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Frankh View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 05 2017 at 12:01
Originally posted by mlkpad14 mlkpad14 wrote:

I don't have much to actually contribute to this thread, but this contains some very interesting material. I really enjoyed reading through it.


Agree.

However I would add this, and these are words already seen sprinkled liberally throughout this thread, and all over the site as a whole.

Long ago decided what I wanted, want out of music is anything.
Anything but the same old thing. The same old thing, the bane of my existence.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 05 2017 at 20:53
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

Originally posted by HackettFan HackettFan wrote:

 I think this is true, but do innovations on a micro level then lose the value of their coin?


Hard to tell.  Depends on the context.  For a guitarist, a micro innovation in guitar playing in an album may be very important but others may not attach the same importance to it.  Even stylistic changes are contextual.  As rock has grown older, every new stylistic change is arguably harder to attain because a lot of ground has been covered.
That makes sense. We never really expect the value of things to be uniform. It's like not expecting to get a better deal for your comic book collection at a comic book convention as opposed to a pawn shop. Harder to innovate over time? Maybe so. I'd like to mull that over. Mmm...how do you measure difficulty of innovation? Difficult question.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 05 2017 at 21:21
Originally posted by Lewian Lewian wrote:

Although I don't disagree with you, I wonder how big a problem this actually is. I mean, Hackett's life is probably good enough materially, and I'm very happy that he still plays some wonderful guitar and even produces some new music. Ultimately, how important is it that he did it first? Good for him and for those in the know to know it, but ultimately we can move on and just listen to the music that we like, old and new, Hackett moves on and does what he loves to do now, and we all enjoy it regardless of where innovation X "really" came from and whether due credit was duly paid.
Certainly. I was only trying to convey that it might be a conceptual problem. That is, for accepting subjectivity in the concept of innovation with no constraint (I have indeed been on both sides of this, I know). I was viewing that example as endorsing your twice made point that factual historical analysis of innovation is essential for a responsible reviewer. Also, if the concept of innovation is subjective, what strategies might we as a forum use to avoid talking past each other. That's why I was interested in people sharing something about what sort of innovations they personally look for.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 06 2017 at 05:38
Originally posted by Frankh Frankh wrote:

Originally posted by mlkpad14 mlkpad14 wrote:

I don't have much to actually contribute to this thread, but this contains some very interesting material. I really enjoyed reading through it.


Agree.

However I would add this, and these are words already seen sprinkled liberally throughout this thread, and all over the site as a whole.

Long ago decided what I wanted, want out of music is anything.
Anything but the same old thing. The same old thing, the bane of my existence.

Yeah, a while again I started looking for "different". I listen to every genre, but the ones that stand out are the ones who are able to make new genres and change the way we view them.

And there is so much music out there. You find something you like, you obsess over it... Eventually, you look deeper... Sometimes you think you are done... But you are never done... Maybe half a year later, you are reminded of that same material, and you realize that there just has to be some type of fusion between the two genres you have been listening to... It is a good feeling!

Innovation is great, but music is more about "understanding" than anything... And then digging deeper... Yeah, that's what music is all about.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 06 2017 at 06:13
Originally posted by mlkpad14 mlkpad14 wrote:


...
Innovation is great, but music is more about "understanding" than anything... And then digging deeper... Yeah, that's what music is all about.

And this is the scary part of the whole thing. And it actually happened in music a lot ... even Bob Dylan was trashed when he took his folk music electric ... and likewise many years ago, and still in many cultures, the bringing up to date of the traditional music is not something that is appreciated.

This is one of the biggest complaints I have, for example, of American tradional Native American music, most of which is dead and gone, and it does not help their history come alive. Because the instruments of today, are not the same as the instruments of yesterday, the whole thing sounds different, but is NOT, and still some traditionalists do not like the modernization of the sound, which, supposedly takes the feeling away from the music.

Which is not true at all ... the instrument is just the medium that the music and its feeling is passing through.

There is an example, of something that HAWKWIND did in "Electric Tepee" at the end, that I loved dearly, and it was the powow at the end of the record ... perfectly modern, done by a rock band, and making total sense, however not likely to be appreciated by a non Native, but this, on the 21st century is like saying that an American or European can not do African Rhythms and styles, which is, now ... a totally redundant and stupid idea and thought.

Now let's have some fun ... take the electricity out and how much of the music is really "innovative" ... has it all become strictly about the SOUND ... or it is specifically about the MUSIC ... and this has not been defined in this thread.


Edited by moshkito - October 06 2017 at 06:15
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 07 2017 at 08:28
Can unusual time signatures still be innovative? They've been done before. Nevertheless, there are a lot of metrical combinations one can do within any given signature, given the wide palette of accents, rests, note durations, orchestrations, and mix of notes and percussive techniques (e.g. strumming muted strings and such). Surely all such combinations have not been exhausted. Does any difference remain between the experimentalism of 11/8 and 4/4? Is using a wider palette in and of itself more experimental or more innovative?

Come to think of it as I write, is there a difference between being experimental and being innovative?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 07 2017 at 09:41
^That's just a little difference I guess. I'd say experimental is more of an attitude where one aims for being innovative.
As for time sigs... Coming back to Jacob Collier again! https://youtu.be/b78NoobJNEo?t=10m58s (especially at 15:10)
If you thought time signatures were milked out and were done inventing... They're not, watch.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 07 2017 at 11:08
Originally posted by HackettFan HackettFan wrote:

Can unusual time signatures still be innovative? They've been done before. Nevertheless, there are a lot of metrical combinations one can do within any given signature, given the wide palette of accents, rests, note durations, orchestrations, and mix of notes and percussive techniques (e.g. strumming muted strings and such). Surely all such combinations have not been exhausted. Does any difference remain between the experimentalism of 11/8 and 4/4? Is using a wider palette in and of itself more experimental or more innovative?

Come to think of it as I write, is there a difference between being experimental and being innovative?

Hmm. On one hand it's probably very difficult these days to do something really new and innovative in this respect. On the other hand, while 11/8 and 13/8 and whatever have been done many times already, still the vast majority of music (or at least the vast majority of what people listen to) is 4/4 or perhaps 3/4. There may be a problem with focusing too much on innovation. I think there is a space opened by many ideas of the last, say, 120 or so years (which is a time span of which I think the concepts of originality and innovation became far more important in art and music) that is by far not explored enough. For a long time almost all music was made in a pretty restricted framework, either of accepted rules or of "habits" that had been used for generations. When originality and innovation became more central in the appreciation of art and music, it became less attractive to go somewhere where somebody else had been before, despite the fact that new ideas had opened spaces in which lots of things could be done, probably not to be branded "innovative" anymore and surely not as innovative as opening the space itself, but still with a potential to create very worthwhile new music that enriches the listeners. For this, musicians are needed who are not after innovation in the first place; there is far more than being either truly innovative or just following the pack.

So I'm very keen on musicians who for example take unusual (but not anymore really original) time signatures and explore the space opened by them, just because there's potential - only I don't think that "innovation" is the right header for this. ("Experimental" may or may not fit; I think experimentation is an attitude that is surely helpful, but may not necessarily produce innovation.)

Small somewhat misplaced illustration: I think that King Crimson's Discipline was a stunningly original and innovative album (of course potentially not knowing all influences that went into it), and Beat is pretty much their lowest rated album on PA - but I think Beat is great at exploring more of the space opened by Discipline, despite it surely not being as innovative and original as Discipline itself. For which some people put it down, I think (although of course some simply don't like it, innovative or not).
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 07 2017 at 18:12
I prefer a tape measure. <.parts.length;a++n.partsa;delete><.length;h++var>

Edited by Slartibartfast - October 07 2017 at 18:16
Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 08 2017 at 16:32
^Centimeters or inches?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 08 2017 at 17:40
Originally posted by Lewian Lewian wrote:

Originally posted by HackettFan HackettFan wrote:

Can unusual time signatures still be innovative? They've been done before. Nevertheless, there are a lot of metrical combinations one can do within any given signature, given the wide palette of accents, rests, note durations, orchestrations, and mix of notes and percussive techniques (e.g. strumming muted strings and such). Surely all such combinations have not been exhausted. Does any difference remain between the experimentalism of 11/8 and 4/4? Is using a wider palette in and of itself more experimental or more innovative?

Come to think of it as I write, is there a difference between being experimental and being innovative?

Hmm. On one hand it's probably very difficult these days to do something really new and innovative in this respect. On the other hand, while 11/8 and 13/8 and whatever have been done many times already, still the vast majority of music (or at least the vast majority of what people listen to) is 4/4 or perhaps 3/4. There may be a problem with focusing too much on innovation. I think there is a space opened by many ideas of the last, say, 120 or so years (which is a time span of which I think the concepts of originality and innovation became far more important in art and music) that is by far not explored enough. For a long time almost all music was made in a pretty restricted framework, either of accepted rules or of "habits" that had been used for generations. When originality and innovation became more central in the appreciation of art and music, it became less attractive to go somewhere where somebody else had been before, despite the fact that new ideas had opened spaces in which lots of things could be done, probably not to be branded "innovative" anymore and surely not as innovative as opening the space itself, but still with a potential to create very worthwhile new music that enriches the listeners. For this, musicians are needed who are not after innovation in the first place; there is far more than being either truly innovative or just following the pack.

So I'm very keen on musicians who for example take unusual (but not anymore really original) time signatures and explore the space opened by them, just because there's potential - only I don't think that "innovation" is the right header for this. ("Experimental" may or may not fit; I think experimentation is an attitude that is surely helpful, but may not necessarily produce innovation.)

Small somewhat misplaced illustration: I think that King Crimson's Discipline was a stunningly original and innovative album (of course potentially not knowing all influences that went into it), and Beat is pretty much their lowest rated album on PA - but I think Beat is great at exploring more of the space opened by Discipline, despite it surely not being as innovative and original as Discipline itself. For which some people put it down, I think (although of course some simply don't like it, innovative or not).
I agree. It creates a larger palette, and if a larger palette isn't innovative, then maybe innovation isn't everything. Jazz improvisation and most of Western music history was dominated by cadential music built around achieving harmonic resolution. Jazz leads improvised over progressions were always burdened by having to follow the chords, then Miles Davis' Kind of Blue used stripped down progressions with suggestions of harmonic resolution removed. The lead player then musically illustrated (horizontally, as they say) the mode of the scale rather than (vertically) the ever changing chords. It provided a much freer situation for the lead player. It's Mile's Davis' innovation (Modal Jazz), but anyone or any band that uses that non-cadential approach gains a larger palette, at least in the lead section. So, I'm thinking that if a band does employ a previously done innovation, it should not automatically be regarded as derivative. A good innovation opens up possibilities.

Originally posted by DDPascalDD DDPascalDD wrote:

^That's just a little difference I guess. I'd say experimental is more of an attitude where one aims for being innovative.
As for time sigs... Coming back to Jacob Collier again! https://youtu.be/b78NoobJNEo?t=10m58s (especially at 15:10)
If you thought time signatures were milked out and were done inventing... They're not, watch.
I agree. Experimental is more of an attitude. And maybe whether one actually produces a genuine innovation is just trivia; it's the attitude that matters. I'm not abandoning my current interest in innovation, especially after watching that YouTube vid. Very impressive. I only watched the portion you spoke of due to my limitations on my data plan, but I'll definitely have to check out more later.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 09 2017 at 06:22
Originally posted by HackettFan HackettFan wrote:

Originally posted by DDPascalDD DDPascalDD wrote:

I'd say experimental is more of an attitude where one aims for being innovative. As for time sigs... Coming back to Jacob Collier again! https://youtu.be/b78NoobJNEo?t=10m58s (especially at 15:10)
If you thought time signatures were milked out and were done inventing... They're not, watch.
I agree. Experimental is more of an attitude. And maybe whether one actually produces a genuine innovation is just trivia; it's the attitude that matters.

Jacob Collier definitely secured himself another follower. His theories are very interesting and innovative, and overall, they are just really cool. I am really liking his debut album, too.

Also, I agree about the attitude being what matters. If an artist is trying to break boundaries and doing well, then they are worth following and repetitively listening to. However, if an artist accidentally invents this new concept, and they are not necessarily striving to be different, it is just an accident. Accidents are not inspiring.

One of my favorite experimental vocalists of all time is Mike Patton. He has utilized every genre you can possibly think of, and more still. Additionally, he is really fun to listen to, and he is always collaborating with other experimental artists. Every album by him is an adventure.

Another experimental artist I love is Lou Reed. It is a shame he passed away... His style was both very innovative, and emotionally compelling. Transformer and White Light / White Heat (The Velvet Underground) are my favorites by him. Surprisingly, I was also one of those few weirdos who really loved LuLu (Metallica).
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 09 2017 at 11:06
Is it innovation when the style of music that is being aped is unknown to the musician? I mean, I had no idea about prog rock back when I was in my early teens but after listening intently to Jimi Hendrix I came up with an interesting idea: 'man it'd be cool if rock musicians set out to make their take on something like Vivaldi's 4 Seasons'.
Like I said, I had never been subjected to prog beforehand and therefor had no idea that it had been done hundreds of times before. I think many musicians wind up sounding like old trailblazers yet without ever having come into contact with their material.
Innovation pertaining to music is such a fickle thing and can happen inside small groups of people or indeed regions that are cut off from the western world.

Edited by Guldbamsen - October 09 2017 at 11:07
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