Originally posted by Seppuku
Its about time people took techno more seriously.
Frenkieee
lol @ youtube caption
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by nefardec
Why is it that you are so against the idea that African culture influences a lot of black music, including techno?
Gross simplification and misrepresentation of who now?
I'm not against that idea. Never claimed otherwise. I'm against what you very specifically said - that techno as a genre is the channelling of a completely different culture to the one it's actually made and consumed in. As I've repeatedly pointed out, you either have clear evidence of the artists consciously doing this right from the start or you must logically be claiming it's an issue of genetics.
Now I don't know if it's subconscious racism or just a complete failure of logic on your part, because you've only got a few indirect inferences and isolated examples to prove the former and yet you deny the latter.
As I've repeatedly pointed out and you've selectively ignored, proving techno is "black music" doesn't mean anything because lots of black music is horizontally composed and word based (and spoken word is no less sequential than written word, a fact you seem to be oblivious to), and even proving an artist (like Bambaataa) is concerned with African culture still doesn't prove his music is vertically composed in a non-sequential sound-image.
So basically, I'm completely against your individual argument, because it's so riddled with holes, leaps of faith and convenient assumptions it looks like racism.
nefardec
quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
I just think that Derrick May happened to like (as he said in an interview once i've red in DJMag)both funkadelic (a funk band from the 60s) and kraftwerk. So, if you "strip-down" the elements of a funk track and play it faster you'll (anyway) going to get something very stereotypically "african-sounding". Add the futuristic lines and robotic sounds of Kraftwerk and you get techno. IMO thats all there is.
I think you're correct about Techno producers' influences. They aren't generally explicit about Africa or heritage, the way other artists (like dub producers) were.
But as I've said, this is about a pedigree of influence. You are what you eat, basically. Techno is music descended from africans and aliens.
It's entirely possible to be a white person and make black music. Black music is a cultural distinction, not genetic, as I've said many times in this thread.
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
So basically, I'm completely against your individual argument, because it's so riddled with holes, leaps of faith and convenient assumptions it looks like racism.
The thing is, the 'individual argument' you are arguing against never existed.
this is what you think my argument is:
quote:
Originally posted by YOU
that techno as a genre is the channelling of a completely different culture to the one it's actually made and consumed in.
and this is what it was:
quote:
Originally posted by ME
I think this dialogue between image and word manifests itself in electronic music as the difference between pure techno and this generic tech house. techno is image based, sculptural, rhythmic, black music, imbued with deep cultural traditions of an image-based culture, whereas the prog is sequential, of european descent, a word-based culture, from same essential tradition as the choral hymn.
as you can see, I made no argument that it was consciously "channeling" african culture (even though some artists do this, i realize this does not support an argument). The argument is that it is imbued, latent, permeated, by the stepwise spread of tradition.
You already agreed that techno was black music, and I am sure you would agree that it is more like a sound-sculpture or image than song-based music, and I'm sure you agree it is rhythmic.
Now, the question is whether or not you agree that it is 'imbued with deep cultural traditions of an image based culture'.
This is the 'pedigree of influence' that I discussed. It is about tradition, not genetic predisposition, nor is it about motive.
LEARN 2 READ
here is an interesting quote from the introduction of the last book I posted, "Flash of the Spirit".
quote:
Since the Atlantic slave trade, ancient African organizing principles of song and dance have crossed the seas from the Old World to the New. There they took on new momentum, intermingling with each other and with the New World or European styles of singing and dance. Among those principles are the dominance of a percussive performance style (attack and vital aliveness in sound and motion); a propensity for multiple meter (competing meters sounding all at once); overlapping call and response in singing (solo/chorus, voice/instrument - "interlock systeems" of performance);inner pulse control (a "metronome sense", keeping a beat indelibly in mind as a rhythmic common denominator in a welter of different meters); suspended accentuation patterning (offbeat phrasing of melodic and choreographic accents); and at a slightly different but equally recurring level of exposition, songs and dances of social allusion (music which, however danceable and 'swinging', remorselessly contrasts social imperfections against implied criteria for perfect living).
Flash of the Spirit is about visual and philosophic streams of creativity and imagination, running parallel to the massive musicial and choreographic modalities that connect black persons of the western hemisphere, as well as the millions of European and Asian people attracted to and performing their styles, to Mother Africa.
as you can imagine, since this is literally beginning in the third sentence of the book, there are many other choice quotes in the book supporting my argument, but I will spare all of you with tediously posting them. If you want to read more, get the book, like I have.
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by nefardec
as you can see, I made no argument that it was consciously "channeling" african culture (even though some artists do this, i realize this does not support an argument). The argument is that it is imbued, latent, permeated, by the stepwise spread of tradition.
You've made that argument several times, just not in that quote. Otherwise you wouldn't have even tried to post all those quotes, concept records or Sun Ra albums to try and show conscious invokement. You took on an argument that you couldn't prove, showing only leaps of faith (the Belleville trio's parents probably listened to Sun Ra, which probably influenced them, for example).
quote:
You already agreed that techno was black music, and I am sure you would agree that it is more like a sound-sculpture or image than song-based music, and I'm sure you agree it is rhythmic.
Now, the question is whether or not you agree that it is 'imbued with deep cultural traditions of an image based culture'.
A question that in itself raises many other questions about your logical lapses. Stop trying to cut out the troublesome parts of your argument. One of the many questions raised concerns your assumption that "black music" is about vertical composition and sound-images, an assumption myself and JBJ have provided many, many examples to counter, all of which you've ignored. Appealing to the authority of books does not counter these examples, especially if the books make the same mistakes you keep making.
I think one of the biggest ironies here is you assume progressive is white, sequential music full of the traditions of Western culture, when it was born because Leftfield very deliberately and openly tried to bring black musical influences into their music. And then on the flip-side, techno would not exist without the massive influence of white Germans. This is the music of the postmodern age. Black musical tradition was disseminated into the cultural mixing bowl for almost a century before either of these genres came along. "Black music" and "white music" are just labels. We know that music is music.
PETRAN
quote:
Originally posted by nefardec
I think you're correct about Techno producers' influences. They aren't generally explicit about Africa or heritage, the way other artists (like dub producers) were.
But as I've said, this is about a pedigree of influence. You are what you eat, basically. Techno is music descended from africans and aliens.
It's entirely possible to be a white person and make black music. Black music is a cultural distinction, not genetic, as I've said many times in this thread.
The thing is, the 'individual argument' you are arguing against never existed.
this is what you think my argument is:
and this is what it was:
I think this dialogue between image and word manifests itself in electronic music as the difference between pure techno and this generic tech house. techno is image based, sculptural, rhythmic, black music, imbued with deep cultural traditions of an image-based culture, whereas the prog is sequential, of european descent, a word-based culture, from same essential tradition as the choral hymn.
as you can see, I made no argument that it was consciously "channeling" african culture (even though some artists do this, i realize this does not support an argument). The argument is that it is imbued, latent, permeated, by the stepwise spread of tradition.
You already agreed that techno was black music, and I am sure you would agree that it is more like a sound-sculpture or image than song-based music, and I'm sure you agree it is rhythmic.
Now, the question is whether or not you agree that it is 'imbued with deep cultural traditions of an image based culture'.
This is the 'pedigree of influence' that I discussed. It is about tradition, not genetic predisposition, nor is it about motive.
LEARN 2 READ
here is an interesting quote from the introduction of the last book I posted, "Flash of the Spirit".
Nef, i haven't red the book, but i think what you are saying about he distinction between "word-based" and "image-based" and between "vertical" and "horizontal" is an oversimplification and probably just wrong. So, is this tune by Derrick May-a typical tune of the era- "vertical" and "image-based" or whatever?
What i hear is someone looped a kind-of-funk-rhythm with some electronic acid sounds and somewhere in the middle also added some "terminator-style-sci-fi-strings" lol. I can't see whats so African or traditional about it. Yes there is a black influence-since the funk/disco/soul/jazz influences of those musicians were also African influenced, but they are no more African than they are American. They are probably more American since those "black genres" (like funk, soul, jazz, disco etc.) were already the result of a mixture between the more polyrhythmic African spirit and the more "melody/choir based" White. Soul and Funk were developments of Gospel music, which in turn is largerly choir-based and influenced by "White church" music. Even the "deep blues" which-as far as i know- were also some of the first developments of Black music in America are not majorly related to African musical traditions, no more than they are to white folk music.
So, i don't think that what you are saying about those distinctions is realistic and true, since "black music"-as soon as it was created in America-was a mixture of those two "schools of thought", not the natural linear development of African traditional music. Maybe you hear some later (and not earlier) more loopy, dubby and tribal techno developments (like the Robert Hood track you posted) and because they sound very primitive and basic, you perceive it as something more primitive and savage and hence you associate it with the supposedly more "primitive" and "basic" music of Africa. Which i also think is a stereotype, since, whilst i know little about African traditions, music and culture, im not sure that African music is not song-based but purely revolves around some "imaginary" "vertical" concept.
I think that the association of African musical traditons with ritualistic tribal savage music is a stereotype, possibly created from the white communities which saw the "savage" in those people rather than the elements which were related to them (since they didn't want to be related in any way to them). So, yes, i think that a mixture of biased white (pseudo-)anthropology and the Hollywood led to those stereotypes lol. I guess that there are stuff sounding like what we perceive as "tribal" (and what you say "vertical") but to sum all African culture within those over-simplistic notions is wrong and i believe that there are also more "song-based", "linear", "choir-based" musical aspects in African traditions as well (e.g. listen to some Kenyan music in youtube-although it is east- and not west-african, from the little stuff i know i think that it shares a lot with other African traditions). So in the end, i'm not sure if African tradtional music is more rhythm-based or vertical or whatever than Middle-east, or Japanese, or Greek, or even North-European folk-dance music (which has led to the developments of polka, "river-dance" etc. ). It is surely more "rhythm-based" than later European music (e.g. romantic classical but maybe not so vastly different from some Baroque) which became more-melody based, but i believe that this school of thought also influenced (possibly indirectly) American black music right from the very beginning.
nefardec
quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
So in the end, i'm not sure if African tradtional music is more rhythm-based or vertical or whatever than Middle-east, or Japanese, or Greek, or even North-European folk-dance music (which has led to the developments of polka, "river-dance" etc. ). It is surely more "rhythm-based" than later European music (e.g. romantic classical but maybe not so vastly different from some Baroque) which became more-melody based, but i believe that this school of thought also influenced (possibly indirectly) American black music right from the very beginning.
classical indian ragas also tend towards vertical compositions.
You are right that the vertical/horizontal thing is a generalization. But it's not a generalization like a stereotype that acts an exclusive 'pigeonhole', it is a tendency or dominance or relative position on a continuum.
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J A question that in itself raises many other questions about your logical lapses. Stop trying to cut out the troublesome parts of your argument.
what the ? Of course I will cut out the weak part of my argument, in order to strengthen my message. You'd think a writer would understand the concept of editing.
Furthermore, I could care less about your fetish with logic, I care about ideas, and you're just going to have to live with it. If you can't, then don't waste your time responding to me. Or maybe it's that you are so self-important that you see yourself as some sort of force of logical righteousness who must intervene in the forum.
quote:
"Black music" and "white music" are just labels. We know that music is music.
As I've said, black music and white music refer to cultural traditions. You don't have to have black skin color to understand or make or aprpeciate 'black music' or 'white music', as long as you are sufficiently indoctrinated with the culture.
quote:
So, is this tune by Derrick May-a typical tune of the era- "vertical" and "image-based" or whatever?
PETRAN, no need to be so snarky. We all know that the musical family tree of the world is full of incest. You are also misunderstanding what I say when I make a distinction between the vertical and the horizontal. They are not mutually exclusive, and I think it would be nearly impossible to find music that is only vertical or only horizontal. Most music has to be somewhat horizontal because it is always subject to a time dimension, unless you have just a simple loop or something.
It's like being left or right brain dominant.
To humor you, I would say there is a mix of both horizontal and vertical compositional techniques in the Derrick May tune you posted. I think it remains largely vertical though, because there are no clear narrative/verse structures - swelling or change is created through the gradual layering of vertical structures. But I would never classify any song as either vertical or horizontal. That is just wrong, I agree. Nor would I ever classify a culture as either image based or alphabet based.
I think, though that you can more or less plot the relative dominance of these modalities in music or culture in a moment of time.
quote:
Maybe you hear some later (and not earlier) more loopy, dubby and tribal techno developments (like the Robert Hood track you posted) and because they sound very primitive and basic, you perceive it as something more primitive and savage and hence you associate it with the supposedly more "primitive" and "basic" music of Africa. Which i also think is a stereotype, since, whilst i know little about African traditions, music and culture, im not sure that African music is not song-based but purely revolves around some "imaginary" "vertical" concept.
for the last time - i don't think that music or culture is exclusively image based or linear/narrative based. I think that one modality dominates within a given frame of reference. Of course African music has songs!
Please, if you are going to argue with me, please argue with me and my words, and not what you imagine my words or positions to be.
also, did you listen to rob hood's wife's words in this production of his?
chesco
quote:
Originally posted by Seppuku
Its about time people took techno more seriously.
Totally.
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by nefardec
what the ? Of course I will cut out the weak part of my argument, in order to strengthen my message. You'd think a writer would understand the concept of editing.
Although that's a false analogy because this is a continuous debate, which works very differently to an essay, editing is about clarity, efficiency and aesthetics, not glossing over problems. When I'm stating a case, whether it's a review or an essay or whatever, I don't simply ignore the problematic points of an argument and edit them out. I raise them, acknowledge them, counter them and dismiss them as an integrated part of my position. If you're having to edit out the problems to make your case stand, your case is obviously flawed.
quote:
Furthermore, I could care less about your fetish with logic, I care about ideas, and you're just going to have to live with it. If you can't, then don't waste your time responding to me. Or maybe it's that you are so self-important that you see yourself as some sort of force of logical righteousness who must intervene in the forum.
You can read all the weighty ideas in the world, but it is basic logical principles that govern your understanding and handling of that information. I value someone who has rock solid logic and can process any given information accurately over someone who is incredibly well read but lacks the faculties to utilise their gained knowledge.
And I haven't intervened in this thread. I was already a participant in this thread, and I have personally raised the idea of vertical/horizontal composition in the past on TA (although I didn't read about it in a book, it was something that occurred to me) so I was interested to see where you were going with your point. It was the rapid nosedive into a point that was at best ill-thought-out and at worst implicitely racist that prompted me to "intervene" in your pontification.
quote:
Originally posted by nefardec
As I've said, black music and white music refer to cultural traditions. You don't have to have black skin color to understand or make or aprpeciate 'black music' or 'white music', as long as you are sufficiently indoctrinated with the culture.
And as I've said, those traditions have been so thoroughly cross-bred, interwoven and mixed up that there is no white music that isn't heavily influenced by black music and no black music that isn't heavily influenced by white music.
Culture is culture. It is the product of societies, not skin colours. Word-based, sequential culture is not "white" culture, because white people were not the only ones to have an emphasis on written language or sequential thinking. The Belleville trio did not make black culture, only American culture or Western culture. Whilever you associate skin colour or race with distinct, seperable ways of thinking you are discriminating.
nefardec
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Although that's a false analogy because this is a continuous debate, which works very differently to an essay, editing is about clarity, efficiency and aesthetics, not glossing over problems. When I'm stating a case, whether it's a review or an essay or whatever, I don't simply ignore the problematic points of an argument and edit them out. I raise them, acknowledge them, counter them and dismiss them as an integrated part of my position. If you're having to edit out the problems to make your case stand, your case is obviously flawed.
Except that this is a message board and not an academic journal.. If I were writing an essay on this issue for such a publication, there's no ing way I would just spew out whatever is on my mind. That's the function of a public message board. You're way out of place here if you think otherwise.
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
You can read all the weighty ideas in the world, but it is basic logical principles that govern your understanding and handling of that information. I value someone who has rock solid logic and can process any given information accurately over someone who is incredibly well read but lacks the faculties to utilise their gained knowledge.
Well fortunately for you, I already have a girlfriend, as it turns out, anyways.
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
And I haven't intervened in this thread. I was already a participant in this thread, and I have personally raised the idea of vertical/horizontal composition in the past on TA (although I didn't read about it in a book, it was something that occurred to me) so I was interested to see where you were going with your point. It was the rapid nosedive into a point that was at best ill-thought-out and at worst implicitely racist that prompted me to "intervene" in your pontification.
Oh ok, it's good to know we have such a stalwart force of anti-racism looking over us in the forum. I guess the 'J' stands for "JUSTICE"?
And I did not read about 'vertical' and 'horizontal' in a book, this was my idea as well. What I took from a book was the 'image' versus 'alphabet' idea.
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
And as I've said, those traditions have been so thoroughly cross-bred, interwoven and mixed up that there is no white music that isn't heavily influenced by black music and no black music that isn't heavily influenced by white music.
You're not saying anything here I haven't said.
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Culture is culture. It is the product of societies, not skin colours. Word-based, sequential culture is not "white" culture, because white people were not the only ones to have an emphasis on written language or sequential thinking.
WTF does "culture is culture" mean?
Cultures are not all the same, and no one said it is the product of skin colors. I have repeatedly stated the opposite of that.
You again are resorting to gross misinterpretations of what I have written.
First of all, there is no "white culture". "Black culture" exists because of the tragic shared cultural memory of slavery and the african diaspora. "Black" is just a label attached to the tradition surrounding this, and it certainly wasn't invented by me.
Second of all, of course written language or sequential thinking appears in pretty much every culture since about 10,000 years ago. I have not stated anything to the contrary. LEARN 2 READ
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
The Belleville trio did not make black culture, only American culture or Western culture.
Great point, SYSTEM-OBVIOUS!
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Whilever you associate skin colour or race with distinct, seperable ways of thinking you are discriminating.
...except that i did not do that. 1.) i did not say that those ways were mutually exclusive. 2.) i said it is a cultural tendency, not a genetic or racial tendency.
LEARN 2 READ
Leave it to the writer to make up words like 'whilever'. That doesn't even exist in Britain.
