I believe it is a myth that one can’t learn to love sounds other than the sounds on grew up with. After all, I only learned to appreciate Mozart rather recently. And I’m very close in age to you.

Another thought: if you can’t relate to newer music, doesn’t that mean it’s in some way “new.”

“2. I think lots of people who are over 30 think that new music is crap.”

I think that’s a bit of an over-generalization… Surely “music” isn’t one homogenous entity?

“3. Has DR ever really listened to Moby’s album Play? Moby is at least 85% as brilliant as The Talking Heads, which is saying something.”

I can assure you that as a composer who works with both experimental and dance forms (underground house and techno), Moby’s work is not considered particularly brilliant. In fact, all Moby does is sample “real” musicians playing “authentic” sounding music, stick a fairly obvious sampled drum beat over top of it, and call it a new piece. If anything, Moby’s album is perfect evidence of the lack of originality in recent music.

On the other hand, I hear he is a nice guy, and someone I knew actually dated him I believe.

“4. Isn’t the emergence of techno and electronica, with 6/8 time, kind of amazing? And from the last 20 years?”

How could reinventing something that has existed for hundreds of years be amazing? This again just shows we are going backwards. Just take a look at the rhythms of classical Indian music in comparison.

Now, surely there have been some interesting moments in electronic music in the past 20 years; but what is interesting about the best examples is less any radical innovation in style, as much as their ability to inject a feeling of soul and humanity back into music that technology is increasingly making bland and homogenous–reminding us that maybe there is still hope that we can learn to live with technology and not simply be controlled and consumed by it.

Suggested electronic listening from the last 20 years (albums):
+Carl Craig: “More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art” (90’s)
+Akufen: “My Way” (2000)
+Omar S: “Fabric 45 – Detroit” (2009)

“5. Maybe what we’re doing with music is what’s new… But perhaps people expect more of a spiritual experience from dancing or otherwise experiencing the music.”

Again, people have been doing this for thousands of years, how can it be considered new? Worse, one could argue that this is not progress, but rather a regression to a pre-aesthetic state of consciousness, where one passively surrenders to the sounds whatever they happen to be, but loses the ability to make an aesthetic judgment which was once considered a hallmark of subjective consciousness (see Kant).

-mason

The article: Wealth Happens – Wealth Distribution and the Role of Networks by Mark Buchanan reviews the modeling work by Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and Marc Mézard of the University of Paris. Their model demonstrates the observed consequences of these two uses of money.

I appreciate your thinking, and it helped me sort through some of my own. Keep up the good work both of thinking and of expounding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49yZzCggSJM

and one of us will come around

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU9_Q7PJuNQ

This is for you, Carolyn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fny40Ut_RZA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTdaPc4kuj4

Not interested in impressing old hens. Particularly, hens who think too much of themselves. I find them throughly repulsive.

Occasionally, i run into a great new act. But largely this hasn’t happened since the 90’s. Once i *do* get that new experience, however, it’s back to tracking influences and references – doing the joyful work of discovering older values in the new value.

It’s like the gospel standard “99 and a half won’t do” which i first heard in the winter of 1993 at a “Hartford Gospel All Stars” concert in CT. I can’t find a recording or a “copy” of their renditions which have much more swing than jump (if you will), but for me personally, Talking Heads were only 95 and a half, most of the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9emxL1cYJ0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxRK9OzD-uw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIa8pq8Pr6c&feature=related

When it’s approached, found and felt at 100, one dwells, there is abundance.

In this musical context, to me, what Doug is saying is that we can’t really copy and/or sell “it.” This is our current antiquated Operating System. The Digital Age assists us in navigating roots. With a sizable enough database, it can even take your personal melody and make it sound like Thelonious Monk or play it 6/8.

In 2008, i heard Chubritza play at the farmer’s market in Arcata CA. After one song the leader asked if anyone knew the time in which they had been playing. I was the only person in this highly musical university town who piped up and offered, “I don’t know, but i heard lots of 7’s, 9’s and 13’s.” The real point is that dozens of mixed couples and children were dancing and the rest were buying local produce from the booths lining every inch of the town plaza. Just another link.

http://california.tribe.net/event/JEWISH-AND-EASTERN-EUROPEAN-CONCERT-DANCING-WITH-CHUBRITZA/trinidad-ca-95570/d11c7ce5-c188-47ec-bdca-efe4e3bddf18

Your sculpture professor is wise. We have a taxonomy for everything now. This is the old Operating System. It says we can only copy. We will never make anything alive again approaching life or creation with this mentality. It is best for the student/artist to get over this. Moreover, i suspect professors say this to dissuade folks who have been enveloped by the old OS, kinda like someone turned by the notorious “Agent Smith.” I think what this means is “Do what emerges from those 100 percent moments. Keep doing it when our expression is 99 and a half and less.

The Brits used to have the kids sit and translate Greek and Latin texts word by word. This is a great start, but the point is to find the wonderful text for ourselves so we can create the wonderful understanding and interpretation. I’m a big fan of Krishnamurti and this is essentially his philosophy of education. An educator must have the ability to accompany the student in the search for this text or the special root of the student’s soul. Otherwise, all exchanges will be corrupted and the soul will wither.

The more we are mediated in this old Operating System the quicker our souls will wither. I can’t recall where at this moment but Jewish tradition says Find a Teacher and support him or her. This is what supports a tradition of education and what nourishes a soul. When there is a minyan in the community, whether they be growers, herders, musicians or solar engineers there is no reason that abundance should go unrecognised or unenjoyed.

When there is a minyan and/or a soul that has experienced it’s root once at 100, there is no reason said individual can not (with a little joyful effort) shape this into something complete for the benefit of others.

Mika, impress me by making “I” statements the next time you want to go off on something. (I’m joking but also not.) Seriously, I broke up with the guy last July because he was too angry, so I don’t think it’s in the cards for us. I do think that the conversation here would benefit from more “I” statements, however. (I wish I knew how to say thanks but no thanks in a really nice way that wouldn’t potentially make you feel bad or embarrassed in this very public forum. I apologize because I don’t know how to do that.)

Okay…let’s navigate from PostSecret back to Radical Abundance…(or did I drag this all the way to the Craigslist personals?)

What I kept thinking about today was DR’s comment about how there hasn’t been any good music in 20 years. It was a small piece of what he was saying, but it really stayed with me. Who agrees with him?

My thoughts are:

1. I really wouldn’t know because I am 36 and music from before 1989 was formative — part of my teenage years, part of how I developed a sense of identity, even. It’s hard for me to compare.

2. I think lots of people who are over 30 think that new music is crap.

3. Has DR ever really listened to Moby’s album Play? Moby is at least 85% as brilliant as The Talking Heads, which is saying something.

4. Isn’t the emergence of techno and electronica, with 6/8 time, kind of amazing? And from the last 20 years?

5. Maybe what we’re doing with music is what’s new. Maybe the music of the last 20 years isn’t as notable as the music from the 20 years before that. But perhaps people expect more of a spiritual experience from dancing or otherwise experiencing the music. The emergence of ecstatic dance (FiveRhythms, Trance Dance, Soul Motion) suggests this. The music doesn’t need to make headlines because we’re more interested in our internal experience with the music. It’s the vehicle to the object of our affection, no longer the object of our affection itself.

At the same time, I think that people have always listened to music to be transported. And I think that people have attended rock concerts to have peak experiences for decades. But now people are using music and dancing to get a peak experience, no tickets, stadium or drugs required.

I’m not sure that there is less creativity out there when it comes to music. I would love to hear what other people have to say about this.

But in all creative media, particularly visual design (fashion design, graphic design), I believe that there has been nothing new or interesting in 20 years because by 1989 a huge number of creative visionaries had died of aids. That’s why we haven’t seen anything new. There were no defining trends from the early 1990s. People tried to call grunge a trend but it was hardly that major. By the mid 1990s we had 1970s retro and now we’re headlong into 1980s retro. Which means we’re out of retro. Which is awesome because now something new might happen. The question is: will the new generation of designers know how to be visionaries when they’ve grown up without them?

I had a sculpture teacher once who said that we shouldn’t sculpt because everything’s been done already. I don’t think that’s ever true, in any medium.

BTW, in case anyone is feeling cynical: queer folks in Mexico City can get married now (unlike in San Francisco, grrr.) I didn’t see that coming and it gives me great hope.

I’m definitely straight, and unlike Doug, or Mason, I’m available!
(Donno bout da intaligent part, but me will try me best. Call me!)