time passes ....

What happened? You didn't get hit by a bus or sumpin'?

No ...... I've been busy ....

Remember we talked about on-line, real-time jams ...? These guys are doing it!

Yeah I know ... but, I have no time to sit down and carry on a rational or irrational discourse anytime soon. My time is spread so thin as it is ... and, the conversation degraded to the point where I ceased to care. I have absolutely no intent of carry on an on-line-jam-type-thing, because I have neither the equipment, the desire, the talent, or the time, and therefore; it defeats the purpose.

Also, the discourse format leaves a LOT to be desired ... some rational way needs to be addressed in which people can leave replies, on FORMS, on the web page, INSTEAD of via mail. I can't stand having to recopy the argument every time I want to refute some line of logic .....

Hmmmmm. There are some forms in the Romper Room ... and I can add one that tries to follow your train of thought.

As in a reply form ON the page with the discussion perhaps.

The conversation degraded? Just because someone didn't agree with you? You were trying to convince C. Moore that everything he did had to do with his past experience ... even creating instantaneous music with a group of individuals.

Are you kidding? I've been waiting on the edge of my seat. How can their music be based on their past? do they all have to share the same experiences? Is there some sort of "world past"? exactly how can this group of people make one out of their combined pasts ... that's what I want to know!

I think you kind of missed the point. The argument boils down to the simple fact that every person is a sum of their experiences. It's a human conditioning factor where the environment you exist in, plays a vital role in the end result of the individual. Hence, every part of you is made up from the prior experiences in life. When you burned yourself at age 9 by putting your hands on the stove, you learned to not do it again, conditioning played a key role. The same effects can be seen in music. Take a song that you heard when you were a child on the radio. In my case my parents played a LOT of Neil Diamond, John Denver & The Carpenters when I was a child in the car. To this day, when one of those songs come on the radio, I can sing along word for word the entire song without even knowing the title, and sometimes the artists until the radio DJ announces the track. Each person is unduly influenced by the music is his/her past, and trying to somehow think you can create an original piece of music is outlandish when you consider the fact that most people believe that man has not had an original thought since the invention of the computer in the mid 1940's.

The group scenario comes about when the band actually plays. The lead singer, grasping for lyrics, falls back on a few phrases from his past in an old Englebert Humperdink song along with a few fresh lyrics, the bass player drops a few chords of Metallica from hours of misspent metal blaring in his youth, the drummer unwittingly plays the same background beat from an old Led Zeppelin tune at the same time he tries to improvise the next chorus. Each of the members unwittingly adds some facet of a musical past into the current arrangement without conscious knowledge of doing so. Artists cannot help but draw from the past whither they want to admit it or not.

As for the musical improv. stuff you suggested ... I have no desire to include my audacious collection of musical background in the fray. I currently am employed 50 hours a week doing various computer based jobs and have very little time to spare. The only enjoyment I might get from it would be to swipe a DAT tape from you .... re-record OVER it with a friends MIDI box on his PC and toss back even more oddly unoriginal work.

ps: take that as a reply if you like ... and print it

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