[NewMusic] slusser's article

[David Slusser]

On Oct 4, 2007, at 12:48 PM, Jacob Lindsay wrote:
> Thanks for the review.  I saw that book at the store a
> couple weeks back.  It looked interesting but
> ultimately I didn't buy it b/c it looked like most of
> the musical references made were to pop music.  I
> wasn't sure if I would be able to translate this into
> information that would be useful for me.
>
> Also, I'm not sure I buy your equation of textural
> innovation in pop music to textural innovation in
> improvised music, since per your example in the first
> instance, it seems to be an attempt to fill in a gap
> left by the dumbing-down of popular music, were in the
> case of later seems to be dues to a conscious move
> away from idiomatic references.

I was hoping someone would take the bait.  (Seriously, I
want to encourage more folks to submit content to the
Transbay so we have more to talk about here.)  First,
read the book (This Is Your Brain On Music).  The pop
references are few and fleeting - I was totally unfamiliar
with most of them, and the author's explanations are
so clear that you don't need them.  It's way more about
the workings of the brain, and I had an "a-ha" moment
every few pages.

As for my provocative "equating", I merely said I wasn't
surprised at the parallel rise of tone, timbre and texture
in both pop and contemporary improv.  For that matter,
it has also occurred in so called "classical" music.  Maybe
a generation earlier it swept through painting.  I think a
case can be made where this is a phenomenon of art in
our particular time.

On the surface, how pop and improv both moved in that
direction don't appear closely related, yet those and every
thing else seems to have moved that way anyway - so I
think it bears closer inspection.  How pop music got
"dumbed down" had more to do with emerging mass
media and marketing than the hapless musicians involved.
The point the author (Daniel Levitin) makes is that tone,
timbre and texture became the last reserve for musical
creativity in that field.  (Sound familiar, improvisers?)

The conscious move away from idiomatic references in
improvised music was also a move for more creativity.
To me the seeds are easy to see in the fundamental
jazz tenet that exalts originality above all else - you
have to have your own sound.  Of course, in jazz,
there were social forces that led African-Americans
to abandon previous idioms as well.  This all happened
while I was coming up as a musician and improviser,
and certainly not all at once.  Today, we have "non-
idiomatic improvisation" as an actual defined idiom
you can chose to adopt, where it works as long as you
don't make an idiomatic reference.  (This can be just
another straight jacket, and conveniently, you also don't
need technical knowledge of other established
idioms, but I digress...)  This was not so clear back in
the day.  Perhaps the relation in all these cases is that
over-use and exposure of all art in the post/neo
information age has made the more fundamental and
non-referential elements a pan-artistic refuge.

Reading the book, you're compelled to reference your
own experience.  Experience is also what the book
reveals to be fundamental to what each of us defines
as music, perhaps the "chilling" element Weasel refers
to.  Non-idiomatic improvisation will never be music to
the masses.  According to the research, you're only
going to get that shot of dopamine when a musician
tickles something you're already familiar with.  That
pretty much narrows it down to musical explorers and
"tone scientists" (to borrow from Sun Ra).  As I concluded
in my review, we may be the only audience for our music.