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From: gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Lack of Elevated Cilium
Message-ID: <443@lasspvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 16:22:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: lasspvax.443
Posted: Wed Aug  7 16:22:20 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 21:38:30 EDT
References: <1306@eagle.UUCP>
Reply-To: gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor)
Distribution: net
Organization: LASSP, Cornell University
Lines: 48

In article <1306@eagle.UUCP> prem@eagle.UUCP (Swami Devanbu) writes:

>Christopher Lasch says that minimal music, with its focus
>purely on the nature of sound, with the exclusion of personal
>expression, is a symptom of the primary narcissism of  our
>times.. a reluctance to accept the essential sovereignity and
>seprateness of the self. Do you agree ? I don't. One could,
>contrariwise argue that letting sounds (or brushstrokes, or
>phrases) run wanton is a sign of a deeper kind of self
>awareness.. the kind that dares to elucidate the deeper
>levels of conciousness in artistic forms WITHOUT having
>them filtered by cognitive processes.

Okay, I'll bite. It's drivel, but not a form of drivel that I haven't heard
before. Usually, the critique of Minimalism comes from the theorists of the
Left, who'd do the standard Adorno-esque reading of the thing. There is just
such a book (out in Dutch, unfortunately-though I've heard that the British
composer Michael Nyman is translating it. I saw it in Dutch) written by a
Belgian named Wim Mertens. I'd also suppose that some of the underlying
presuppositions (that an artistic experience that is in some way connected
to the mechanisms of perception has the net effect of making one aware of
oneself rather than the experience, for example....) might well be subject
to the charge of ethnocentrism on a grand scale. The culture of Narcissism
is, from my memory of it, shot through with just that sort of short-sightedness.Not what anyone ever said that mounting a major cultural critique was easy,
mind you.

I tried the same argument with Adorno's analysis of Wagner and the authoritarian personality in net.music.classical, and got barbequed for it from all the
closet Romantics out there. You want excitement, try it again.

If you're interested in looking into a decent presentation of semi-current
experimental music, Scribners (Schirmer actually, though Scribners distributes
the thing) has re-issued Michael Nymans "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond"
I cannot recommend the thing highly enough. It is largely free of the sort of
bias one often finds in writing on contemporary culture (contenting itself
to merely describe what is/was being done and the motives for such work), and
concentrates on a particular area in which there is very little collected
and intelligent writing. THere's also a wealth of information about non-
American types, which is also refreshing. Try it.

Greg
-- 
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I recognize no method of living that I know/I see only the basic materials I mayuse./If you ask me, I may tell you/It's bee this way for years. -David Sylvian
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Gregory Alan Taylor:162 Clark Hall:Cornell University:Ithaca,NY 14850:USA
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