It's amazing how sick I am of all labels in general. Whether it's 'creative', 'pop-punk', 'indie-pop', 'post-rock', 'alt-rock', 'post-punk', 'avant-garde', 'sadcore', 'emo', 'grindcore', 'britpop', 'hard-pop', 'nu metal' , 'post-lounge', 'ambient', 'hardcore', 'black metal', 'doom metal', 'death metal', 'dark metal' (yes, apparently there's a difference between all these), 'jam band', 'stoner rock', 'garage', 'easy listening', 'noise', 'jazz', 'classical', 'folk', 'rock', 'pop' and so on. My attitude is that a musician should just make the best music they can. Leave the labeling to the critics, or better still, get rid of them all together. There are better ways to describe music then to sort it into a genre. One of the reasons I like John Zorn so much is that he doesn't fit into any one label, ever (even though his music is commonly in the "jazz" section, for lack of a better place to put it). The instant you put yourself into a genre is the instant you limit your creativity. And as a moderately topical aside, I was in a bar the other day talking to a self-proclaimed guitarist. I asked him some basic questions about scales or something (since I aspire to play guitar myself), and his response was "Oh, I don't know anything about music. But it's okay, since we're a 'noise' band." _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
Hi, There are
better ways to describe music then to sort it into a genre. One of the reasons I like John Zorn so much is that he doesn't fit into any one label, ever (even though his music is commonly in the "jazz" section, for lack of a better place to put it).
Zorn precisely uses lots of labels to describe the music that has been an influence on him or even his own's. I don't know in which ways music could be described in print without the use of labels to give points of reference to readers, for instance, that can help them have an overview on the subject-album. It's obvious that certain adjectives are really stupid but, forgive me, if you mention "minimalism" something lights up inside my head. Best, Efrén del Valle ___________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - Nueva versión GRATIS Super Webcam, voz, caritas animadas, y más... http://messenger.yahoo.es
On 7/2/03 7:10 AM, "Efrén del Valle" <efrendv@yahoo.es> wrote:
Zorn precisely uses lots of labels to describe the music that has been an influence on him or even his own's. I don't know in which ways music could be described in print without the use of labels to give points of reference to readers, for instance, that can help them have an overview on the subject-album. It's obvious that certain adjectives are really stupid but, forgive me, if you mention "minimalism" something lights up inside my head.
This issue gets rehearsed ad nauseum on these lists. It's become a pretty boring topic actually. There's the adage about labels "limiting" people's receptions with the adjoining caveat that one must produce music that eschews labels and that if one incorporates a label, it comes at the expense of the "music itself." Making labels is simply a long tradition going back to Aristotle at least in order to make associations between different things. It allows a kind of short cut for discussions and it allows people to make associations that might not otherwise be made--whales being mammals, for example. The problem is not so much with categorization but with how categories can ossify in people's minds so that they can overdetermine any new invention, especially ones that don't fit very neatly into categories. As I may have mentioned here before, my advisor in grad school is quite obsessive/compulsive (if one needs these psychoanalytic tropes) about his heavy metal collection. He has put probably close to 2000 metal CDs into case logic cases and stores them on a bookshelf. Then he has map written in pencil where he notes the location of the CDs in the case logic containers by virtue of certain metal "categories"--death metal, grindcore, etc. Some of the categories he's made up himself. What's the point? Basically, so he can find his own stuff. You categorize so that you can locate things easily, especially when there's a vast amount of stuff to go through. You also categorize so as to avoid things that don't interest you in order to save time. You categorize every time you put a subject line on an email.
on 7/1/03 7:02 PM, Bill Ashline at williamashline@yonsei.ac.kr wrote:
You categorize so that you can locate things easily, especially when there's a vast amount of stuff to go through.
I have a failsafe system: alphabetically by artist, and compilations alphabetically by title. It's easier to find a Ray Charles album that way, instead of wondering if he's jazz, blues, vocal or whatever. Of course, if you don't have any Ray Charles albums, there are too many levels upon which you can't be helped. skip h
The other side of this coin is that the vast majority of music out there does fit into some genre or other, even though most genres bleed over into others somehow or other. A lot of it's just convenient shorthand - if I say "experimental" or "hillbilly" in a record review, that's gives my readers a hint as to what I'm talking about. In record stores, I've worked in places that have separate sections for every subgenre they can dream up; even the amazing Amoeba stores in California do it to some degree, separating Rockabilly from Rock (though in a cool taxonomical move, the Rockabilly section is next to Country.) That can be helpful, but it can also be frustrating with stuff that might go in any of several places in the store. Amoeba sticks Zorn in "Unusually Experimental," and Phill Niblock's there, but Seth Josel (playing Niblock, among others) goes in the 20th Century subsection of the Classical room. When I've only got 200 words to tell someone about a new Peter Brotzmann CD, I might resort to the "free jazz" label as a space-saver. At The Candyman in Santa Fe, we'd stick Merzbow and Haino Keiji in Rock/Pop and Glenn Branca in Classical so we could sneak them in under the owner's nose. FWIW, my own collection is organized alphabetically, Bailter Space following Derek Baily following J.S. Bach. NP: The Fall "Hex Enduction Hour" LP NR: Jim Thompson "The Golden Gizmo" At 08:40 AM 7/1/2003 -0500, Mitch Tyo wrote:
It's amazing how sick I am of all labels in general. Whether it's 'creative', 'pop-punk', 'indie-pop', 'post-rock', 'alt-rock', 'post-punk', 'avant-garde', 'sadcore', 'emo', 'grindcore', 'britpop', 'hard-pop', 'nu metal' , 'post-lounge', 'ambient', 'hardcore', 'black metal', 'doom metal', 'death metal', 'dark metal' (yes, apparently there's a difference between all these), 'jam band', 'stoner rock', 'garage', 'easy listening', 'noise', 'jazz', 'classical', 'folk', 'rock', 'pop' and so on. My attitude is that a musician should just make the best music they can. Leave the labeling to the critics, or better still, get rid of them all together. There are better ways to describe music then to sort it into a genre. One of the reasons I like John Zorn so much is that he doesn't fit into any one label, ever (even though his music is commonly in the "jazz" section, for lack of a better place to put it).
The instant you put yourself into a genre is the instant you limit your creativity.
And as a moderately topical aside, I was in a bar the other day talking to a self-proclaimed guitarist. I asked him some basic questions about scales or something (since I aspire to play guitar myself), and his response was "Oh, I don't know anything about music. But it's okay, since we're a 'noise' band."
_________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
_______________________________________________ zorn-list mailing list zorn-list@mailman.xmission.com To UNSUBSCRIBE or Change Your Subscription Options, go to the webpage below http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/zorn-list
Chris Selvig
For Kurt's sake, my pocket-sized Japanese dictionary defines "onkyo" as "sound, noise". It fits the bill, I suppose.
At The Candyman in Santa Fe, we'd stick Merzbow and Haino Keiji in Rock/Pop and Glenn Branca in Classical so we could sneak them in under the owner's nose. I discovered yesterday that Tower Records in Osaka (the Amemura branch, anyway) has a particularly brilliant filing method: if it's Japanese, and doesn't specifically fit into their J-jazz or J-punk sections (or the somewhat hazy "New Music" display up on the jazz floor), then it's filed alphabetically under J-pop. The results of this are amazing: Merzbow is literally a foot and a half away from Morning Musume (better known to some as the Pocky girls).
-me
Now that you mention it, Amoeba created a J-Pop section & has bands like Acid Mothers Temple and High Rise in there. Merz is still Experimental, though. At 01:50 AM 7/3/2003 +0900, Taylor McLaren wrote:
For Kurt's sake, my pocket-sized Japanese dictionary defines "onkyo" as "sound, noise". It fits the bill, I suppose.
At The Candyman in Santa Fe, we'd stick Merzbow and Haino Keiji in Rock/Pop and Glenn Branca in Classical so we could sneak them in under the owner's nose. I discovered yesterday that Tower Records in Osaka (the Amemura branch, anyway) has a particularly brilliant filing method: if it's Japanese, and doesn't specifically fit into their J-jazz or J-punk sections (or the somewhat hazy "New Music" display up on the jazz floor), then it's filed alphabetically under J-pop. The results of this are amazing: Merzbow is literally a foot and a half away from Morning Musume (better known to some as the Pocky girls).
-me
_______________________________________________ zorn-list mailing list zorn-list@mailman.xmission.com To UNSUBSCRIBE or Change Your Subscription Options, go to the webpage below http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/zorn-list
Chris Selvig
participants (7)
-
Bill Ashline -
Chris Selvig -
Efrén del Valle -
kevin fellezs -
Mitch Tyo -
skip Heller -
Taylor McLaren