mirth
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Post by mirth on Oct 26, 2012 6:19:30 GMT -5
A little quiet in here this week.
Anywho....Thought I'd post a thought I had earlier today.
So I got to thinking, do you think there's a correlation between how forward thinking a devoted guitarist is and how popular they are? For instance, Clapton hasn't really progressed at all since the 60s, but that probably has to do with creating a successful formula for himself. Heck, Vai hasn't really progressed since Passion and Warfare (as a guitarist). Jeff Beck and Scott Henderson both are exceptions I can think of. But then I think of a lot of more mainstream rock players, maybe the reason they don't explore much is because they've got a way to make money and that allows them stability.
Do you think there's any merit to that? Is that why so many of our favorites don't really progress much from the first couple albums?
On that note, I think it's time to get back to working on Giant Steps in every key....See how popular I am!
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Post by Infinite Ego on Oct 26, 2012 9:05:07 GMT -5
I think the things that people want in music are pretty melodies and a beat they could dance to if they wanted. Music that deviates from that will be marginal regardless of instrumentation.
I also think that fringe music as commodity is almost exclusively a white, male, educated, middle class phenomenon. Egoism is the realm of music to think about rather than shaking your ass on the dance floor. Fringe, or challenging music as art form, is almost always the creation of some subaltern position in society that then attracts the white middle class educated types ;D
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Post by brucestevens on Oct 26, 2012 10:43:41 GMT -5
I think even a lot of people that say they like experimental / new music fall into this trap. It is hard for anyone that keeps reaching and evolving. There was a funny anecodote in "Our Band Could be Your Life" about how Black Flag battled this in the 80s - the fans could never keep up as their sound evolved.
Hello, how many "jazz fans" discount electric Miles and out Coltrane?
Bruce
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Post by chrissh on Oct 26, 2012 12:33:19 GMT -5
Western societies support egoism, so people are most likely to reinforce their identities with more of what they already enjoy and are rewarded by. Not many really like (or are able) to play and explore, too many threatening possibilties.
'Art music' was intended to be appreciated like literature or fine art, and those are the domain of socioeconomic privilege, where people have enough slack to intellectually muse, as was the avant garde. Folk musics weren't always just about "primitive" people dancing before copulation, they were used to work through ideas too. Rock was almost a sort of folk music, accessible and immediate, but has always been suspicious of intellectualism. The cultural upheaval of the 1960s (Beck, Clapton, especially Hendrix) was a promising anomaly, not the historical norm.
Postmodern, post-pop culture allows people to express the weird in advertising and action movies that formally operate more like kinetic art than coherent narrative. Technology and contemporary fashion too, superficially similar to surrealism. Popular culture now satisfies most peoples' needs for the feeling of transgression, but it sacrificed the thoughtfulness and playfulness (see repressive desublimation) that could really empower.
Guitar rock is just sort of passe, it doesn't reflect the tenor, an artifact of another time. It's not going away anytime soon, but it won't be as likely to attract radicals or brain-thinkers.
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Post by davidmgt on Oct 26, 2012 22:31:36 GMT -5
The way I see it is that every field of activity has its own conventions and agreed upon practices - guitar music is no different. One could easily observe that the agreed upon conventions of what it means to play guitar tend to fit into particular categories within which indivuals conform. The irony is that any change in such conventions tend to come from the periphery of what is considered legitimate. Hence, the next iteration of guitar is not likely to come from, for example, a shredder, a texas blues player, or a classic rocker.
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mirth
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Posts: 931
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Post by mirth on Oct 29, 2012 11:11:35 GMT -5
. Hence, the next iteration of guitar is not likely to come from, for example, a shredder, a texas blues player, or a classic rocker. That's actually kind of fascinating to think about, but I definitely think you're correct. Sometimes I think that guitar is so popular, etc...but then you go to Home Depot and you can't even find the right kind of sand paper to sand down frets and you start to realize what kind of a fringe industry it even is at this point. As big as the Fenders, Marshalls and Gibsons seem, they're tiny companies on the grand scale. Heck even Guitar Center is tiny really. Almost no non-musicians would have ever even heard of it. (Despite driving past them). So thinking about the Fringe among the Fringe is pretty mindboggling when we talk about the next iteration. Also, at that point it's a very very lonely road for said individual/s who are making this new iteration as it won't be accepted by most for some time. |
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Post by chrissh on Oct 29, 2012 12:17:47 GMT -5
It's a good point. Guitar can be so personally interesting and fulfilling that one can become solipsistic and forget the vast rest of the world (and history) has other priorities and values.
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Post by davidmgt on Oct 31, 2012 8:45:48 GMT -5
. Hence, the next iteration of guitar is not likely to come from, for example, a shredder, a texas blues player, or a classic rocker. That's actually kind of fascinating to think about, but I definitely think you're correct. Sometimes I think that guitar is so popular, etc...but then you go to Home Depot and you can't even find the right kind of sand paper to sand down frets and you start to realize what kind of a fringe industry it even is at this point. As big as the Fenders, Marshalls and Gibsons seem, they're tiny companies on the grand scale. Heck even Guitar Center is tiny really. Almost no non-musicians would have ever even heard of it. (Despite driving past them). So thinking about the Fringe among the Fringe is pretty mindboggling when we talk about the next iteration. Also, at that point it's a very very lonely road for said individual/s who are making this new iteration as it won't be accepted by most for some time. And as you could probably guess, peripheral innovators face the most resistance from those at the "core". So the esoteric innovators are likely to get pushback from those that conform to the existing standards of approaching the guitar. |
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Post by theecricket on Oct 31, 2012 18:56:58 GMT -5
Oh Hai
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Post by chrissh on Oct 31, 2012 19:41:10 GMT -5
;D
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