source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 22:49:27 -0700 Subject: elitism, etc. From: bq912@freenet.uchsc.edu (Neil G. Haverstick) Haverstick here...a story from my own experience will show pretty well what I mean by musical elitism. I have a good friend in Denver who is a hell of a classical clarinetist...able to play very difficult works, great sight reader, plays good jazz, and can improvise. He is openminded enough to try about any kind of music, and occasionally takes blues gigs, too. But, one day he gave his true thoughts away when he said, basically, that "Classical music is superior to blues"...Yikes! I couldn't believe my ears, but he really meant it. Only thing is, he's a mediocre blues player, and has barely a clue about the true depth of the genre, and knows none of the real serious standard riffs, or how to use the rhythms of the style to make it happen...I finally quit hiring him for my blues gigs because it was embarrasing me. So how, then, is classical repertoire "superior" to blues if this dude can't even PLAY the blues? And, I hate to say it, but I've heard this sort of nonsense over the years from other players, mostly classical musicians, but occasionally from jazz players as well...country music, for example, is boring because it's too "simple", or blues is "easy" because it only has 3 chords...ugh. One thing that has set me apart over the years is an ability to move from genre to genre, and both play and appreciate what makes each musical dialect unique and profound... I have hung with just about every sort of musical faction in Denver, and I've played blues, rock, country, jazz, classical, flamenco, folk, bluegrass, and miscellaneous other styles as well...from this moving around, I've come to the conclusion that all styles are equal at their deepest level. Interestingly enough, I have found that most players can only do one style well...very rarely do you find blues guys that can play bop, or flamenco guys that can play blues, or classical folks that can improvise competently. The level of ability required to play (or sing) like BB King is surely the same as the ability to play Bach or Beethoven, and the fact that you can sight read your butt off does not mean that you can play "Crazy" by Willie Nelson worth a poot. Believe me, I've been on many a gig where a bunch of jazz musicians absolutely ruined some rockabilly tunes because they didn't have a clue as to what the proper FEEL was. I always dreaded doing '50's music on big band gigs because it sounded ridiculous...and, what made it worse was that a lot of the players didn't even know, or care, that it sucked. So, that's what I mean by musical elitism, the inability to realize that different folks express their souls with different sorts of musical expression, and that the level of feeling reached is the only real issue, not the number of chords in a piece, or it's supposed complexity. There is much complex music, Schoenberg's serial music being one prime example, that is almost totally devoid of any humanity or passion, and much "simple" music, blues again being a good example, that moves me to tears or joy. Willie Dixon's "Spoonful", to me, is a great masterpiece of composition, and there's only one chord. And, Bartok has stated that his really serious life's work in music was his collecting and cataloging of folk music. This is directed not at anyone in particular, but I did need to clarify this point. I am aware that there will always be music, or other kinds of art, that will not be liked or understood by large groups of people; this is not an issue...not a whole lot of folks understand the Theory Of Relativity, either, but it is a masterpiece. I don't like the sort of false elitism that comes with a sort of smug superiority complex that says "we are inherently superior to you" because "our" art is "better" than yours. There are no bad styles of music, only poor individuals within a style. One last brief question...Jon (sorry, I don't know your last name), you said something in your last post about "free" music, and how it remin_ ded you of when you were a child in the '60's...since I never used that word in any of my posts, I'm not sure how you were applying that to what I said...could you elaborate a bit? Thanks, Hstick Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 15:13 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id GAA19120; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 06:13:14 -0700 Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 06:13:14 -0700 Message-Id: <960731130653_71670.2576_HHB68-7@CompuServe.COM> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu