Right, but some people like chin stroking music. I'm not saying it's better or worse, that's up to you. I'm just saying that it IS music, and some people like it, and some people actually do FEEL something for music that others find to be perversely intellectual. I like quite a bit of dance music, I like chin stroking stuff, I have both sides, I just don't try to set up some kind of hierarchy of what is best. There's a place for everything.
As far as African American music goes, I would suggest balancing out your view by considering what Anthony Braxton calls the "sweating brow" syndrome; the idea that if a black musician is making intellectual music, or isn't up there sweating on stage, then (s)he isn't "really black". (Just like if they make techno, as opposed to RnB or Hip Hop, they aren't really making "black music".) When I see Surgeon play, he looks very distant and unemotional, but as far as I'm concerned, he's about the best techno performer out there, because what comes out of the speakers SOUNDS GREAT, and certainly provokes emotion in the audience. People went nuts the last two times he played in Chicago! Again, performer emotion, and audience emotion = two different things. As far as the question of whether intellectual music "loses" an audience - I don't think this is really a very important issue. Most people who write experimental types of music aren't aiming for the biggest possible audience. They are writing to express something they need to express, for whatever reason, whether it is an idea, feeling, or just an urge to play around and see what happens. To me, lots of supposedly chin stroking music is PLAYFUL and FUN, but people just take it (and themselves) too seriously. I still argue that emotional responses often, or even usually, say more about the listener than the music itself. Emotion is a characteristic of HUMAN BEINGS, not of sonic waveforms. Only a human listener can experience an emotion. Sound waves do not somehow "contain" emotions... ~David ---------- Original Message ------------- Subject: Re: (313) The more things change Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 13:14:01 -0600 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: David Powers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sounds like the difference between dancing and "chin-stroking" the first group reacts to the music physically while the other reacts to it intellectually I still contend that if you get too much of the later you begin to lose portions of the audience -- ~David Powers
