alKemia gnosTica: IED bears all, re: James Jones's inquiry

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu]

 To: James Jones <mcrware!jejones@UUNET.UU.NET>
 From: Andrew Marvick
 Subject: alKemia gnosTica: IED bears all, re: James Jones's inquiry

     Sorry, James, I couldn't navigate my way back to you, so this has to
go in Love-Hounds. Love-Hounds please excuse again IED's 1st-personation.

 >>     Page 61 (writing about _Violin_):
 >>"It is a coy, devilish attempt to breathe a little fire into a
 >>staid violin, but in many ways it fails because of the song's
 >>lack of melody." This statement is so silly and demonstrates
 >>such colossal ignorance of music that I am sure I needn't argue
 >>further for its deletion from future editions.

 >  Perhaps I'm colossally ignorant of music, too, but I don't see an obvious
 >reason to claim that Juby is wrong.  (I'm not saying he's right, either,
 >but Juby does at least attempt to justify his assertion that the song
 >fails in some ways.)  Could you elaborate?

     Sure. I admit that I went a bit over the top over that excerpt
from Juby's book, because there were two separate annoying assumptions
in it. The first (interpreting as well as I could Juby's awkward and
vague language) was that the violin is somehow by nature "staid". Neither I
nor Kate shares Juby's image of the violin as a "staid" instrument. In
fact, Kate's image of the violin, at least at that time, was that it's
about as far from being "staid" as any instrument can be. I couldn't
understand what Juby could have had in mind. I guess that he thinks of
the violin as only good for slow, sombre classical music, and he
therefore naively assumes that others think of it that way, too. But
in Irish and English folk music the fiddle has always taken on a potent
role, very often serving as a kind of fiery, almost violent and even
percussive driving force for traditional dances. My main point is
just that there's nothing inherently "staid" about the instrument--it's
the _music_ that determines that.
     The other thing that annoyed me about the comment was Juby's
blithe assumption that _Violin_ (the song) _has_no_melody_! Well, that's
just ridiculous. All this means is that Juby _has_no_ear_! The melody
in _Violin_ operates on a different basis than the melodies of most
popular songs. For one thing it's devised around a very unusual (for
pop music) augmented chord progression (listen to the descending
pattern played by the violin in the first four measures of the track,
for instance) which Juby's ear apparently can't grasp. But if it
can be hummed, isn't it "melody"? IED has no problem singing (in
the shower!) the whole song through. How could there be no melody
if that's possible? The fact is that "melody" doesn't have to be
sweet and simple in order to qualify as melody. It just has to be
a sequence of notes which form a coherent pattern, usually repeated.
Melody is so broad a term, and encompasses such a vast range of
possible tonal combinations, that to say _Violin_ "doesn't have"
any is utterly absurd.

 >>'over-produced'." Her point was well taken. Kate's introduction of
 >>production techniques into all aspects of her music-making process during
 >>the recording of _The_Dreaming_ is a milestone
 >>in modern musical history, and constitutes a very large
 >>part of her art as a whole.

 > I like *The Dreaming* a lot, but "a milestone in modern musical history"?
 > Elaboration on this point would be much appreciated also.

     All such judgements are based on some degree of subjective
perception. I personally am convinced that _The_Dreaming_ is one of
the three or four greatest achievements in the history of modern
popular music. One could then argue that if this is so, it's possible
to argue that it's a great achievement in the history of music,
period. I think that in general the musicians whom the public of
our own time value highly--Bruce Springsteen, for example, who is
both immensely popular and (generally speaking) critically
respected--will eventually be reevaluated by far more stringent
musical standards, and artists who nowadays may not be appreciated
to such an extent will some day be recognized as the truly
superior figures in the field of popular music. For a while in the
nineteenth century the biggest names in music were Offenbach and
Meyerbeer. Well, as I see the music scene of the last twenty-five
years, only one or two of the artists who are presently considered
"great" are likely to retain that reputation a hundred years from now--
probably The Beatles, possibly Bob Dylan; conceivably one or two others.
The rest will probably be forgotten entirely, except by musical historians.
     Conversely, it's not beyond possibility that in fifty years
or so Kate Bush's work will have been acknowledged as the "milestone"
I claim it is. _The_Dreaming_ isn't just exceptional because of its many
powerful and sophisticated melodic ingredients; or because of its innovative
(for pop) amalgamation of modal and tonal harmonies; or the perfection of its
synthesis of a variety of ethnic musical styles (some of which had never even
been superficially merged anywhere before); or the limitless depth of
meaning in its lyrics; or its extremely rare attitude toward the
very notion of "accessibility" in pop music--an attitude which
results in an uncommon degree of subtextual musical and
narrative information, much of which is _designed_ to be overlooked.
_The_Dreaming_ is _also_--and perhaps especially--exceptional because
it represents an attitude toward the _nature_of_music_ which had never been
expressed to such a degree. Only one instrument is heard on _The_Dreaming_--
production. I'm not putting this very clearly, but I am convinced that
all the breakthroughs in and innovative attitudes toward studio production
which The Beatles presented in _Revolver_, _Sgt._Pepper_ and _Magical_
Mystery_Tour_ were but the springboard for the _apotheosis_ of production
which is _The_Dreaming_. Because it's not just the sophistication of
production _technique_ I'm considering (although that, too, is of
the highest order). More importantly, it's the artist's larger conception
of the _role_ of production as an indispensible part of music. With
_The_Dreaming_ "pop songs" are no longer being "composed". Kate is
attempting instead to transcribe the miraculous essence of her muse
_directly_onto_tape_, using every technical means she could find. In other
words, Kate Bush, for the first time in modern musical history, attempted
in a very physical, literal sense, to perform an act of _musical_alchemy_.
Whether she succeeded completely is probably debatable. But her effort
to accomplish such a feat was more thorough and more systematic
than any artist's had ever--or has ever since--been. The fact
that most people haven't come to appreciate this yet does not
surprise me, but it does sometimes make me angry--as when I trashed
Juby's silly remarks above.

-- Andrew Marvick