I don’t feel the need to @#$g@$ about this. But, here’s a little commentary, anyway.
The June In Buffalo Festival is always a showcase for music that doesn’t get heard very often in non-academic settings.
That’s funny, because the concert took place IN an academic setting. What a perfect venue to play this...this (nose upturned)...meeooosick: SUNY, Buffalo.
It is a nearly weeklong extravaganza of works that seek to broach boundaries, looking over the edge, as it were, and peering into the abyss.
New music is not, you hear me?, NOT abyss-mal. Here’s my trusty OAD, yet once again, if you don’t believe me:
abyss (noun)—a deep or seemingly bottomless cavern: a rope led down into the dark abyss/ figurative I was stagnating in an abyss of boredom; figurative the regions of hell conceived of as a bottomless pit: Satan’s dark abyss; (the abyss) figurative a catastrophic situation seen as likely to occur: teetering on the edge of the abyss of a total political wipeout. Origin late Middle English (in the sense [infernal pit]): via late Latin from Greek abussos ‘bottomless,’ from a-‘without’ + bussos “depth.’
Need I say more? Wrong word choice. No. Wrong anti-new, anti-anti-melodic, anti-change sentiment, Garaud!
If you want to be challenged, then you can start here, although there are no guarantees that you will always be challenged or that you will always stay awake.
Such is the case with new music, nay, ALL music with which you are unfamiliar. Ask Mr. Cent (Curtis Jackson), he’ll tell you.
My favorite word today? Peon. Do you want me to take out the OAD again? No? Okay.
The basic theme for this week’s performances is “Music and Computers,” an interesting concept rife with possibilities for new sounds and ways of thinking.
Well said (begrudgingly).
Both works [by Morton Subotnik and Charles Dodge] had their moments of unconventional beauty...
(skeptically) But...?
...but it would be hard to imagine them being created anywhere else but in an ivory tower where the vox populi is not catered to.
What the #(*^%$asd@&a^$(dd@&^k)@kgs!!!!!!????!
#$*(&%asd^@a#*&%asdf!
$#($*(*$pedantic Latin sayings#*&^$%#!
Jhds&^%kcrapd!!!!!!!!!!!
#&^$Gh739Beethov78&&^h&^%2 your cliché 3&^%^#&!!
F-*#&DHkwf37&((*&@%7!!!!!!!!!?!!!
But, #(*&$^%)8anti-76*&^,*&87469: *&*&@gahg&&@^!!!!!!
!!!!!!&^h!!!!!!!
&$*(%&9&@Y@)*&SDO*&#$^Fgno new music?faos8y8!!!?
#*&^#*$Gshj*&#h!!!!!!
AAaarrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!! *&^@#%!!!!!
And that’s why I’m trying to earn my doctorate in music composition! And yes, from an ivory tower, thank you very much.
-
6/3/08
I swear, use that expression one more time...
Posted by Empiricus at 2:07 PM
Labels: Buffalo News, Garaud MacTaggart, June in Buffalo, Modernism Sucks, New Music is not Music, OAD, SUNY Buffalo
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3 comments:
Must everything be qualified? It's as though critics aren't sure what their own opinions are. I always thought that the easiest part of being a critic, you know, was the thumbs up/thumbs down part. And seriously, will someone please point out to these dickweeds that attacking academia is not a defense for not liking a piece. Pieces should be judged on their merits, not on the manner in which it was written, the place of its conception, nor the bullshit story the composer invented to delight moronic audience members...just the merits of the music (you know that stuff you were sleeping through).
Please, just give me your opinion, and if you really want to dazzle me, follow that up with an actual (as in it could be observed by someone else) reason for your opinion [for example, what do you mean "unconventional beauty"--unconventional how?], not commentary on the state of contemporary music ["hard to imagine". Why? do you have a reason? or is it just hard for you?]. And then, if you must, you can throw in some of the poetic critic bravado crap, and over-developed sense of superiority for good measure. But for the love of god, stop qualifying every fucking opinion! "Both works [by Morton Subotnik and Charles Dodge] had their moments of unconventional beauty. PERIOD! The BUT is not fucking necessary! Seriously, it's not necessary.
Whatever, I do what I want.
Qualifying prepositional phrases are the bane of my existence. What you do with them is entirely dependent upon YOU. Without the first-person, I find it easy to rip on this kind of mindless, repetitive shlock. Even if it's not in the first-person it's very dangerous, like the the word nigger. It might be appropriate in the context, but most of the time it won't be, and for the opposite reasons you think it is. Pooh on the term "ivory tower" and their BUTs.
Gustav gets the award for rock star comment of the week, I think.
The "ivory tower" trope needs to die. Let's build ebony monoliths instead.
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