From: ken@batman.austin.ibm.com (Ken Goach)
Newsgroups: alt.guitar
Subject: Re: Improvisation where has it gon
Date: 28 Jul 92 15:53:34 GMT
Reply-To: ken@batman.austin.ibm.com (Ken Goach)
Organization: IBM Austin, TX

M23231@mwvm.mitre.org posts:

#You extrapolate beyond my context here. However, the listener doesn't
#participate in the "excitement" and "danger" since he has no way of knowing
#how close to the edge the player is.


That depends on the listener. If there are musicians in the audience, or
people who know something about music, I'd say they might be excited when
things get out to the edge, when the band almost falls apart doing something
complicated. Listeners can sense the excitement - give them a little credit.
One of the biggest ovations my old band ever got was in this situation.

#When 99% of what emerges is banal and trite it doesn't take long for a 
#listener to get bored.


Maybe you'd better give an example here. Do you mean a 10 minute guitar solo
based on the pentatonic scale? Then yeah, I'd say that can get boring and
redundant. Do you mean 10 minutes of masturbatory shredding? Then yeah, I'd
say that can get boring and redundant as well. (Maybe people should take
shorter solos! ;-) But I won't say that *all* 10-minute guitar solos are
boring - at least, they don't have to be.


#So for a pro I guess such improvisation could be really exciting--a matter 
#of career risk would be exciting, wouldn't it?


Give the audience some credit, man...


#Well, I'm sure not talking about the role of improvisation in the
history of    #rovisation
#music. Where did you get that idea? I'm simply mentioning one reason why there
#is so much of a fixation on the importance of playing one's own stuff today
#and since the end of the folk music era (ca 1966-70). When I was a kid in the
#'50s nobody "played their own songs" or "improvised" or or drooled over
the ide
#a of it. You got a guitar or banjo and played songs you heard on records or
#found in books.


Yee gods - how boring! Of course, there are plenty of cover bands now as
well...


#Many of the songs recorded were public domain or composed by
#some professional composer who didn't perform his own stuff. The level of
#importance given to originality today is a new attitude and a new
phenomenon in
#music--not historical.


I was under the impression that there were lots of individuals who wrote
new, original music of their own creation throughout history. Sure, there
are the truly great individuals who "stick out" (Mozart, Beethoven, etc),
but for each of them there must have been scores of "wanna-be's" and lesser
known composers creating original music. Even if they were *bad*, there
were bored noblemen who dabbled in music, minstrels in the middle ages,
etc. How can you assume that there was no original music being created?
Even in an amateur arena this must have taken place!


The more I read this thread (the "flamenco cognoscenti," etc) it really
sounds like your argument applies more to flamenco than other types of
guitar playing. In fact, I sense that you are "looking down your nose"
at those of us who play rock, jazz, metal, ....



THIS POSTING DOES NOT REPRESENT THE OPINIONS OF MY EMPLOYERS.
-------------------------------------------------------------
"... watch from high atop Tokyo Tower as the twisted world
you created explodes in rivers of blood and endless pain..."
    -Tom Servo, announcer, monster action playset commercial
-------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.guitar