Friday, August 01, 2003
what I'm listening too Right Now: Nellie McKay, Live at JOES -David
Yeah I'm still going on about Nellie McKay. The more I've listened the more impressed I get. I've also been talking (via email) with Luke Kaven (who is president of Smalls Records, which is a jazz club. Go over to their site and check out the free mp3's. And if you like them, support them, and buy them). We've discussed Nellie's songs, and he's been straightening me out on a few things. Offering his much appreciated advice on how to interpret and analyze an artist’s work.
Some excerpts:
Me: Which of an artists works are more interesting to analyze? Is it the work that touches the artist most deeply, or is it more important to pay attention to my own
feelings and analyze the work that is closest to me? The work that creates genuine emotion within me?
Luke: I think these two things can be separate, but they can also coincide. More to the point, the reasons that an artist has in producing a work can be important, but it can also be important the way a work affects you even if the effect was not intended by the artist. But I wouldn't want to deny the first. Exegesis is often a part of the aesthetic experience, part of what contributes to aesthetic experience par excellence.
He doesn't really go out a limb there. But then he gives us this very interesting idea:
Luke: Imagine that you could not hear a common rhyme. You would say in such cases, knowing what you do, that you were missing something when you were, say, listening to Rap, or reading Shakespeare. You might know the meaning of the words, but the words wouldn't carry the impact that they were *supposed* to carry. But it seems that everyone can grasp a common rhyme, and it would seem odd to suggest that in cases like Rap and Shakespeare that the artist didn't intend it.
But consider the matter again! A rhyme is a deceptive thing. At first glance, it seems that a rhyme is a relationship of similarity between words uttered with a certain temporal regularity. But on further reflection, a rhyme is not based on phonology, but based in more abstract auditory properties. This opens up a new realm of possibilities. Could it be that other musical qualities, such as intervallic features and rhythmic features can form the basis for this extended sense of "rhyme"? The answer, I think, is yes. In fact, this set of assumptions is partly the basis for sophisticated music, and it is especially exemplified in complex musics like BeBop. Charlie Parker was a genius at using complex harmonic relationships involving substitute harmonies and unusual note choices as the material for such musical "rhymes". Consider where a given note is the root of the underlying chord (or the flatted ninth, or the sharpened eleventh for that matter). These are discernible features among musical events, and they can play a suitable role in our judgments about the similarity between two musical events in one temporal stream. But here's the wrinkle. While such things are discernible features, they are not discernible to the wholly untrained ear, whereas the "common rhyme' is discernible by just about everyone.
Now, you might need a dictionary for some of these terms. No shame in that. I did.
Luke: This is where one's knowledge contributes to one's experience. The more musical relationships one can discern, the more one can grasp the thematic elements of a musical composition, and the more one's experience approaches satisfaction. And in our judgments about musical similarity and musical "rhymes", almost everything we know may come into play. For a lot of different kinds of music, it is a challenge to us to meet the music halfway. And in doing so, we are also then approaching the kind of understanding that the artist had in producing it. Charlie Parker knew that those musical relationships were there. Play a Charlie Parker record for most people, and they are clueless. Study music for a few years, and then it becomes more and more evident why Charlie Parker was a genius of stunning magnitude, and why -- a million saxophone players later -- virtually nobody has been able to approach that level of achievement.
So that's interesting. I never thought of things that way.
We talked about Nellie a bit. Her songs, her talents, her weaknesses. I offer up the following questions.
How important is her age to our enjoyment of her songs?
If her song Sari were played, and I found out she is 36, would it hurt my feelings toward the song? Is the song better because it was written by a youngster?
Would Liz Phair's "Why Can't I" impress me more if Liz was 19 and not 36? Would I give that song more respect if it came out of a 19 year old? Is that why Liz got trashed by reviewers for this new album?
Will Nellie dumb down her songs for Columbia records? Should she? She's made no bones about her desire for fame. So she might do what ever she thought would sell the most records.
Is that bad? Is it o.k. for an artist to want to sell records? Liz Phair's thinks so.
Yeah I'm still going on about Nellie McKay. The more I've listened the more impressed I get. I've also been talking (via email) with Luke Kaven (who is president of Smalls Records, which is a jazz club. Go over to their site and check out the free mp3's. And if you like them, support them, and buy them). We've discussed Nellie's songs, and he's been straightening me out on a few things. Offering his much appreciated advice on how to interpret and analyze an artist’s work.
Some excerpts:
Me: Which of an artists works are more interesting to analyze? Is it the work that touches the artist most deeply, or is it more important to pay attention to my own
feelings and analyze the work that is closest to me? The work that creates genuine emotion within me?
Luke: I think these two things can be separate, but they can also coincide. More to the point, the reasons that an artist has in producing a work can be important, but it can also be important the way a work affects you even if the effect was not intended by the artist. But I wouldn't want to deny the first. Exegesis is often a part of the aesthetic experience, part of what contributes to aesthetic experience par excellence.
He doesn't really go out a limb there. But then he gives us this very interesting idea:
Luke: Imagine that you could not hear a common rhyme. You would say in such cases, knowing what you do, that you were missing something when you were, say, listening to Rap, or reading Shakespeare. You might know the meaning of the words, but the words wouldn't carry the impact that they were *supposed* to carry. But it seems that everyone can grasp a common rhyme, and it would seem odd to suggest that in cases like Rap and Shakespeare that the artist didn't intend it.
But consider the matter again! A rhyme is a deceptive thing. At first glance, it seems that a rhyme is a relationship of similarity between words uttered with a certain temporal regularity. But on further reflection, a rhyme is not based on phonology, but based in more abstract auditory properties. This opens up a new realm of possibilities. Could it be that other musical qualities, such as intervallic features and rhythmic features can form the basis for this extended sense of "rhyme"? The answer, I think, is yes. In fact, this set of assumptions is partly the basis for sophisticated music, and it is especially exemplified in complex musics like BeBop. Charlie Parker was a genius at using complex harmonic relationships involving substitute harmonies and unusual note choices as the material for such musical "rhymes". Consider where a given note is the root of the underlying chord (or the flatted ninth, or the sharpened eleventh for that matter). These are discernible features among musical events, and they can play a suitable role in our judgments about the similarity between two musical events in one temporal stream. But here's the wrinkle. While such things are discernible features, they are not discernible to the wholly untrained ear, whereas the "common rhyme' is discernible by just about everyone.
Now, you might need a dictionary for some of these terms. No shame in that. I did.
Luke: This is where one's knowledge contributes to one's experience. The more musical relationships one can discern, the more one can grasp the thematic elements of a musical composition, and the more one's experience approaches satisfaction. And in our judgments about musical similarity and musical "rhymes", almost everything we know may come into play. For a lot of different kinds of music, it is a challenge to us to meet the music halfway. And in doing so, we are also then approaching the kind of understanding that the artist had in producing it. Charlie Parker knew that those musical relationships were there. Play a Charlie Parker record for most people, and they are clueless. Study music for a few years, and then it becomes more and more evident why Charlie Parker was a genius of stunning magnitude, and why -- a million saxophone players later -- virtually nobody has been able to approach that level of achievement.
So that's interesting. I never thought of things that way.
We talked about Nellie a bit. Her songs, her talents, her weaknesses. I offer up the following questions.
How important is her age to our enjoyment of her songs?
If her song Sari were played, and I found out she is 36, would it hurt my feelings toward the song? Is the song better because it was written by a youngster?
Would Liz Phair's "Why Can't I" impress me more if Liz was 19 and not 36? Would I give that song more respect if it came out of a 19 year old? Is that why Liz got trashed by reviewers for this new album?
Will Nellie dumb down her songs for Columbia records? Should she? She's made no bones about her desire for fame. So she might do what ever she thought would sell the most records.
Is that bad? Is it o.k. for an artist to want to sell records? Liz Phair's thinks so.
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