Re: [ARSCLIST] the origin of scratchin'

[Karl Miller <karl.miller@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

James L Wolf <jwol@xxxxxxx> wrote:
   
  In response to Dave Lewis...
    ***Again, I refer you to the original question. What you, Christian
Marclay, John Cage and and other non-hip-hop people may have done with turntables might be historically significant or not from our vantage point today. But, historically, it also has nothing to do with hip-hop or the turntable techniques which were being developed in the South Bronx in the early 1970s.
   
  And Don Andes in response to Tom Fine...
  
***It is just as likely that someone played an augmented chord on a harpsichord/piano days soon after the instrument was invented, yet augmented chords didn't get properly "discovered" until over a hundred years later.
  
***It's a common logical falacy to assert that precedence equals influence (or some variety of that). 
   
  To which I respond...
   
  Did a tone cluster become a tone cluster when it was used by Henry Cowell or Ives, or was it a tone cluster when it was used by Rebel in his work the Elements or when used by Scarlatti in one of his Sonatas? Was the tone row invented by Lassus in his Prophetae Sibyllarum? Is the "Tristan" chord the defining moment in the history of the augmented sixth chord?
   
  I guess the point I have been trying to make (obviously without success), and question I have tried to raise,  is what is the significance of the notion of "firsts" within the context of an intellectual and historical discourse devoted to creative expression?
   
  James Wolf adds in his response to Dave Lewis: 

  ***You clearly have a personal axe to grind on this issue. To be fair, so do I. Even thirty years down the road, hip-hop is not afforded much respect from the gate-keepers of "serious" music. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard it dismissed by classical scholars and the like as "noise" or some other equivilant of the "jungle music" epithet jazz got thrown at it in the twenties. 
   
  ***Even on this list, some people feel it is unseemly for the Library of Congress to include hip-hop records on its National Recording Registry. I leave it to others to figure out why there might such prejudice against this uniquely American art form.
   
  As for feeling like an outsider...welcome to the club. I happen to think that some of the American "classical music" composers of the late 19th and early 20th Century are amongst the greatest composers since Beethoven. I also believe, one of the composers I cited, Stefan Wolpe, to be one of the towering giants of 20th Century music. 
   
  Having spent the bulk of my life in academe, I have developed the perspective that the legitimatization of any art form is the quickest way to its quantification, and, ultimately, its demise as a form of human expression.
   
  Actually, when you come to think of it, having your stuff called noise puts you in the company of people like Varese...not bad company from my perspective. 
   
  Karl