• Re: Ian Pace

    From Frank Berger@21:1/5 to cheregi on Mon Jan 2 15:13:14 2023
    On 1/2/2023 3:03 PM, cheregi wrote:
    I've been really enjoying his recordings of Finnissy's 'epic' piano pieces which seem closer in spirit to Sorabji than to, like, inner cities, etudes karnatiques, catalogue d'oiseaux (other 'worldbuilding' piano stuff i've been listening to), though i
    can imagine both sorabji and finnissy not embracing the comparison...

    But I'm even more excited about his writing (essays, conference papers, blog posts):

    https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/musicology-is-not-musical-pr/

    https://core.ac.uk/reader/29018096

    https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/6472/1/Complexity%20as%20Imaginative%20Stimulant%20%282007%29.pdf

    He is clearly, rigorously, and thoughtfully Marxist,

    Nons sequitors all.

    and from this perspective writes on for example the ideological baggage of historically-informed performance, the politics of and around john cage, and the kinds of interpretive decisions a performer of New Music thinks about... even though he is firmly
    in the New Music world and the academic WAM world he seems to have 'no illusions' or presuppositions (or at least not the same ones I've gotten tired of seeing) around the value of what he is doing. So I learn for example that John Cage's own politics
    did not extend far past a hopelessly naive and self-serving Thoreau-y libertarianism... but this is not presented as 'iconoclasm', rather as part of a call to consider Cage more firmly as a composer rather than as an ideologue with compositional
    corollary...

    Anyone else read this stuff? Or thoughts on Pace recordings, Finnissy or others?

    I have zero interest in a performer's ideology, politics or personal preferences. I rely on my ears (and sometimes those of others).

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  • From cheregi@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jan 2 12:03:33 2023
    I've been really enjoying his recordings of Finnissy's 'epic' piano pieces which seem closer in spirit to Sorabji than to, like, inner cities, etudes karnatiques, catalogue d'oiseaux (other 'worldbuilding' piano stuff i've been listening to), though i
    can imagine both sorabji and finnissy not embracing the comparison...

    But I'm even more excited about his writing (essays, conference papers, blog posts):

    https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/musicology-is-not-musical-pr/

    https://core.ac.uk/reader/29018096

    https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/6472/1/Complexity%20as%20Imaginative%20Stimulant%20%282007%29.pdf

    He is clearly, rigorously, and thoughtfully Marxist, and from this perspective writes on for example the ideological baggage of historically-informed performance, the politics of and around john cage, and the kinds of interpretive decisions a performer
    of New Music thinks about... even though he is firmly in the New Music world and the academic WAM world he seems to have 'no illusions' or presuppositions (or at least not the same ones I've gotten tired of seeing) around the value of what he is doing.
    So I learn for example that John Cage's own politics did not extend far past a hopelessly naive and self-serving Thoreau-y libertarianism... but this is not presented as 'iconoclasm', rather as part of a call to consider Cage more firmly as a composer
    rather than as an ideologue with compositional corollary...

    Anyone else read this stuff? Or thoughts on Pace recordings, Finnissy or others?

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jan 2 13:11:37 2023
    Finnissy and Pace on English Cunts

    https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/interview-between-ian-pace-and-michael-finnissy-on-english-country-tunes-february-2009/

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Mandryka on Mon Jan 2 13:13:22 2023
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 9:11:39 PM UTC, Mandryka wrote:
    Finnissy and Pace on English Cunts

    https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/interview-between-ian-pace-and-michael-finnissy-on-english-country-tunes-february-2009/

    Finnissy's queer rereading of the Hammerklavier

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgoodfghmwg&t=845s&ab_channel=ZubinKanga

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jan 2 13:32:50 2023
    Dan Leech Wilkinson on related things -- right wingery and freedom of expression

    https://challengingperformance.com/the-book-30-1/

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Mandryka on Mon Jan 2 13:22:56 2023
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 9:13:24 PM UTC, Mandryka wrote:
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 9:11:39 PM UTC, Mandryka wrote:
    Finnissy and Pace on English Cunts

    https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/interview-between-ian-pace-and-michael-finnissy-on-english-country-tunes-february-2009/
    Finnissy's queer rereading of the Hammerklavier

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgoodfghmwg&t=845s&ab_channel=ZubinKanga
    John Tilbury's Statement

    http://incalcando.com/tilbury/

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Mandryka on Mon Jan 2 13:35:11 2023
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 9:32:53 PM UTC, Mandryka wrote:
    Dan Leech Wilkinson on related things -- right wingery and freedom of expression

    https://challengingperformance.com/the-book-30-1/
    And his book

    https://challengingperformance.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/221/2021/05/Challenging-Performance.pdf

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  • From HT@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jan 2 14:06:46 2023
    Anyone else read this stuff? Or thoughts on Pace recordings, Finnissy or others?

    IIRC, Pace once was a member of RMCR. He was well-informed and informative. Finnissy was his main subject but he also wrote regularly about romantic piano music and piano playing.

    As is often the case in modern art, Pace's explanations and performances of the almost un-performable were far more fascinating than what he explained and performed.

    Henk

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  • From Marc S@21:1/5 to cheregi on Mon Jan 2 14:02:33 2023
    cheregi schrieb am Montag, 2. Januar 2023 um 21:03:36 UTC+1:
    I've been really enjoying his recordings of Finnissy's 'epic' piano pieces which seem closer in spirit to Sorabji than to, like, inner cities, etudes karnatiques, catalogue d'oiseaux (other 'worldbuilding' piano stuff i've been listening to), though i
    can imagine both sorabji and finnissy not embracing the comparison...

    But I'm even more excited about his writing (essays, conference papers, blog posts):

    https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/musicology-is-not-musical-pr/

    https://core.ac.uk/reader/29018096

    https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/6472/1/Complexity%20as%20Imaginative%20Stimulant%20%282007%29.pdf

    He is clearly, rigorously, and thoughtfully Marxist,

    Neither is he, nor are you a Marxist. God damn it, Marx ain't got nothing to do with fucked up idiots like you who fetishize the body of a woman.

    You are a mental case, just as ian pace.

    To quote Marx: "ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas marxiste."

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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Marc S on Mon Jan 2 14:10:48 2023
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 2:02:35 PM UTC-8, Marc S wrote:
    cheregi schrieb am Montag, 2. Januar 2023 um 21:03:36 UTC+1:
    I've been really enjoying his recordings of Finnissy's 'epic' piano pieces which seem closer in spirit to Sorabji than to, like, inner cities, etudes karnatiques, catalogue d'oiseaux (other 'worldbuilding' piano stuff i've been listening to), though
    i can imagine both sorabji and finnissy not embracing the comparison...

    But I'm even more excited about his writing (essays, conference papers, blog posts):

    https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/musicology-is-not-musical-pr/

    https://core.ac.uk/reader/29018096

    https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/6472/1/Complexity%20as%20Imaginative%20Stimulant%20%282007%29.pdf

    He is clearly, rigorously, and thoughtfully Marxist,
    Neither is he, nor are you a Marxist. God damn it, Marx ain't got nothing to do with fucked up idiots like you who fetishize the body of a woman.

    You are a mental case, just as ian pace.

    To quote Marx: "ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas marxiste."

    - It has been the acknowledged right of every Marxist scholar to read into Marx the particular meaning that he himself prefers and to treat
    all others with indignation.

    John Kenneth Galbraith

    - Marx, Darwin and Freud are the three most crashing bores of the Western World. Simplistic popularization of their ideas has thrust
    our world into a mental straitjacket from which we can only escape by the most anarchic violence.

    William Golding

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  • From HT@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jan 2 14:21:07 2023
    To quote Marx: "ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas marxiste."

    Like, Nietzsche isn't a Nietzschean? Isn't that self-evident?

    Henk

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to elirkerry@gmail.com on Mon Jan 2 22:19:30 2023
    In article <18f00789-79d4-4b53-93d8-d7c605455822n@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elirkerry@gmail.com> wrote:
    Anyone else read this stuff? Or thoughts on Pace recordings,
    Finnissy or others?

    Not much... overlaps with plenty of stuff I do read & write though....

    Kinda funny how the immediate responses are just wide open,
    content-free hostility. Pretty much says it all about RMCR....

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  • From Herman@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Mon Jan 2 19:12:20 2023
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 11:19:34 PM UTC+1, Todd M. McComb wrote:


    Kinda funny how the immediate responses are just wide open,
    content-free hostility. Pretty much says it all about RMCR....

    well, it got off to a good start with Franks pluralisation of "Nons sequitors."

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  • From Frank Berger@21:1/5 to Herman on Mon Jan 2 23:09:47 2023
    On 1/2/2023 10:12 PM, Herman wrote:
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 11:19:34 PM UTC+1, Todd M. McComb wrote:


    Kinda funny how the immediate responses are just wide open,
    content-free hostility. Pretty much says it all about RMCR....

    well, it got off to a good start with Franks pluralisation of "Nons sequitors."

    Was it a typo on my part and careless editing? Or did I not the plural? Does it matter? Of course pointing out the error renders any anti-marxist expession on my part invalid. Well done.
    I have not checked this message for errors. Have at it.

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to cheregi on Tue Jan 3 02:27:15 2023
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 8:03:36 PM UTC, cheregi wrote:
    I've been really enjoying his recordings of Finnissy's 'epic' piano pieces which seem closer in spirit to Sorabji than to, like, inner cities, etudes karnatiques, catalogue d'oiseaux (other 'worldbuilding' piano stuff i've been listening to), though i
    can imagine both sorabji and finnissy not embracing the comparison...

    But I'm even more excited about his writing (essays, conference papers, blog posts):

    https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/musicology-is-not-musical-pr/

    https://core.ac.uk/reader/29018096

    https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/6472/1/Complexity%20as%20Imaginative%20Stimulant%20%282007%29.pdf

    He is clearly, rigorously, and thoughtfully Marxist, and from this perspective writes on for example the ideological baggage of historically-informed performance, the politics of and around john cage, and the kinds of interpretive decisions a performer
    of New Music thinks about... even though he is firmly in the New Music world and the academic WAM world he seems to have 'no illusions' or presuppositions (or at least not the same ones I've gotten tired of seeing) around the value of what he is doing.
    So I learn for example that John Cage's own politics did not extend far past a hopelessly naive and self-serving Thoreau-y libertarianism... but this is not presented as 'iconoclasm', rather as part of a call to consider Cage more firmly as a composer
    rather than as an ideologue with compositional corollary...

    Anyone else read this stuff? Or thoughts on Pace recordings, Finnissy or others?
    The chapter on Finnissy in Zubin Kanga's doctorate is worth a read I think

    https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56d6c3d6d51cd4de9d02d5b1/t/5e1e35136bf4cf739d06b4b7/1579038042307/Zubin+Kanga+-+PhD+thesis-compressed.pdf

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  • From HT@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jan 3 03:36:31 2023
    The chapter on Finnissy in Zubin Kanga's doctorate is worth a read I think

    Thanks. It certainly is. Whether it is worth listening to the music (K/Z) ...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym0Z_jF_OVo

    Henk

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Tue Jan 3 17:12:56 2023
    In article <tovl9i$seh$1@hope.eyrie.org>,
    Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
    In article <18f00789-79d4-4b53-93d8-d7c605455822n@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elirkerry@gmail.com> wrote:
    Anyone else read this stuff? Or thoughts on Pace recordings,
    Finnissy or others?
    Not much... overlaps with plenty of stuff I do read & write though....

    Regarding the music, I listened to a smattering from Finnissy a
    while back... must've been 2020... but nothing really stuck with
    me. IIRC, he's working entirely in 12tet... an outdated system.

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Tue Jan 3 17:23:11 2023
    In article <tp1nmo$7d9$1@hope.eyrie.org>,
    Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
    Regarding the music, I listened to a smattering from Finnissy a
    while back... must've been 2020... but nothing really stuck with
    me.

    Tangentially, I'll note that Wikipedia includes Richard Barrett
    among its small "See also" list ending the Finnissy article. Barrett
    is someone I've heard much more, since he's active with other
    musicians I follow in the improvisation world.

    (And my wife insists on mindless evening television to decompress,
    during which I saw some actress on a talk show -- can't remember
    who, though -- say that Richard Barrett was her favorite composer.
    That was a surprising moment.)

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Tue Jan 3 09:56:02 2023
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 5:23:15 PM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <tp1nmo$7d9$1...@hope.eyrie.org>,
    Todd M. McComb <mcc...@medieval.org> wrote:
    Regarding the music, I listened to a smattering from Finnissy a
    while back... must've been 2020... but nothing really stuck with
    me.
    Tangentially, I'll note that Wikipedia includes Richard Barrett
    among its small "See also" list ending the Finnissy article. Barrett
    is someone I've heard much more, since he's active with other
    musicians I follow in the improvisation world.

    (And my wife insists on mindless evening television to decompress,
    during which I saw some actress on a talk show -- can't remember
    who, though -- say that Richard Barrett was her favorite composer.
    That was a surprising moment.)

    Here’s some Finnissy which may or may not be equal temperament, Âwâz-e Niyâz

    https://vimeo.com/250951577

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Tue Jan 3 09:53:33 2023
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 5:23:15 PM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <tp1nmo$7d9$1...@hope.eyrie.org>,
    Todd M. McComb <mcc...@medieval.org> wrote:
    Regarding the music, I listened to a smattering from Finnissy a
    while back... must've been 2020... but nothing really stuck with
    me.
    Tangentially, I'll note that Wikipedia includes Richard Barrett
    among its small "See also" list ending the Finnissy article. Barrett
    is someone I've heard much more, since he's active with other
    musicians I follow in the improvisation world.

    (And my wife insists on mindless evening television to decompress,
    during which I saw some actress on a talk show -- can't remember
    who, though -- say that Richard Barrett was her favorite composer.
    That was a surprising moment.)


    Maybe the actress was confusing Richard with Syd. Barrett is a lefty too.

    I’ll tell you one Finnissy thing I’d like you to listen to for me, the 7 Sacred Motets. It sounds like a pastiche of early music, but I’m not sure it really is. Someone told me that he’s using scales from non European music, Arab scales. I’d be
    interested in what you make of it.

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  • From HT@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jan 3 10:02:38 2023
    Op dinsdag 3 januari 2023 om 18:23:15 UTC+1 schreef Todd M. McComb:

    (And my wife insists on mindless evening television to decompress,
    during which I saw some actress on a talk show -- can't remember
    who, though -- say that Richard Barrett was her favorite composer.
    That was a surprising moment.)

    I just listened to Barrett's Tract and Ian Pace performing another pianistic miracle:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=h2btolgGuuw

    That is the only positive thought that comes to mind in this context. It out-finnissies Finnissy.

    Henk

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to hvt...@xs4all.nl on Tue Jan 3 10:12:36 2023
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 6:02:40 PM UTC, hvt...@xs4all.nl wrote:
    Op dinsdag 3 januari 2023 om 18:23:15 UTC+1 schreef Todd M. McComb:
    (And my wife insists on mindless evening television to decompress,
    during which I saw some actress on a talk show -- can't remember
    who, though -- say that Richard Barrett was her favorite composer.
    That was a surprising moment.)
    I just listened to Barrett's Tract and Ian Pace performing another pianistic miracle:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=h2btolgGuuw

    That is the only positive thought that comes to mind in this context. It out-finnissies Finnissy.

    Henk

    Richard Barrett says he finds the piano a really hard instrument to write for. I think Tract, which is very early, is the only piece he has written.

    See what you think, maybe, of Finnissy's Gershwin Arrangements. I'm not keen myself, but you may well enjoy them.

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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Mandryka on Tue Jan 3 11:29:59 2023
    [cheregi posting from my work email...]

    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 5:27:18 AM UTC-5, Mandryka wrote:
    The chapter on Finnissy in Zubin Kanga's doctorate is worth a read I think

    https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56d6c3d6d51cd4de9d02d5b1/t/5e1e35136bf4cf739d06b4b7/1579038042307/Zubin+Kanga+-+PhD+thesis-compressed.pdf

    thanks for the reading material. broadly it's nice to see people in the academy get angry about stuff that also makes me angry, but it's also kind of funny for example when tilbury proudly proclaims refusal to play shows in the u.s. on grounds of rampant
    imperialism while living and working in... the u.k.... or when leech-wilkinson diagnoses conservatives as embodying too strongly the supposedly naturally-selected-for trait of rejecting newness and change, in contrast to his enlightened liberals... in
    other words as someone said to me recently both these arguments embody 'liberalism as the politics of vibes', and i'm significantly more interested in anyone with a coherently structural analysis grounded in actual scholarship...

    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 5:06:49 PM UTC-5, hvt...@xs4all.nl wrote:
    IIRC, Pace once was a member of RMCR. He was well-informed and informative. Finnissy was his main subject but he also wrote regularly about romantic piano music and piano playing.

    amazing! with who was it Daniel-Ben Pienaar and maybe Jonathan Powell iirc that makes three interesting pianists possibly driven off of here by as Todd puts it 'wide open, content free hostility'?

    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 12:13:00 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    Not much... overlaps with plenty of stuff I do read & write though.... Regarding the music, I listened to a smattering from Finnissy a
    while back... must've been 2020... but nothing really stuck with
    me. IIRC, he's working entirely in 12tet... an outdated system.

    i think i know what you mean by 'outdated' (well, what do you mean!) but i'm not sure i agree, i think as long as one acknowledges for example the unpleasant tension of a supposedly consonant harmony in 12tet, and makes music with this in mind, then it's
    not necessarily subject to being in or out of date... in other words 'playing beethoven in 12tet' may be out of date, sure, but...

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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Tue Jan 3 12:40:47 2023
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 2:30:02 PM UTC-5, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    [cheregi posting from my work email...]
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 5:27:18 AM UTC-5, Mandryka wrote:
    The chapter on Finnissy in Zubin Kanga's doctorate is worth a read I think

    https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56d6c3d6d51cd4de9d02d5b1/t/5e1e35136bf4cf739d06b4b7/1579038042307/Zubin+Kanga+-+PhD+thesis-compressed.pdf

    thanks for the reading material. broadly it's nice to see people in the academy get angry about stuff that also makes me angry, but it's also kind of funny for example when tilbury proudly proclaims refusal to play shows in the u.s. on grounds of
    rampant imperialism while living and working in... the u.k.... or when leech-wilkinson diagnoses conservatives as embodying too strongly the supposedly naturally-selected-for trait of rejecting newness and change, in contrast to his enlightened liberals..
    . in other words as someone said to me recently both these arguments embody 'liberalism as the politics of vibes', and i'm significantly more interested in anyone with a coherently structural analysis grounded in actual scholarship...
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 5:06:49 PM UTC-5, hvt...@xs4all.nl wrote:
    IIRC, Pace once was a member of RMCR. He was well-informed and informative. Finnissy was his main subject but he also wrote regularly about romantic piano music and piano playing.
    amazing! with who was it Daniel-Ben Pienaar and maybe Jonathan Powell iirc that makes three interesting pianists possibly driven off of here by as Todd puts it 'wide open, content free hostility'?
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 12:13:00 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    Not much... overlaps with plenty of stuff I do read & write though.... Regarding the music, I listened to a smattering from Finnissy a
    while back... must've been 2020... but nothing really stuck with
    me. IIRC, he's working entirely in 12tet... an outdated system.
    i think i know what you mean by 'outdated' (well, what do you mean!) but i'm not sure i agree, i think as long as one acknowledges for example the unpleasant tension of a supposedly consonant harmony in 12tet, and makes music with this in mind, then it'
    s not necessarily subject to being in or out of date... in other words 'playing beethoven in 12tet' may be out of date, sure, but...

    pace somewhere talks about the audible dimension to the gradual process of canonization of various 20th-century avant garde composers (carter, feldman, i forget who else), where like certain dissonances or disjunctures or surprising moments written into
    the score are increasingly smoothed over by performers so the music becomes more and more 'comforting' rather than 'destabilizing'. and he talks about making sure not to fall into this kind of trap in his performance of finnissy. there's this sense of
    this need to constantly find new strategies to defamiliarize to outpace capitalist-bourgeois culture's capacity to domesticate the new, right, which is familiar to us from avant garde art in general. well, i still haven't found a satisfactory response to
    'isnt this just the same call for constant novelty which is already baked into capitalist music-making since the 18th century, but reskinned as somehow radical?' and adjacently can talk about things like huge sudden dynamic contrasts and virtuosically-
    fast piano playing being basically extensions of, like, liszt, right? a category of gesture which is basically crowd-pleasing, like walking on fire or eating a sword... i mean i like a lot of this music (New Music, not liszt) but i still find myself
    gritting my teeth to get through the jargon around it, i guess. i guess the most radical understanding of finnissy to me, which does actually also say something true about finnissy, is essentially as 'accelerationism' with all its contrasting
    connotations?

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Tue Jan 3 13:43:12 2023
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 8:40:50 PM UTC, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 2:30:02 PM UTC-5, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    [cheregi posting from my work email...]
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 5:27:18 AM UTC-5, Mandryka wrote:
    The chapter on Finnissy in Zubin Kanga's doctorate is worth a read I think

    https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56d6c3d6d51cd4de9d02d5b1/t/5e1e35136bf4cf739d06b4b7/1579038042307/Zubin+Kanga+-+PhD+thesis-compressed.pdf

    thanks for the reading material. broadly it's nice to see people in the academy get angry about stuff that also makes me angry, but it's also kind of funny for example when tilbury proudly proclaims refusal to play shows in the u.s. on grounds of
    rampant imperialism while living and working in... the u.k.... or when leech-wilkinson diagnoses conservatives as embodying too strongly the supposedly naturally-selected-for trait of rejecting newness and change, in contrast to his enlightened liberals..
    . in other words as someone said to me recently both these arguments embody 'liberalism as the politics of vibes', and i'm significantly more interested in anyone with a coherently structural analysis grounded in actual scholarship...
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 5:06:49 PM UTC-5, hvt...@xs4all.nl wrote:
    IIRC, Pace once was a member of RMCR. He was well-informed and informative. Finnissy was his main subject but he also wrote regularly about romantic piano music and piano playing.
    amazing! with who was it Daniel-Ben Pienaar and maybe Jonathan Powell iirc that makes three interesting pianists possibly driven off of here by as Todd puts it 'wide open, content free hostility'?
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 12:13:00 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    Not much... overlaps with plenty of stuff I do read & write though.... Regarding the music, I listened to a smattering from Finnissy a
    while back... must've been 2020... but nothing really stuck with
    me. IIRC, he's working entirely in 12tet... an outdated system.
    i think i know what you mean by 'outdated' (well, what do you mean!) but i'm not sure i agree, i think as long as one acknowledges for example the unpleasant tension of a supposedly consonant harmony in 12tet, and makes music with this in mind, then
    it's not necessarily subject to being in or out of date... in other words 'playing beethoven in 12tet' may be out of date, sure, but...
    pace somewhere talks about the audible dimension to the gradual process of canonization of various 20th-century avant garde composers (carter, feldman, i forget who else), where like certain dissonances or disjunctures or surprising moments written
    into the score are increasingly smoothed over by performers so the music becomes more and more 'comforting' rather than 'destabilizing'. and he talks about making sure not to fall into this kind of trap in his performance of finnissy. there's this sense
    of this need to constantly find new strategies to defamiliarize to outpace capitalist-bourgeois culture's capacity to domesticate the new, right, which is familiar to us from avant garde art in general. well, i still haven't found a satisfactory response
    to 'isnt this just the same call for constant novelty which is already baked into capitalist music-making since the 18th century, but reskinned as somehow radical?' and adjacently can talk about things like huge sudden dynamic contrasts and virtuosically-
    fast piano playing being basically extensions of, like, liszt, right? a category of gesture which is basically crowd-pleasing, like walking on fire or eating a sword... i mean i like a lot of this music (New Music, not liszt) but i still find myself
    gritting my teeth to get through the jargon around it, i guess. i guess the most radical understanding of finnissy to me, which does actually also say something true about finnissy, is essentially as 'accelerationism' with all its contrasting
    connotations?

    I think you raise a very interesting point - the difference between virtuoso music in performance and circus. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I feel that it’s definitely (at least) part of what’s involved. I can’t say more than that with any
    confidence.

    In some of Finnissy’s earlier music - English Country Tunes especially - there’s a palpable sense of urgency to go against the grain and to introduce the listener to new sound worlds. It’s virtuoso piano music like Liszt, and it has some strong
    dynamic contrasts like in Liszt. But it doesn’t sound much like Liszt.


    The audience may be destabilised and enjoy it - like the experience of a roller coaster is destabilising and enjoyable.

    I know that Finnissy himself is motivated by a radical political, cultural, moral and sexual agenda. The audience may only get that from the programme notes.

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  • From HT@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jan 3 13:30:45 2023
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 5:06:49 PM UTC-5, hvt...@xs4all.nl wrote:
    IIRC, Pace once was a member of RMCR. He was well-informed and informative. Finnissy was his main subject but he also wrote regularly about romantic piano music and piano playing.

    amazing! with who was it Daniel-Ben Pienaar and maybe Jonathan Powell iirc that makes three interesting pianists possibly driven off of here by as Todd puts it 'wide open, content free hostility'?

    I have no idea why Pace isn't a member any more. Many left just because they had better things to do. Powell's name doesn't ring a bell. Was he a regular or just a visitor, like Pienaar?

    Henk

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to hvt...@xs4all.nl on Tue Jan 3 13:44:00 2023
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 9:30:48 PM UTC, hvt...@xs4all.nl wrote:
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 5:06:49 PM UTC-5, hvt...@xs4all.nl wrote:
    IIRC, Pace once was a member of RMCR. He was well-informed and informative. Finnissy was his main subject but he also wrote regularly about romantic piano music and piano playing.

    amazing! with who was it Daniel-Ben Pienaar and maybe Jonathan Powell iirc that makes three interesting pianists possibly driven off of here by as Todd puts it 'wide open, content free hostility'?
    I have no idea why Pace isn't a member any more. Many left just because they had better things to do. Powell's name doesn't ring a bell. Was he a regular or just a visitor, like Pienaar?

    Henk

    I think you may be confusing Ian Pace and Nick Hodges.

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com on Tue Jan 3 22:44:17 2023
    In article <dd4ec529-7363-458d-babd-74d29552aa2en@googlegroups.com>,
    Ellie Kerry <ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com> wrote:
    but it's also kind
    of funny for example when tilbury proudly proclaims refusal to play shows
    in the u.s. on grounds of rampant imperialism while living and working
    in... the u.k....

    Yes, I wrote a little rant about that in my Jazz Thoughts some years
    ago....

    i think i know what you mean by 'outdated' (well, what do you mean!) but
    i'm not sure i agree, i think as long as one acknowledges for example the >unpleasant tension of a supposedly consonant harmony in 12tet, and makes >music with this in mind, then it's not necessarily subject to being in or
    out of date... in other words 'playing beethoven in 12tet' may be out of >date, sure, but...

    I was a bit flippant with my remark, but new music in 12tet is
    really not something I seek.... I mean, someone can also go ahead
    and prove me wrong by making me love it....

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com on Tue Jan 3 22:56:48 2023
    In article <01a24658-7b78-4755-bd82-56ad5082634en@googlegroups.com>,
    Ellie Kerry <ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com> wrote:
    and he talks about making sure not to fall into this kind
    of trap in his performance of finnissy. there's this sense of this need to >constantly find new strategies to defamiliarize

    As I recall, Finnissy himself adopts compositional strategies in
    this direction, including making passages physically impossoble to
    play.

    I do think your worries about novelty are warranted, but a rethinking
    is not neccesarily (only) novelty. If it's a real rethinking....

    But let me just say bluntly: I increasingly question the value of
    individual virtuosity per se. Full stop. (I went in this direction
    e.g. in a recent review of Ivo Perelman's _Reed Rapture._ And
    Perelman himself called my comments "profound" fwiw....)

    ... essentially as 'accelerationism' with all its contrasting
    connotations?

    Good analogy....

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  • From Andy Evans@21:1/5 to Mandryka on Tue Jan 3 15:01:46 2023
    On Tuesday, 3 January 2023 at 21:44:02 UTC, Mandryka wrote:
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 9:30:48 PM UTC, hvt...@xs4all.nl wrote:

    I think you may be confusing Ian Pace and Nick Hodges.

    Nic Hodges was a member here as well, and they had similar repertoire in terms of new works. Nic used to talk a lot of Ian and kind of envy his success earlier in their careers, though Nic went on to do very well and is a professor at Stuttgart
    conservatiore with 4 kids, several CDs and commissions, and a busy diary.

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to howie.stone01@gmail.com on Tue Jan 3 22:37:14 2023
    In article <063d6643-1cc2-46e8-982b-8a767467a974n@googlegroups.com>,
    Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
    I’ll tell you one Finnissy thing I’d like you to listen to for me,
    the 7 Sacred Motets. It sounds like a pastiche of early music, but
    I’m not sure it really is. Someone told me that he’s using scales
    from non European music, Arab scales. I’d be interested in what you
    make of it.

    I'm still holiday traveling, but I'll try to remember next week....

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Wed Jan 4 05:25:46 2023
    In article <tp2brg$j21$3@hope.eyrie.org>,
    Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
    As I recall, Finnissy himself adopts compositional strategies in
    this direction, including making passages physically impossoble to
    play.

    In this direction, while Finnissy's "complexity" is direct, in the
    sense that it's e.g. a lot of very very fast notes, a correspondent
    has recommended to me Walter Marchetti, whose "impossibility" is
    more conceptual. I have not followed up however, because the
    recommended albums (on Alga Marghen) are only on LP... and because
    he's mostly a piano composer. But as another tangent here.... And
    maybe I can finally take the plunge....

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  • From Dan Koren@21:1/5 to Andy Evans on Tue Jan 3 21:52:08 2023
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 3:01:49 PM UTC-8, Andy Evans wrote:

    Nic went on to do very well and is a professor at
    Stuttgart conservatiore with 4 kids, several CDs
    and commissions, and a busy diary.

    If kids are a measure of musical success, he is
    still very far off 21.

    dk

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jan 4 01:28:48 2023
    I’ve never heard it said that Finnissy makes passages which are impossible to play. Even Ferneyhough doesn’t do that, as far as I know. But Ferneyhough is often difficult to play - not least because some of his music needs extended instrumental
    instrumental techniques as well as complicated rhythms. Most of Finnissy’s music is much more conventional at the level of technique.

    I want to say that Finnissy is just a conventional “classical music” composer. The techniques are just bog standard conservatory techniques, the scores are determinate, the notation is standard more or less, there’s no electronics, there’s no
    improvisation.

    Finnissy always reminds me of Wolfgang Rihm - conventional music with an basis in existing traditions, vast output.

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to howie.stone01@gmail.com on Wed Jan 4 09:56:15 2023
    In article <db8f44c4-75a9-4aaf-98a8-2575f98c2f0en@googlegroups.com>,
    Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
    I’ve never heard it said that Finnissy makes passages which are
    impossible to play.

    Perhaps I'm remembering someone else? I'm thinking of impossible
    rhythmic subdivisions in piano music that force the performer to
    make choices about what actually to strike....

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Wed Jan 4 02:50:38 2023
    On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 9:56:20 AM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <db8f44c4-75a9-4aaf...@googlegroups.com>,
    Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
    I’ve never heard it said that Finnissy makes passages which are >impossible to play.
    Perhaps I'm remembering someone else? I'm thinking of impossible
    rhythmic subdivisions in piano music that force the performer to
    make choices about what actually to strike....

    Maybe. I've got a book of essays about him so I'll check later.

    I was wrong to suggest that all his music is determinate. In Forest, for example, each musician has a determinate score, but it's deliberately too complex for any one of them to be sure where the other is. Apparently he got this idea from Crippled
    Symmetry. You may like Forest, Todd, on Vimeo.

    https://vimeo.com/131599736

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Mandryka on Wed Jan 4 02:52:29 2023
    On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 10:50:41 AM UTC, Mandryka wrote:
    On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 9:56:20 AM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <db8f44c4-75a9-4aaf...@googlegroups.com>,
    Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
    I’ve never heard it said that Finnissy makes passages which are >impossible to play.
    Perhaps I'm remembering someone else? I'm thinking of impossible
    rhythmic subdivisions in piano music that force the performer to
    make choices about what actually to strike....
    Maybe. I've got a book of essays about him so I'll check later.

    I was wrong to suggest that all his music is determinate. In Forest, for example, each musician has a determinate score, but it's deliberately too complex for any one of them to be sure where the other is. Apparently he got this idea from Crippled
    Symmetry. You may like Forest, Todd, on Vimeo.

    https://vimeo.com/131599736

    And I think the string quartet called Nobody's Jig" has the same sort of indeterminacy.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5c1pUjrI2E&ab_channel=KreutzerQuartet-Topic

    (I think this is rather good!)

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  • From cheregi@21:1/5 to Mandryka on Thu Jan 5 17:12:34 2023
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 4:43:14 PM UTC-5, Mandryka wrote:
    The audience may be destabilised and enjoy it - like the experience of a roller coaster is destabilising and enjoyable.

    I know that Finnissy himself is motivated by a radical political, cultural, moral and sexual agenda. The audience may only get that from the programme notes.

    roller coaster! another great analogy!

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  • From cheregi@21:1/5 to hvt...@xs4all.nl on Thu Jan 5 17:22:03 2023
    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 4:30:48 PM UTC-5, hvt...@xs4all.nl wrote:
    On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 5:06:49 PM UTC-5, hvt...@xs4all.nl wrote:
    IIRC, Pace once was a member of RMCR. He was well-informed and informative. Finnissy was his main subject but he also wrote regularly about romantic piano music and piano playing.

    amazing! with who was it Daniel-Ben Pienaar and maybe Jonathan Powell iirc that makes three interesting pianists possibly driven off of here by as Todd puts it 'wide open, content free hostility'?
    I have no idea why Pace isn't a member any more. Many left just because they had better things to do. Powell's name doesn't ring a bell. Was he a regular or just a visitor, like Pienaar?

    Henk

    I can't find the Powell posts I thought I saw at some point. maybe some other similar pianist or maybe powell posted on pianostreet or talkclassical. still always weird to see personal posts randomly from people who have 'professional' websites and
    public concert careers. i do tend to assume they all have better things to do.

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  • From cheregi@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Thu Jan 5 17:19:05 2023
    On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 12:25:51 AM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <tp2brg$j21$3...@hope.eyrie.org>,
    Todd M. McComb <mcc...@medieval.org> wrote:
    As I recall, Finnissy himself adopts compositional strategies in
    this direction, including making passages physically impossoble to
    play.
    In this direction, while Finnissy's "complexity" is direct, in the
    sense that it's e.g. a lot of very very fast notes, a correspondent
    has recommended to me Walter Marchetti, whose "impossibility" is
    more conceptual. I have not followed up however, because the
    recommended albums (on Alga Marghen) are only on LP... and because
    he's mostly a piano composer. But as another tangent here.... And
    maybe I can finally take the plunge....

    isn't there another marchetti? lionel marchetti. no relation i guess

    it's funny you go in a direction of questioning virtuosity per se where of course as you could guess i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' virtuosity of like, qin music for example. 'sustainable' virtuosity, charitably. i had
    forgotten about your perelman review but reread the relevant bits and agree or maybe developed my own thoughts unconsciously in dialogue with yours...

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to elirkerry@gmail.com on Fri Jan 6 01:24:33 2023
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc-8e23-86b3f7830b1cn@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elirkerry@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.

    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Thu Jan 5 20:36:41 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 1:24:37 AM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Have a listen to the new Evan Johnson release on Another Timbre, L'art de toucher le clavecin. There’s virtuosity there, but the results are so different from anything in Finnissy. I enjoy Johnson’s music more than Finnissy’s.

    And I prefer Howard Skempton to Even Johnson.

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to howie.stone01@gmail.com on Fri Jan 6 04:54:32 2023
    In article <db460b82-cb46-46a3-b47e-528b3007754cn@googlegroups.com>,
    Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
    Have a listen to the new Evan Johnson release on Another Timbre,
    L'art de toucher le clavecin.

    I do generally listen to all of the AT releases....

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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Mandryka on Fri Jan 6 07:01:06 2023
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 11:36:44 PM UTC-5, Mandryka wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 1:24:37 AM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself. I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Have a listen to the new Evan Johnson release on Another Timbre, L'art de toucher le clavecin. There’s virtuosity there, but the results are so different from anything in Finnissy. I enjoy Johnson’s music more than Finnissy’s.

    And I prefer Howard Skempton to Even Johnson.

    i'll have to listen later but the name is already exciting to me as an enthusiast of baroque french keyboard/lute/viol style/mannerisms... curious to see what the connection here is to that if audible

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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Fri Jan 6 08:03:18 2023
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 8:24:37 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.

    right or based on my readings (and cross-culturally on 'private art musics of feudal aristocracy', cf. especially (ottoman) tanbur or ney, also setar, shakuhachi...) perhaps even more about showing off to one's peers one's level of self-development and (
    paradoxical) level of disregard for listeners, therefore reasserting one's eligibility for membership in privileged class... therefore virtuosity as fetishization of fine control/nuances imperceptible to uninitiated ears. well ideologically it's not any '
    better' than either beethoven or finnissy virtuosity, so i guess i prefer it purely out of contrarianism!

    another related angle, not virtuosity per se, perhaps virtuosity of craftsmanship: sheer expense and technique of instrument-building (fine silk strings for qin, tanbur's resonant double-bowl, etc), combined with explicit or implicit sense that the
    playing of the instrument contributes to cosmic harmony or orderliness i.e. the 'health' of the world - therefore justifies continued oppression of lower classes (well, SOMEBODY'S gotta have the wealth and free time to own and play qin, for the greater
    good)

    thinking about fitting pace/finnissy 'academic/postmodern virtuosity' into general theory of approaches to virtuosity according to socioeconomic conditions...

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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Fri Jan 6 08:05:35 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:03:21 AM UTC-5, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 8:24:37 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself. I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    right or based on my readings (and cross-culturally on 'private art musics of feudal aristocracy', cf. especially (ottoman) tanbur or ney, also setar, shakuhachi...) perhaps even more about showing off to one's peers one's level of self-development and
    (paradoxical) level of disregard for listeners, therefore reasserting one's eligibility for membership in privileged class... therefore virtuosity as fetishization of fine control/nuances imperceptible to uninitiated ears. well ideologically it's not any
    'better' than either beethoven or finnissy virtuosity, so i guess i prefer it purely out of contrarianism!

    another related angle, not virtuosity per se, perhaps virtuosity of craftsmanship: sheer expense and technique of instrument-building (fine silk strings for qin, tanbur's resonant double-bowl, etc), combined with explicit or implicit sense that the
    playing of the instrument contributes to cosmic harmony or orderliness i.e. the 'health' of the world - therefore justifies continued oppression of lower classes (well, SOMEBODY'S gotta have the wealth and free time to own and play qin, for the greater
    good)

    thinking about fitting pace/finnissy 'academic/postmodern virtuosity' into general theory of approaches to virtuosity according to socioeconomic conditions...

    like, despite all the famous paintings, qin players have historically not actually been known to bring their (extremely moisture sensitive) instruments up to remote mountain tops to play alongside nature...

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Fri Jan 6 08:23:47 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:01:10 PM UTC, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 11:36:44 PM UTC-5, Mandryka wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 1:24:37 AM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself. I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Have a listen to the new Evan Johnson release on Another Timbre, L'art de toucher le clavecin. There’s virtuosity there, but the results are so different from anything in Finnissy. I enjoy Johnson’s music more than Finnissy’s.

    And I prefer Howard Skempton to Even Johnson.
    i'll have to listen later but the name is already exciting to me as an enthusiast of baroque french keyboard/lute/viol style/mannerisms... curious to see what the connection here is to that if audible

    I may have been a bit misleading suggesting that it's virtuoso music -- it was 5.00 a.m. when I posted that, I was bleary eyed still, getting ready to go and catch a train. The virtuosity is there because of the piccolo and violin technique. I just
    noticed

    Just so you don't go expecting a sort of neo-baroque, here's a comment by the composer from the liner notes

    "More broadly speaking, the impetus—and the explanation for the title, taken from a treatise by François Couperin, inapplicable to these harpsichord-less pieces as it is—was the idea of music made of ornament. Each piece, and the set of three pieces
    taken as a whole, is made of layers of ornament upon ornament, flowering elaboration upon flowering elaboration upon flowering elaboration, of very simple, trivial musical figures, until they become something else altogether. The French Baroque
    harpsichord repertoire is some of my favorite music in all of history, precisely because of the way it is made out of fragile things that bloom from within cracks in edifices. That's what these pieces are about."

    The phrase "fragile things that bloom from within cracks in edifices" seems to me to sum up the music really well.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Fri Jan 6 09:28:48 2023
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.

    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Mandryka on Fri Jan 6 09:47:58 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:23:50 AM UTC-5, Mandryka wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:01:10 PM UTC, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 11:36:44 PM UTC-5, Mandryka wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 1:24:37 AM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself. I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Have a listen to the new Evan Johnson release on Another Timbre, L'art de toucher le clavecin. There’s virtuosity there, but the results are so different from anything in Finnissy. I enjoy Johnson’s music more than Finnissy’s.

    And I prefer Howard Skempton to Even Johnson.
    i'll have to listen later but the name is already exciting to me as an enthusiast of baroque french keyboard/lute/viol style/mannerisms... curious to see what the connection here is to that if audible
    I may have been a bit misleading suggesting that it's virtuoso music -- it was 5.00 a.m. when I posted that, I was bleary eyed still, getting ready to go and catch a train. The virtuosity is there because of the piccolo and violin technique. I just
    noticed

    Just so you don't go expecting a sort of neo-baroque, here's a comment by the composer from the liner notes

    "More broadly speaking, the impetus—and the explanation for the title, taken from a treatise by François Couperin, inapplicable to these harpsichord-less pieces as it is—was the idea of music made of ornament. Each piece, and the set of three
    pieces taken as a whole, is made of layers of ornament upon ornament, flowering elaboration upon flowering elaboration upon flowering elaboration, of very simple, trivial musical figures, until they become something else altogether. The French Baroque
    harpsichord repertoire is some of my favorite music in all of history, precisely because of the way it is made out of fragile things that bloom from within cracks in edifices. That's what these pieces are about."

    The phrase "fragile things that bloom from within cracks in edifices" seems to me to sum up the music really well.

    yea this guy gets it. this is much more exciting than actual neo-baroque

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Fri Jan 6 10:13:19 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself. I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.

    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the qin a
    MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com on Fri Jan 6 18:46:08 2023
    In article <68d98821-9c00-43c9-9920-4588554cff05n@googlegroups.com>,
    Ellie Kerry <ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com> wrote:
    like, despite all the famous paintings, qin players have historically
    not actually been known to bring their (extremely moisture sensitive) >instruments up to remote mountain tops to play alongside nature...

    An evocation, yes... an establishment of "natural balance" within a
    different setting... maybe.

    But a basic question around individual virtuosity per se, perhaps sometimes/often unanswerable: Is the affective quality deriving
    from sound per se, or from an internal dialog about someone's
    physical ability? Or more concretely: If two people played the
    same music as a soloist, i.e. half each (in a situation where this
    would be easier...), does it change the affective response? Why?
    (Internal dialog....)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Fri Jan 6 11:56:14 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself. I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the qin a
    MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...

    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Fri Jan 6 12:12:31 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself. I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the qin
    a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/

    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ggggg9271@gmail.com on Fri Jan 6 21:33:28 2023
    In article <fb65754b-093e-4dff-8ad8-bf1a10e2033an@googlegroups.com>,
    gggg gggg <ggggg9271@gmail.com> wrote:
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression
    that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was
    miked too closely.

    Presented from the musician's point of view....

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Fri Jan 6 15:41:31 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:29:32 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 8:05:37 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:03:21 AM UTC-5, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 8:24:37 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself. I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    right or based on my readings (and cross-culturally on 'private art musics of feudal aristocracy', cf. especially (ottoman) tanbur or ney, also setar, shakuhachi...) perhaps even more about showing off to one's peers one's level of self-development
    and (paradoxical) level of disregard for listeners, therefore reasserting one's eligibility for membership in privileged class... therefore virtuosity as fetishization of fine control/nuances imperceptible to uninitiated ears. well ideologically it's not
    any 'better' than either beethoven or finnissy virtuosity, so i guess i prefer it purely out of contrarianism!

    another related angle, not virtuosity per se, perhaps virtuosity of craftsmanship: sheer expense and technique of instrument-building (fine silk strings for qin, tanbur's resonant double-bowl, etc), combined with explicit or implicit sense that the
    playing of the instrument contributes to cosmic harmony or orderliness i.e. the 'health' of the world - therefore justifies continued oppression of lower classes (well, SOMEBODY'S gotta have the wealth and free time to own and play qin, for the greater
    good)

    thinking about fitting pace/finnissy 'academic/postmodern virtuosity' into general theory of approaches to virtuosity according to socioeconomic conditions...
    like, despite all the famous paintings, qin players have historically not actually been known to bring their (extremely moisture sensitive) instruments up to remote mountain tops to play alongside nature...
    The qin also existed in Japan:

    - In the article by William P. Malm, in the Encyclopedia Britannica , he states about a novel of same period, Ochikubo Monogatari, “… the sad fate of the heroine is noted by the fact that she was never able to learn how to play the Chinese seven-
    stringed chi’in zither, although she did have some training in Japanese koto music”.

    https://www.academia.edu/6449493/Music_in_The_Tale_of_Genji_and_The_Heian_Period

    According to this:

    - First you must study penmanship [calligraphy]. Next you must learn to play the seven-string zither better than anyone else.

    file:///C:/Users/Sony/Downloads/9780472901401%20(1).pdf

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Fri Jan 6 15:29:29 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 8:05:37 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:03:21 AM UTC-5, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 8:24:37 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself. I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    right or based on my readings (and cross-culturally on 'private art musics of feudal aristocracy', cf. especially (ottoman) tanbur or ney, also setar, shakuhachi...) perhaps even more about showing off to one's peers one's level of self-development
    and (paradoxical) level of disregard for listeners, therefore reasserting one's eligibility for membership in privileged class... therefore virtuosity as fetishization of fine control/nuances imperceptible to uninitiated ears. well ideologically it's not
    any 'better' than either beethoven or finnissy virtuosity, so i guess i prefer it purely out of contrarianism!

    another related angle, not virtuosity per se, perhaps virtuosity of craftsmanship: sheer expense and technique of instrument-building (fine silk strings for qin, tanbur's resonant double-bowl, etc), combined with explicit or implicit sense that the
    playing of the instrument contributes to cosmic harmony or orderliness i.e. the 'health' of the world - therefore justifies continued oppression of lower classes (well, SOMEBODY'S gotta have the wealth and free time to own and play qin, for the greater
    good)

    thinking about fitting pace/finnissy 'academic/postmodern virtuosity' into general theory of approaches to virtuosity according to socioeconomic conditions...
    like, despite all the famous paintings, qin players have historically not actually been known to bring their (extremely moisture sensitive) instruments up to remote mountain tops to play alongside nature...

    The qin also existed in Japan:

    - In the article by William P. Malm, in the Encyclopedia Britannica , he states about a novel of same period, Ochikubo Monogatari, “… the sad fate of the heroine is noted by the fact that she was never able to learn how to play the Chinese seven-
    stringed chi’in zither, although she did have some training in Japanese koto music”.

    https://www.academia.edu/6449493/Music_in_The_Tale_of_Genji_and_The_Heian_Period

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to howie.stone01@gmail.com on Mon Jan 9 01:28:49 2023
    In article <063d6643-1cc2-46e8-982b-8a767467a974n@googlegroups.com>,
    Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
    I'll tell you one Finnissy thing I'd like you to listen to for me,
    the 7 Sacred Motets. It sounds like a pastiche of early music, but
    I'm not sure it really is. Someone told me that he's using scales
    from non European music, Arab scales.

    I found the '02 recording on Metier.... (No liner notes included.)

    It sounds like Eastern Orthodox music, to open. Some later sections
    evoke more the French conductus era, so a sort of pastiche I guess....
    But the Eastern style cultivated here has some sophistication...
    and what you're saying about Arab scales might have to do with how
    that's been approached. (But I'm not sure from what I heard. As
    noted here previously, Ottoman court music included many e.g. Jewish
    & Armenian musicians & composers. Various studies seem to have
    been aborted politically though....) Regarding the Eastern style
    specifically, the voices here aren't quite right (which is, I might
    imagine, part of why it sounds like pastiche...?). Anyway, for an
    "Eastern" group from the West/US, maybe check out Capella Romana.
    They have their own label, some "Grammy" type success, and are very
    eager (i.e. regularly send me things)... and are good singers. They
    also promote new music in this style.

    Having typed that, I am hearing more of the French 13th century
    recur consistently here too.... Maybe Marcel Peres would approve. :-)

    Generally pretty.... (And fluid music. Nothing sounds nearly
    impossible.)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Mon Jan 9 07:01:08 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.

    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind of
    annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Mon Jan 9 06:49:29 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 1:46:12 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <68d98821-9c00-43c9...@googlegroups.com>,
    Ellie Kerry <ellie...@georgeblood.com> wrote:
    like, despite all the famous paintings, qin players have historically
    not actually been known to bring their (extremely moisture sensitive) >instruments up to remote mountain tops to play alongside nature...
    An evocation, yes... an establishment of "natural balance" within a different setting... maybe.

    But a basic question around individual virtuosity per se, perhaps sometimes/often unanswerable: Is the affective quality deriving
    from sound per se, or from an internal dialog about someone's
    physical ability? Or more concretely: If two people played the
    same music as a soloist, i.e. half each (in a situation where this
    would be easier...), does it change the affective response? Why?
    (Internal dialog....)

    When I was younger and my music taste was more informed by my parents', I remember getting annoyed at my dad for the way he related to a led zeppelin or coltrane solo, where he would be really invested in and impressed by the fast parts and even more the
    parts that were both high-pitched and fast... so i got really into things like electronic dance music partially as a way of avoiding the 'embarrassment' i guess of having that kind of response to music... of course now the thing i'm most excited about is,
    like, ali akbar shahnazi tar solos, which is really not too far from zep or trane...

    i guess unavoidably i find myself with some affective investment in, well, not like 'speed of fingers motion' but like the sense of 'hearing a mind work in real time', in a way positioning ali akbar shahnazi tar solos as like a vehicle to imagine
    intimacy? which is maybe sort of a depressing thought. but despite my commitment to 'paying attention to sound as sound' i can't deny it would feel like a betrayal to have ali akbar shahnazi tar solos performed by two people taking half each, and i'm at
    a loss for how else to explain why.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Mon Jan 9 07:27:35 2023
    On Sunday, January 8, 2023 at 8:28:53 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <063d6643-1cc2-46e8...@googlegroups.com>,
    Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
    I'll tell you one Finnissy thing I'd like you to listen to for me,
    the 7 Sacred Motets. It sounds like a pastiche of early music, but
    I'm not sure it really is. Someone told me that he's using scales
    from non European music, Arab scales.

    I found the '02 recording on Metier.... (No liner notes included.)

    It sounds like Eastern Orthodox music, to open. Some later sections
    evoke more the French conductus era, so a sort of pastiche I guess....
    But the Eastern style cultivated here has some sophistication...
    and what you're saying about Arab scales might have to do with how
    that's been approached. (But I'm not sure from what I heard. As
    noted here previously, Ottoman court music included many e.g. Jewish
    & Armenian musicians & composers. Various studies seem to have
    been aborted politically though....) Regarding the Eastern style specifically, the voices here aren't quite right (which is, I might
    imagine, part of why it sounds like pastiche...?). Anyway, for an
    "Eastern" group from the West/US, maybe check out Capella Romana.
    They have their own label, some "Grammy" type success, and are very
    eager (i.e. regularly send me things)... and are good singers. They
    also promote new music in this style.

    Having typed that, I am hearing more of the French 13th century
    recur consistently here too.... Maybe Marcel Peres would approve. :-)

    Generally pretty.... (And fluid music. Nothing sounds nearly
    impossible.)

    this will be sort of irrelevant but byzantine chant has been a focus of mine recently, i've discovered this 100-cd series of studio-quality recordings of chanters mostly born in the 1910s and mostly from istanbul or from mt. athos monasteries, whose
    repertoire includes for example the 'oral tradition'-versions (i.e. not reconstructed, not HIP) of 'byzantine ars nova' works by john koukouzeles etc. - https://e-kere.gr/english/byzantine-music - lots of long audio samples here... if anyone is
    interested in compare/contrast with the tone production and 'vibe' of for example capella romana...

    and another thought re virtuosity, i think for me the inescapable conclusion of this line of thinking is that by far the most politically efficacious recordings are, like, ba-benzele field recordings for example, demonstrations of the sheer depth of
    sophistication enabled by totally egalitarian non-virtuosic communal music-making, which are totally unsatisfying listening experiences on record but can act almost as guides (thematically not literally) or signposts for something you can actually do in
    your own life or how your life could be different... this is the closest i ever feel to 'called/moved to action' by a recording... but of course as someone who loves to 'spend time listening' this is pretty unsatisfying!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Mon Jan 9 10:00:38 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...

    Good point.

    Concerning Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts, the 'job' of the sound engineers is to 'balance' voices which in reality can be very unequal:

    - Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it.

    Max Frisch

    - Men often applaud an imitation and hiss the real thing.

    Aesop

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com on Mon Jan 9 18:41:29 2023
    In article <ed924de0-5bed-4a10-943d-eaba9fdd37dan@googlegroups.com>,
    Ellie Kerry <ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com> wrote:
    this will be sort of irrelevant but byzantine chant has been a focus of
    mine recently, i've discovered this 100-cd series of studio-quality >recordings of chanters mostly born in the 1910s and mostly from istanbul
    or from mt. athos monasteries, whose repertoire includes for example the >'oral tradition'-versions (i.e. not reconstructed, not HIP) of
    'byzantine ars nova' works by john koukouzeles etc. - >https://e-kere.gr/english/byzantine-music - lots of long audio samples >here... if anyone is interested in compare/contrast with the tone
    production and 'vibe' of for example capella romana...

    Well I do have some interest in this sort of thing... not sure I
    have the mental space at the moment, but who knows for future....
    I have no doubt whatsoever that there're a ton of interesting musical
    sources sitting in Turkey though. (But fewer singers with that
    sort of continuity....)

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Mon Jan 9 10:50:22 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 3:27:38 PM UTC, Ellie Kerry wrote:


    and another thought re virtuosity, i think for me the inescapable conclusion of this line of thinking is that by far the most politically efficacious recordings are, like, ba-benzele field recordings for example, demonstrations of the sheer depth of
    sophistication enabled by totally egalitarian non-virtuosic communal music-making, which are totally unsatisfying listening experiences on record but can act almost as guides (thematically not literally) or signposts for something you can actually do in
    your own life or how your life could be different... this is the closest i ever feel to 'called/moved to action' by a recording... but of course as someone who loves to 'spend time listening' this is pretty unsatisfying!

    This is the sort of thinking which inspired Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning. Cage's conception of the individual's role in the group, in performance of his music for groups with flexible time brackets, is also possibly relevant.

    But this also came to mind

    https://open.spotify.com/artist/5iSyXjErQ3L89v93OQQ1pF

    (I think it's on youtube) The poet and philosopher Lanza del Vasto, who was a pupil of Ghandi, founded a non violent community in Arche in 1948. The Chanterelle was formed from their members.

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  • From Mandryka@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Mon Jan 9 10:51:13 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 1:28:53 AM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <063d6643-1cc2-46e8...@googlegroups.com>,
    Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
    I'll tell you one Finnissy thing I'd like you to listen to for me,
    the 7 Sacred Motets. It sounds like a pastiche of early music, but
    I'm not sure it really is. Someone told me that he's using scales
    from non European music, Arab scales.

    I found the '02 recording on Metier.... (No liner notes included.)

    It sounds like Eastern Orthodox music, to open. Some later sections
    evoke more the French conductus era, so a sort of pastiche I guess....
    But the Eastern style cultivated here has some sophistication...
    and what you're saying about Arab scales might have to do with how
    that's been approached. (But I'm not sure from what I heard. As
    noted here previously, Ottoman court music included many e.g. Jewish
    & Armenian musicians & composers. Various studies seem to have
    been aborted politically though....) Regarding the Eastern style specifically, the voices here aren't quite right (which is, I might
    imagine, part of why it sounds like pastiche...?). Anyway, for an
    "Eastern" group from the West/US, maybe check out Capella Romana.
    They have their own label, some "Grammy" type success, and are very
    eager (i.e. regularly send me things)... and are good singers. They
    also promote new music in this style.

    Having typed that, I am hearing more of the French 13th century
    recur consistently here too.... Maybe Marcel Peres would approve. :-)

    Generally pretty.... (And fluid music. Nothing sounds nearly
    impossible.)

    Thanks for this Todd. I'm enjoying exploring another unusual thing by Finnissy, called This Church.

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com on Mon Jan 9 18:38:06 2023
    In article <5d131e0b-1955-4a75-8353-9540ba657929n@googlegroups.com>,
    Ellie Kerry <ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com> wrote:
    it's kind of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at
    the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    When it comes to qin, I think we're still talking about the tension
    between musician & audience... and as I said, the close mic'd
    recordings are supposed to be about hearing like the player does,
    i.e. immersively. That's not excitement per se.

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com on Mon Jan 9 18:44:16 2023
    In article <87f70844-db46-4539-8b5f-1cfa44221704n@googlegroups.com>,
    Ellie Kerry <ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com> wrote:
    like the sense of 'hearing a mind work in real time', in a way
    positioning ali akbar shahnazi tar solos as like a vehicle to
    imagine intimacy?

    Music per se as incidental to the drive to come to know another
    person?

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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Mon Jan 9 11:23:27 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'...

    https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/rec.music.classical.recordings/c/GFxehDJtSIU/m/RYc32arZCQAJ

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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Mon Jan 9 19:10:01 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:12:34 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.

    Another instrument whose recordings make it sound louder than it really is is the oud.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Mon Jan 9 19:52:50 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person...

    I heard it twice in person, but under different circumstances:

    1) Decades ago, I met someone who had a qin and they offered to play it for me. Having listened to its music up until that point only on recordings, I was surprised as to how low the volume was even in a rather small room,

    2) Decades later, I went to a qin 'concert'. I could tell that not a few audience members couldn't have known (or even suspected) that the instrument had to have had an amplifying device hidden under it for it to be heard in a rather large auditorium.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Mon Jan 9 19:44:00 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:12:34 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.

    The oud is another instrument whose recordings make it sound louder than it really is.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Mon Jan 9 20:02:46 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:52:53 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person...

    I heard it twice in person, but under different circumstances:

    1) Decades ago, I met someone who had a qin and they offered to play it for me. Having listened to its music up until that point only on recordings, I was surprised as to how low the volume was even in a rather small room,

    2) Decades later, I went to a qin 'concert'. I could tell that not a few audience members couldn't have known (or even suspected) that the instrument had to have had an amplifying device hidden under it for it to be heard in a rather large auditorium.

    What we moderns may have lost sight of is that we listen to music now at much higher volumes than people of the past who lived is less noisy environments.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Mon Jan 9 19:59:02 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:52:53 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person...

    I heard it twice in person, but under different circumstances:

    1) Decades ago, I met someone who had a qin and they offered to play it for me. Having listened to its music up until that point only on recordings, I was surprised as to how low the volume was even in a rather small room,

    2) Decades later, I went to a qin 'concert'. I could tell that not a few audience members couldn't have known (or even suspected) that the instrument had to have had an amplifying device hidden under it for it to be heard in a rather large auditorium.

    What we moderns may have lost sight of is that we listen to now music at much higher volumes than people of the past who lived is less noisier environments.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ggggg9271@gmail.com on Tue Jan 10 04:08:32 2023
    In article <758eb5f1-bfdc-4ee5-b666-6314a7b5bd0cn@googlegroups.com>,
    gggg gggg <ggggg9271@gmail.com> wrote:
    What we moderns may have lost sight of is that we listen to now
    music at much higher volumes than people of the past who lived is
    less noisier environments.

    This is quite true. (And there were "loud" & "soft" instruments
    too.)

    The entire concert setting is quite a historical novelty. The West
    did have a transition in terms of music in big, echo-y religious
    chambers (such that acousmatics was invented to induce reverence,
    although I digress...), but that's still ritual. Indian music is
    another that developed a large slice of repertory for private
    devotion, particularly in the South. (Meaning that Carnatic music
    is typically amplified in concerts & close mic'd in recordings...
    like qin... and for the same historical reason.)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Mon Jan 9 20:45:38 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 8:08:35 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <758eb5f1-bfdc-4ee5...@googlegroups.com>,
    ...@gmail.com> wrote:
    What we moderns may have lost sight of is that we listen to now
    music at much higher volumes than people of the past who lived is
    less noisier environments.

    This is quite true. (And there were "loud" & "soft" instruments
    too.)

    The entire concert setting is quite a historical novelty. The West
    did have a transition in terms of music in big, echo-y religious
    chambers (such that acousmatics was invented to induce reverence,
    although I digress...)...

    Not at all.

    If you want to hear a digression of digressions, concerning your comment, "...music in big, echo-y religious chambers...", weren't those chambers likely to have been made of some kind of stone which reflected sound better than wood and which may have
    contributed to the rise of harmony in the West?

    Isn't wood more sound absorbent than stone? Considering that historical Japanese buildings were made mostly from wood, could that explain at least in part why harmony didn't develop in Japanese music?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jan 9 20:33:51 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 8:19:10 PM UTC-8, wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 1:33:32 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <fb65754b-093e-4dff...@googlegroups.com>,
    ...@gmail.com> wrote:
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression
    that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was
    miked too closely.
    Presented from the musician's point of view....
    Good point.

    Concerning the following recording of the koto playing HARU NO KYOKU, about 12 seconds after the start, you can hear a soft squeaky sound. That is when the musician uses his/her left hand to press down on a string to make a sound whose pitch is sharper
    than when it is not pressed.

    In a concert environment, isn't that sound only audible to the musician but not to the audience meaning that wasn't the microphone placed too closely to the left side of the koto?:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XII43yNuPWM

    Concerning the following recording, when the guitar starts playing (0:25), isn't the guitarist holding a bar chord and is sliding his left hand up and down the neck of the guitar?

    Isn't the soft sliding sound that one can hear as the guitarist does that audible only because the mike is probably too close to the neck of the guitar?:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbsG30riSro

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Mon Jan 9 20:19:07 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 1:33:32 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <fb65754b-093e-4dff...@googlegroups.com>,
    gggg gggg <gggg...@gmail.com> wrote:
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression
    that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was
    miked too closely.
    Presented from the musician's point of view....

    Good point.

    Concerning the following recording of the koto playing HARU NO KYOKU, about 12 seconds after the start, you can hear a soft squeaky sound. That is when the musician uses his/her left hand to press down on a string to make a sound whose pitch is sharper
    than when it is not pressed.

    In a concert environment, isn't that sound only audible to the musician but not to the audience meaning that wasn't the microphone placed too closely to the left side of the koto?:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XII43yNuPWM

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Mon Jan 9 21:39:14 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:12:34 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.

    I have found that the oud is another instrument whose recordings make it sound louder than it really is.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Mon Jan 9 21:42:22 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...

    Could the advent of stereo recordings have increased the 'appeal' of gagaku music because stereo seemed to allow each individual instrument to be heard more clearly?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ggggg9271@gmail.com on Tue Jan 10 05:19:56 2023
    In article <7653ba23-4166-4e3f-888a-0e9b544f8455n@googlegroups.com>,
    gggg gggg <ggggg9271@gmail.com> wrote:
    In a concert environment, isn't that sound only audible to the
    musician but not to the audience meaning that wasn't the microphone
    placed too closely to the left side of the koto?

    Depends entirely on what the recording is trying to convey....

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ggggg9271@gmail.com on Tue Jan 10 05:30:37 2023
    In article <87a010d9-a632-45d9-ac67-1b150caabb6an@googlegroups.com>,
    gggg gggg <ggggg9271@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... weren't those chambers likely to have been made of some kind
    of stone which reflected sound better than wood and which may have >contributed to the rise of harmony in the West?

    I don't think that big conclusions are warranted. Wood reverberates
    plenty -- just ask the cello -- albeit differently from stone....

    If you want to look at a completely different pole of "harmony,"
    perhaps turn to the outdoor gamelans....

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Mon Jan 9 23:41:54 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...

    Could the advent of stereo recordings have increased the 'appeal' of gagaku music because stereo seemed to allow each individual instrument to be heard more clearly and distinctly?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Tue Jan 10 23:53:18 2023
    In article <tpfqkh$rg7$1@hope.eyrie.org>,
    Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
    [ Finnissy motets ]
    Generally pretty.... (And fluid music. Nothing sounds nearly
    impossible.)

    I gave these a second hearing, and one thing that I guess I did
    notice the first time, but... they just... end.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jan 10 16:41:21 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 11:41:57 PM UTC-8,

    wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...
    Could the advent of stereo recordings have increased the 'appeal' of gagaku music because stereo seemed to allow each individual instrument to be heard more clearly and distinctly?

    "Top Gagaku albums of all time":

    https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time/g:gagaku/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Tue Jan 10 17:00:35 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 11:23:30 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'...

    (Y. upload):

    "Xing Tan Yin for 1-string qin, 杏坛吟; 一弦琴;演奏者:林晨"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Wed Jan 11 08:56:41 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 11:41:57 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...
    Could the advent of stereo recordings have increased the 'appeal' of gagaku music because stereo seemed to allow each individual instrument to be heard more clearly and distinctly?

    https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/rec.music.classical.recordings/c/0-IUY3gPuyo

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Wed Jan 11 08:59:51 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...

    According to this recent article:

    - And then the technological improvements meant you could do anything you want, and that meant you could help the composer by emphasizing instruments you normally don't hear so well in the concert hall during a performance.

    https://www.stereophile.com/content/analog-corner-261-brahms-symphonies-direct-disc-berlin-philharmonic

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jan 11 09:28:23 2023
    On Wednesday, January 11, 2023 at 8:59:54 AM UTC-8,

    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...
    According to this recent article:

    - And then the technological improvements meant you could do anything you want, and that meant you could help the composer by emphasizing instruments you normally don't hear so well in the concert hall during a performance.

    https://www.stereophile.com/content/analog-corner-261-brahms-symphonies-direct-disc-berlin-philharmonic

    Couldn't the concert hall IN THE COMPOSER'S OWN TIME have been smaller such it was possible THEN to hear what you cannot hear NOW?

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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Mandryka on Wed Jan 11 11:49:07 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 1:50:25 PM UTC-5, Mandryka wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 3:27:38 PM UTC, Ellie Kerry wrote:


    and another thought re virtuosity, i think for me the inescapable conclusion of this line of thinking is that by far the most politically efficacious recordings are, like, ba-benzele field recordings for example, demonstrations of the sheer depth of
    sophistication enabled by totally egalitarian non-virtuosic communal music-making, which are totally unsatisfying listening experiences on record but can act almost as guides (thematically not literally) or signposts for something you can actually do in
    your own life or how your life could be different... this is the closest i ever feel to 'called/moved to action' by a recording... but of course as someone who loves to 'spend time listening' this is pretty unsatisfying!
    This is the sort of thinking which inspired Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning. Cage's conception of the individual's role in the group, in performance of his music for groups with flexible time brackets, is also possibly relevant.

    But this also came to mind

    https://open.spotify.com/artist/5iSyXjErQ3L89v93OQQ1pF

    (I think it's on youtube) The poet and philosopher Lanza del Vasto, who was a pupil of Ghandi, founded a non violent community in Arche in 1948. The Chanterelle was formed from their members.

    haven't actually listened to the scratch orchestra or chanterelle yet but both very exciting leads, thank you for them. l'art de toucher i enjoyed a lot too. for what it's worth some googling suggests that chanterelle was the name of del vasto's wife
    rather than the musical group.

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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Wed Jan 11 12:28:01 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 11:08:35 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <758eb5f1-bfdc-4ee5...@googlegroups.com>,
    gggg gggg <gggg...@gmail.com> wrote:
    What we moderns may have lost sight of is that we listen to now
    music at much higher volumes than people of the past who lived is
    less noisier environments.

    This is quite true. (And there were "loud" & "soft" instruments
    too.)

    The entire concert setting is quite a historical novelty. The West
    did have a transition in terms of music in big, echo-y religious
    chambers (such that acousmatics was invented to induce reverence,
    although I digress...), but that's still ritual. Indian music is
    another that developed a large slice of repertory for private
    devotion, particularly in the South. (Meaning that Carnatic music
    is typically amplified in concerts & close mic'd in recordings...
    like qin... and for the same historical reason.)

    i take your earlier point re qin recording...

    also as it happens around when i started this thread i was listening to and very much enjoying bits from the 10cd series of Chembai concerts up on qobuz to get a basic familiarity with early-20th-c carnatic performance style. my understanding of
    hindustani music in particular (and i've read some scholars with an explicitly marxist orientation on this , to keep on theme vaguely) is that claims of descent from religious figures, relationship to actual prayer etc are mostly quite recent basically '
    marketing' innovations (along with the whole gharana system, mid 19th-c), and serve to mystify the basically feudal labor relationship where historically the musician has been employed as a highly-valued entertainer 'on call' for an aristocrat(s). so the
    'amplified in concerts, close mic in recordings' thing reflects a historical orientation of small dry-acoustic rooms with audience of only a handful of individuals. but, other than 'the situation was broadly similar' i know very little about carnatic
    historical performance contexts...

    i don't know what if any avenues this opens up for thinking about 'mode of production/'labor/class relations' etc but it seems useful to consider a basic division between feudal societies in which aristocrats (during the 19th and early 20th centuries)
    express refinement by cultivating their own amateur music (china, iran), and those in which aristocrats express refinement by cultivating relationships with specialized professional musicians (north india, north africa). and then sort of 'between'
    situations like japan and late renaissance/ early baroque french lute and italian madrigal repertoires. i don't know, that's massively oversimplifying...

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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Wed Jan 11 12:55:38 2023
    On Wednesday, January 11, 2023 at 3:44:55 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <bcf9ddfc-114f-423f...@googlegroups.com>,
    Ellie Kerry <ellie...@georgeblood.com> wrote:
    other than 'the situation was broadly similar' i know very little
    about carnatic historical performance contexts...
    People sang privately at temples, no audience. That is what they
    say anyway.

    i read something similar in the liner notes of a recording of a i guess 'folk dhrupad' singer or something, who travels between temples singing privately and in a style with little relation to 'court dhrupad'. the recording had harmonium AND sarangi on
    it so i had a lot of questions, but i don't mean that in a cynical way.

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com on Wed Jan 11 20:44:01 2023
    In article <bcf9ddfc-114f-423f-be7e-0fe9a82614f6n@googlegroups.com>,
    Ellie Kerry <ellie.kerry@georgeblood.com> wrote:
    other than 'the situation was broadly similar' i know very little
    about carnatic historical performance contexts...

    People sang privately at temples, no audience. That is what they
    say anyway.

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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Fri Jan 13 08:01:03 2023
    On Tuesday, January 10, 2023 at 5:00:38 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 11:23:30 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's
    kind of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'...
    (Y. upload):

    "Xing Tan Yin for 1-string qin, 杏坛吟; 一弦琴;演奏者:林晨"

    Apparently the qin also existed in Vietnam:

    https://www.youtube.com/@vietnamguqinsociety6275/videos

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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Tue Jan 24 11:41:20 2023
    On Friday, January 13, 2023 at 8:01:06 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Tuesday, January 10, 2023 at 5:00:38 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 11:23:30 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history
    of the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's
    kind of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'...
    (Y. upload):

    "Xing Tan Yin for 1-string qin, 杏坛吟; 一弦琴;演奏者:林晨"
    Apparently the qin also existed in Vietnam:

    https://www.youtube.com/@vietnamguqinsociety6275/videos

    Learning how to play the qin in the 21st.-c.:

    https://www.lessonface.com/music-lessons/guqin

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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Wed Jan 25 21:25:43 2023
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 9:28:51 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics' >virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself. I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience...

    The following may be of interest:

    - The qin was traditionally used for the solitary, private edification of the player, and thus there are many depictions of qin players playing in remote locations in the countryside, often in the mountains. At most, qin enthusiasts played for a small
    group of friends, many or all of whom probably also played the instrument. Qin performers were not professional (that is, paid) musicians, though they apparently took great care to learn how to play.

    https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-qin-chinas-most-revered-musical-instrument/

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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Wed Jan 25 23:58:35 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...

    Could it be possible that as the performing venue gets larger, the zithers become harder to hear? In ancient times, couldn't the performing venues have been smaller than they are now?

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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Mon Feb 13 09:06:37 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...

    Considering how close modern performances are to ancient performances (and whether modern performances have been made to adapt to the expectations of modern audiences), it may be of interest to know that the emperor of Japan has not always been
    economically prosperous. At those times, were the musicians and their performances affected and did that influence performances of the future in not being as lavish as in the past?

    According to Wikipedia's article on an emperor who lived in the 1500's:
    - ...The Imperial Court was so impoverished, that a nationwide appeal for contributions went out. Contributions from the Hōjō clan, the Ōuchi clan, the Imagawa clan, and other great daimyō clans of the Sengoku period allowed the Emperor to carry out
    the formal coronation ceremonies ten years later. The Imperial Court's poverty was so extreme that the Emperor was forced to sell his calligraphy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Nara#Events_of_Go-Nara's_life

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  • From Todd M. McComb@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Mon Feb 27 22:13:38 2023
    In article <tpfqkh$rg7$1@hope.eyrie.org>,
    Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
    In article <063d6643-1cc2-46e8-982b-8a767467a974n@googlegroups.com>,
    Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
    I'll tell you one Finnissy thing I'd like you to listen to for me,
    the 7 Sacred Motets.

    Anyway, for an "Eastern" group from the West/US, maybe check out
    Capella Romana.

    I'm a little hesitant to mention this here, since it could easily
    lead OT, but given various such topics, still feel it's of relevance:

    Cappella Romana just announced they'd be performing for the UK
    Coronation.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Todd M. McComb on Tue Feb 28 11:18:14 2023
    On Monday, February 27, 2023 at 5:13:43 PM UTC-5, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <tpfqkh$rg7$1...@hope.eyrie.org>,
    Todd M. McComb <mcc...@medieval.org> wrote:
    In article <063d6643-1cc2-46e8...@googlegroups.com>,
    Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
    I'll tell you one Finnissy thing I'd like you to listen to for me,
    the 7 Sacred Motets.

    Anyway, for an "Eastern" group from the West/US, maybe check out
    Capella Romana.

    I'm a little hesitant to mention this here, since it could easily
    lead OT, but given various such topics, still feel it's of relevance:

    Cappella Romana just announced they'd be performing for the UK
    Coronation.

    this is too perfect. this is what historically informed performance has always been working towards... what would hobsbawm and ranger say...

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  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Tue Feb 28 11:45:32 2023
    On Monday, February 13, 2023 at 12:06:40 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...
    Considering how close modern performances are to ancient performances (and whether modern performances have been made to adapt to the expectations of modern audiences), it may be of interest to know that the emperor of Japan has not always been
    economically prosperous. At those times, were the musicians and their performances affected and did that influence performances of the future in not being as lavish as in the past?

    According to Wikipedia's article on an emperor who lived in the 1500's:
    - ...The Imperial Court was so impoverished, that a nationwide appeal for contributions went out. Contributions from the Hōjō clan, the Ōuchi clan, the Imagawa clan, and other great daimyō clans of the Sengoku period allowed the Emperor to carry
    out the formal coronation ceremonies ten years later. The Imperial Court's poverty was so extreme that the Emperor was forced to sell his calligraphy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Nara#Events_of_Go-Nara's_life

    interesting to consider what kinds of economic transformations were happening such that the court could become so impoverished at that time. i guess wrapped up with whatever transformations enabled the merchant classes to so far outpace the wealth of
    landed aristocrats soon after...

    anyway the idea of gagaku performance as static / a living fossil is totally mythological, even leaving aside the multiple 50 or 100 year gaps in performance after which the music was 'revived'/recreated/reimagined, there is also significant evidence
    that performance practice changed hugely with transitions from court-employed entertainers to amateur aristocratic circles to temple ritualists and back to court-employed ritualists. so, to your idea about changing performance venue, it makes sense, but
    it's hard to say anything stronger than 'maybe'.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Tue Feb 28 16:57:33 2023
    On Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 11:45:35 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Monday, February 13, 2023 at 12:06:40 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5,
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's
    kind of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...
    Considering how close modern performances are to ancient performances (and whether modern performances have been made to adapt to the expectations of modern audiences), it may be of interest to know that the emperor of Japan has not always been
    economically prosperous. At those times, were the musicians and their performances affected and did that influence performances of the future in not being as lavish as in the past?

    According to Wikipedia's article on an emperor who lived in the 1500's:
    - ...The Imperial Court was so impoverished, that a nationwide appeal for contributions went out. Contributions from the Hōjō clan, the Ōuchi clan, the Imagawa clan, and other great daimyō clans of the Sengoku period allowed the Emperor to carry
    out the formal coronation ceremonies ten years later. The Imperial Court's poverty was so extreme that the Emperor was forced to sell his calligraphy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Nara#Events_of_Go-Nara's_life
    interesting to consider what kinds of economic transformations were happening such that the court could become so impoverished at that time. i guess wrapped up with whatever transformations enabled the merchant classes to so far outpace the wealth of
    landed aristocrats soon after...

    anyway the idea of gagaku performance as static / a living fossil is totally mythological, even leaving aside the multiple 50 or 100 year gaps in performance after which the music was 'revived'/recreated/reimagined, there is also significant evidence
    that performance practice changed hugely with transitions from court-employed entertainers to amateur aristocratic circles to temple ritualists and back to court-employed ritualists. so, to your idea about changing performance venue, it makes sense, but
    it's hard to say anything stronger than 'maybe'.

    According to this:

    - Daiei 5, on the 1st day of the 1st month (1525): All ceremonies in the court were suspended because of the lack of funds to support them.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Kashiwabara#Events_of_Go-Kashiwabara's_life

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Tue Feb 28 23:43:50 2023
    On Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 11:22:23 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 4:57:35 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 11:45:35 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Monday, February 13, 2023 at 12:06:40 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5,
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>, cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole
    history of the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it'
    s kind of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense
    of 'orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...
    Considering how close modern performances are to ancient performances (and whether modern performances have been made to adapt to the expectations of modern audiences), it may be of interest to know that the emperor of Japan has not always been
    economically prosperous. At those times, were the musicians and their performances affected and did that influence performances of the future in not being as lavish as in the past?

    According to Wikipedia's article on an emperor who lived in the 1500's:
    - ...The Imperial Court was so impoverished, that a nationwide appeal for contributions went out. Contributions from the Hōjō clan, the Ōuchi clan, the Imagawa clan, and other great daimyō clans of the Sengoku period allowed the Emperor to
    carry out the formal coronation ceremonies ten years later. The Imperial Court's poverty was so extreme that the Emperor was forced to sell his calligraphy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Nara#Events_of_Go-Nara's_life
    interesting to consider what kinds of economic transformations were happening such that the court could become so impoverished at that time. i guess wrapped up with whatever transformations enabled the merchant classes to so far outpace the wealth
    of landed aristocrats soon after...

    anyway the idea of gagaku performance as static / a living fossil is totally mythological, even leaving aside the multiple 50 or 100 year gaps in performance after which the music was 'revived'/recreated/reimagined, there is also significant
    evidence that performance practice changed hugely with transitions from court-employed entertainers to amateur aristocratic circles to temple ritualists and back to court-employed ritualists. so, to your idea about changing performance venue, it makes
    sense, but it's hard to say anything stronger than 'maybe'.
    According to this:

    - Daiei 5, on the 1st day of the 1st month (1525): All ceremonies in the court were suspended because of the lack of funds to support them.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Kashiwabara#Events_of_Go-Kashiwabara's_life
    According to this:

    - After the end of the War, there was little enthusiasm for reviving the Imperial Court's ancient ceremonies.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Tsuchimikado#Events_of_Go-Tsuchimikado's_life

    According to this:

    - Tenbun 20, 8th to 9th month (1551): Courtiers in preparation to move the emperor from war-torn Kyoto to the Ōuchi city of Yamaguchi were caught in the Tainei-ji incident, a coup within the Ōuchi clan. The massacre of the courtiers in Yamaguchi
    resulted in a widespread loss of court records along with knowledge of court rituals and imperial calendar-making.[5] The emperor remained in Kyoto.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Nara#Events_of_Go-Nara's_life

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Tue Feb 28 23:22:20 2023
    On Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 4:57:35 PM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 11:45:35 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Monday, February 13, 2023 at 12:06:40 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5,
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history
    of the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's
    kind of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...
    Considering how close modern performances are to ancient performances (and whether modern performances have been made to adapt to the expectations of modern audiences), it may be of interest to know that the emperor of Japan has not always been
    economically prosperous. At those times, were the musicians and their performances affected and did that influence performances of the future in not being as lavish as in the past?

    According to Wikipedia's article on an emperor who lived in the 1500's: - ...The Imperial Court was so impoverished, that a nationwide appeal for contributions went out. Contributions from the Hōjō clan, the Ōuchi clan, the Imagawa clan, and other great daimyō clans of the Sengoku period allowed the Emperor to
    carry out the formal coronation ceremonies ten years later. The Imperial Court's poverty was so extreme that the Emperor was forced to sell his calligraphy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Nara#Events_of_Go-Nara's_life
    interesting to consider what kinds of economic transformations were happening such that the court could become so impoverished at that time. i guess wrapped up with whatever transformations enabled the merchant classes to so far outpace the wealth of
    landed aristocrats soon after...

    anyway the idea of gagaku performance as static / a living fossil is totally mythological, even leaving aside the multiple 50 or 100 year gaps in performance after which the music was 'revived'/recreated/reimagined, there is also significant evidence
    that performance practice changed hugely with transitions from court-employed entertainers to amateur aristocratic circles to temple ritualists and back to court-employed ritualists. so, to your idea about changing performance venue, it makes sense, but
    it's hard to say anything stronger than 'maybe'.
    According to this:

    - Daiei 5, on the 1st day of the 1st month (1525): All ceremonies in the court were suspended because of the lack of funds to support them.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Kashiwabara#Events_of_Go-Kashiwabara's_life

    According to this:

    - After the end of the War, there was little enthusiasm for reviving the Imperial Court's ancient ceremonies.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Go-Tsuchimikado#Events_of_Go-Tsuchimikado's_life

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Tue Mar 14 23:37:52 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...

    Could this apply to gagaku?:

    https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/rec.music.classical/c/PKYnU5QcFIU

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Wed Mar 15 05:35:39 2023
    On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 2:37:57 AM UTC-4, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...
    Could this apply to gagaku?:

    https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/rec.music.classical/c/PKYnU5QcFIU

    IMO, Nietzsche is here identifying something real about the development of both gagaku and WCM, but in typical enlightenment and post-enlightenment European philosopher fashion, he pretty much arbitrarily universalizes his observation to end up at a
    basically absurd claim. I can think of roughly a million counterexamples.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Ellie Kerry@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Wed Mar 15 05:36:53 2023
    On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 8:35:43 AM UTC-4, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 2:37:57 AM UTC-4, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin
    music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of
    the qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's
    kind of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...
    Could this apply to gagaku?:

    https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/rec.music.classical/c/PKYnU5QcFIU
    IMO, Nietzsche is here identifying something real about the development of both gagaku and WCM, but in typical enlightenment and post-enlightenment European philosopher fashion, he pretty much arbitrarily universalizes his observation to end up at a
    basically absurd claim. I can think of roughly a million counterexamples.

    And even in the case of gagaku and WCM it's important to note that 'a tradition' simply 'aging' is not at all the driver of the trend.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to Ellie Kerry on Tue Apr 11 20:26:35 2023
    On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 7:01:11 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 3:12:34 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 11:56:17 AM UTC-8, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:13:22 AM UTC-8, Ellie Kerry wrote:
    On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:28:51 PM UTC-5, gggg gggg wrote:
    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM UTC-8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
    In article <794e0443-1ecd-4cbc...@googlegroups.com>,
    cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
    ... i go in a direction of privileging the amateur, non-'pyrotechnics'
    virtuosity of like, qin music for example.
    There's always a question of asking what virtuosity is for.... Qin music is a good example, because there it's about developing oneself.
    I.e., in some sense, it's irrelevant to the listener.
    Concerning your comment, "...It's irrelevant to the listener", as far as I know, the qin was never meant to be played before an audience, much less a paying audience.

    Listening to the qin and especially playing it seems to have a calming effect--like stroking the back of a purring cat over and over again.
    do you play qin? i'm envious.

    anyway, though i of course object to language like 'meant to' in this context, it's certainly true that the concert hall is a novel environment for qin ... but available historical evidence strongly suggests also that for the whole history of the
    qin a MAJOR performance context has been parties at which wine is drunk, poems are extemporized, etc. Bell Yung's book on Tsar Teh-yun gives what I can only assume is a good impression of the vibe...
    According to this:

    - The sound of guqin is quite unique, deep, remote, lingering, ethereal and especially “quiet,” which means that the instrument is designed to be performed in intimate settings.

    https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804042663/
    As far as I am concerned, even qin recordings give the impression that the instrument is louder than it really is as if the qin was miked too closely.
    I am glad to get this from someone who it seems has actually heard qin in person, because i do get the sense for example in Jin Wei or some Sou Si-tai recordings that the instrument can't possibly really be that bassy and huge-sounding, and it's kind
    of annoying to think there's a specific agenda even at the audio-mixing level of making the music more 'exciting'.

    it reminds me of finding out that when gagaku is performed live and unamplified, the zithers are basically inaudible, but in virtually every gagaku recording the levels of the zithers are brought up to match the winds and drums out of a sense of '
    orchestral' logic where every instrument group should be 'balanced'... whereas to me it's much more interesting to consider the specific needs of 'ritual sound' and how those differ from the aesthetic sensibilities of a human audience attending for
    pleasure...

    If you go to 16:30 of the following Youtube upload, you can hear the sound of the soo (gagaku koto) played by itself:

    "Sounds of the Court: Gagaku and Ryukyu Uzagaku 国立劇場令和4年11月雅楽公演「宮廷の響き"

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