dwlb wrote:GooberNumber9 wrote:swelle wrote:Be a really good live band."
I believe that for musicians this is the only way to really do something great.
I've said it before: forty years after
Sgt. Pepper's and over fifty years after the advent of tape music, and we're still thinking of music just in terms of
live bands? How incredibly limiting.
Good point, but I feel the need to defend swelle's idea on this one. All you have to do is strike the word "band" from his argument and the connotations it brings up in your mind.
Regardless of what the future of progressive music brings, putting on a compelling, confident, mesmerizing and spontaneous performance will always be crucial... So long as human beings are playing music together. For instance, if you ever see a really talented "name" DJ spinning, you'll notice they're just as much of a stunning musician as anyone else worth remembering, and the audience
feeds off of that. When you see electronic musicians who just idly sit behind their laptops crafting abstract noise in a completely random and un-engaging way, chances are you're seeing an opening act that is boring you to tears.
Good electronic musicians understand musicianship, and the idea of a group of humans who are good at what they do, feeding of of eachother. These days a lot of electronic musicians and DJs are taking a tip from "bands" and including another live musician or two in their sets.
When it comes to jazz or chamber music or funk or rock or whatever future music comes along,
playing well together is among the most important things in the world. That doesn't mean everyone should be mastrubatory chopsters. It just means that they should
listen and
rehearse in a meaningful way, and become a cohesive musical unit.
I'll never deny the importance of great songs.... but songs are nothing until some musicians make them come alive. Until then, they're just abstract ideas... and trust me, even the greatest songs can be made to suck.