Re: [-empyre-] quickies for the panelists

[john hudak <jhudak@pobox.com>]

> John H., I think I've accidentally deleted your intro message.  :(
> 
I didn't have that much of a message really.  I did a performance on Sunday
that i now have up on my filesharing site at:

http://filesharing.johnhudak.net

"officeops" mp3s...the mp3 most mac users can download easily...the .zip
version is for pc users.

I've been thinking about what to say here, and came up with some ideas when
i was preparing for this performance.  The performance was based on my
recent interest in pygmy music from central africa.  I've been listening to
the bayaka pygmy songs, which also led me to listen to and read more about a
favorite music of mine...delta blues.  there is something about the
complexity within the simplicity that interests me in both musics.

In any case, while looking through some books about delta blues, i came
across a piece of writing by G.I. Gurdjieff (i had been thinking about his
ideas about music recently as well, but didn't think i'd see anything
related to it in a book about the blues):

>From the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff:
Objective music is all based on "inner octaves."  And it can obtain not only
definite psychological results but definite physical results.  There can be
such music as would freeze water.  There can be such music as would kill a
man instantaneously.  The Biblical legend of the destruction of the walls of
Jericho by music is precisely a legend of objective music.  Plain music, no
matter of what kind, will not destroy walls, but objective music indeed can
do so.  And not only can it destroy but it can also build up.  In the legend
of Orpheus there are hints of objective music, for Orpheus used to impart
knowledge by music.  Snake charmers' music in the East is an approach to
objective music, of sourse very primitive.  Very often it is simply one note
which is long drawn out, rising and falling only very little; but in this
single note "inner octaves" are going on all the time and melodies of "inner
octaves" which are inaudible to the ears but felt by the emotional center.
And the snake hears this music or, more strictly speaking, he feels it and
obeys it.  The same music, only a little more complicated, and men would
obey it.

This was in a book called "The Country Blues Guitar" by Stefan Grossman.

I'm sorry if all this seems a mishmash of ideas...the Gurdjieff ideas are
from my past (I used to be in a Gurdjieff group about 15 years ago).  I
remember searching for music that might have a direct effect on human
feelings...more or less the same effect for most people, as opposed to most
music, which i think has a different effect on everyone.  I'm not sure if
this music exists nowadays.  Perhaps I am thinking about the difference
between direct communication of an idea and entertainment.

I think "microsound" is just really a classification of sounds that have
always been around in some form or another, but have just recently gained a
popularity with labeling.  The early Musique Concrete creators were doing
the dj-ing stuff years ago without mass popularity.  I always wonder what
the next "real" new music will be.

best future,
john