Rate: King Crimson - ITCOTCK

Hi,

So, you're saying that Tchaikovsky has to change his music so it can connect with you, or Beethoven, or The Beatles, or JackWhoGivesaJunk .... because it "needs" to connect with you.

One thing about art history, for ALL MUSIC, PAINTING AND LITERATURE ... IT'S ABOUT YOU connecting to it, not the other way around ... you are making a point that people need to change so you can "connect" to them ... pretty soon you are going to hit the proverbial brick wall ... no artist is going to give a darn about you ... why? Can you imagine the Beatles have to give a darn about so many people ... who are you in the end? 

You are using the very words that commercial music likes ... so it can sell more and take your money ... 

And it isn't about being "clever" ... a lot of times when things like "Moonchild" are written, a lot of it is intuitive, and not exactly "pre-thought" ... and I agree with the ladies ... but I might not see exactly the same details that they did, but it's close, though I would not consider it a game.

Hi,

This changes over time ... sometimes something that didn't click before, clicks later ... and it would be too easy to say that a more mature look would be different, but I think that there are a lot of things that go into that equation, many of which are hard to distinguish.

I prophesy disaster wrote: ... When it comes to experimentalism in music, I do not think that it itself makes music worthy. If a piece of music is experimental, then the experiment has to work musically beyond its own terms for it to succeed in appealing to me. In other words, while I do like weird music, there is a limit to how weird music can be for me to accept it.

Experimentation in music is something that is an acquired taste and it does not go well with folks that like to have things "in the right order" in their heads. I think, after a lot of work with actors and actresses, that "experimentation" is something that you can work on, until it breaks what I call the "last wall" of your senses ... so that when you are rehearsing, you can pick up the maximum attention possible, to give your ability to respond a much better focus and atmosphere.

This can be done in music, but there are too many folks that believe that it is all notes, and nothing else matters ... (it's why they listen for a "sound", right? ... BS ... ) and I have had the chance to do this with a couple of musicians and it works, but the ones that lean on knowing which chord you are playing, usually fall out of the equation really fast ... what matters is your "listening" and how fast your response is, to the music in the air ... not your idea, or the easiest chord you can play.

In listening to AD2, for example, try "Yeti" (the title cut) and then the "MM thing" on Dance of the Lemmings. You could say the guitar dominates "Yeti" but almost no other instrument is "there" to create a song, or a thread to go by, which suggests that John W probably said ... I'll just do this and continue, and you guys try to fit in as you can ... and it goes all over the place, and this, in theater, is called a "controlled improvisation" in that you are depending on someone to give you some space, but you don't know what that is, and will not see it, until AFTER ... the whole thing, IF YOU RECORDED IT. I recommend doing these at first without recording, so you only worry about listening, and not how you sound or don't sound, and then, after you feel more comfortable, try to record it once ... but you must look at it apart from it ... meaning a few days later, so you allow the playing feeling to grow inside, and then next week (so to speak) you finally listen to it and are more capable of comparing what you DID, to what you THOUGHT ... two very different things, that help your ability to work with someone else on stage, music or theater!

When you hear the MM thing" in DotL, you will find really quick that no one is trying to create a riff, or a piece of song at all, and specially listening to Lothar Meid, who seems to be the one "leading" the whole thing, but his bass playing is all over, and never breaks into something that would make ... a part of a song ... it comes and goes, and sometimes it thinks Michelangelo ... so to speak.

Improvisation is hard for most listeners ... because what is in front of you is NOT ORGANIZED ... and IT SHOULD NOT EVER BE ... so it can grow on its own two feet. Too much of the stuff you hear nowadays, is riff related, or solo related or simply sound related, and has nothing to do with improvisation as a natural process in music making ... and I don't even enjoy listening to these things ... and the difference, for example, check out some of the early jazz stuff by Jan Garbarek, and then go listen to Miles live somewhere ... the folks playing with Miles had no idea where he was going ... but none of them ever complained and they knew that the trick was to listen to him, and adjust the flow of what he was doing ... not a riff like something, or a splash on the drums, or something that would be "asking" to return to a normal "SONG" like process, which is way easier to do ... and you don't have to listen ... you just count! To me, this defines a "drummer" from the majority of nothing hitters.

You got to remember that RF is well aware of a lot of these things I am saying, based on his Gurdjieff studies and readings ... and his detail on rehearsal, includes a lot of these things, and it is something that is really hard to describe and even discuss, because it is a "feeling" thing, and not a "word" thing, and this is where folks get lost and (probably) 90 out of 100 musicians fall out ... and my saying this has had a couple of comments from Berklee folks, that think all music is just a mechanical exercise, and they are afraid to even consider "improvisation", unless it is based on a chord or riff, something much easier to teach .. you can go here and there in this moment since it is a related chord and so on ... and sometimes, this tends to intimidate your ability to completely free form, without being tied up to a "process" that you will have to unlearn later.

sorry about the long bit