source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 23:23:50 -0800 Subject: back so soon/New Age music exposed From: neil.haverstick@csst.com (Neil Haverstick) Gee, did you miss me...I've been listening to a lot of Indian and Arabic music lately, and it finally hit me what it is that smells funny about new agey doodling (microtonal or othertuned)...a lot of it sounds, to me, like folks with little real technique grabbing a mode of some sort, and then proceeding to jam a bit, all the while, perhaps, fancying themselves to be playing a "raga" or a "taqsim", when in reality they have put in little or none of the very hard and rigorous discipline which is required (not requested) to be a great or virtuoso player. Folks, these Oriental masters are baaaad on their axes, and there's one good reason: they are the real deal, and put in a lot of hours, technically and emotionally and spiritually, to reach the heights of true mastery. A mode, whether or not it's 12 eq or a "just" tuning, is only a basic framework on which can be built a little hovel or a great structure...to take a theme and develop a masterful improvisation is not so easy...unfortunately, to see the popularity of the dreaded new age syndrome, most people don't know the difference...Hstick Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 26 Dec 1996 12:32 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA03046; Thu, 26 Dec 1996 12:34:39 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA03161 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id DAA15439; Thu, 26 Dec 1996 03:34:36 -0800 Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 03:34:36 -0800 Message-Id: <199612260633_MC1-DBE-9B2A@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu