Music and "the details"
Sep. 9th, 2004 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyear"The way that music is made, and by whom is as important, probably more important than the music itself." -- David Singleton (engineer/manager for DGM). He's working on his own album, while dealing with other DGM affairs, and left this comment in his diary:
Anyways, this to me has been an eternal truth. Knowing why the music was made, by whom, and how, and "what were they thinking?" makes it more important. It increases the value of the music, rather than trivializes it as some might think.
Yeah, I'm a sucker for liner notes.
Downstairs, the music continues to be both wonderful and eternally frustrating. Take a badly sung, bad played acoustic guitar rendition of a track. Replay it, re-sing it, and guess what? The original, out of tune and out of time is better. It has a sense of itself. Of the music.
I find myself increasingly intrigued by what makes us connect to pop/rock music (as compared with orchestral music). Today, my vote goes to a personal connection with the artist. An identical sounding track played by a different artist WOULD be different. Would I connect to the new Fripp/Eno album in the same way if I did not know that it was by them ? Or with soundscapes, if someone was playing identical music on a keyboard synthesiser. The way that music is made, and by whom is as important, probably more important than the music itself. No doubt this thought is not as new to my reading public as it is to me.
Anyways, this to me has been an eternal truth. Knowing why the music was made, by whom, and how, and "what were they thinking?" makes it more important. It increases the value of the music, rather than trivializes it as some might think.
Yeah, I'm a sucker for liner notes.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-09-09 02:52 pm (UTC)Hearing a song on the radio, you don't know anything about it. All you know by the end of it is how you feel about it. To me, that's all the context I need. Just tossing out another POV. Your milage may vary. See dealer for final price...
Catch ya Saturday?
no subject
Date: 2004-09-09 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-09 08:33 pm (UTC)I guess we really do know who wears the pants in this family...
no subject
Date: 2004-09-13 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-09 07:56 pm (UTC)Go to Glen Echo Open Band. Hear 15-20 musician, with a few strong leads and some clever playing, play amazing stuff with no rehearsal and no practice. This is AMAZING stuff when heard live. One night, I knew that we were rocking the ballroom when I heard this deep bass going on. I finally found it coming from the floor - THE FLOOR. The dancers were in-time. 400 people were stomping to the beat, on the beat. You can't pay for that.
I also get that with the indie stuff I've been listening to. Some of it is quite atrocious, but it has a life to it that shows you just how cold studio music has become. In the quest for perfection, the studios have lost life. One danged fun album I know of was recorded, in Australia, in a wool shed. The largest line item was for liquor. It's amazing just how cheap you make a record and still have it sound good.
I buy music for those few albums that I just fall in love with or those writers/performers that just "sound right" to me. I love Stephin Merritt partly because he has this crunchy voice that could never sell a million albums.