Punk Music

[thethirdman]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

What's wrong with higher level musical education and facial hair?

Because I'm too working class to understand it.

Nah not really I just think those bands tend to be very pretencious and it's not my thing.

[FatalMuse]

Originally Posted by thethirdman

Because I'm too working class to understand it.

Nah not really I just think those bands tend to be very pretencious and it's not my thing.

But does it sound any good?

[Didymos Thomas]

But does it sound any good?

I sure think so. Soulive is one of my favorites.

[urangutan]

Nietzschespet, I guess England was the only place that set music to the abhorrent rhythms that surrounded lifestyles and the workings of. No offence to you all but you all seem to dwell in this semi clad existance that revolves around yourselves and your own environment. Punk was not a combination of Velvet Underground and David Bowie but the Sex Pistols were. Here in Australia, we have been listening to both worlds, for just as long as you have been listening to your own, plus we have had our own sounds. So Punk isn't England, it is a mood and though it may well have been England that sent it out, don't imagine that we don't get it. I won't say that Fleetwood Mac were not a Blues band, nor will I say that Led Zepplin didn't know what it meant to Rock.

[Zetetic11235]

From a technical standpoint, punk is garbage. If the only thing behind the music is the ideals it carries, it isn't about the sound, its about the message, it isn't about the music, its about the ideals. That being said, I don't have any problem with it, I find the Clash enjoyable. Though I do find the quite oxy-moronically named 'pop punk' offensive to the ears, musically obtuse, and incredibly shallow in its message.

Without the presence of ideals, most punk just doesn't have a lot going for it. It has 19th century boring diatonic tonalities(which is conformist, apparetly their nonconformity only lies in their group attitude against it and goofy clothing styles), basic western 4/4 rythms, and standard lyrical content, nothing technically special or aurally interesting. I can't say its bad, for who knows what that even means, only a bit trite.

If the punk ideal is nonconformity, they failed everywhere that the hippies suceeded. I do not like the hippie ideal, it is very naive in my opinion, though their hearts were in the right place. On the modern front, there is quite a different story to be told; most neo-hippies have totally lost sight and become drooling hedonistic nimrods.

I prefer music with unusual tonality, odd meter, cool sounds and interesting structural concpets. To those who might view a preference to complexity, intrigue, originality and technical magnificence in the arts as elitist and attack it as such:

"Were there no advantage to be reaped from these studies, beyond the gratification of an innocent curiosity, yet ought not even this to be despised; as being one accession to those few safe and harmless pleasures, which are bestowed on human race. The sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads through the avenues of science and learning; and whoever can either remove any obstructions in this way, or open up any new prospect, ought so far to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind. And though these researches may appear painful and fatiguing, it is with some minds as with some bodies, which being endowed with vigorous and florid health, require severe exercise, and reap a pleasure from what, to the generality of mankind, may seem burdensome and laborious. Obscurity, indeed, is painful to the mind as well as to the eye; but to bring light from obscurity, by whatever labour, must needs be delightful and rejoicing."
-David Hume, An enquiry concerning human understanding

[Didymos Thomas]

From a technical standpoint, punk is garbage.

Okay. You're right, for the most part. However, I do not think we can draw such a hasty generalization. I mean, if you take the top session players in the country and have them play a punk gig, is it still garbage from a technical standpoint?
What about slop as artistic?

More importantly, I would hardly consider diatonic notes and 4/4 time to be negatives. Not to mention the fact that punk music is in no way limited to diatonic notes and 4/4.

If the punk ideal is nonconformity, they failed everywhere that the hippies suceeded. I do not like the hippie ideal, it is very naive in my opinion, though their hearts were in the right place. On the modern front, there is quite a different story to be told; most neo-hippies have totally lost sight and become drooling hedonistic nimrods.

Do you know any hippies? I'm not talking about 15 year olds in tie dies and band-Ts they bought at Hot Topic. I mean off the commune folks.

I also do not understand the suggestion that this particular subculture is any more naive than any other section of society. The claim is not new. It seems to me that the claim grew out of the minds of angry old men watching the younger generation react to modernity in a new way. That can be scary. But naive? Hardly.

[Zetetic11235]

I have indeed met hippies. I have a friend who's mom is close with Bill Ayers, she was in the weatherman and is getting her doctorate(how many of the weathermen are professors now?). My friend, however, is conservative in comparison, he was raised on the radical doctrine and ideals of groups like the Weathermen and disagrees with it. Another friend of mines dad was a radical whp was involved in some pretty serious riots. He is a very interesting guy, apparently his grandfather was one of john nash's professors (not sure if that is really true). He is very well read and a very amiable fellow. My uncle was a college student at Cornell in the sixties. He went to Woodstock and is still very left wing, but dispite his intelligence he is very shallow in his politics(like Al Franken shallow) so I dislike discussing it with him. He still somkes pot and drops acid, and he owns a pretty sucessful workers comp law firm in Chicago.. I guess you might consider him a hippie...but he doesn't really strike me as a true hippie. My mom and dad were both involved in hippie culture at least a little, though my dad is now a neo-con unfortunaterly.

I simply disagree with the hippie ideals and literature just as I disagree with marxist literature, most utilitarian literature, and most idealism in general. Its not really like the hippies were homogenous though, there were the yippies, the college students, the highschool dropouts, the revolutionaries ect, I don't disagree with their views I simply view them as utterly impractical, and I am more of a pragmatist when it comes to social and political philosophy.

As far as the 4/4 times, maybe I'm a sucker for tabla and odd time avant jazz, but I have trouble getting into 4/4 unless its some damn interesting funk groove. As far as diatonic, I tend to get absorbed into complex form due to my interest in music theory, and I just really like dissonant sounds, so serialism is an object of interest for me. I like traditional jazz and fusion ok, especially funk oriented jazz or free jazz like late coltrane or Ornet Coleman(which is on and off as far as it being diatonic).

I really like stuff like this

YouTube - U.S. Maple -- "Ma, Digital"

orthrelm
http://beholdthearctopus.com/

I also dig mastodon and a pretty wide variety of classical. I like more standard stuff like Hendrix, Zeplin, Buddy Guy(who I say live earlier tonight) and the likes of Steve Vai and select few from the shred crowd. There isn't a lot of music I decisively dislike that isn't top 100 pop rock.

[Didymos Thomas]

I simply disagree with the hippie ideals and literature just as I disagree with marxist literature, most utilitarian literature, and most idealism in general. Its not really like the hippies were homogenous though, there were the yippies, the college students, the highschool dropouts, the revolutionaries ect, I don't disagree with their views I simply view them as utterly impractical, and I am more of a pragmatist when it comes to social and political philosophy.

To the point about hippies you know - does that group strike you as any more naive than any other group of human beings?

You make the most important point in the quote above - the hippies are not a homogeneous group. Idealism, for example, while being prominent in the movement, was not and is not today an absolute.

It just seems to me that the label of naive is not really warranted - unless we are going to call every other group naive, which might be fair. I tend to think that most humans, myself included, are pretty naive.

As far as the 4/4 times, maybe I'm a sucker for tabla and odd time avant jazz, but I have trouble getting into 4/4 unless its some damn interesting funk groove.

My guess is you're not much of a dancer.

Many drummers convert all of their charts to either 2/4 or 3. I use this system as well. Time signatures are not absolutes - they are ways of organizing the music in your own mind.

But really, I mostly wanted to point out that punk is not limited in the way you suggested.

As far as diatonic, I tend to get absorbed into complex form due to my interest in music theory, and I just really like dissonant sounds, so serialism is an object of interest for me. I like traditional jazz and fusion ok, especially funk oriented jazz or free jazz like late coltrane or Ornet Coleman(which is on and off as far as it being diatonic).

I'm also into jazz. Coltrane, but also a lot of Miles and Monk. More complex music can be difficult to get into without some music theory bouncing around the brain, but it's worth the study - as you obviously know.

I also think it is worth the effort for us snobs to learn appreciation of simplicity in music; be able to appreciate Dostoevsky and Hemingway, you know.

I also dig mastodon and a pretty wide variety of classical. I like more standard stuff like Hendrix, Zeplin, Buddy Guy(who I say live earlier tonight) and the likes of Steve Vai and select few from the shred crowd. There isn't a lot of music I decisively dislike that isn't top 100 pop rock.

Hey! I bet that was a great show. Very nice.

Mastodon is wild. Personally, I drifted away from metal some years ago and just haven't kept up with the genre. But I've heard some of their work, and it was impressive, at least from a technical standpoint.
Hendrix, Guy, and Zeppelin rely primarily on toe-tapping time sigs.

[Zetetic11235]

Yeah man, the show was bad ass. How do you reduce 11/8 or any other prime sig to 2/4 or 3? Its easy to see somthing like 14/8 go to 7/8 or 9/8 to 3/4(though I would go with 2/4 3/8 alternating) ect (unless you are trying to make a 14/8 beat sound different from 7/8, I would go for a 3/8+ 3/8+2/8+2/8+3/8+2/8 so the ends go together with a 5/8, its not really standard but I it is still distinctly 14/8 if taken to have one time sig).

On the other topic .Who, then, isn't naive in your opinion? I just find the hippie brand of idealism that raises peace and love and freedom and pacifism unusually impractical among philosophical ideals. It is akin to trying to make all men find compassion. Would it work if it be done? Probably. Can all men find compassion? Probably not. It seems like Plato's Republic but worse and without realizing that it could not be implemented. I find most social and political philosophies too artificial. Marxism is not quite as bad, but it is still very much a praxis, it just cannot be properly implemented and is not economically viable.

I say the hippie ideal mentioned above is unusually niave in that rather than observing human nature and considering what might improve the systems within which we operate, it aims to change natue altogether through ideological agreement with no means of implementing it.

[Didymos Thomas]

How do you reduce 11/8 or any other prime sig to 2/4 or 3? Its easy to see somthing like 14/8 go to 7/8 or 9/8 to 3/4(though I would go with 2/4 3/8 alternating) ect (unless you are trying to make a 14/8 beat sound different from 7/8, I would go for a 3/8+ 3/8+2/8+2/8+3/8+2/8 so the ends go together with a 5/8, its not really standard but I it is still distinctly 14/8 if taken to have one time sig).

Basically the same way you learn to count 11/8. For example, in my mind I might count 4 measures of 2/4 and then a bar of 3. Or some other equivalent combination, depending on what I want to do rhythmically. And yes, it is a form of dumbing down time signatures. But it's also a method I have not seen outside of set percussion, and I do not think anything is lost in the process.

On the other topic .Who, then, isn't naive in your opinion?

Pat Buchanan? Maybe I should point out that the nearly universal degree of naivety in question is something I'm not necessarily against. I think a certain degree of naivety keeps us young and spirited. There's a balance we should try to strike.

I just find the hippie brand of idealism that raises peace and love and freedom and pacifism unusually impractical among philosophical ideals. It is akin to trying to make all men find compassion.

That hippie ideal is often reducible to the single issue of promoting compassion.

Would it work if it be done? Probably. Can all men find compassion? Probably not. It seems like Plato's Republic but worse and without realizing that it could not be implemented.

The fact that not all men are capable of compassion, sociopaths for example do not have this capacity (I think, or is it some other psychological disorder I'm thinking of?), is irrelevant. The suggestion is that we who have the capacity for compassion should cultivate compassion. How is that naive?

I say the hippie ideal mentioned above is unusually niave in that rather than observing human nature and considering what might improve the systems within which we operate, it aims to change natue altogether through ideological agreement with no means of implementing it.

I'm not sure that the hippie ideal does these things. The ideology is the result of observing human nature, even if the inferences drawn are not wholly accurate.
And I'm also not sure about the suggestion that hippies want to change nature altogether. To continue the compassion example, all this amounts to is suggesting that humans cultivate a certain part of their nature, compassion, as opposed to aspects of our nature like selfishness and hatred.
As far as implementation, this issue is the most confusing to me. Many communes still exist - some have existed since the late 60's/early 70's and remain remarkably active to this very day.

I think their naivety lay more in their belief that their dream was a possibility on a massive scale in the near future. Significant change takes time.