(.25M)

Alrighty, now having given it a few more listens, and one very long communications essay later, here are a few thoughts:

One must remember that regardless of how a piece of music was created, that we all derive our creationary experience from our past. Bergson said that,

Does not the fiction of an isolated imply a kind of absurdity, since this object borrows its physical properties from the relations which it maintains with all others and owes each of its determinations, and consequently its very existence, to the place which it occupies in the universe as a whole. -- Matter and Memory, 1910.

Bergson affirms that an object, in this case your music, cannot exists outside of it's affiliation with every other object, including the artist who creates that same music -- it isn't it's own innate universe. What you can now visualize is an arena where the fundamental connectiveness of all things is ever present. That, no matter how hard we try to distance ourselves from the idea of 'normal' creation, we cannot escape our pasts. We all are products of our environment, and we inherently use those items which we have performed in the past each and every day without knowing we have done so.

I know this might seem a little absurd at first, but go back, analyze the lyrics and music which you have created impromptu, and examine them at the fundamental level. Dig down to the guitar chords, the drum beats, and suddenly you'll notice that the exact same beat has appeared somewhere else in some other piece of music you've heard somewhere else in your life. It's not that the concept behind what your trying to create isn't a good one, but that you simply cannot deny the outside influence of your past.

Now as for me creating music. Unfortunately, I am stuck with a 386 16 Mhz PC with no sound card/device of any kind, coupled with the simple fact that I have no musical experience in my life except having once dated a professional violinist. It's not that I wouldn't be willing to attempt the idea, I simply lack the proper equipment, and appropriate musical foreknowledge to even begin to attempt such a project. Somehow I doubt you'd be willing to fund me the equipment I need to go through with such a project ... although i might be surprised.

Okay. Here is my rebuttal. Print it!

Jester

Should I clean it up first?

Any grammar or punctuation you want to fix in ANY of my replies you have my permission to do so both now and in the future.

(.11M)

First of all, let me say this -- Bergson Smergson.

Now, when you say,

"Bergson affirms that an object, in this case your music, cannot exists outside of it's affiliation with every other object, including the artist who creates that same music -- it isn't its own innate universe,"

... well, how about its own world ... or, plane? We are in agreement that music is music, and thus we call it so. Though I have never made any calculations, I would guess that there are a finite number of musical combinations. Eight notes (+5 half steps) ... factor in the number of notes played at the same time ... and, the duration of the note = music?

But when you say,

"One must remember that regardless of how a piece of music was created, that we all derive our creationary experience from our past,"

I must disagree. What past? We are just like you:

" ... I have no musical experience in my life except having once dated a professional violinist."

excepted for the part about dating the violinist -- none of the members of The Experiment have dated a professional violinist. Does that mean, according to Bergson, that you have more of a musical past than us? And, when I talked about playing the guitar with a violin bow, that is what I was saying. How can the past be effecting the future, as it becomes the present, when there is no past? Here is a a brief list of some of the "first times" on the albums: singer, guitar player, singing in front of a fire, singing in the bathroom, cellist, keyboardist, drummer, playing a bowed guitar (having dated a professional violinist might have come in handy here) drumming a dog's belly, singing in the basement, pianist, bassist, playing the bass in the bathtub, playing guitar and keyboards at the same time, playing the guitar and the keyboards and singing at the same time.

Before each of these performances, the individual (including myself) said, "I have never done that before ... I can't do it," thinking they needed past experience. How could they be recorded without practicing first? How could they possibly coordinate their first experience with others?

So, I guess we are in agreement that there is at least one common element to everything: and this is what the Philadelphia Spirit Experiment is all about. That the common element is the past, we shall see ....