« Return to Thread: Paul Lansky pulls the plug
Re: Paul Lansky pulls the plug
by Don Craig
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I had forgotten how much fun it is to have a discussion with someone
with such a different viewpoint.
I think we are going to wind up agreeing to disagree.
> I hate this attitude. My position has absolutely nothing to do with
> capitulating to an audience's limited conception of what good music is
> (or can be).
>
> I'm at work now and I don't have time to thrash it out further at the
> moment. I'll say for now that I suspect "giving them what they think
> they want" has a bit of the smell of the straw man about it.
Straw man? Possibly, but I was thinking of Adorno's "Culture Industry"
and making a general
observation, not one specifically about your practice.
(Let me add here, that I don't claim to be free of the negative
impacts and influences of the culture industry. My
high horse, such as it is, is really just a brightly painted rocking
horse.)
>> My original post was prompted by some mild irritation at the
>> implicit notion that the 'Academy' is inauthentic...
>
> Often it is, but sometimes it's absolutely the real thing. I've heard
> great stuff in concert halls -- including acousmatic stuff like Trevor
> Wishart's Vox-5 in quad (scared the crap out of me) and Lansky's Ride
> (a wide-ranging journey).
Throw in my general irritation with the whole notion of authenticity,
which is so slippery and amorphous, and just
an aggravation to deal with, if one is honest about it.
>> , that one measures authenticity by the number of people who show up.
>
> Whoa, there. I *never* said that. I think you are reading something
> into my post that isn't there.
Again, this is not directed at you specifically. However, a social
activity does require people to show up, no?
If only one person shows, is this sufficient? Is the music just as
valuable, or less, or more?
>
> I realize that what I posted is utopian in the truest sense of the
> word - it can never happen! - but I find it valuable to get myself out
> of some easy habits of mind. Scott (scacinto)'s criticism is right on
> target, but even there some assumptions remain - that the point is for
> the audience to appreciate *my* care in preparing the work, that they
> should appreciate it all from start to finish (because it's *mine* and
> if they hear only part of it, it's somehow an insult to *me*), that
> *my* work should be the central focus - *my* *my* *my*. I think there
> is value in questioning those assumptions. Whether the result of that
> questioning is purely free of ego or not... I don't really care. But
> part of what artists do is to imagine something that doesn't exist
> yet, and I don't want to limit that imagination to the sonic product.
Okay, so now who's building straw men? I don't know any composers who
feel this way. (Admittedly, I can't see into their heart of hearts!) I
agree with
the real points here. I think we both have utopian notions but differ
on what
it should look like. Yours somehow reminds me of American Idol (yeesh!)
and mine is probably the well-heeled, holding a snifter of brandy, and
pissing
and moaning about the decay of civilization!
I don't know that there are any points to actually respond to in this
post. We may have reached that
point of agreeable disagreement.
Don
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with such a different viewpoint.
I think we are going to wind up agreeing to disagree.
> I hate this attitude. My position has absolutely nothing to do with
> capitulating to an audience's limited conception of what good music is
> (or can be).
>
> I'm at work now and I don't have time to thrash it out further at the
> moment. I'll say for now that I suspect "giving them what they think
> they want" has a bit of the smell of the straw man about it.
Straw man? Possibly, but I was thinking of Adorno's "Culture Industry"
and making a general
observation, not one specifically about your practice.
(Let me add here, that I don't claim to be free of the negative
impacts and influences of the culture industry. My
high horse, such as it is, is really just a brightly painted rocking
horse.)
>> My original post was prompted by some mild irritation at the
>> implicit notion that the 'Academy' is inauthentic...
>
> Often it is, but sometimes it's absolutely the real thing. I've heard
> great stuff in concert halls -- including acousmatic stuff like Trevor
> Wishart's Vox-5 in quad (scared the crap out of me) and Lansky's Ride
> (a wide-ranging journey).
Throw in my general irritation with the whole notion of authenticity,
which is so slippery and amorphous, and just
an aggravation to deal with, if one is honest about it.
>> , that one measures authenticity by the number of people who show up.
>
> Whoa, there. I *never* said that. I think you are reading something
> into my post that isn't there.
Again, this is not directed at you specifically. However, a social
activity does require people to show up, no?
If only one person shows, is this sufficient? Is the music just as
valuable, or less, or more?
>
> I realize that what I posted is utopian in the truest sense of the
> word - it can never happen! - but I find it valuable to get myself out
> of some easy habits of mind. Scott (scacinto)'s criticism is right on
> target, but even there some assumptions remain - that the point is for
> the audience to appreciate *my* care in preparing the work, that they
> should appreciate it all from start to finish (because it's *mine* and
> if they hear only part of it, it's somehow an insult to *me*), that
> *my* work should be the central focus - *my* *my* *my*. I think there
> is value in questioning those assumptions. Whether the result of that
> questioning is purely free of ego or not... I don't really care. But
> part of what artists do is to imagine something that doesn't exist
> yet, and I don't want to limit that imagination to the sonic product.
Okay, so now who's building straw men? I don't know any composers who
feel this way. (Admittedly, I can't see into their heart of hearts!) I
agree with
the real points here. I think we both have utopian notions but differ
on what
it should look like. Yours somehow reminds me of American Idol (yeesh!)
and mine is probably the well-heeled, holding a snifter of brandy, and
pissing
and moaning about the decay of civilization!
I don't know that there are any points to actually respond to in this
post. We may have reached that
point of agreeable disagreement.
Don
_______________________________________________
sc-users mailing list
info (subscribe and unsubscribe): http://swiki.hfbk-hamburg.de:8888/MusicTechnology/880
archive: http://www.listarc.bham.ac.uk/marchives/sc-users/
search: http://www.listarc.bham.ac.uk/lists/sc-users/search/
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