Newsgroups: rec.music.christian
Subject: Re: Tsk Tsk
From: jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu (jason 'Think!' steiner)
Date: 10 Jan 93 02:06:23 EST
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

gt6851a@prism.gatech.EDU (Brian King) writes:
> 
> Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do... :-)
> 
> "the lyrics ...seem to have been tacked on as an afterthought."
> 
> Well, let's compare:

[Rush & Ramones lyrics deleted]

> I would venture to guess that the second set was more of an 
> "afterthought."

you edited what i said & then misrepresented. my original statement
was that Rush lyrics -don't scan with the music-. while the Ramones
are certainly not as intelligent lyricists as Rush, that has nothing
to do with the relation of their lyrics to the music they write.

Kurt Cobain groaning "hello, hello, hello, how low?" to a 2-chord
riff sounds better than the most elegant poetry set to skillfully 
executed music, if the rythm of the poetry bears little relation to
that of the music. in Rush's case, this is often true. (i've had this
confirmed in email by a RushFan(tm).)

separately, they may be -wonderful-. together it's a mess.

> >>when i listen to music i want something that makes me feel 
>   whatever it is in my gut. Rush makes me feel a headache in my 
>   cranium.
> 
> That's because progressive rock, like classical music or jazz, 
> requires EFFORT on the part of the listener. Punk, on the other 
> hand, requires little more than a $50 guitar and knowledge of 3 
> chords.

accessibility has nothing to do with my preferences. (heavens no!)
i'm certainly capable of appreciating classical music and jazz, as
well as more modern "requires some assembly" music such as hardcore
industrial.

i have several complaints with progressive music:

1. it exists primarily to showcase the talents of the performers.
   
   people who rave about their progressive bands don't talk about
   how it made them -feel-. they talk about how good the performers
   are, or how much of a spectacle they make by playing multiple
   instruments at the same time. it would lose all appeal if played
   with less than godlike skill, or played by someone else. there
   are very few progressive cover bands. those that exist are known
   only for how well the can exactly imitate the original performances.

2. it has no sense of restraint or coherance. too much is never enough.

   sometimes simplicity is best. music does not have to be complex
   to be well crafted. sometimes it is quite the opposite. big chords,
   long solos, scales run at blinding speeds all make me yawn & say
   "so what?" where is the sense of theme? is it too difficult to take
   a single musical idea and explore it fully? why must all the 
   instruments struggle with each other for attention? it ends up sounding
   like a muddy, egotistical contest instead of a skillfully constructed
   harmony. sure, that means that the guitarist can't just go off on
   a stint of self-indulgent noodling. so? i could reproduce the same
   thing by running a random number generator into a sequencer. who
   needs that?

now that i think about it, i'm more concerned with the composing side
of music than the playing. as somebody who's worked with computers in
music i know how easy it is to get a technically flawless performance
with a few hundred dollars worth of hardware. composing music with many
different parts that all compliment each other is a much more difficult
thing. even expressive playing to me means nothing unless the work
being expressed is structurally sound. (pun intended)

i should have liked to reply with  a little more humor than this. (andy
where are you?) i realize i'm stepping on a lot of toes here. i freely
admit that these are my personal preferences and nothing more. but they
-are- mine and i do have good reasons for holding them.

jason

--
`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`
`,` Democrat:    Give us your money. _We'll_ solve your problems. `,`
`,` Republican:  Give us your money. We'll ignore your problems.  `,`
`,` Libertarian: Keep your money. Solve your own problems.        `,`
`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,` jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu ,`,`,`
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian