Face to Face with Rick Wakeman -- Ian Anderson

Hi,

Ian Anderson's comments on Face to Face with Rick Wakeman, which is a magnificent interview, btw!

There is a part in that nice interview that is scary ... for me. When Ian Anderson states that pretty much everything and anything that can be done with the medium of rock music has been done in the 40 or 50 years of its time ... it sends a strong message to you and I.

Basically, the medium, is over, and the ability to do anything new is getting to be nearly impossible, and I can see this, specially in a commercial sense of the music ... it now becomes this and that, and tomorrow, yet another half nude body and what not.

But, this is also likely to be a way of saying that the design of rock music, and its history, let's say the classic 4 folks - guitar, drums, bass and keys - is over and that combination needs to change and stop altogether until folks learn something new to change and help develop the next 50 years in music history.

In looking at music history, one can see how something like this might have been an issue ... somewhere along the way, in Bach's time, someone must have said that any music with a harpsichord was now redundant and boring. Now comes Mozart, and after so many violin concertos, and pieces of music that showed more cleverness than ability, it was also thought that a lot of that "chamber music" thing was over. And now comes the orchestral music ... and by the time we get to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, we have to have more violins and strings ... orchestras double in size! And 100 years later, composers have already gotten the most out of that combination they could ... and the new breed arrived. 50 years later, it was not enough and electricity gave us the "new music" with jazz and rock. And of course, in the late 60's, this all exploded into a commercial definition that blew out into something else ... everyone and every kitchen sink, was an artist!

Needless to say, this changes the ideas and the specs of music and its history, if Ian is right about his assessment ... and he has already been right about one of them, at least ... when the cover of "A Passion Play" kinda suggests that classical music and arts are over ... and of course replaced by rock/jazz as we knew it at the time, and 40 years later ... are totally bored with! THE NEXT PICTURE/COVER, of course,  IS A MELTING MARSHALL STACK?

This brings out ... something I have been listening to recently ... 200 Motels - The Suites ... and it is an astounding piece of music, that Frank Zappa could only relate to his folks and musicians with the context he did, because most of them did not even understand, or care about a lot of modern music and Varese and others ... and this double CD, shows what is likely to be Frank's greatest composition ever ... in its totality, but sadly, it will not be appreciated as much because so many folks only think of Frank as a rock icon, and not a composer of serious music. If you are not convinced by the end of this CD, you are not listening.

And hearing a chorale and others go through the lines, and sing them, you get the feeling that this Chorale is doing is as a way to make fun of all the music they had done before that was "serious" and was not half as good as this stuff they are having a great time with! Maybe the words are important after all!

in many ways, it is a hugely BOLD comment by Ian, but historically, it is accurate because every 40 to 50 years things change to something else as the older stuff becomes either "golden" and "historical", and the rest dies ... as nothing. From a commercial standpoint, this makes sense, since the top ten thing has always been about copy/copy/copy and not talent or originality. And maybe, it is for us, to open up the ears and minds to that thought in order to see/learn some new things about ourselves and its derivatives in any art forms. This is, for me, one of the reasons why I find it so weird that musicians are so afraid to try experimental and other exercises to improve their rehearsal techniques, which might give a better clue into some new musics and designs for the future.

Lewian wrote: ... I think that certain compositional styles and habits may die out, but lots and lots of material must be written so that instruments or combinations of them could be considered "over", probably too much for humankind.  I think that craving for something new and revolutionary all the time is pretty much a thing of the present. Take any half-decent keyboard that came out in the 1980s, say, that nobody would want to use these days anymore; I think there are still millions of opportunities in them that nobody has explored.

Agreed.

Recording, and the ability of people to hear and find out about different music's is something that is rather new for the general public ... there was no media per se, and the majority of the arts did not really begin to circumnavigate the glove until the 1900's came around, and these things went nuts as soon as radio started and then later all the other media that helped bring it about.

Yes, many of these things still are done today, and have been done for a long time, however, they are not some of the best known and appreciated things today ... you and I still love listening to Bach and Vivaldi and Handel, but some listeners of progressive music will fall asleep bored senseless (hopefully not!).

I don't think that rock'n'roll is over, otherwise I would immediately ask Ian ... now what? What you gonna do? Write a flute concerto? 

It was an interesting comment ... however, I am not sure it is as valid as he thinks, though he might be right in the end, if things continue repeating as they are these days. I'm waiting for his next album cover with the Melting Marshal Stack so he can prophecy the fall of rock music!