[NewMusic] Braxton on FOX

[andrew raffo dewar]

> On Mon Oct  2 08:48:14 2006, tedbrinkley at sbcglobal.net  wrote:
> anyone getting HS kids even a little
> exposure to different way of organizing and thinking
> about sound is to be commended, and commended again
> for putting it on TV.

Of course it's great that it happened at all, and exposing kids to this 
kind of material is to be commended.  (I've done that myself with 4 yr. 
olds up to university students, so clearly it's not that I'm against 
using this stuff in an institutional context)

Basically, my reservations with the performance are epitomized in the 
trumpet solo -- instead of having the kid attempt to reproduce Leo 
Smith's 30 yr. old solo, why not help him develop his own relationship 
to the piece and create his own statement? Sure, it's possible the 
director did that and that's what the kid came up with, but that 
wouldn't be where I'd put my money.

Symbolically, it reminds me a bit of this performance of Cage's 4'33" 
(though it is *nowhere near* as bad as this, which was performed by a 
'professional' orchestra):
http://tinyurl.com/rqmqa

So, it is Cage's 4'33", and it is being exposed to a large audience via 
BBC television -- but is that really good enough? In this case, it's 
not given even remotely the same respect as a performance of Mozart or 
what have you -- notice the conductor mopping his brow and the 
resultant chuckles at the 3 minute mark.

Is it really doing the music a service simply by having it pass through 
a larger number of eyes and ears, regardless of the context and 
execution?

I guess I think of it like the difference between water purified 
through layers of rock over the course of years versus using a kitchen 
counter pitcher-type water filter -- you can drink both, but there is a 
fundamental difference between the two resulting liquids, how they were 
produced, and what nourishment you get from them.

Andrew