sudara · December 14, 2015 20:40
diff --git a/Concerts and genres.txt b/Concerts and genres.txt
 There is still so much unexplored territory. The western world's idea of what a concert should be is limited and homogenous. We go to see a single rock artist play through a CD of tunes, the selections more or less preset and expected. We go to a classical concert, note for note the music is played from the score. With jazz we hear the same standards and riffs from the same masters on repeat, the vocabulary more or less codified decades ago. 

 I love live music. I love my favorite bands. I love jazz and I love classical music. And electronic music of all varieties.

 But where is the evolution? Am I alone in wanting a musical event that might possibly transverse multiple genres without decaying into second rate imitation, cheesy homages or tangents that the audience endures because the artist is certain to please the crowd again after the detour?

 We live in a world where at the snap of a finger we can listen to music falling anywhere on both a horizontal axis (cross-genre, cross-tradition/language) and vertical axis (present, recent past, long ago). Incredible. There are many listeners who do take advantage of this. Yet an artist must have a sound. And apparently that sound should stay within a certain range of genre for us to identify and connect with them. 

 The next obvious step for western music is for us to grow up and out of genres. To transcend the flat homogeny that we are cozy and comfy with and embrace the breadth and depth that humankind has delivered and made available. Why would we purposefully stay within carefully controlled boundaries? Can an artist for some reason only be good at one type of musical expression? Can they not connect musically with others regardless of instrument or genre? Are we as listeners too afraid or simple minded to allow our favorite musicians to explore and enjoy that journey with them? I don't think so.

 I'm a firm believer in craft. The need to practice, to hone a skill. One cannot doodle around on the piano a little and expect to play Bach. One cannot play a few Bach pieces and understand Bach's breadth and depth completely. And Bach is only one style of music, one set of styles out of tens of thousands, anchored in one period of time. 

 I'm also a firm believer in expression. A person can express, regardless of skill or medium. They can connect. That is actually what we look for in music. It is why an over-produced album or a stripped down acoustic set of the same material can carry the same weight.

 Indie music, supposedly born of a need of freedom from the homogeny of major label pop music is actually in the end as homogenous as the artists they distance themselves from. So is anti-folk, which values expression over skill, the moment over pre-meditation. These genres are rooted in the american folk/rock tradition without much deviation from a base prototype. They differ from one another in sound or tone and an infinite number of smaller differences, but the musical root has not evolved much.

 Classical music interpretation is so strict and stringent that only the conservative perfect best-of-the-best are considered marketable. Where are the classical musicians who have a different take on what the tradition should be? Or the ones who adhere to baroque sensibility when playing Bach (most play romantically), but can also play Satie and be taken seriously. We are stuck with concerts filled with the same "safe" selection of pieces by a tiny slice of composers performed by people who have trained all their lives to interpret one composer or two especially "perfectly." That is apparently what sells, the tradition we wish to build, nevermind that it may be clinical or not even true to the time-period or composer (Most baroque and romantic composers were improvisors and their music was expected to be interpreted with improvised ornamentation, not played note for note).

 And jazz. Supposedly free. This super-genre is primarirly composed of musicians who have practiced their entire lives to emulate (but of course not surpass) the handful of masters, free jazz (the rebellion against structure and re-injection of spontaneity at the unfortunate cost of being unlistenable) and the watery pseudomusic we call smooth. 

 The above examples are of course described with significant amounts of hyperbole. There are hundreds of artists who DO transcend and DO innovate within and between genres. But it is far from the norm. Stagnation and repetition is the norm. The hit song is the norm, across every genre in our tradition. Most of us want to hear what we love, over and over again. There's no harm in that.

 But I wonder....outside of triangles, circles and squares -- are there not other shapes that have interest to us? Most importantly, why can't one musician actually create a triangle, circle and square? Technically impossible? Too much skill required? Doubtful. More plausible is that we are trained as listeners and players to remain within our walls. Stay safe. Don't wander. Don't talk to strangers. Keep with your own kind.  

 My hope for the future is that we toss out the over-worn moulds and behave as adults capable of producing and enjoying the full range of human expression. There are certainly ready and willing listeners. I am one of them, and I know many others. It seems to be harder for artists to embrace — we are very much trained to go after "one sound", one type of music, master one instrument or one style. It is the norm. You studied jazz OR you studied classical music. Or maybe you listened to folk/rock and played guitar in your bedroom. Or you make beats on your laptop to DJ to an audience who really likes a certain subgenre of electronic music. All these different types of musicians, segregated into their own isolated worlds...
	There is still so much unexplored territory. The western world's idea of what a concert should be is limited and homogenous. We go to see a single rock artist play through a CD of tunes, the selections more or less preset and expected. We go to a classical concert, note for note the music is played from the score. With jazz we hear the same standards and riffs from the same masters on repeat, the vocabulary more or less codified decades ago.

	I love live music. I love my favorite bands. I love jazz and I love classical music. And electronic music of all varieties.

	But where is the evolution? Am I alone in wanting a musical event that might possibly transverse multiple genres without decaying into second rate imitation, cheesy homages or tangents that the audience endures because the artist is certain to please the crowd again after the detour?

	We live in a world where at the snap of a finger we can listen to music falling anywhere on both a horizontal axis (cross-genre, cross-tradition/language) and vertical axis (present, recent past, long ago). Incredible. There are many listeners who do take advantage of this. Yet an artist must have a sound. And apparently that sound should stay within a certain range of genre for us to identify and connect with them.

	The next obvious step for western music is for us to grow up and out of genres. To transcend the flat homogeny that we are cozy and comfy with and embrace the breadth and depth that humankind has delivered and made available. Why would we purposefully stay within carefully controlled boundaries? Can an artist for some reason only be good at one type of musical expression? Can they not connect musically with others regardless of instrument or genre? Are we as listeners too afraid or simple minded to allow our favorite musicians to explore and enjoy that journey with them? I don't think so.

	I'm a firm believer in craft. The need to practice, to hone a skill. One cannot doodle around on the piano a little and expect to play Bach. One cannot play a few Bach pieces and understand Bach's breadth and depth completely. And Bach is only one style of music, one set of styles out of tens of thousands, anchored in one period of time.

	I'm also a firm believer in expression. A person can express, regardless of skill or medium. They can connect. That is actually what we look for in music. It is why an over-produced album or a stripped down acoustic set of the same material can carry the same weight.

	Indie music, supposedly born of a need of freedom from the homogeny of major label pop music is actually in the end as homogenous as the artists they distance themselves from. So is anti-folk, which values expression over skill, the moment over pre-meditation. These genres are rooted in the american folk/rock tradition without much deviation from a base prototype. They differ from one another in sound or tone and an infinite number of smaller differences, but the musical root has not evolved much.

	Classical music interpretation is so strict and stringent that only the conservative perfect best-of-the-best are considered marketable. Where are the classical musicians who have a different take on what the tradition should be? Or the ones who adhere to baroque sensibility when playing Bach (most play romantically), but can also play Satie and be taken seriously. We are stuck with concerts filled with the same "safe" selection of pieces by a tiny slice of composers performed by people who have trained all their lives to interpret one composer or two especially "perfectly." That is apparently what sells, the tradition we wish to build, nevermind that it may be clinical or not even true to the time-period or composer (Most baroque and romantic composers were improvisors and their music was expected to be interpreted with improvised ornamentation, not played note for note).

	And jazz. Supposedly free. This super-genre is primarirly composed of musicians who have practiced their entire lives to emulate (but of course not surpass) the handful of masters, free jazz (the rebellion against structure and re-injection of spontaneity at the unfortunate cost of being unlistenable) and the watery pseudomusic we call smooth.

	The above examples are of course described with significant amounts of hyperbole. There are hundreds of artists who DO transcend and DO innovate within and between genres. But it is far from the norm. Stagnation and repetition is the norm. The hit song is the norm, across every genre in our tradition. Most of us want to hear what we love, over and over again. There's no harm in that.

	But I wonder....outside of triangles, circles and squares -- are there not other shapes that have interest to us? Most importantly, why can't one musician actually create a triangle, circle and square? Technically impossible? Too much skill required? Doubtful. More plausible is that we are trained as listeners and players to remain within our walls. Stay safe. Don't wander. Don't talk to strangers. Keep with your own kind.

	My hope for the future is that we toss out the over-worn moulds and behave as adults capable of producing and enjoying the full range of human expression. There are certainly ready and willing listeners. I am one of them, and I know many others. It seems to be harder for artists to embrace — we are very much trained to go after "one sound", one type of music, master one instrument or one style. It is the norm. You studied jazz OR you studied classical music. Or maybe you listened to folk/rock and played guitar in your bedroom. Or you make beats on your laptop to DJ to an audience who really likes a certain subgenre of electronic music. All these different types of musicians, segregated into their own isolated worlds...