[FRIAM] Lets try this again reaching out for advice and opinions

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Well, as usual, we have to avoid any artificial discretization.  Collaboration comes in a spectrum of types just like everything else.  The lag time for feedback from one's recorded music (or video, books, etc.) is much longer than that of a "live" show.  But that doesn't mean there is no feedback to the artist or publisher.  And, as you point out, the system might be a 3 compartment system (artist, DJ, listener), which not only affects the lag time, but also the quality and type of signal (including more types: artist-listener, artist-DJ, DJ-listener, artist-listener-DJ, artist-DJ-listener, etc.).

I don't construct hardly any music, even though I trained a bit on piano and trumpet.  But I have participated in a few jam sessions (using a drum forcibly shoved at me).  Low latency collaboration between musicians is obviously required.  And I can even see the need for such tight couplings between, say, conductor and orchestra, or musician and performing dancers or whatnot.  But I still don't really understand the apparent *need* of stage bands to see their audience *react* in immediate, active, and obvious ways right then and there.

There is a clear bifurcation of stage bands, though.  The math rock bands, being largely engrossed in their production, don't seem to care that much about getting/seeing reactions during their performance.  The same seems true of most stoner, psy, and noise acts.  So, I have to infer a strong correlation between the musicians' internal physiology and their product type.  Different types of intentional evocation require/dictate different types of interaction.

And to be clear, it's not that I do or don't feel obligated to react visibly.  It's that I don't parse music by moving my body.  In fact, physical movement interferes with my ability to listen carefully.  So, yeah, if you want me to move, play rote ostinatos that I've heard over and over again in one form or the other.  But if you want me to *hear*, then play something interesting and don't demand any movement from me. 8^)


On 07/11/2018 07:47 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> I am coming to appreciate more what artists (including poets and
> musicians) mean when they talk about their work being collaborative with
> their audience (fans, readers, etc.)  
> 
> I share your (Glen) sentiment (as something of a shoe-gazer myself) that
> I am not in any (specific) way obligated to respond to their work, yet I
> do believe that my response (even if it is roughly *intense shoe
> gazing*) is an important part of what they are doing.
> 
> I remember listening to an NPR story (This American Life?) years ago on
> roughly the anniversary of the first public/commercial audio recording
> of a musical performance and the reception such a thing had at that
> time.  Musicians were supposedly entirely non-plussed by this
> development... the anecdotal explanation being that they simply didn't
> recognize the *sound* being emitted as being representative of the
> art/performance...   it obviously had a central role in some sense, but
> by the time *we* came of age (depending on who "we" is here, anywhere
> from the early 50s to the 2000s (I know only of one specific member of
> this list under 30?) commercial LP and audio tape (reel to reel, 8
> track, cassette, ???) recordings were a strong standard in the way we
> experienced music.   As a DJ in the early 70s, I was aware that for any
> given popular song, there may be several or *many* recorded versions
> (usually from different live concerts) with subtle variations and that
> *I*, with my "curatorial" role with music felt it very important to know
> that *somebody was listening*.   When I allowed requests and
> dedications, it was invariably maddening that the callins were almost
> exclusively "teeny boppers" asking for the most ridiculously saccharine
> music over and over (during Michael Jackson's "Ben" fame, they would
> call *while* it was playing to ask me to play it... I set a hard and
> fast rule that no song, no matter how popular would ever get played more
> than once during my 3-4 hour show.
> 
> Of course, Gil's questions/requests here were not intended as
> (performance?) art, so this doesn't apply directly.   I know that when
> *I* as a question into the air and get absolutely NO response, it is
> easy to take the deafening silence personally.  

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ