And mainly again to Ashton's distaste for things that aren't made of wood and horsetail. ;-)
I was referring to guitar and bass
And mainly again to Ashton's distaste for things that aren't made of wood and horsetail. ;-) Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson. |
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He likes those metal thingies with valves.
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I weep for the attenuated definitions of 'music' and artistry,
now seemingly near universal.. mass-produced-as-never-before: singers who cannot sing in {any} "key", the entire encyclopedia of musical instruments now reduced to some faux-guitar things (oft shaped like Star Trek ..to emphasize their origin in pure fantasy?) And Yes.. it takes mental and physical discipline ... even just to play chromatic scales on any actual "instrument"; it takes mere memory and button-pushing to execute a digital script which manufactures your "bass" [or treble or mid] for you. (No need to review a revulsion felt at a "pianist' who could noodle for hours without ever expressing a musical thought, a melody of any attraction nor an overall theme) ... to the resultant 'concert'. I guess that, in the end, as perceived by moi: that deemed Kewl rarely expresses more than the above, results in hundreds of sound-alike 'tracks' indistinguishable (to mine own ears) from each other, nor is there any place for the word virtuoso to be earned and noted. And to pretty much exhaust (for me) the Pop-genre/post-Beatles (who merited Virtuoso-appellation numerous times) I just Don't fucking-Like the faux-vibrato and fuzz-tone resultant squealing and other SOUNDS of bloody transistorized GUITARS. Period. (Though I have tried to listen for something.. Something.. I had earlier missed.) Now the Brits: still retain a place/time for the Colliery Band (whereas our own versions seem reduced merely to pyrotechnic march-dancing with swaying tubas and other gyrations, all placing music-making way behind artificial visual show-man-ship. (I once treated a bunch of friends to a visitation in Berkeley of the Jack Daniels Silver Cornet Band .. which had much in common with the Black Dykes (UK version Band) in competence, great sound along with the showmanship. Dunno if they even do that anymore, at Jack D's: prolly gots all-gee-tars all-the-time now [??] 'Course I've already mentioned that event, in a military-school marching maneuver when .. the Drill Honcho {reluctantly, to say the least} blurted out, Everyone's out of step! ... except Brown :-/ Maybe it's the inverse re the exceeding-Popular sound-alike Moar-Guitars, but s'OK just so long as: no law gets passed making it mandatory to suffer them in order to get an oxygen ration card. I wouldn't want to see them all burned/all those people disappointed and standing about flummoxed: surely there should be one specimen in every U.S. museum. I'm flexible. |
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I blame Sweden.
Drook pointed out a while ago that guitars are old hat these days - there's very little guitar sounds in pop music now. I hadn't noticed that until then, but I don't listen to pop music any more. There was a story on NPR last night or sometime over the weekend. I can't find it now, of course, but it was similar to this New Yorker piece (from 2014): The Sound of Sweden [Googlie goo...] Ah, it was a show/interview about a new book by John Seabrook. A related blurb is here. Here it is - WNYC's On the Media. Interesting stuff, but not a way to make interesting and satisfying music. Cheers, Scott. |
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Okay, okay! I'm getting off your lawn, alright?
Look, there are still plenty of people writing and playing the ossified-in-amber music you like, using The Rules to make music that could have been written at any point in the past 500 years. Funnily enough, there are also plenty of people writing and playing the kinds of music that gives you conniptions. I just got done listening to Ufomammut's Ecate album, which is not only noisy as hell, but also has a healthy dollop of hell-spawned digital devil's audio synthesisation. It's not like anything I've heard before, existing as it does at the intersection of grinding industrial metal, stoner rock, dark ambient electronic music and psychedelia. I'm pretty sure you'll hate it - but then, I'm also pretty sure you'll never actually know, because I'm pretty sure you'll never ever listen to it. But by the same token, there are people in corduroy with bad hair writing symphonies and quartets and fugues and etudes and other things invented not in this century nor the last, for the enjoyment of people who apparently hate change and/or fear the new. I know I'm screaming into the void, here, but for goodness' sake, Ashton - stop hanging your ears on the musical pronunciations of long-dead composers. It's like reading Shakespeare and only Shakespeare (or things that are written exactly like Shakespeare) and not even making it as far as Sheridan. |
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"I have the simplest of tastes
I am always satisfied with the best." Oscar Wilde (Had he not said it first I'd have done so, thus becoming immor(t)al-er, even.) The New has to earn its chops before it has any significance. Will wander through the W/pedia links and aim for a sample of Uffomamut et al. Via Rand I encountered a small group/trio? På Svenska, quite simple counterpoint of piano and (string) bass. And Modrin/also with a sane dynamic range and no virtual-SHOUTING thankyouvery much. (Simplest: electric guitars are, to my receptors: the anti-endorphin). If I can't trust my psyche, then whose? should prevail. Pax vobiscum --Smokey Stover |