From: ljnelson@unix.amherst.edu (LAiRD j. NeLSoN)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.synth
Subject: Re: Defending the Slugs (long)
Date: 26 Jan 93 20:42:37 GMT
Organization: Amherst College
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]

Tony R. Beltran (beltran@ns.network.com) wrote:

> Just to add my (IMHO)...before records, radio, etc. it was quite
> common for families to have a piano not just as furniture in the
> living room - but to play as the family gathered around and sang.
> It was not necessary for anyone to be a professional or to even
> have taken lessons.  It seems to me that with affordable technology
> making midi equipment available to the masses, we could have a
> resurgence of this amateurish musical sharing.  I think it is a
> Good Thing (TM).

I might point out, having started this beasty of a thread, that what I was
objecting to primarily are keyboards that play themselves.

But, to consider your point of view, another thing worth pointing out is that
whereas "before records, radio, etc." folks would sit around in the parlor
and play and share songs, nowadays folks do the same things--and then (in
some cases, he added, nomexing his butt) expect that those songs be recorded
professionally and released on a major record label.  Maybe it's a difference
in attitude--something that says, "hey, I played this neat stuff in my home,
now I'll just cut a CD and release it."

Now for the "of courses".

Of *course* the marketplace will determine whether this succeeds or not.  Half
of the pop out there today is abominably wretched, bland, insipid, boring and
full of some of the worst musical cliches ever to come down the pike.  But hey:
the public wants it.  That's another gripe I have.  I think that it's a cir-
cular thing: as long as we keep buying shitty music, artists will keep churning
it out.

Of *course* I'm not against new and innovative forms of music.  But in an era
where "new and innovative" usually means "sample the bass line off a Tibetan
Yak Horn recording and drop in a funky TR909 backbeat", you'll pardon me for
not responding with shouts of ecstasy.

Of *course* I'm not against home musicians succeeding--where would that put
me?  I *am* against home musicians with no chops--or at least the apathy to
leave their chops where they stand--trying to get their music out to the
World at Large.  And by *that* I mean Columbia record contracts or something.
I'm not talking Super Rhino College Wacked Records contracts--subpop labels 
like this were designed for exactly that purpose.  I'm talking about people
like...oh...Milli Vanilli, to take a perfectly abominable example.  'Nuff said.

Of *course* I'm not solidly anti-industrial/anti-rave/anti-progressive.  
Personally speaking, I don't happen to like it, but that's just me and has
no bearing on this issue.  What I *am* against is musicians and their music
trying to pass themselves off as something that they just plain aren't.  If,
hypothetically, I were to record with my quintet and then strut around
(with my mediocre chops) claiming I was the savior of jazz, the be-all and 
end-all of that segment of music, the new direction in jazz, people would
laugh me off the stage and out of whatever studio I walked into next.  On the
other hand, if I record some quickie house track and use a really weird
garbled sample and play with my keyboards a whole bunch and then try to record
that, then given the musical climate I'd probably get a hell of a lot more
respect than I deserved.

Well, I thought I'd start by clearing this up, and now I've dug myself into
a deeper hole.  Hope this is of use to *somebody* and the thread in general.

LAiRD

--
ljnelson@unix.amherst.edu           |
ljnelson@amh.amherst.edu            |          The Quintet-essential.
(413) 542-2932                      |