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To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

It seems to me that, yes, even on this great musical site(a four page discussion on accoutics""), there seems to be, like everywhere in the world of music, excessive, and even pointless analysis of things that, at the end of the day mean nothing.
The simple question that must be addressed is that why when reading the writtings of the great composers, there is clarity and sense, when on the other hand when reading the great players or musical academics, there is no sense, and in fact the writtings upom most subjects of musical conception-theory, harmony, meter, technique, and the like, written by the best in the field are crappy, nonsensical, and for the most part not very helpful. Check this out for yourself-go to your local library and check out even a basic book on music and you will find it to be mostly pointless. The most we know of Bach, and upon the brown of his own views comes down to the simple point of putting the fingers in the right place at the right time, yet when one reads a musical analysis by a great harvard man on Bach, there is hundreds of pages of nonsensical rubbish, every measure is unclearly analyzed to the point where you do not know what is going on after the first page of the commentary. Yet when Bach speaks it is simple and downright concise, practice and develop the feel, in other words gain confidence through rigourous practice, and henceforth the key and eternal element of music will arise and that is instinct. A biologist may think that they know the wolf, yet are they one.AH"""
Another simple example of this argument is this-video games-you may have played a very physical video game where only practice dicatates the move, and someone watches and says-man-how do you do that-well the person perfoming the move has no answer-for it is now part of the subconcious mind. The mechanism of perfoming this great move is now encoded in the instinctual apparatus of the brain, thus leaving the peformer at a loss for words, I dont know how I do it, I just can.
Thus we are dealing with hundreds of years of musicology written by generations of musicologists who have no real feel for the instinctual underpinnings of what a great composer thinks or really feels, they believe that the composer like themselves were musical robots, devoid of feeling and filled with analysis, scrutininizing every note as if music was written in only one way. Yet Bach and all the rest were inventive, mystic, extremely imaginitive, and of course spontaneous in there music. Thus the anylytic aproach employed by our payed genuises at the universities is largely masterbatory material, or at best it is meaningless.
Thus to conclude this newest rant, remember play, think playing, and question, yet never microscopically analyize your playing; all that this exercize will do is lead to doubt, and double tracking. You will find no certain answers for as we have found all along is that the greatest lesson of music is its mystical subjectivity, and not it scientific certainty. If we try to give music a one and done formula it will cease to exist. Thus feel music, for god sakes dont think it.
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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/6/2010 6:02 AM

Charley Shipman (2699) wrote:

Agreed on the mystical properties of Music. I rarely think about music unless I am trying to come up with complementary parts for a tune I am recording. Other than that, it is all instinct, intuition, and an abundance of feeling the Spirit of Music, trying to open myself to that reality, the life and blood of the Creative that exists outside of myself as a cosmic phenomenon. I am merely a receptor when I am in a good collected state of being.

Robert Fripp has many things to say about this, and from such a heady and analytical person, I completely trust that what he has to offer about this is true. Open to the Friend that is Music.

Thanks for your thoughts Jon. This aspect of Music is of paramount importance, and often gets totally lost in the hubbub of the typical.



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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/6/2010 3:26 PM

Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:

the life and blood of the Creative that exists outside of myself as a cosmic phenomenon. I am merely a receptor when I am in a good collected state of being"
Notice here Charles how I placed your own words at the fore front of this response, because of the great girth that is being presented in these words. You nailed it, as did Christ many years ago when he said, what is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of spirit is spirit, and this comment coupled with your great insight, creates what we call a beautiful dillema. On one hand we have the words of Aquinas, who believed in the ladder of the mind, reason and logic is the ladder to god, and there is some truth to this, yet what did Christ say-Open not your mind, but rather your heart. This is the key note statement to our great issue at hand. You said something very intersting as well hidden in the text-IAM MERELY A RECEPTOR-This is it-now here is the great paradox-on one hand we are talking of a dependency almost a puppet like existence, however if one is at the end of gods string,one is at the end of a string that brings about infinity, beauty,justice,mercy, love, and an inifinte array of imaginitive concepts and variations. Remember just because we are at the end of gods string does not mean we understand the puppet master, or for that matter, are even dependent, for god is beyond all conception, thus to be in servitude to that which has no conception makes even the puppet free, for the master is bound by no such concepts as slave, greed, lust, money, and the like, these are material concepts; thus when we recieve these messages, for we can not as puppets,or as humans, really understand the motive of the master, we still recieve the instruction, and in a sense, the veiled visages of the cosmic plan, yet we can not quantify it logically because it is beyond our conception. Thus the fault of trying to analyze inspiration or instinct once again comes to the fray, all that is needed is the idea, or faith in the idea that god is the master of the string, it is a simple boundles leap, with no needed analytic tools to quantify it, for it can not be quantified.
Thus we return to the idea of wasted time and energy, quantifying faith, when we all know faith and mysticsym can not be quantified. Yes material things can be quantified, yet music is not material, you can see the instrument, of course, wether it be a piano or bass, yet can we see the note fly through the air, never. Music is not dependent on any material edifice such as money, or even scientific rationalism, it is not material, thus, in our modern attempts to make music material, we are killing the very nature of what makes music music. We are trying to dust the air, so as to find it, when air is air.



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Now for some FRIPPY WORDS:

2/6/2010 3:42 PM

Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:

charley, once again your great comments, are food for thought, and that is why this site can be so great. It is these timeless musical debates that sometimes rise to the surface. Now you mentioned who-OH, Robert Fripp. Well being that I am a seasoned CRIMSONITE, I have reflected on Robert for many years. First believe or not my favorite album is LIZARD. I also loved every albuum untill discipline. (TO ALL BASS PLAYERS PLEASE EARLY JOHN WETTON IS A MUST READ)
Now let us get mean. Robert Fripp is proabably one of the more ecletic guitarist to ever hit the stage, and of course, one of the most creative and raw. Yet, what of him as a person. Well he had, in all honesty two of the best bands in history, the GREG LAKE lineup and the WETTON lineup, yet at every turn his arrogance and downright allufness to all humanity, made it impossible for him to sustain either one. Even himself, when describing the great In the Court, he described a magical fairy that was always present, yet when the second album came around there was no fairy, rather the band dissolved and Roberts arrogance and need for constant innovation moved the band to another direction, with sloppy and forgetable results. He treated Greg LAke like a second hand citizen, wanted to kill Gordon Haskel, and even realized that John Wetton was not good enough to be around. All the simplicity of the great albums dissapeared with the inception of Levin, and Trey Gunn, the music on Dinosaur, Thrak, and Construction of Light, are so ecelectic and technical that it ceases to be music, and his musical expiraments with Eno are nauseating at best. What happened to the great organic simplicity of the early albums? Well technicality became the calling card, music was a secondary, if acidental result, and a result the rarely if ever occured. Robert Fripp commited the vile crime of making music an exercize soley in technique and the spirit magically died with it.



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Re: Now for some FRIPPY WORDS:

2/6/2010 3:57 PM

Charley Shipman (2699) wrote:

Not sure I understand, but I think listening to some of Robert's "Soundscapes" CDs might lend a different light. My personal favorites are "A Blessing of Tears", and "At the End of Time".

I have met Robert on several occasions, and I assure you he is no longer a snobbish arrogant practitioner of an exercise alone. (if he ever was completely).

If I misunderstand your words, please excuse.



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Re: Now for some FRIPPY WORDS:

2/6/2010 4:26 PM

Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:

Charley no need, the fact that you met him affords you a great deal of merrit, and not to stalk you or nothing but I read your homepage, and a brother of philosophy is never wrong. Yet, I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I hear advanced mask, or Swastika Girls. If it was not for in the court, maybe I would have seen things differently, yet because that album was made, I just find it hard to digest the new stuff(POST WETTON). It is like comparing the FLOYD's wall to a Saucerfull of Secrets, the real album is Saucerful here, the wall was just a vain representation of a band that strayed way to far from there original roots, same in my opinion with Robert, I feel he has advanced beyond any thing that I wish to hear. However there is hope at the light of this tunnel, and that is if Liszt, towards the end of his life, can tire of all the bravada and technical displays and decided to go with a more simple, organic, and even childish approach to his compostion,thus the question becomes is Robert Fripp cabalbe of this self criticism-if any one is it Robert Fripp



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Now for a word on greg lake

2/6/2010 4:34 PM

Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:

First to be traded for P.A equipment is enought to drive a man crazy, but the fact that Greg went from playing with Fripp, to an even more explosive personality, Keith Emerson is astounding. Can you imagine all the s###t he must have tooken playing with an eloof guitar genuis, and then graduating to a classically trained virtuoso whose ideas would have been overwhelming to a musician who was never really trained, it is trully a great story. Keith in a lot of ways is the polar opposite of Robert, where Robert would lazily sit in a chair, cradled behind the amplifiers, Keith would bash, crash, and put on technological feats of exhibitionism, then you add a humlbe soft spoken singer slash bassist, who really, at the end of the day, had the heart of a folky is odd, and this man spanned two of the greatest bands in the prog era.

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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/6/2010 12:17 PM

Ed LeFave (29795) wrote:

In the simplest of terms...sometimes it's easier
to just do than to explain

Was at the music store one day,grabbed a bass and
was noodling while talking to the owner
An acquaintance popped in and sat beside me
watching my technique as I was engaged in convo
with the store owner,all the while noodling away.
First thing the acquaintance stops me and
says,"Whoa,whoa,whoa.......what did you just do
there ???...It looks like you ~~~then I got lost
in the scale/interval/sequence analysis~~~~Why did
you do it that way??"
I was confused.....
Dude,I have no clue...was just noodling
:)

Peace Ed



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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/6/2010 3:53 PM

Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:

My good freind, the mother of all invention is that sort of noodling. Bach did not sort out all the techincality of his music beforhand, it was a spontaneous eruption arising from tinkering-Oh, this is cool, I wonder what I could do with this. You got it my freind:

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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/6/2010 3:29 PM

David Muise (15739) wrote:

Is your point that Music Theory is meaningless completely or more like Monday morning quarterbacking?



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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/6/2010 3:49 PM

Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:

Dave that is a great question? I will try to answer for my own rant. Let us take an Acorn. Well from sight we know it is an acorn, we know what it does, and what it should do, yet do we arrive any more information about the essence of the acorn by putting it under a microscope, and magnifying it a million times, now not really. We are still left to the conclusion that the acorn is still an acorn. Thus theory is, of course essential, but to magnify it a thousand times to the point of confusion is listless and stupid, and this is the great error of modern musical analyis, and perhaps even science itself. We are becoming so scientific in our endeavors that we forget the fact that it is just an acorn, and focus on the blurred microscopic visage of it, and what ensues is a confused concept of what the acorn is, the same with music.



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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/6/2010 4:27 PM

David Muise (15739) wrote:

I missed your answer within your post.

I'm very reluctant to toss the entirety of Music Theory due to it's over-application by some. It's a tool, one that can be used & misused.



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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/6/2010 4:40 PM

Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:

O.k I got it, let us simplify-Analysis is good, yet overdoing it blurs the truth, thus an over analytic approach to music, technique and the like, kills the very nature of the intent. When you see things in such a microscopic pitch you are not seeing it at all, that is the problem. Theory is a must, overdoing theory, a thing, that at the end of the day, is relativly simple, is confusing, and even counter productive. Dave you are asking great questions on a very important philosophical issue.



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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/6/2010 4:49 PM

Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:

Dave I forgot to say something in response to your great questions-you gave me a hidden meaning in your respose-"I'm very reluctant to toss the entirety of Music Theory" I totally and completly agree, and I wish not for you to do that, for theory is the road map, yet modern musical academia is taking the map and putting it under an ion microscope and analyzing that, and using that as the basis for conclusions. Now let us say Dave, one day you are driving on a sunday cruise, and you are lost, and you have a map-Now do you look at the map with your eyes or with an ion microscope, and if you did use a microscope would you be better of finding your place of destination, than if you just used your eyes. The map is great, seeing under a microscope is pointless.



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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/7/2010 6:57 PM

David Muise (15739) wrote:

Thanks Jon. I do feel it's important to keep Theory in an appropriate perspective. But that perspective can change, even within a song. Sometimes that microscope is the most appropriate tool. Sometimes though; not always.

Someone herein (Barney, IIRC) gave a neat definition-ish thing of Music Theory as a collection of the more common & better-sounding (very poor terming, but please try to read through my poor terming there) 'paths'. Theory was distilled by practice & is a summation of a great many experiences by a great many musicians. Like the 5th tends to be a lot more melodic within a composition than the flattened 5th. (Well, it truly does, but that doesn't mean nor should it be extended to mean that 'melodic' is where a particular piece of music should go at that point.) It's important to keep in mind that this is Music Theory & not Music Law.

It's also important to keep in mind that theories can, should, & do evolve. Not knowing the details of the items you refer to makes it hard to judge if this is part of the evolution; an attempt to determine WHY a particular piece of beauty IS beautiful. I personally believe you will never pin 'beauty' down completely but that you can better understand WHY something is beautiful. And then share this understanding with others who can then create a greater percentage of 'beauty' in the world.

We can learn how to better measure something. It's also true that there are some who believe if you can't measure it then it cannot exist.



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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/8/2010 3:32 PM

Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:

Dave, i feel, within the bearing of my soul, that you nailed it: A very complex issue of philosophy, and to a degree Psychology, we have tackled quite well, great responses from all.



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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)

2/8/2010 5:57 PM

David Muise (15739) wrote:

Also leads to a good inquiry to what Science is & isn't.

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