I Like Other Things Too, But
It’s not so much that I’m interested in experimental music, but that I am interested in the phenomenon of people making music, and what the results signify to other people. The music I value most is forward-looking, self-aware, unattached.
I want to hear an answer to the question of what is next;
I want to hear a different answer every day;
I want each answer to repeat the question.
By the time we are sure of what is next, it has already come and gone.
“It’s not so much that I’m interested in experimental music, but that I am interested in the phenomenon of people making music, and what the results signify to other people. The music I value most is forward-looking, self-aware, unattached.”
I couldn’t've said it better myself. As I’ve watched my music descend (or ascend or morph or whatever) in to more “experimental” sounds over the past few years, I haven’t always been able to articulate why, but, rather, I just play and and whatever comes out is my articulation.
Also interesting is that while my music gets less “listenable” my “folk” roots only seem only to strengthen. Not in terms of how my music sounds, but in terms of my m.o. and my hope for the greater artistic/musical community. Your post touched on this idea, too, which I really appreciate: the notion that the true importance is asking the question and then trying to answer it in the best way possible at that moment…and then moving on, in continuous creation.
And the beauty of it all is seeing others genuinely hard at work at this process, and the collaborations that arise from this common effort, and the responses that others have to these questions/answers.
Cheers,
Cody (a.k.a. Outrage is a Hat)
Cody
25 May 10 at 11:03 am
@Cody: Word to that. I am just now beginning to appreciate and embrace the /fluidity/ of my answers to the difficult questions of how and why I work. Finding these answers isn’t so much about arriving at the end point of *knowing the answers* – maybe it’s more about the process of continually /refining/ the answers such that they stay correct. Maybe it is cliché to quote Trane here, but damn, he said it so well:
“There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we’ve discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give to those who listen the essence, the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.”
Brendan
27 May 10 at 8:08 am