Someone saves us from music

**abachler** · 06-13-2008

Originally Posted by Neo1

What exactly is the difference? Coltrane improvises with his soprano saxophone, Big L does it with his mouth and a microphone?

How is freestyle rapping not improvisation in the "musical sense"?

Well, i have nothing more to add really. If you feel that the musical similarities between the two are just coincidences, then that's up to you.

In musical terminology, Improvisation is a particular artistic device where you embellish/expand a preexisting theme, usually into a more elaborate presentation, e.g. Jimi Hendrix's version of the national anthem. It's not babbling some crap that you may or may not have just made up.

The real problem here is that most of the people that talk about music arent qualified to have an opinion about music. Its like a couple of yuppies arguing about cars without knowing diddly squat about gear ratios, compression, torque, or swirl and roll. It just makes you look like a bunch of ........ing idiots babbling on about your own opinions.

**mike_g** · 06-13-2008

why would anyone have to be qualified to have an opinion about music? Its completely a matter of taste. I don't listen to much hiphop anymore, its really been going down hill for a long time now. Now I mostly listen to breakbeat, D&B and psy trance, but thats just what I like.

Oh, and thats a funny sig you got

**abachler** · 06-13-2008

Originally Posted by mike_g

Oh, and thats a funny sig you got

hehe, thx. Sad to think that fishing was once skilled labor. Then again, carpenters lived an upper class lifestyle then too.

It was either that sig or this one.

**idelovski** · 06-13-2008

One of the reasons for miscommunication between older and newer generations is different
perception of time. As you get older, time passes so much faster and ten years ago doesn't
feel that long ago. (When I was 13 I couldn't understand why was Roger Waters so obsessed
with time - now I now).

A very good point about it is illustrated in movie Frantic when Harrison Ford and Emmanuelle
Seigner start talking about music and they both say they like "old" music. She points to the
radio and Grace Jones, the song is "I've seen that face before" if I remember well the rhythm
and the atmosphere. Well, this isn't old he says. Yes! It is! Five, maybe even six years old. He
just rolls his eyes: he meant old music like from the 60s or 70s, for Christ's sake.

**brewbuck** · 06-14-2008

Originally Posted by mike_g

why would anyone have to be qualified to have an opinion about music?

I don't think there is an "elite" which understands music better than the rest of us. But there are certainly people who understand the HISTORY of music in a way that many others don't. This is really a matter of knowledge, not opinion.

And of course, there is such a thing as "musical genius" which I have no doubt exists as a true phenomenon. Some people just have brains wired for it, while the rest of us are limited to just sit back and enjoy it without really understanding how it gets created.

Some music just sucks, indisputably, regardless of opinion. I won't say anything about "modern hip hop/pop." I'm guilty of listening to it myself. But it's just background noise to me. For instance the new Madonna/Timberlake track somehow gets me going, even though on some intellectual level I realize it's junk.

**Neo1** · 06-14-2008

Originally Posted by abachler

It's not babbling some crap that you may or may not have just made up.

Being able to do a good freestyle rap session requires just as much skill as improvising with any other instrument. Anyways, that comment was obviously flamebait, and i ate it hook line and sinker, but whatever Abachler, it's the usual i guess?

The real problem here is that most of the people that talk about music arent qualified to have an opinion about music.

I'm sorry but that is just bull......... Why can't 2 "yuppies" discuss which cars they prefer, without knowing about all of the internal mechanics in the engine? I could tell you that i prefer a Toyota over a Chevrolet, and i'm certainly no mechanic, it might just be an opinion, but i thought that was the entire point of internet forums? To discuss stuff and exchange opinions?

Same goes for music, i might like a certain album or artist, without knowing how it was produced and without possesing the same skills as the artist. Does this make me a "........ing idiot"?

**Mario F.** · 06-14-2008

Thanks on all the comments so far. I unfortunately got tied up with work that showed up at the last minute and haven't been able to keep up with the forum. But have read everything and collected some thoughts. Just a few comments on something I feel particularly important...

It's on the subject of qualification, or lack of it, in order to have an opinion about music...

"After all what do I know?". Well, I know enough. Regardless of what my knowledge of musical history might be, as a parent I develop a certain set of standards which I can only after much fighting allow to be dropped. After all, if it is in the nature of a teenager to be rebel, it's the nature of a parent to not allow it to happen. It's a tug-of-war I'm more than willing to participate.

Music is a very precise result of a certain culture. Her tastes and, more important, how she reacts to those tastes will help me determine which culture she is fitting in. For instance, she may eventually like R&B one day (much to my dismay), and I will always grunt about it trying to make her understand "simple" things like true composition, quality of lyrics, music writing... basically music as a true artistic expression and not as a commercial endeavor.

But what if she starts getting out on miniskirts and tops, cheap jewelery, tattoos and behaving like a R&B slut? Well, it became more than just listening to crap music, hasn't it? It became part of a her culture. Or, to be more precise, because it's how it works, she assimilated the culture behind that musical style. A particular culture, I want my daughter to be as far away as possible.

It is in this context that I have an opinion about music. My own personal tastes, as Neo, mike and brewbuck addressed, also allow me to have an opinion (like, dislike, think is great, think is total crap). But things get more serious when it's my own daughter. And then, yes, I'm fully qualified to say what I don't like or like. And I couldn't care less if I didn't know one line of musical history or music making.

**CornedBee** · 06-16-2008

How much of the music of the 60s and 70s was junk? How many one-shot artists were there, hampered only by the lower distribution rate of those times?

A local radio station here in Vienna has a weakly feature they call the "Retro Charts". They pick a year from anywhere between 1955 and 1999 and play the charts of the current date in that year. The amount of crap you hear there is amazing.

Bad music fades, good music stays. That's one reason why, when you think back to the sixties and seventies, you remember the good stuff, but when you look at today's music, you'll have a hard time picking the good stuff out from all the junk that is produced. Look again in ten years, and the dirt will have eroded away, leaving the gems exposed.

There are other influences, of course. I believe that the culture in general is headed for more "immediate satisfaction", which requires more music to be produced, and quality suffers from the quantity.

Also, I think people listen to music more. Before the walkman came out, you were limited to listening to music at home or in places where music was played. Switching music meant manually changing the tape or LP or whatever medium was used. Nowadays the portable MP3 players store hundreds of hours of music, and so do the non-portable ones, so you can effectively listen to music non-stop.
More listening to music means the songs get old faster. Which means you need new songs. Again, quantity over quality - even "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (in my opinion the best song ever written) gets old if you listen to it twice every day.

**Shaun32887** · 06-18-2008

I think the problem is that you're looking mainly at mainstream music. While there are some jems to be found (personally I'm a big fan of anything Billy Howerdel oh Danny Lohner does), there's always some good stuff under the surface. As a 21 year old musician myself, I've wondered the same thing, the music of my generation seems to have no longevity, the "hits" come and go like the seasons. No one pulls out old albums of any major artist, they chew them up like gum and spit them to the trash after their flavor runs out. But, if you look hard enough you can always find something good. King's X is a good example. They exist right under the surface, and in my opinion, are a great band. Solid structure, great musical proficiency, SOLID guitar work, catchy riffs, soulful vocals... I can go on for days. The problem is, the people in the band aren't young idiot kids, so they'll never get TV spots.

So what's going on? Alex Lifeson (mighta been Geddy or Niel, but I think it was alex) once said that if the industry worked like it does now back when they got started, Rush would be unheard of. Why? Industries used to sign a band for 2 or three albums. They started off as a niche and gradually their appeal broadened. Today, if a band's first single flops, goodbye. It's very frustrating, but it's all money driven.

So what's the solution? Take money out of the equation.

www.myspace.com

Originally designed for musicians, that site is slowly weakening the grip thatthe media has on us. Radio? Forget it, Clear Channel owns everything and will soon play nothing other than hip hop and R&B. Justin Timberlake on every station. TV? When's the last time you saw a music video on MTV? No, go to the internet. With the power of social networking and instant communications, the internet is the new platform. The best music of this generation will probably be found streaming for free. There's no record company to taint the artists vision, and any kid with a guitar, mic and computer can be heard by millions. Granted there's a lot to sift through, but if you want good music, you've gotta put in some work. www.pandora.com is a great site too.

That was very long for a first post, but it's a topic I feel pretty strongly about. Sorry if I rambled a bit. My name's Shaun, I'm new here. I guess I'll go introduce myself...

Edit: I didn't see the extra pages of discussion, my mistake. Sorry if anything I touched on has been remarked upon already.

**Mario F.** · 06-18-2008

Well, thank you very much for your thoughts Shaun. And welcome.
Curious about Pandora...

**BMJ** · 06-18-2008

Definitely going to give a shout-out to Pandora. I've picked up a lot of great music thanks to it. Though, it does take some time to "teach" the stations properly.

**idelovski** · 06-19-2008

Originally Posted by CornedBee

More listening to music means the songs get old faster. Which means you need new songs. Again, quantity over quality - even "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (in my opinion the best song ever written) gets old if you listen to it twice every day.

Well, you really struck a cord with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", at least for me.

I have that song on my car's current mp3 mix. Re-mastered version from the recent Love album. I liked that song when I was kid and I like it now. Usually, I play it twice. Harrison did only a few songs, but all of them were really something.

But, yes, you have a point - I made a very long pause, I don't think I have listened to that song even once between 1986/7 and 2007 when I bought Love out of curiosity.

**cyberfish** · 06-22-2008

Wow. Such a long thread and no one has mentioned classical music, yet. Unless I missed it, of course, my apologies then. The conductor of an orchestra that I play in told us that, what we consider classical music today, used to be popular music back then, 3 or 4 hundred years ago. People would welcome someone like Rossini to town to stage a live performance of "classical music". And they have their fans that would cheer for them, just like how "musicians" nowadays do. I wonder what has changed since then.

I love classical music, and no, I don't have crazy musical background. And I am 18

. So while Mario you have a generation gap between you and your daughter, I have one with most people of my own age.

Oh and I agree modern pop is largely garbage. Most of them have little musical content, and nonsense lyrics. When I listen to music I have a tendency to ignore the lyric (if there is one), and actually listen for the music. With modern pop, I can't. There is nothing underneath those spoken words, except maybe constant drum-rolls.

I guess I listen to music many many generations earlier than everyone here

.

**Mario F.** · 06-22-2008

I pretty sure most everyone here enjoys classical music. Some more, some less, but all agreeing it's an enthralling experience. My favorites are Eastern European and Russian composers, my favorite epoch is the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and my all-time favorite composer is perhaps Tchaikovsky, but certainly being unfair on all accounts since I can really enjoy about any composer from any time period and location from Giovanni Palestrina, to Michael Edgerton, spanning 5 centuries, 3 continents and 5 periods.

The topic however, was more to do with mainstream contemporary music styles

**indigo0086** · 06-22-2008

I don't enjoy classical as much as I do modern Orchestrial music. I like classical and it even has roots in genres you'd never think they did (jazz being one of them) but I like the more modern stuff.