http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js-PAD2ECDQ
Hein
On 31 Mar 2011, at 7:41 AM, Mike Beggs wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 12:27 PM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> It seems to me that rhythm is the trace of the social in music and
>> that once it's gone, music is no longer about something that
>> everybody can join in and do. It has lost its vernacular if you
>> will. This is not to say that the select few cannot enjoy the
>> rarefied pleasures of non-rhythmic music; it's just to say that
>> they are few and select.
>
> But doesn't song have as much claim as dance to be a historical social
> base of music? It's still at least as much the vernacular of popular
> music as dance.
>
> Rhythm and danceability are not the same thing; there are a lot of
> undanceable rhythms. And I think it's wrong to always put dance on the
> side of the popular against the esoteric. Dance cultures can be pretty
> exclusive, and can generate some pretty extreme musics, e.g.:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk6IDwtaIko&feature=related
>
> or
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocgbLkayfTE
>
> In any case, it's a mistake to set up too firm a divide between the
> popular or vernacular and the rarified. There is a rather large
> spectrum between a 150-date Michael Jackson tour and a couple of
> gentlemen discussing an unrealisable but conceptually fascinating
> score over sherries in the staff club. A lot of the best music of the
> 20th century has come from the dialectic between popular and esoteric
> and initially had small but passionate audiences, and certainly not
> necessarily elite in the sense you imply. The evolution of bebop is a
> case in point - a deliberate turning of musicians' backs on what had
> become tame, predictable mass white swing audiences to chase a new
> sound. Their audience was inevitably a lot smaller but more into it
> and committed for a long ride. The bands were smaller too so a niche
> was sustainable. It's the whole back-and-forth process between the
> popular and the avant garde that makes the history of music so
> interesting.
>
> Mike
>
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