source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 13:37:44 -0700 Subject: RE: elitism, etc. From: PAULE Neil, how right you are and how often I have experienced that. If another opera singer tells me, "I can sing the blues, it's easy, I'm classically trained, I can sing anything," I'm going to punch 'em in the nose. I grew up with Bach around the house, so that works its way into my playing more than anything, but the kind of technique involved there has nothing to do with the blues. Over the last few years, I have had some real blues moments, where it just came out, and sounded so perfect, and then at other times it just sounds like a lame transcription of the blues. Of course, it's all about feeling, and getting a beer in you can help too. You literally have to approach the instrument in a different way depending on the style of music you're playing. Physically, mentally, emotionally, the act of playing one style of music is different from any other style. That is not to say one can't mix elements of different styles to produce something new and great, but to do that takes a grounding in all of those styles. Being a musician alive in the world today, one should strive for more than just to be the best flugelhorn player in the conservatory, or the meanest blues harpist in town. One should listen to different styles, and really listen, with soul as well as ears. I think the problem with a lot of classical music is that it perpetuates itself in written form, and that most teachers and conservatories simply can't immerse the students in a true representation of original playing styles. Occasionally a musician will come along and breathe life into the music, but this takes an unusual amount of sensitivity. So what you get is lots of bad performances of classical music -- and the sad thing is that few people notice. Most people who go to classical concerts do it as a show of social and intellectual status, and most classical soloists these days are nothing more than acrobats. The same thing seems to be happening to jazz here in Boston -- it's very scary. Not to say that the state of popular music around here a lot better. But the point is that the elitism associated with certain styles of music is as unfounded as the popularity associated with certain other styles. A lot of us are interested in the intellectual games of finding new sounds to compose and improvise with. That's what keeps music alive, keeps it from getting boring. But that doesn't mean that some guy with two whistles and three bells isn't going to come along and blow us all away with the depth of his music. Instead of closing our ears to "simple" music, such a blues tune, I think we should all listen a lot more closely to the subtleties of expression there, and how much meaning those subtleties have -- more meaning, sometimes, than an hour-long symphony. If it doesn't have enough chords for those highbrow folks, it's too bad they can't just listen to the music and understand it for what it is, or at least appreciate the fact that in pitch inflection, rhythm, and dynamics, there can be a lot more subtlety there than in your average classical performance. Subscribing to the attitude that one style of music is "better," that's what I call elitism. There are blues elitists too, and rock elitists and country elitists and Indian music elitists and Japanese music elitists I'm sure, and all of it stinks. Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 22:59 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id NAA02738; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 13:59:09 -0700 Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 13:59:09 -0700 Message-Id: <80960731205708/0005695065PK3EM@MCIMAIL.COM> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu