[78-L] Well EXCUUUUUUSE MEEEEE!!!

[Taylor Bowie]

I agree with Mike.  Like the label slogan used to say,  "Variety is the 
Spice of Music."

I like broiled salmon and Caesar salad for dinner,  but I don't want them 
every day.

I have found that one can learn a lot by keeping an open musical mind...I'm 
always delighted to discover something "new" (to me) which I'd ignored or 
pooh-poohed for years.

Taylor



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 9:11 AM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Well EXCUUUUUUSE MEEEEE!!!


>  On 9/17/2010 11:40 AM, Matthew Duncan wrote:
>> Mantovani may convey some emotion (not that I have ever detected any in 
>> his
>> work) but I find no intensity there...that's what I look for in music as 
>> well as
>> emotion(s)...
>
> Every performer you mention is a soloist.  The three classical composers
> you mention wrote solo works and also were famous solo performers in
> their own right.  You are comparing them to an ensemble leader, and then
> to the easy listening format in general.  The operative word is EASY.
> The only emotion that an easy listening performance is supposed to
> project is detachment.  Don't blame something that is designed NOT to
> present excitement for not expressing excitement.  There are more
> emotions other than excitement, which apparently is what you are looking
> for in music.  Most performers have some nitch that they do better than
> they can do others.  There are very few on your list that I would choose
> to listen to if I want to just chill out.
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>> Both intensity and emotion(s) are to be found in the work of artists and 
>> pieces
>> of music I like...Son House, Charley Patton, Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, 
>> Otis
>> Spann, Louis Armstrong, Albert Ammons, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frank Hutchison, 
>> Peggy
>> Lee, Billie Holiday, Blind Boy Fuller, Curtis Jones, Sonny Burgess, Ray 
>> Taylor,
>> Warren Smith, Johnny Cash, Onie Wheeler, Dock Boggs, Vince Taylor, Gene 
>> Vincent,
>> Little Richard....Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov....
>>
>> But not Mantovani or any other purveyor of Easy Listening in my view...
>>
>> But I respect the fact that anyone can like what they want...but I'll 
>> never dig
>> Mantovani, Stanley Black etc...
>>
>> Regards,
>> Matthew Duncan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Kristjan Saag<saag at telia.com>
>> To: 78-L Mail List<78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
>> Sent: Fri, 17 September, 2010 12:32:08
>> Subject: Re: [78-L] Well EXCUUUUUUSE MEEEEE!!!
>>
>> Steven C. Barr wrote:
>>> Point being that so-called "Easy Listening" (an actual radio category at 
>>> one
>>> time?!) was music carefully designed to offend as few listeners as 
>>> possible,
>>> while NOT inspiring any of its hearers...?! It is effectively music 
>>> stripped
>>> of
>>> any emotional content...and the latter is and always has been the 
>>> primary
>>> purpose of its existence...?!
>>>
>> ----
>> I like the question mark that ends your comment.
>> It saves me the trouble to point out that music may also have other
>> purposes, such as ritual, descriptive, distracting etc, none of which is
>> inferior, per se, to being "of emotional content".
>>
>> But what is "emotional content"?
>> Well, emotions associated with music could be of several types:
>> 1) the personal emotions that the composer/ lyricist/ arranger/
>> performer puts into it
>> 2) the emotions that any of the former hopes to trigger among his 
>> listeners
>> 3) the actual emotions perceived by the listeners
>> 4) the emotions thought to be perceived by the listeners
>> (The latter could be, for instance, the observations made by people who
>> mistake head banging music listeners to express aggression, whereas
>> they, subjectively, perceive and express joy.)
>>
>> Where is the "emotional content" in this spectrum?
>> Am I, as a listener, justified to feel delight in Mantovani's music, if
>> he (which I doubt) deliberately produced music to be without emotional
>> content? Or is there a judge out there, somewhere near Toronto, perhaps,
>> or in London or in the L A area, to decide where the emotional content
>> in different types of music lies?
>> Wouldn't it be better to allow all listeners, educated or not,
>> sophisticated or not, cool or not, to define the qualities they find in
>> different types of music, respect their stories and, perhaps, learn from
>> their experience instead of diminishing it as bad taste and ignorance?
>>
>> What puzzles me, in these discussions, is the notion that many listeners
>> seem to be unable to encompass different types of listening within
>> themselves. The "sophisticated" listener looks for complexity in all
>> kinds of music, and dismisses the music where he doesn't find it. The
>> "primitive" listener, on the other hand - we don't find them on this
>> list, of course - is provoked and disturbed by too much complexity. The
>> "emotional" listener fails to perceive moods as emotions and rules out
>> music that isn't overtly expressive. Etc.
>> Relax! It's not a competition. No one needs to be smart or cool or
>> primitive or educated 24 hours a day. The world isn't waiting for the
>> Ultimate Definition Of Good Music. It waits for more tolerance, joy and
>> curiosity, in music as in other matters.
>> Kristjan
>>
>>
>>
>
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