Klarinet Archive - Posting 000152.txt from 2009/01

From: "Peter Gentry" <peter.gentry@-----.uk>
Subj: RE: [kl] Raptasm
Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:02:38 -0500

Hmm that is a mouthful.

I was going to try and spread a little oil on the troubled waters. I see =
you
perceive the difficulty in using words to describe music, difficult if =
not
impossible. It assumes a high level of agreement between both sides as =
to
what the words mean.

There is a lot of audio art involving spoken/chanted words meaningful or
nonsense which does appear to be music to me. Maybe these performance
overlap with the proponents of "Rap", I don't know. In particular I was
thinking of poetry such as "Under Milk Wood" and "The Wasteland" or the
Walton piece Fa=E7ade with Edith Sitwell when these are read aloud =
(skilfully)
they are music. Similarly there is a Celtic tradition of "Mouth Music" =
which
again appears musical. Now it may be that there are rare examples of =
"Rap"
which fall into the same class. But like it or not the majority think of
"Gangster Rap" when the word "Rap" is used. This is a nasty brutish
exaltation to all manner of unpleasant practices and involves randomly
gesticulating and sneering. This is the "Rap" I cannot find in any way =
worth
bothering with.

I wish you well in your struggles but in the end the answer will elude =
you.
Human beings are burdened with self awareness but not provided with the
intelligence to deal with it. We just muddle on until we die, nothing =
really
matters.

regards
Peter Gentry=20

-----Original Message-----
From: Alexander Brash [mailto:brash@-----.edu]=20
Sent: 08 January 2009 02:26
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] Raptasm

I thought you might find this helpful. It's from a book I'm writing
which will be out in March. This bit is still under heavy editing,
so I'm aware it lacks a certain tightness, fair warning:

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