I was thinking about that when over a cup of post breakfast tea this morning I heard Horslips playing the King of the Fairies on the radio. It brought up images of a bunch of longhaired guys doing extremely dynamic things on electric fiddles, electric guitars and a frantically beaten drumkit. 30 year old dynamism and 30 year old ideas. It sounded hopelessly dated to the point of being ridiculous. Unlike the music it tried to dynamify which has changed at it’s own pace and is alive, vibrant and dynamic and is played by more highly talented young people than it ever was before.
Some (most?) new stuff, no question, will be discarded like crappy 70’s fashion. As well it should.
But musical styles and practices, like everything else in human culture, will evolve. I’m just throwing around the terms “stasism” and “dynamism” to stand for the competing notions that things should stay just as they are versus a natural evolution of styles/ideas.
I think traditional music is wonderful. I also enjoy people who think outside the box. And if, out of all the nonsense they produce, something good and worthwhile comes through…then the crap is forgivable.
(what’s post breakfast tea? brand name? personally…addicted to coffee.)
Yes…thanks Wombat. Back to Peter’s post:
Here’s the thing–No matter what you do, if you throw your heart and creative spirit into it, trying to produce something good, original, and enjoyable, you run the risk of ending up with a platter of crap. It just might be bad. There are some fortunate types who seem to get it right most of the time…others of us, with a strong urge to create, still manage to fall on our faces.
I’m saying this from the perspective of a writer who may never produce a written work which would, in today’s world, be marketable (marketability grants legitimacy to one’s efforts, unfortunately.)
Anyway…if those long haired guys playing fast and loose with their funky instrumentations produce a sound you dislike…oh well. At least they tried.
I have gone down from ten or twelve mugs of coffee a day to the one since february forced me on a weeklong fast. I have taken to drinking tea with a vengeance, probably to keep up at least some of the cafeine intake.
Offcourse my post was directed at one school of thought that is operating on this board that assumes traditional music as stale and unchanging, which by definition it isn’t. It moves but at it’s own pace and at it’s own terms. Too often things from outside are married to it or parachute into the middle of it claiming that this is the new lifeblood or the break from the staleness. There’s a new flavour every so often, usually surrounded by terms like dynamic, new vibrancy and bladeeblabla. Most of the time it’s just a few outward appearances of the old combined with a few from popular music. It comes and goes while the old music follows it’s own course, according to it’s own dynamic if you like.
Did a quick search and found out who the heck is Horslips. Most here on this board are fresh and new to me heh. I feel that Horslips’ idea was just by tracing the idea available easily in those days.
Most music available today are excessively conscious of how they can sound well on ‘recordings’ and big stages.Instruments,playing style,many things changed.That’s most of the 20th century music in my opinion.So I think the most good new idea on music will arise from the criticism to this issue.
And 19th century was the last century which was not affected by this issue.I believe this is why the lagacy of 19th century is important.Very very important.
The point exactly. I can listen to Paddy Canny, PJ Hayes and Peadar O Loughlin’s recording from 1962 and find it as fresh and exciting as it was on the day it was recorded. While really, all the great modernisers of the genre all the fresh winds, how do they stand the test of time?
It seems to me that those who consciously try to innovate are, as a rule at least, doomed to aesthetic failure because they are putting the cart before the horse. I suspect that when accomplished artists innovate, it is not because they want to but because they have to–in other words, they are so at home in their medium that they can bend it as they wish to express the immediate outpouring of their spirit or heart. So innovation proceeds organically in a sense, within a tradition, not as some kind of trick or attempt to make something “up to date” or to exploit current trends, but as a necessity of artistic expression. And since it represents something essentially human, it is always up to date: as that bigoted old S.O.B. Ezra Pound put it “Art [or probably he said “poetry,” I’m not sure] is news that stays news.”
If the innovation(for the sake of innovation) is placed above attractiveness of sound…then I agree. If you try something you haven’t heard before because it seemed like an interesting idea–might work, might not, probably reviews will be mixed. But nothing wrong with trying.
Again though…NOT because the traditional form needs changing…I’m not suggesting that there should be a discard pile.
Do you mean that there is no point in further recordings (after 1962?)
Or that new recordings should be performed in a style that stays close
to the original?
Or that any recording made after 1962 will be of only transient interest?
Excellent point. Music (and art) at its best is about touching something deep in us in a way that words can’t. To create “a new style,” then decide how to use it, is like deciding what colors to use in a painting before you know what the subject is. An interesting experiment maybe, but not the way to best serve the subject (assuming you have something interesting and heartfelt to say about it).
What generally touches us deepest is what comes from the unconscious, filtered through our years of experience, our emotions, our life – that’s the artist’s realm. To “innovate” from there means to get out of the way of yourself, to allow a style to develop organically. Not to intellectually mandate an “innovative” structure, which will almost necessarly be artificial and shallow.
I always felt that a lot of Horslips stuff was done tongue-in-cheek. I suspect it’s true of a lot of old Irish stuff. Examples: Jig of Slurs or John Ryan’s polka. The Irish sense of humor seems to come out in the music.
In early 1960’s, stereo recordings had been being common and the sons(successors) of the people which embodied 19th century were still alive(although they were dying,some of them lived long until the late 20th century). Plus,there were still many musicians who was the sons and who didnt performed their arts in the context of ‘how we should sound the best on recordings’ and those performings were luckily recorded.
1960’s was also the turning point when big and high economic growth in Europe occured ,which had been changing many things so rapidly. People became so rich that even person who had never been interested in music started to ‘listen to’ /‘play’ some music. And the economy in those days wanted to fill the demands in more easy convenient ways. And the people got used to those easy convenient ways and had affect on the economy depending on them and the musicians depending on the economy was affected by the people,most musicians had to(or was destined to or wanted to) adapt themselves to the people’s newly made up taste. I dare to call it Commercialism.
Keep in mind that I wont say commercialism is bad. This can even be one of the arts.And I think there must even be things which made much better with that art.
At least I know that some talented people speak differently on the recording tape and taking notes when journalists try to record what they are saying. Some people’s best arts can be performed their much better when ‘taking notes’ not when ‘recorded’. If violating this rule,the arts boil down to being ‘inferior’ to something else suited for recordings. Actually I personally feel most traditional music world wide are not suited for recordings. Most recordings of traditional music are valuable only as materials,and with all my natural acoustic experiences,I mean,if I use my educational guess and imagination,some of them can even be inspiring and I might even be able to grub something good out of them.But basically they are all just materials(yes,to me). Because their best arts cant be on condition that the arts will be recorded.And some of the traditional arts are not even for listening,they are for us to play with them good or bad.This is important especially to avoid vandalism.
sorry,emmline,I know your questions are to Peter. But hey,look at what you are saying. Interesting. Why we tend to think like ‘new recordings should be performed’ is the important theme for us in 20th and 21th century(I think).
Sorry, missed that one at the end of the page yesterday.
No ofcourse I don’t mean anything more recent isn’t valid. I was illustrating my point that all these innovators that have come along to save the music from oblivion are now by and large outdated and stale while the very music that they tried to enhance still sparkles and is as fresh, alive and valid as it was on the day it was recorded.
I feel that Horslips’ idea was just by tracing the idea available easily in those days.