Innovative music or pretentious twaddle?

axisus

Whilst faffing around online at work I came across an interesting guitar with a great many bells and whistles. Curious as to what the owner was like I checked him out. A few videos later and I know which camp he sits in for me. What thinkest this great and mighty forum?

PolarityMan

i have had more musical bowel movements.

Sporky

It could be innovative twaddle, but I don't know how to tell.

Fretwired

I quite like it, but then I listen to a lot of Nordic jazz. I just got bored with rock music. I'm probably getting dementia.

markv

Both. (Bearing in mind that "innovative" doesn't necessarily mean "good").

There are some really interesting sounds in there and occasional moments of coalescence, but overall a bit pointless.

Roland

A bit of both. The synth playing reminded me of Jaco Pastorius' fret less bass. I found the ideas quite interesting, and more listenable than some of the modern pieces which turn up on Radio 3. The acoustic should have scrambled around, providing harmonic and rhythmic interest. It didn't, and that's where it fell down for me. Pretentious? Bleached hair with sunglasses on top shouts Andy Warhol, unless he's an albino.

Strangefan

It reminds me of the jams I used to have in my stoner days, thinking it was far reaching experimental loveliness, only to get the stark realisation in the morning it was shite.

EricTheWeary

Is that an Eggle? Musically it's not my thing, although there is stuff out there that's even less my thing and I'm generally happy that there are folks pushing boundaries a bit as I'm certainly not and most stuff isn't.

axisus

EricTheWeary said:

Is that an Eggle? 

Basically yes, but with a lot of extra gubbins as well:

EricTheWeary

axisus;964269" said:

EricTheWeary said:

Is that an Eggle? 





Basically yes, but with a lot of extra gubbins as well:

Significant gubbins on that! What's the long black thing on the lower half of the body, I think everything else I have an idea of but no clue about that?

axisus

Apparently it's a V-Meter touch strip 

This is from his website:

I have a V-Meter touch strip which controls numerous parameters in MainStage on the laptop. I have a sustainer by Sustainiac which takes the signal from the bridge pickup and uses that to magnetically sustain the strings. This produces infinite sustain even acoustically without the guitar plugged in. There is a Fishman Tripleplay synth pickup which I use to trigger synths and samplers on the laptop. The synths are generally used for chords rather than lead. Finally there is a GK-2 which I use purely for the audio signals to the VG-88.

His gear page rundown is here:

http://www.markwingfield.com/gear/index.html

jonnygreentrees

jonnygreentrees

RocknRollDave

You have to take any opinion of mine with the caveat that I have very conservative, quite linear, I would call them, tastes, but even so...WhaddafookisTHAT supposed to be?!


Put it another way: It may be oversimplifying it somewhat, but generally speaking music revolves around a series of moments where tension is built up then resolved, a chord sequence may have a conclusion that naturally feels "happy" or "sad" and a certain few chords in a row may suggest to one's ear what the "right" next chord may be...One of the reasons why some forms of Jazz are so divisve is that they lean very heavily on this idea of creating almost dischordant tension, which is then resolved. Some Jazz artists take this to the nth degree, creating parts which, in isolation, are wildly "out of tune" - or "out of the box" as they may call it - with the view that they work as part of the whole. Others see this as indulgent, dissonant rubbish.

For my tastes, you need to tread the fine line between tension and toss. Is all.

A lot of the examples above fail to tread the right side of that line, IMO. YMMV.

Winny_Pooh

This is amazing, about as "innovative" as needed.

EricTheWeary

RocknRollDave said:

You have to take any opinion of mine with the caveat that I have very conservative, quite linear, I would call them, tastes, but even so...WhaddafookisTHAT supposed to be?!


Put it another way: It may be oversimplifying it somewhat, but generally speaking music revolves around a series of moments where tension is built up then resolved, a chord sequence may have a conclusion that naturally feels "happy" or "sad" and a certain few chords in a row may suggest to one's ear what the "right" next chord may be...One of the reasons why some forms of Jazz are so divisve is that they lean very heavily on this idea of creating almost dischordant tension, which is then resolved. Some Jazz artists take this to the nth degree, creating parts which, in isolation, are wildly "out of tune" - or "out of the box" as they may call it - with the view that they work as part of the whole. Others see this as indulgent, dissonant rubbish.

For my tastes, you need to tread the fine line between tension and toss. Is all.

A lot of the examples above fail to tread the right side of that line, IMO. YMMV.

This made me think that I find some of this explorative music interesting quite at odds with my usual attitudes toward music  - I tend to be most interested in short, visceral songs and basically almost anti -intellectual. I'm not sure this is a problem to anyone other than to me and, unless I choose to dwell on it, I'm not sure it's really a problem for me either. Just odd where we draw the lines sometimes. There was somebody on here the other day talking about the importance of punk. When you are up close the difference between the Sex Pistols and Led Zep is massive and important. If you stand back from it they seem pretty much the same. Whatever theory I have about why I like what I like there's always an exception that confounds me. Anyway, no idea where I'm going with this, I need a cup of tea.

carlos

I don't like it because it's too unfocussed. But here are some thoughts anyway:

• Pretentious - I think all good music is a little bit pretentious "attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed." Fake it until you make it. Play for a stadium audience even if you have one drunk old man in the corner of the pub as your audience. Put on a good show. Etc. In some ways, pretentious can be replaced with ambitious. Why not?
• Intellectual - this word gets thrown around a lot for music that's a bit out there. But what I see in that video is too people just playing, no regards for harmonic structures, melodic clichés/quotes. I think it's the opposite of intellectual as it seems to be based purely on feeling, i.e. what sound fits this moment, with no intellectual structure on top for harmony.
• The Eggle player seems good and with some ideas, but he probably doesn't need all those gadgets. Likely, they make him feel more comfortable, a safety blanket in having all those options. The acoustic player is lacking in imagination and technique to execute. Could be just a bad day as improvised music depends a lot on the performer's mental state and disposition.

Danchi

jonnygreentrees said:

It's like one of those '......... shreds' videos :-D

RocknRollDave

I guess it's no different to what people think when one of the bands I like goes off into a seemingly endless Blues solo. Horses for courses.

I wouldn't want to go and see a horse playing improv freeform jazz, mind.*





*although in fairness to the horse, it wouldn't be any worse than some of the examples above.

axisus

RocknRollDave said:

I guess it's no different to what people think when one of the bands I like goes off into a seemingly endless Blues solo. 

I think that's a little different. A long blues solo can be played in an accomplished way, but gets boring after a while. For me the original example I posted just seems like someone who doesn't really have much of a clue about playing a guitar!

Jalapeno

Is it time to bring up Derek Bailey yet ?