Re: Music Descriptions

[Kim Corbet <kcorbet@post.cis.smu.edu>]

> Why not just think up some new descriptive term if you don't like what's
> available? For example, it wasn't so long ago that there was no music
> called Industrial. But as soon as someone did label their music 
>Industrial,
> it was pretty clear what they meant.

> We don't go in the record store expecting to find a section called
> "drumming," containing all the music with percussion used in it. Why do 
>we
> hope for a section just for loop based music? I expect to find it 
>anywhere.

very good points.  someday, availability of such "labels" at retail 
outlets WILL be available depending on the depth of computerized 
cross-referencing.  This, once again, is the crux of the issue.  Anyone 
who is playing for more than personal pleasure needs to be aware that the 
world requires an appropriate interface in terms of categorization.  If 
nothing else than for shorthand.  The very first time someone used the 
word "Industrial", it MAY have referred to the textures it came to be 
associated with.  It could have also been a description of assembly line 
structure without regard to specific style or music performed in obsolete 
factory buildings (like "House" being an offshoot of dance parties at 
the "Warehouse") or any one of a number of meanings.  Industrial only
had sonic meaning with time and consistency. 

It's unfortunate that there is so much bandwagoning of the use of popular 
cliches or styles of the day...it's also a convenient way of, hopefully, 
creating some sort of understanding when it comes to artforms that 
shouldn't NEED verbage.  And I guess I'm being victimized by the overuse
of the term jazz...too bad, cause it sure is useful when describing the 
improvisational aspect of what I frequently play...the music is directly
tied to jazzrock fusion or the early 70s, freejazz of the 50s/60s, all 
the way back to the process and musical roles employed by the freer 
dixieland groups into the last century.  

I think it CAN be instructive to step back and take a look at where our 
contemporary roots are and be willing to see what we're doing from that 
perspective.  If grunge or some alternative bands, for example, don't 
understand their own connection to punk, earlier garage metal bands or 
Chicago blues bands or wherever the case is, they're operating under 
delusions of originality.  It may not matter to them personally, but
they end up being ignorant of what their musical ancestors have done and 
how that history may instruct their own inspiration.

I wish we didn't need the labels, original or otherwise, but, for better 
or worse, it's there.  We can ignore them or twist them to our advantage.  
We don't have a choice about the their presence, only how we respond to 
it.