From: utzoo!utcsrgv!elf Newsgroups: net.music Title: Re: Overintellectualising Music Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.947 Posted: Mon Jan 31 11:18:01 1983 Received: Mon Jan 31 11:29:58 1983 References: watmath.4435 cbostrum's illustration of how some artists are attempting to redefine the traditional listener/performer relationship was very good. There is little to add to that except that the technology to which our listening environment is linked, i.e. records, turntables, etc., impose obvious limits wrt how much this relationship can be altered. There's only so much one can do. I've noticed an unconscious change in the way I listen to a lot of music: as sensation, form, and process--very much the Reichian spirit of things. Do we all listen modally? That is, I have different listening modes for pop, blues, classical, and funny music. On "minimalism", I don't know. I mean, you read record reviewers who say that your average white boy pop band has "African influence", which seems to mean that the drummer happens to bang on a Ghanian drum every once in a while. I believe Reich called himself a "structuralist", not a "minimalist". Just listen to his new album, "Tehillim", and you'll see the problems in labelling a composer. Oh sure, Tehillim has repeated phrases, etc., but the musical devices employed are right out of the Renaissance: imitation, canon, augmentation, etc. And there's lots of melody to boot. Yet the album feels like a logical progression for Reich. It's all a very clever synthesis of old forms using new processes. I think I'll keep on calling this kind of music "funny music". The adjectives "new", "avant-garde", "contemporary", etc. just don't cut it. "Funny music" sounds neither pretentious nor overly-intellectual, and it illustrates the general spirit I tend to have when I approach the music. I remember what the Penguin Cassette Guide had to say about Reich's "Drumming": "frankly, I think some listeners may not be able to take this work seriously". How can a reviewer be completely misguided yet somehow (accidentally) be vaguely correct? Eugene Fiume utcsrgv!elf U of Toronto