Thomas D. Cox, Jr. said: "so what is traditional? are you saying song structure is traditional?"
Yes, that's it exactly. I'm not going to get into the debate about which style of techno is better per se. However, I do believe that innovation in form is an essential aspect of all forward thinking music, whether we are talking about a techno record, or Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane, Pierre Boulez, Gustav Mahler, John Cage, etc. The desire to return to a traditional song structure, to "songs I can hum and whistle while I work" is in my opinion a form of musicial regression. Techno music has made a contribution to the developmnt of modern music, with its open ended form which is a continuous variation of a single object, an object I call 10101010 (ie. the quarter note bass drum and the up beat hi-hat.) While this form is in essence perhaps the most basic human rhythm imaginable, one which surely dates back thousands of years, techno has shown that this rhythm can in effect be infinitely varied and stretched out into eternity. It is as if there is only ONE imaginary techno track that into itself contains all possible variations, and all existing techno tracks are simply subsets of that imaginary track. The universality of techno's basic rhythm allows it to a truly universal human phenomenon, something that can be accessed and understood by humans from all over the globe regardless of race or creed (which is not to say that individuals cannot bring their own point of view to any given production.) A techno set is like a collective ennunciation, it is more like a basic, primal aspect of humanity being given group expression, than the traditional Romantic notion of some lone artist giving expression to his/her own personal "genius". The producers who have created the music remain anonymous, and the final sound heard in a techno set could be regarded as a collaboration between the producers and the DJ. In contrast to this, I'd note that traditional song structure is inherently designed to reinforce the pseudo-individuality of the consumer, with its cheap emotional tricks and a its simplistic structure. In reality, techno is the TRUE FACE of pop music (in the broadest sense, including all songs with tunes you can hum and recognizable verses and choruses), it is pop music laid bare, turned into a skeleton, it is the empty surface that pop music ALWAYS was but which pop music pretended not to be. The human face of the song, the pretty melody and the touching lyrics only serve to better conceal what is inhuman. Only music made by robots can tell the truth about the world we live in. That being said, don't think I won't sing along if I hear a song I like. I'm not any more immune to my environment than anyone else. .dave -----Original Message----- From: Thomas D. Cox, Jr. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 12:33 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: (313) t-1000 interview (techno rant) ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: spw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I can understand why some people mature out of techno not >that the music is immature it's that people become more >conservative at an old age. i dont see why you think people become more conservative. what id say instead is that people just become tired of hearing substandard and uninteresting music after so many years. im only 23 and im hardly "mature" but i swear ive listened to enough music in the last decade that if i hear another hard banging dance record im going to have to stab someone. i just dont have time for something that elementary anymore, not when i can spend my time listening to better music. this goes for all styles of music, not just techno. same goes for rock, jungle, techno, house, whatever. >This is why adult contemporary music sounds so cheesy because people's >brains go into parental mode after their sexual prime, I think this is what >you see whith artist like Carl Craig who are interested in more traditional >forms of music. so what is traditional? are you saying song structure is traditional? what about the structure of jazz? certainly, looped music goes back waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy farther in history than the structure of jazz music does. saying that minimal drummy music is new is pretty shortsighted considering the idea of african drum music is probably the first idea of music. tom ________________________________________________________________ andythepooh.com
