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To Noise, Contemporary and Experimental Music
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| MUSIC for GOOD MOURNING Music is; For example, not about praying to the glory of African soil. Itﾕs neither about speaking to God while watching the sunset over the Hindu River, or about dreaming of Cadillac limousine and well-chilled champagne at a tumbledown studio in Jamaica. Itﾕs not about mourning over the death of your friend who died in Yugoslavia. Or, it's not about watching the Emmy Award ceremony live on TV in the L.A. studio. But mind you; itﾕs not about teaching musical theories and history, either. Music does not speak of love or dream or hope or tragedy. In most cases, music does not ask you to share those feelings. If wedeprive music of its usefulness, would it be absolute music that will survive? But we have to be careful about absolutism. We all know well that absolutism is the result of manipulation of aesthetics. Now, where does music really become music? Where would music eventually assume its inevitability and effectiveness as music? Would you call it music when barely perceivable potential differences are generated within your computer, which is after all one diversion of electronics? When you receive a vibration on your eardrum, whether you perceive it as music or just a sound is determined based more on a socially accepted idea than your aesthetic sense. When music is recognized as music, technical, social, educational, economic or various other infrastructures are involved in terms of both input and output. In the world we live, utterly useless products, noise and experimental music for instance, that donﾕt contribute either to economy or industry or culture or whatsoever are produced without being consumed, temporarily packaged and distributed. Our society doesnﾕt seem to have specific criteria to determine usefulness at the very beginning; but rather, where there is product or intention to produce, there is utility. What I find scary is that, as far as thereﾕs an intention to produce, our society would swallow up what is purposeless at the beginning and digest it by inventing a purpose and reason for being, never minding how far-fetched that purpose or reason might be. Having said that, Iﾕm still hopeful that it may be possible that this sort of production without having any purposeful consumption could constantly revise the concept of music. And when I think about it, I often remember the closing scene of the Benny Goodman Story directed by Valentine Davies and shown in 1955. In this scene, an elderly couple, who loved Mozart, was invited to Bennyﾕs concert at Carnegie Hall by their daughter. Experiencing jazz for the first time in their lives, they had to struggle to understand it not to disappoint their daughter. It looked comical, but may represent how one would react when he encounters music of a completely new kind. And even today, you can witness it. (FURUDATE) |
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C o p y r i g h t 2 0 0 1 P R O J E C T L A M U I n c. A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d.
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