On 2/13/07, Thomas D. Cox, Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
come on though, would such great music be created in america if individuality wasnt such a big deal here? i dont think so! tom
Yes. Until the birth of electronic music, most music was NOT created by just an individual. Take any great jazz group (for me, the classic groups of Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, or John Coltrane) and you will find that the individuality of the players is expressed in such a way that it complements the what is being expressed by the group as a whole. Individual identity only emerges through group interaction - perhaps such a process could properly be called "dialectical". And in classical/orchestral music, great classical composers might have heard amazing, totally original music in their heads, but getting the music performed required convincing some hapless musicians that the music was worth learning and performing. Only with electronic music, is it possible to get rid of the group and create without consideration for others. This is probably a double edged sword. I'm glad I can make my own CD with only a cheap $50 computer, especially considering I've written a string quartet that has never been performed, that is just sitting in a box in my closet. But collective music making is a very rewarding experience, and I often miss it these days. Also, there are reasons why I think art, even the kind made by a lone individual, is NEVER really individualistic, but it gets into the philosophical nature of language as socially constructed, and the preconditions of artistic expression, so it's probably better reserved for something like the microsound list. Suffice it to say that anyone who releases a CD, obviously imagines some kind of audience for their music, even if it's an imaginary/ideal audience. To bring it back to the Mad Mike interview: it would seem that some of the frustration of the Detroit techno pioneers (including 2nd wave), is precisely in the tremendous gap between the imagined audience, which includes some significant audience in the African-American community, and the real audience, which is more or less European and white. This gap between the imagined audience and the real audience raises a lot of interesting questions about what how culture is enjoyed, by who, and why. ~David
