Archive for the ‘Aesthetics’ Category

What is Art?

I have recently begun listening to Marc Maron’s smart and funny WTF podcast. Yesterday I heard an episode in which comedian Janeane Garofalo was his guest (also smart and funny). Near the end of the conversation, Garofalo brought up the question, “What is an artist?” Maron responded by saying, “To me, an artist is somebody [...]

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Timbre vs Melody, part ii: Timbral Listening

I have more thoughts on this that I haven’t sorted out (and all the responses – many interesting one – I got on the original post were at Facebook/MySpace), but in the meanwhile, here’s a fascinating Wikipedia entry on “Timbral Listening”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbral_Listening Timbral Listening From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Timbral Listening is the process of actively [...]

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Sonny Sharrock: On Improvisation (“Fool + Noise = Bullshit”)

I first read this article about improvisation by Sonny Sharrock about 20 years ago, and it always stuck with me. It’s interesting to revisit it now. I find it just as fascinating. By the way, I don’t agree with his statement that 90% of Jazz is improvised. It’s much much much less than that (20% [...]

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Timbre vs. Melody

Is timbre the new melody?

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Cet Air-La

Back in the summer of 2006, I was asked by the now retired e-zine Harmonium to write about a “Perfect Pop Song” of my choosing. Looking at it now, I could ditch the 4th and maybe even 5th paragraphs. Anyhow, here’s what I submitted: The phrase “Perfect Pop Song” evokes a lot of auditory images [...]

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