> There is a great art in keeping it simple.
scott: eloquently stated.this applies to so many things.
i work at a design firm that specializes in information design.
sometimes, the level of sophistication and clarity of design that comes
out of the designers is amazing. there is a *high* level of discipline
involved. some musicians might look at writing music in the same way the
designers at work look at their designs... 'why is that note there? -
does it fit into a logical system? - is it just decoration? - what is
gained by adding (x) element?'
some musicians certainly don't, though.
in my opinion - there's a time and a place for everything. i feel like i
need a fix of designers republic or tomato when i get home. there is a
great art in chaos, too.
(scott, i have a feeling you'd agree with most of this - but i felt it
needed to be said.)
> there's a violinist named Tony Conrad. He recently played a show where
he
> played one song, which consisted of his more or less playing the same
> note for twenty minutes. Simple. EXTREMELY simple. Yet he is
critically
> acclaimed by many as avant garde, at the forefront of musical
innovation.
we *are* approaching the end of the millennium, aren't we...
> WHile one note for twenty minutes sounds rather boring, the art of it
> comes in how he subtly tweaks it for half a second here, half a second
>
> there. It doesn't make you jump up and dance, but it still gets a
> reaction out of you.
that would also depend on your definition of 'art' - and 'musicianship'
for that matter.i, personally, would find this kind of thing
intolerable unless in a meditative state. not exactly the kind of thing
you would take a date with attention deficit disorder to, huh?.
it would seem that people listen to music for different reasons at
different times.
what are you listening for?
* to be challenged
* to nod your head
* as background noise
* for grinding on a dancefloor
* in appreciation of art
* getting back to your primal state (!)
* falling asleep
* communal experience
* (add yours here)it seems to me that you could pick any of above
reasons, add a person's musical upbringing/education , factor in
tendency to follow social trends, divide by region + social strata, then
subtract by psychological disposition and you might have some formula
for what any person might be able to get into at any given time. heh.
> Lastly, (and now we're getting WAY WAY WAY off of AJ) anyone here
> heard
> of Ernest hemingway? the man went down in history as a literary legend
>
> because his sentences were so goddamned short, he was redundant, and
> he
> made it a point to keep his vocabulary as simple as possible! Can you
> say
> that he is not as good as someone like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who can
>
> write one sentence for two pages? not at all, becaus there's something
> to
> be said for minimalism.
yeah scott! pullin' out the literary references! you go! ;-)
k