RE: Responding to "gig spam"

["Jonathan@full-moon.com" <Jonathan@full-moon.com>]

> But why make derogatory and negative opinions public? It serves no useful
> purpose and it is divisive. You might not enjoy a particular gig or album
> but don't rant about how it "sucks" or is "worthless"..I can't see any
> good out of language like that. Just say you didn't enjoy it and move
> forward.
>

We might want to shelve Derogatory comments, but negative ones? Absolutely 
not!!

I don't think we can move forward without being critical. If a company 
started putting out shoddy products, and someone asked you what you 
thought, would you just say, 'I didn't like it' and move on? What 
difference is there if the product is music, not washing powder, or 
chairs, 
or software? Especially if the art is not being performed for free.

Sure, the desire to create a livelihood built on music performance is 
admirable, and a negative reveiw is detrimental to a particular artist's 
attempt to reach that goal, but there is more at stake than one person's 
career. There are the careers of the people who won't get the 
opportunities 
that the particular artist will receive. There is also the investment of 
the people who are on the listening end of the equation.

If anything, in this time of explosive musical growth, where the tools and 
opportunities to develop music become easier and easier to aquire, and the 
audience for the same music is shrinking dramatically (for the same 
reasons), we need >more< critical, even negative perspectives, not less. 
If 
the crap isn't filtered out, it will drown anything of value.
Without criticism, there can be no growth, and without growth, no art. 
Especially in the genres that attract people to this group; experimental 
and improvisational music.

That doesn't mean that one has right to be rude about it; as with any 
other 
social interaction. (Besides, one can hardly be objective without taking 
into account the perspective of the creator of the artwork, especially in 
this genre) Still, I'd rather hear more people calling music and 
performances as they are, instead of sugar coating them.

>From Felix Saltzer's "Structural Hearing, Tonal Coherence in Music":

        "It seems as though some musicians are so deadly afraid of 
"missing" a 
talent that they think it is safer to praise most new compositions, thus 
demonstrating an appaling lack of judgement and discrimination' This 
curios 
attitude has indeed become a veritable obsession with all to many 
musicians, critics and teachers. ...[If we go to the] extreme and lose our 
sense of judgement merely because the work is new and we are afraid to be 
blamed for not having recognized a talent ... will delay more than promote 
the process of finding a definite language of musical expresssion."

(Of course, the purpose of finding such a definite language is to pull it 
down and start over again, but that's the point :>)

as always YMMV,

bIz