Our Instruments have arrived and are being put back together. When in Bali we acquired three mallets matching one we had that really brings out the tone of the Mt Meru bars. The bar themselves seem to resonate longer. I do not understand why this would be so, but there it is.
In the time that has past there have been some stray thoughts, which seem to stick that I thought I would share.
There is much criticism of a younger generation ignoring the older. Do they forget that they were the once who took an ahistorical stance. How can you expect to now become the “history” then? You threw that out.
Being the case it also put the so-called philosophies, regardless of their worth on the par with fashion. This is unfortunate. And as one who always had respect for those more experienced (maybe too much if anything) it is sad to see the constant reinvention that needn’t be. But we have different people doing music than before and this is something I will take up later.
On my rally against music being composed of 5 parameters, (which I think is a misnomer of what happens and from where it comes to let it lay) let me state that I have learned from Ayers what the relationship is. The parameters are what we need to “analyze” music and that is as far as the statement is valuable.
One comment on the roots of minimalism owing it roots to the total serialism and the freedom that allowed put forth by some. Frankly all it needed was the influences of Indian music, the capability of Tape Loops and Psychedelic Mushrooms. The former music was unneeded except as the making of so called ‘serious music’ irrelevant to the tribe of westerners. If anything all it did was create a vacuum. I still see this period as analogous to the “Ars Nova” with similar results. Brief then over and while we can still hear the noun from that time, the energy is not the same, it is merely the shell of what was, and not even done as well (which many have testified to.)
