Re: [ARSCLIST] Are we at the end of the road musically??

[Steven Barr <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

see end...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Cox" <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> On 06/10/06, Mwcpc6@xxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> > Whatever people call music, it is entirely a creation of the mind of
> > the individual, molded (programmed) by that person's lifetime
> > listening experience, which may, but nowadays likely will not, include
> > historical musical forms. 
> 
> I think it always will, but "history" for a person who is young now means
> the 1970s and 80s. I think most will go back at least as far as Hendrix.
> 
> > This may be related to the time of early
> > life when language can be easily learned. 
> 
> I think the music you hear as a young child has a big influence. For
> someone who is 20 this year, that would be what was on the radio in
> 1978-84.
> 
> > Certainly most of the
> > current new music, popular and serious, is as unintelligible to me as
> > a foreign language. But jazz and even the waltz were thought such by
> > the older generations of their times.
> 
> I think it was Rimsky who said of Debussy's music "Better not to hear
> it. You would only get used to it, and you could end up liking it." 
> 
Interesting...because I have little interest in the actual music of my
youth (except for the fact that my father had about 2-300 78's, which
I was allowed to play at a very young age!).

My musical favourites, in no particular order:

1) Blues...I didn't hear this until I was 16 or 17, and it was NOT
   popular among my contemporaries!

2) Just about any "pop" recordings from the 189?-1935 era...especially
   music of the twenties, and the 1930-34 "hotel band" era. Again, I
   didn't hear this in my youth...in fact, not until I was into my
   thirties!

3) "Hillbilly" of the thirties and forties. However, I did grow up
   with this to a certain extent...most of Waynesville listened to
   the nearest radio station, which played only that!

4) The rock music of the later sixties and into the seventies, when
   "disco" took over. To explain this, I'd have to go into detail
   about my past...suffice it to say that it was a "second youthhood"
   for me, so there is some nostalgia-based interest.

5) Live "Dixieland"...particularly that based on New Orleans Revival
   Jazz (as well as records thereof). I've loved this music as far back
   as I can recall hearing it (IIRC, on a handful of "Dukes of Dixieland"
   LP's I picked up cheaply somewhere).

6) "Big Band" or "Swing" music. To some extent, I did grow up with this,
   since my father was more or less "stuck" in that era of his past (too
   long a story to tell!)

My NON-favourites?

1) Anything that could be called "Middle Of the Road" or "Easy Listening."
   That is, Mantovani, 101 Strings, and all the artists who sound like
   that! To me, this fits Gertrude Stein's cliche..."There is no "there"
   there!" Simply, music intended not to affect its listeners...

2) Opera. I simply don't have enough knowledge, and am too old to have
   the necessary time to acquire it!

3) Virtually all current music...rap, hip-hop (and all the obscure
   varieties thereof), "urban dance," and punk/neo-punk/"new wave."
   Not because I dislike it...I simply don't hear enough in it to
   be worth the effort of liking it! The "urban" styles are simply
   bad impressions of James Brown (usually computer-driven)...and,
   to my ears, the punk/neo-punk stylists, in trying to "remove
   all the extra stuff" from music, got carried away and tended to
   remove anything of interest! Further, the original point of the
   music was to demonstrate to Ms. Thatcher that all the young
   people from whom she had removed ant means of support simply
   had nothing left to do but play music...however badly that
   turned out! Thus, bad was good...

Now, what all this proves I dunno...

Steven C. Barr