An invitation to the making of a community.

[Ben Grossman <nostyle@sympatico.ca>]

Dear friends, colleagues and music hounds,

I hope that this note finds you well.

Deb Sinha and I are writing to invite you to become part of what we  
hope will be an important new music movement and community network,  
Post Traditional Music.


Post Traditional Music is the result of many years of music-making,  
thought and discussion. Deb and I have come to the realization that  
there's no clear term and intellectual framework for the type of music  
that we are striving to make.  This (in brief) is music that is  
imaginative, experimental, and original, yet is in some way (or ways)  
rooted in the music traditions in which we are trained or from which we  
come.  There are others who are pursuing similar paths here in North  
America, and we frequently have difficulty  finding venues, support,  
and marketing focus because we tend to fall 'between the cracks' of the  
current system of genres and 'pigeon holing'. Some feel partially  
aligned to various music communities (improvised, musique actuelle,  
new/contemporary, traditional, world, jazz, folk, free improvised,  
ambient.....) but never feel fully part of these accepted forms.   
Although in many ways we prefer the freedom from just such  
categorisation, Deb and I wanted to create some way in which we could  
build a community and raise awareness to facilitate the development of  
an expanded audience and support-base.  Through a combination of  
grass-roots participation and targeted meme-planting, we hope to build  
an expanded awareness of this creative music and the community of  
musicians, composers and improvisers who make it.

We are inviting you to participate in a number of ways.  The first (and  
perhaps most important) is to come together, both at events and  
gatherings (the first such gathering is detailed below) and through the  
'net at the Post Traditional discussion group  
(http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/ptrad/).  The first order of business  
is to introduce ourselves and begin the discussion and clarification of  
what Post Traditional music is.

Deb and I are also running an internet radio station  
(http://www.eemarecords.com/postrad/listen.html) and we invite you to  
submit your music for broadcast.  This is perhaps this easiest way for  
us all to hear each other and get to know where we're all coming from.

And finally, the Post Traditional web-site  
(http://www.posttraditional.ca), which we hope will be a source of  
information, publicity, links and info about you, the artists who  
choose  to align them selves to this idea.

This is all in it's infancy, of course, and we're looking to you to  
bring your ideas, opinions and enthusiasm to this project.  Please  
share this message with your own music community through your news  
groups, e-mail lists, web-sites and even good old word of mouth!  With  
your help we hope to build an informal community of like-minded artist  
around the world.  Please check out the Yahoo message list, radio  
station and website and contribute, discuss and promote!

To inaugurate and celebrate 'going public' with this rather ambitious,  
community-building project, (as well as the launch of my website,  
http://www.macrophone.org, the formation of Deb's record label, Eema  
Records (http://www.eemarecords.com) and the release of Deb's CDs Tumma  
and Quell), Deb and I will be performing at the Tequila Lounge, 794  
Bathurst at Bloor, Toronto on Tuesday 11th of January.  Doors open at  
9:30 and the cover is a token $5.  Deb's CDs (and perhaps some other  
goodies) will be available.  Please come to meet, discuss and plot and  
hear some adventurous solo and duo improvisation.  We hope to see you  
there and online too.

All the best,

Ben and Deb.




------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-----------------------
Ben Grossman
ben@macrophone.org
http://www.macrophone.org
http://www.posttraditional.ca