From: skovitz@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Sonia Kovitz)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Subject: Re: Slainte Mhath
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:10:27 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
              "Michael H. Bloom" at Oct 15, 92 11:44 am

For starters--the subject of this post went right BY me--this time it can't be
a Zappa lyric so what else am I totally ignorant of???

The learned bloom intoned:
>
> As for the propriety of Christianized metal, my thesis about metal in general
> is that it's all about power. There are very few true Satanists in the field,
> but kids like the trappings because it's a symbol of power (

I'd agree with this... What's funny is that I have started to listen to metal
lately (more plain brown wrappers) and I LOVE it (so far, Anthrax)--but I
always hear it as FUNNY. It makes me feel like ripping down the
draperies/schmaperies (if I had any) and tearing down chandeliers and leaping
around in a dress torn to shreds--it's not that I don't take this music
seriously, because I do--some of the guitar parts sound downright psychedelic
to me--but it always seems to me that the metal bands are making fun of
themselves while they play.  That's what I dig. Am I totally off-base on this?

(BTW, I really like the latest Metallica album--does that make me a dweeb?)

It's as if (in my mind) a true heavy-metal band is one that grasps what most
people THINK "power" is and then they play with that idea of power, turning
it around and upside down and above all playing with your MIND--

they can't take themselves TOO seriously and still be a serious metal band...
is the way I see it..

> kids is to convince them that God has heavier artillery than Mephistopheles,

This is great!

> delete key, you need a better editor! What kinda system you working on anyway
?

Please recall that many of us poor loons out here are on FEROCIOUSLY primitive
systems--a circumstance which is BEYOND OUR CONTROL, I assure you!
Trying to type ANYTHING on here is incredibly frustrating, slow, absurd... I
only persevere for the good of humanity.

Yesterday (I think) Tim the Liquified Pollster said he disliked the sound of an
opera trained voice.  I was glad to read that because I have always felt the
SAME way but was afraid to confess it.   Occasionally some operatic singing
passes muster but most of it makes me CRINGE.... why is this???

Paul, thanks for the Hendrix CD info--very helpful.

Lisa, before you jump in and start teaching piano to innocent victims, just
remember how many people have been TURNED OFF to music by the way they learned
piano!  In other words, don't just jump in but get some GOOD (WISE) advice
(which is exactly what you asked for, and believe me, you couldn't ask a wiser
bunch of people--snort)... I have no good advice except that you need to think
first and above all in terms of MUSIC and SOUND rather than of "notes, scales,
etc." as information to be passed along.   Ideally a music teacher introduces a
kid into a new WORLD of music, rather than passing along driblets of
information/skills.... Oh well, I get rabid on the subject of teaching so I'd
better stop.  The point is, many piano teachers have done IMMEASURABLE damage
so try not to be one of them!

Ah well, just one last thing: people who hear me rant on the subject of
teaching think that because I seem to de-emphasize "information/skills" I am
therefore propagating some flakey touchy-feely fluffy b.s.... But this is
not so!  It's a matter of where your attention is: of course you need to
communicate information and teach skills--but if that's ALL you're trying to
do, with your attention solely on some little hard marble of fact... to be
followed by another little hard marble of fact... people finally throw up (if
they're lucky) or get very BOGGED DOWN by all those hard marbles. You need to
teach a vision of something--and you USE facts--but the facts are never an end
in themselves.  A teacher is someone with a great vision--a person who is
LOOKING somewhere-- and who (in various unexpected and creative ways) gets the
student to start looking there too and catching just a glimpse of what the
teacher sees....  Then the student is begging to be taught the necessary skills
to see MORE--rather than resisting skills that are being forced on him...

 Sonia "crackpot"