intellectual, artistic and spiritual development. In other words, we must make time for that which is truly important, lest we allow our lives to be consumed by the tyranny of the urgent. The tyranny of the urgent really isn't that urgent; but it does consume so much time!
(And when are we ever going to get those hover-cars?)
Friday, December 11, 2009
who are we to judge? who do we have to be?
As I am writing this, I am contemplating upon an offer to teach some undergraduate music theory next year. I say "contemplating" because although the offer is good, my memories of the wisdom of the typical undergraduate student is still fresh in my mind from my teaching at the University of Colorado. This so called "wisdom" is often the spring board to the "intellectual argument" containing sound and fury, but signifying nothing.
In my undergraduate days we would often get together and "solve" the problems of the world, the economy, the universe, etc. and we would actually believe that we were on the right track. Being just four years out of 8th grade gave us the arrogance to think we knew it all and could do it all. I guess I can handle that type of arrogance; it tends to go away in time. But the arrogance surrounding art seems to cling to the undisciplined mind like doggie-doo to my shoe. So many times I have heard such misinformed statements as "who are we to judge" or "how can one tell which is the greater work; especially when it's the artist expressing him/herself?"
Just for the record let me state that there is a difference between good, great and bad art just as there is a difference between art and "expression" or art and "philosophical statements." The "chance" music of John Cage is a philosophical statement, but it is not art. An abstract expressionist painter throwing paint cans at a canvas in anger might be an expression, but it is not art. For art to exist, there must be some formal structure to it. When we examine a painting by Picasso, a sonata by Beethoven, a photo by Adams or a building by Wright, we are brought to a discovery of structure; and it is that structure that gives us a framework through which we can judge the quality of the art. We can state with authority that Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto is the finest of the 5 not because of its popularity, but because it so completely satisfies the expectations brought about by the formal structure of the work. We can look at a Michelangelo's David and recognize that he overcame a deficient piece of marble by establishing structural lines in his sculpture that lead the eyes in intriguing ways. We can even say that Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" LP is one of the greatest albums ever recorded; it exceeds all expectations of the listener by gloriously blossoming within the structure it establishes. All this is a simple rebuttal to the misinformed who state the misleading rhetorical, "who are you to judge?"
My late friend James Legg and I attended a concert by the New Music Consortium of NYC. While most of the performers of the evening were outstanding, there was one pianist who presented an improvisation. This improvisation was ghastly to say the least, and it was totally unstructured--just simple banging on the instrument to make a statement. After about 30 minutes Jim shouted out "get off the !#*&%#!! stage!" The reaction from the pianist and the crowd was violent. But what was more intriguing was the number of people who came up to Jim afterward and thanked him for shouting out! Virtually all in attendance recognized that what was being presented was not art but simply an "expression."
Who are we to judge? Who do we have to be...
I say this because I am contemplating whether or not to go back into that ivory tower of intellectual dishonesty. Don't get me wrong. I am not against a good arts education, only against the stupid validity often imposed upon pieces and performances of crap simply because they are the so-called "artistic" personal expressions and "who are we to judge?" Couple that with the fact that undergraduates tend to believe that they have everything figured out...and I guess I have to decide if I want to make the money by living the nightmare.
But, I guess, who am I to judge?
Bob
In my undergraduate days we would often get together and "solve" the problems of the world, the economy, the universe, etc. and we would actually believe that we were on the right track. Being just four years out of 8th grade gave us the arrogance to think we knew it all and could do it all. I guess I can handle that type of arrogance; it tends to go away in time. But the arrogance surrounding art seems to cling to the undisciplined mind like doggie-doo to my shoe. So many times I have heard such misinformed statements as "who are we to judge" or "how can one tell which is the greater work; especially when it's the artist expressing him/herself?"
Just for the record let me state that there is a difference between good, great and bad art just as there is a difference between art and "expression" or art and "philosophical statements." The "chance" music of John Cage is a philosophical statement, but it is not art. An abstract expressionist painter throwing paint cans at a canvas in anger might be an expression, but it is not art. For art to exist, there must be some formal structure to it. When we examine a painting by Picasso, a sonata by Beethoven, a photo by Adams or a building by Wright, we are brought to a discovery of structure; and it is that structure that gives us a framework through which we can judge the quality of the art. We can state with authority that Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto is the finest of the 5 not because of its popularity, but because it so completely satisfies the expectations brought about by the formal structure of the work. We can look at a Michelangelo's David and recognize that he overcame a deficient piece of marble by establishing structural lines in his sculpture that lead the eyes in intriguing ways. We can even say that Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" LP is one of the greatest albums ever recorded; it exceeds all expectations of the listener by gloriously blossoming within the structure it establishes. All this is a simple rebuttal to the misinformed who state the misleading rhetorical, "who are you to judge?"
My late friend James Legg and I attended a concert by the New Music Consortium of NYC. While most of the performers of the evening were outstanding, there was one pianist who presented an improvisation. This improvisation was ghastly to say the least, and it was totally unstructured--just simple banging on the instrument to make a statement. After about 30 minutes Jim shouted out "get off the !#*&%#!! stage!" The reaction from the pianist and the crowd was violent. But what was more intriguing was the number of people who came up to Jim afterward and thanked him for shouting out! Virtually all in attendance recognized that what was being presented was not art but simply an "expression."
Who are we to judge? Who do we have to be...
I say this because I am contemplating whether or not to go back into that ivory tower of intellectual dishonesty. Don't get me wrong. I am not against a good arts education, only against the stupid validity often imposed upon pieces and performances of crap simply because they are the so-called "artistic" personal expressions and "who are we to judge?" Couple that with the fact that undergraduates tend to believe that they have everything figured out...and I guess I have to decide if I want to make the money by living the nightmare.
But, I guess, who am I to judge?
Bob
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Does it really matter?
Will there ever be any consensus on the pronunciation of the Zeppelin classic "D'yer Mak'er?" Does anybody really know what "innagoddadavida" means, or why "the walrus was Paul?" (What does one see looking through a glass onion?) Would Picasso's blue period really be any different if it were green? And what about Chopin's 4th Ballad? I mean...does the coda really make any sense? (Yes, it's glorious and dense, and theorists have their theories concerning the origin of the musical material, but let's be real. Isn't the primary reason for it's existence the fact that it "sounds cool?")
Back when I went through my dissertation defense as a candidate for the doctorate, I had a professor query me for the reason I used a particular pitch in a particular piece I wrote. I looked him in the eye and truthfully replied, "because it sounds good." The professor was not too impressed. He was looking for the analytical reason (or possibly the justification) for a particular note; I provided him with a simple personal preference.
Do we sometimes try to explain and justify art rather than experience and enjoy it? Does reason sometimes take the place of passion? I had heard it once said that true art is the catalogue of history's beautiful mistakes. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being."
I pity those who have to explain everything. Some things are above explanation. And some things we can enjoy without having to explain them. The beauty of a waterfall is not necessarily related to the cubic feet per second of water flow over the precipice. The mystery of a Webern piece is not found in his serial composition. And, there is no reason for reading anything into "the walrus," (outside of the pure entertainment value).
Art is emotional, and it is often irrational. While I am definitely not against "analysis," I am an advocate for experiencing that which is beautiful and challenging. And it really doesn't matter how you pronounce "D'yer Mak'er."
Back when I went through my dissertation defense as a candidate for the doctorate, I had a professor query me for the reason I used a particular pitch in a particular piece I wrote. I looked him in the eye and truthfully replied, "because it sounds good." The professor was not too impressed. He was looking for the analytical reason (or possibly the justification) for a particular note; I provided him with a simple personal preference.
Do we sometimes try to explain and justify art rather than experience and enjoy it? Does reason sometimes take the place of passion? I had heard it once said that true art is the catalogue of history's beautiful mistakes. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being."
I pity those who have to explain everything. Some things are above explanation. And some things we can enjoy without having to explain them. The beauty of a waterfall is not necessarily related to the cubic feet per second of water flow over the precipice. The mystery of a Webern piece is not found in his serial composition. And, there is no reason for reading anything into "the walrus," (outside of the pure entertainment value).
Art is emotional, and it is often irrational. While I am definitely not against "analysis," I am an advocate for experiencing that which is beautiful and challenging. And it really doesn't matter how you pronounce "D'yer Mak'er."
Monday, November 16, 2009
Back to Film
Sometimes it seems that there's too much hype about digital innovation when it comes to photography. One unfortunate downside to this (now long-standing) digital revolution is how lazy it has made many photographers when it comes to composition. Hobbyists and professionals alike can now take literally 1000s of pics, only to later review their catalogue, photo-shop the preferred images, and create what often becomes a "pretty picture" void of any true composition of thought.
The same revolution has jeopardized much musical composition. Many (so-called) composers are now simply keyboard experimenters: record, sequence the sounds that fit under the fingers, then later edit the orchestration, phrasing, etc. and finally publish. The only problem is, once again, the thought--the intelligent relationships that characterize a great work--are given a second place to the aural pleasantries.
The digital age has certainly made access to many arts and disciplines simpler, but has, in turn, simplified those arts and disciplines. I wonder what a difference it might make if some photographers tried "composing" a landscape shot for 3-4 hours, waiting for that "perfect lighting situation" for that film type; or if composers might try their hand at putting ink to paper without actually "tying things out" at the keyboard. Maybe some of our current "artists" would begin to "think" again...
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