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----- Original Message -----
From: "Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 11:22 PM
Subject: AW: What's experimental?
> So...again, I'm going to try the analytical approach, and comment on some
> posts as I go (and I hope you authors pardon me for not specifically
> mentioning you there):
>
> It's interesting if we look first at what wikipedia has to say about it
> ("it" being "experimental music":
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_music
>
> "Experimental music is a term introduced by composer John Cage in 1955.
> According to Cage's definition, "an experimental action is one the
>outcome
> of which is not foreseen" "
>
> and furthermore (paraphrasing here):
> Michael Nyman used the term to describe American composers as opposed to
> the
> European avant-garde at the time.
>
> According to David Nicholls, avant-garde is at the extreme of the
> tradition,
> while experimental lies outside of it.
>
> So we have more or less three different definitions:
> (1) music for which the outcome is not foreseen (Cage)
> (2) odd music from America (Nyman)
> (3) music which has no relation to tradition (Nicholls)
It could be considered that music which has no (apparent or immediately
apparent) relation to tradition (by this can I assume you mean
'perochially-educated classic tradition'?), where the outcome is not
forseen
(as seen in the less-structure-reliant improvisations), might also be
considered to be 'odd music from America'. This could be anything but the
more musically-educated amongst us might be able to correct it.
> Not very helpful here...so I looked at wikipedia's definition of
> "experiment":
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiment
>
> "An experiment is defined, in science, as a method of investigating less
> known fields, solving practical problems and proving theoretical
> assumptions."
>
> Of these three parts, I don't understand what is meant by the second one
> in
> this context, but I can well understand the first and the third one and
> agree with them also in our musical context.
>
> It's again nice to see that only Cage's use of the word "experimental" in
> musical context has any relation whatsoever to the meaning of
>"experiment"
> and is such somehow valid etymologically. So how to apply that to our
> discussion?
>
> Ted said: "If you "make it up as you go along" but still everything
>sounds
> more-or-less like a 3-minute pop song that's not very experimental.
>
> If you do the above and add a recursive loop or ebow drone it's not
> really any more "experimental" than if you'd added a kazoo."
>
> Hey, that works with the Cage definition. In both cases, the outcome is
> foreseen.
>
> Jeff said:
> "I call it experimental but the music and technique are old school and
> nothing new. What is experimental for me in this instance is the video
> itself because I am trying new things. Even that is experimental only to
> me because the effects that I am experimenting with are tried and true
> stock
>
> stuff."
>
> Obviously, you couldn't foresee the outcome here, so yes, experimental!
>
> And now Warren:
> "i thought the operational defn was simply "music no-one likes". "
>
> This is a little bit trickier. Now I have the theory that the majority of
> people want to have predictable things in their lives. So if we replace
> "no-one likes" with "the majority does not like" (and I think you implied
> that), then that definition fits (if my theory is correct).
>
> However, it is important to see that this definition does only work in
>one
> direction, as we clearly can see from Ted's next post, where he goes on
> about people saying:
> "3) I play music that no one understand or likes . . . so I must be an
> experimental musician."
>
> So obviously, while experimental music is music no-one likes, music
>no-one
> likes is not necessarily experimental.
>
> (Btw I think it was you, Ted, who had that great sig saying something
>like
> "Different is not always better, but better is always different")
>
> Now another thing from Daryl:
> "If the goal is to genuinely try out something new that you have not done
> before, I call that experimenting, hence experimental."
> - which also fits with the Cage definition, btw.
>
> So obviously, it first of all matters that nobody knows what will happen
> (which makes doing it a lot easier, because you do not always find
> completely new approaches). But still with that in mind, I believe it is
> necessary to define some kind of threshold, which of course then is
> completely subjective.
> (For example, if I do something completely conventional, like perform
> Beethoven's op.110, which thousands of pianists have done before, a
>string
> might break, which I did not foresee).
>
> Finally, in my own music: it stays experimental for some time, until I
>get
> used to it, then I do something new. What I did at this year's Boise
> Experimental Music Festival was experimental, because I had no idea how
> the
> combination of playing trombone (which I haven't been doing since 2001)
> with
> a new configuration of my laptop setup would sound and develop.
>
> Rainer
>
> (sorry, got rather long-winded. All hail Cage!)
Thx.