Our favorite swede....

[Infinite Ego]

Jul 31, 2012 17:57:45 GMT -5 dasein said:

Do you think people use music to escape from reality moreso than other things?

Anything can be used as an avoidance mechanism and music is just one of them. And I'm not at all hostile to the aesthetic and personal value of music. I can even get behind the notion that some music is so powerful and sublime that it can function in a good way to plug a person into the reality of the 'transcendental' imaginary absolute such that we are reminded that there are 'powers' at work in the world greater than the ego ...

But, in my view Vai et al represent a kind of hyper-egoism and their fans constitute a cult of hyper-egoism and technique fetishism. The whole scene is not unrelated to Italian Futurism and they all have a family resemblance to fascism. Hero worship, technique worship, etc.

Those guys playing that song. The negation of the negation but instead of sublation (upward cancellation) you have the whole thing collapse into a null point.

In my best Zizek impersonation: "I want to risk the hypothesis, that, ..." if you're sitting around in the basement working on scales, modes, arps, etc., with an eye toward going faster and faster then you are increasingly tapping into not only an unhealthy and anti-social current but also pathological and maybe even psychotic.

We need a concept like 'shred psychosis' to describe the absurdity of G3

We can poo poo Neil Young all we want (or whoever) but none of those guys could touch, say, the Hurricane solo from Live Rust (esp. from 5:00 to 5:20) when his OT on the tweed deluxe is just saturated to the max .... that can touch something GOOD in you that none of those guys can with a million notes. They can definitely touch something and mobilize a subsection of the population but that's also the subset of the population you don't want owning guns, in my opinion.

[ck1]

I still love Vai (in theory, anyway) for the same reasons Mirth mentioned. Malmsteen too, in his own way, but more for the stuff that made him famous. I would never need to hear him do anything new. Just listen to Rising Force again, if I need a Swedish fix (or just listen to Meshuggah instead ). Satch though...can't stand that guy. Loved his first album (which I got WAY after it was released), but haven't liked anything as much since. That guy freaking sucks, live. And none of those 3 clowns can sing worth a shit (though Steve doesn't sound too bad in the studio), so it's ridiculous.

[ck1]

In response to IE, there are a few great musical moments that those 3 have put out (to my ears, anyway). My favorite Vai solo by far is this (starts at 3:06):




I actually love that whole tune, but that solo fills a great musical need to me. Most of his don't, though. Yngwie's work on 'Now Your Ships Are Burned' is also a favorite, but not in the purely functional way that the Vai tune is.

[dasein]

Jul 31, 2012 19:09:41 GMT -5 Infinite Ego said:

Jul 31, 2012 17:57:45 GMT -5 dasein said:

Do you think people use music to escape from reality moreso than other things?

Anything can be used as an avoidance mechanism and music is just one of them. And I'm not at all hostile to the aesthetic and personal value of music. I can even get behind the notion that some music is so powerful and sublime that it can function in a good way to plug a person into the reality of the 'transcendental' imaginary absolute such that we are reminded that there are 'powers' at work in the world greater than the ego ...

But, in my view Vai et al represent a kind of hyper-egoism and their fans constitute a cult of hyper-egoism and technique fetishism. The whole scene is not unrelated to Italian Futurism and they all have a family resemblance to fascism. Hero worship, technique worship, etc.

Those guys playing that song. The negation of the negation but instead of sublation (upward cancellation) you have the whole thing collapse into a null point.

In my best Zizek impersonation: "I want to risk the hypothesis, that, ..." if you're sitting around in the basement working on scales, modes, arps, etc., with an eye toward going faster and faster then you are increasingly tapping into not only an unhealthy and anti-social current but also pathological and maybe even psychotic.

We need a concept like 'shred psychosis' to describe the absurdity of G3

We can poo poo Neil Young all we want (or whoever) but none of those guys could touch, say, the Hurricane solo from Live Rust (esp. from 5:00 to 5:20) when his OT on the tweed deluxe is just saturated to the max .... that can touch something GOOD in you that none of those guys can with a million notes. They can definitely touch something and mobilize a subsection of the population but that's also the subset of the population you don't want owning guns, in my opinion.

Makes a good deal of sense.

If I may do my own Zizek impression, "the next stupid obvious question is" what (if anything) separates a Vai or Satriani from a Coltrane or Dolphy. Certainly no question that those two had technical and theoretical capabilities well beyond any silly G3 shredder. And I guess if any music could plug a person into the transcendental imaginary absolute, it would be music like "Interstellar Space."

Is it just as simple as a lack of the hyper-egoism found in shred music? Was coming from a different musical tradition and continuum (jazz rather than hard rock and heavy metal) cause them to sublimate their technique in service of other musical aspects (and perhaps even social or political aspects... these guys were coming out of the Civil Rights movement and all that entailed). Did the sheer mastery of their respective instruments enable them to turn a quantitative change into a qualitative change? Not unlike what Bofatron was trying to do (among other things)?

Or is it just that we've collectively decided that "Coltrane = a serious musician" and Yngwie is a silly guitar shredder?

[mirth]

Jul 31, 2012 20:55:19 GMT -5 dasein said:

Jul 31, 2012 19:09:41 GMT -5 Infinite Ego said:

Anything can be used as an avoidance mechanism and music is just one of them. And I'm not at all hostile to the aesthetic and personal value of music. I can even get behind the notion that some music is so powerful and sublime that it can function in a good way to plug a person into the reality of the 'transcendental' imaginary absolute such that we are reminded that there are 'powers' at work in the world greater than the ego ...

But, in my view Vai et al represent a kind of hyper-egoism and their fans constitute a cult of hyper-egoism and technique fetishism. The whole scene is not unrelated to Italian Futurism and they all have a family resemblance to fascism. Hero worship, technique worship, etc.

Those guys playing that song. The negation of the negation but instead of sublation (upward cancellation) you have the whole thing collapse into a null point.

In my best Zizek impersonation: "I want to risk the hypothesis, that, ..." if you're sitting around in the basement working on scales, modes, arps, etc., with an eye toward going faster and faster then you are increasingly tapping into not only an unhealthy and anti-social current but also pathological and maybe even psychotic.

We need a concept like 'shred psychosis' to describe the absurdity of G3

We can poo poo Neil Young all we want (or whoever) but none of those guys could touch, say, the Hurricane solo from Live Rust (esp. from 5:00 to 5:20) when his OT on the tweed deluxe is just saturated to the max .... that can touch something GOOD in you that none of those guys can with a million notes. They can definitely touch something and mobilize a subsection of the population but that's also the subset of the population you don't want owning guns, in my opinion.

Makes a good deal of sense.

If I may do my own Zizek impression, "the next stupid obvious question is" what (if anything) separates a Vai or Satriani from a Coltrane or Dolphy. Certainly no question that those two had technical and theoretical capabilities well beyond any silly G3 shredder. And I guess if any music could plug a person into the transcendental imaginary absolute, it would be music like "Interstellar Space."

Is it just as simple as a lack of the hyper-egoism found in shred music? Was coming from a different musical tradition and continuum (jazz rather than hard rock and heavy metal) cause them to sublimate their technique in service of other musical aspects (and perhaps even social or political aspects... these guys were coming out of the Civil Rights movement and all that entailed). Did the sheer mastery of their respective instruments enable them to turn a quantitative change into a qualitative change? Not unlike what Bofatron was trying to do (among other things)?

Or is it just that we've collectively decided that "Coltrane = a serious musician" and Yngwie is a silly guitar shredder?

Great post....fascinating question.

Coltrane was said to practice scales and arpeggios religiously, to get better and faster, so ..?

[ck1]

As Parker used to say: learn as much theory as you can. Then, forget that shit and play.

[chrissh]

Jul 31, 2012 21:03:23 GMT -5 mirth said:

Jul 31, 2012 20:55:19 GMT -5 dasein said:

Makes a good deal of sense.

If I may do my own Zizek impression, "the next stupid obvious question is" what (if anything) separates a Vai or Satriani from a Coltrane or Dolphy. Certainly no question that those two had technical and theoretical capabilities well beyond any silly G3 shredder. And I guess if any music could plug a person into the transcendental imaginary absolute, it would be music like "Interstellar Space."

Is it just as simple as a lack of the hyper-egoism found in shred music? Was coming from a different musical tradition and continuum (jazz rather than hard rock and heavy metal) cause them to sublimate their technique in service of other musical aspects (and perhaps even social or political aspects... these guys were coming out of the Civil Rights movement and all that entailed). Did the sheer mastery of their respective instruments enable them to turn a quantitative change into a qualitative change? Not unlike what Bofatron was trying to do (among other things)?

Or is it just that we've collectively decided that "Coltrane = a serious musician" and Yngwie is a silly guitar shredder?

Great post....fascinating question.

Coltrane was said to practice scales and arpeggios religiously, to get better and faster, so ..?

Flow and ease with imaginative complexity, rather than hierarchical linearity and the habitual (neurotic) quantification of human value.

The reality is none of us can or will live without some cultural scars. But they are to contrast with all that reinforces human value, not to be celebrated for their associated suffering.

Since it was mentioned, read the Futurist Manifesto by Marinetti and look into the basics of its historical context. What the professor here is talking about will ring clear.

What stands out about all of this, to me, is that those guitar players, appreciate them or not, are socially tone-deaf for appropriating that song for that purpose in that fashion.

[chrissh]

Btw, there probably are cognitive benefits to the practice of music, but practice is not the point.

[bear]

Coltrane vs. Malmsteen to me is pretty easily summarized as musician vs. technician. Technique serving music is great. If it's self-serving, yawn.

[chrissh]

Jazz comes alive in syncopation, and often improvisation. Structure might be implied by tonality or meter, so the music is relatively comprehensible, but it isn't focal. It "breathes". Better classical too; Chopin wouldn't be effective without pronounced rubato and elegant chromaticisms. Hard rock originated in counter-cultural ideals too. None of that music is conceivable as music when affixed to a grid.

As for the presentation, music just can't be sustained on kitsch alone (and some of what I enjoy is clearly kitschy). Sooner or later the pathos gives way to skepticism. Nobody wants to feel pandered to or manipulated, at least not for long.

[chrissh]

Jul 31, 2012 22:31:02 GMT -5 bear said:

Technique serving music is great. If it's self-serving, yawn.

Or, yes, this. Does music unite people in an extra-ordinary experience or does it make them focus on the performer?

[mirth]

Certainly Coltranes music had a lot of focus on the performer, as does most jazz.

Just to point out, I don't think Vai or YJM are even in the same league with Coltrane or Dolphy, though there biggest problem was getting popular, and stopped progressing. Coltrane was hardly popular when he was alive, and moat jazzers just thought he was a "shredder".

I had the fortunate experience of doing a report on jazz in middle school and wouldn't you know they had a book on jazz on the library, dated 1960. In the "future of jazz" section it quickly dismisses Coltrane as a side show. Not that this was a definitive source, but obviously he wasn't all that culturally relevant.

Liszt comes to mind as well, though he was really popular, a lot of musicians say he's too over the top yet he revolutionized music by inventing long standing songform types, had the piano reinvented to modern standards, etc....

The people who liked Coltrane when he was alive were very niche. It's hard to deny his impact now though.

[chromedinette]

Fascinating discussion here, not sure where to begin, though I will say that the tinsel curtain behind the band in the OP's clip makes it look like they are playing at at a suburban rock club, albeit a giant one.

I do like music that contains ridiculous displays of technique, but not only that and certainly not the version of RITFW from the G3 clip.

I guess I don't know too much about the Vai/Satch/whoever world of modern shred, though from what I have heard, I am wondering if it isn't mostly harmonically pretty boring. Back when I made my living doing sound reinforcement, I supplied PA for a Satch concert and I remember very little about it. I do remember thinking that he was technically very good, but that most of the songs themselves were not interesting.

I don't own a copy, but I like things I have heard from Flexable, though not much else from SV.

I don't totally disagree with Mirth that there is music that one has heard so much that one never needs to hear it again, though Neil Young doesn't fall into that category for me. I am not an arch fan, but there are certain things I like to hear from him with some frequency, both acoustic and electric.

IE's mention of Futurism as related to this is not without merit. It had not occured to me, nor have i probably given futurism a thought in a while, but here is the manifesto, in case anyone has not seen it:

MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM

We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness.
Courage, audacity, and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry.
Up to now literature has exalted a pensive immobility, ecstasy, and sleep. We intend to exalt aggresive action, a feverish insomnia, the racer’s stride, the mortal leap, the punch and the slap.
We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
We want to hymn the man at the wheel, who hurls the lance of his spirit across the Earth, along the circle of its orbit.
The poet must spend himself with ardor, splendor, and generosity, to swell the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.
Except in struggle, there is no more beauty. No work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece. Poetry must be conceived as a violent attack on unknown forces, to reduce and prostrate them before man.
We stand on the last promontory of the centuries!… Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed.
We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.
We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice.
We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot; we will sing of the multicolored, polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant nightly fervor of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons; greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents; factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke; bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts, flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives; adventurous steamers that sniff the horizon; deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing; and the sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd.

[Infinite Ego]

Okay, let me address several points made here by way of throwing a big slow, unexpected curve ball. Watch this and listen very carefully to the lyrics.



What is the essence of this song? How does the ideological core of this song provide the fundamental bedrock of (a) American style capitalism, (b) German Nazism, (c) neo-cons, (d) Italian Futurism, and (e) generic shred-competative guitar?

As for contrasting 'Trane and, say, any shredder.... many good points made here....I think the clue is in the one made regarding the status of the self.

Shredder X has a mentality such that he or she is attempting through obsessive compulsive neurotic practice to either (a) project the self into the coordinates of the imaginary transcendental ego itself or (b) subordinate self to the Other becoming a tool but enjoying nonetheless by virtue of basking in the reflected glow of the Other (which is, by the way, a very ascetic Protestant mentality).

'Trane, et al, obsessive compulsive neurotic practice not to elevate self, make oneself into a tool, etc., but to quite literally and fanatically become absorbed by the imaginary transcendental absolute (which is, by the way, a very ascetic Catholic-mystical approach, see, e.g., Meister Eckhart) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart

Shred = neurotic devotion to self in its external transfigured form aligned with a desire to lord over others

Trane = neurotic devotion to Other in its external transfigured form aligned with a desire to be absorbed and regulated by Other bringing one into expanded relations with empirical others.

These are two sides of the same self-negating spirit. One is the will to power and the other is the power to will

One is death and the other is life. One is mechanical and the other is organic. One is technical while the other is substantive

The funny thing about Vai is that the manifest content of his music places him within one camp but the latent content places him in the other. Or, maybe, Vai belongs purely on the 'Trane side of things, while 99% of shredders belong on the other. I actually don't detect anything odious in Vai's music but there he is playing with two guys that really do not pass the sniff test and his poser rock star nonsense truly clashes with the habitus of somebody like Trane

[brucestevens]

As someone else said, what a strange choice of songs for this kind of thing. I also would be irritated to pay what I assume was a decent price for a ticket to this and get something so half-assed.

Neil Young at least tries some new things now and then... keeps switching back and forth - acoustic, electric, solo, film...

I was in high school when shred was big. It was cool for a minute, but ultimately the songs suck and many of us loose interest. That is the one thing Satriani had going on Surfin with the Alien - there are some actual songs:



I love the idea of G3, but not the execution. I would prefer Cline, Ribot and Frith to Vai, Satriani and Malmsteen.

As far as Vai, this is one of the better things I have ever seen him do:



He is always best (to me) as a sideman.

With regard to music and why we do it... I think of it as mental therapy. I am 100% convinced that the current system of work (and maybe it has always been this way) will make you fucking crazy. I have a "good" job (good pay, a fair amount of autonomy, fairly sane boss) and I still would rather not be here. If I learned anything in 8 months of unemployment it is that work sucks... It is like at ATM - just here for the money.

Bruce