*grin* Ever since you left this comment, I've had odd stray thoughts about all the different things one could do with such an interestingly shaped object if one were sufficiently inspired. Heh.
Re: Minority Voice in the WildernesssidereaJuly 13 2007, 00:41:31 UTC
Maybe I'm way off base, but I don't necessarily consider "feral" a pejorative--at least, I think "feral" is much more interesting than "tame" :-)
Yeah, I can see how it was intended as a pejorative, but I'm totally cool with that. Getting a reputation for being wild and scruffy and rebellious and forbidden usually works out really well for musical genres and the people who make their livings from them.
Jocularity Aside....shalmestereJuly 12 2007, 22:31:46 UTC
One of the things I learned (after I moved to Noo Yawk :-() is that the early music revival in NYC was ::ahem:: hindered somewhat by negative reviews in the NYT (notably Richard Taruskin) some thirty-odd years ago--and old habits can die hard. Even today, NYC is not as hospitable to early music as a city of its size ought to be (don't get me wrong--we have no shortage of early music concerts to attend, but Noo Yawk isn't an early-music juggernaut like Boston or the Bay Area).
Some of the criticism was justified (in the early days, some of the performances--with costumes, iffy technical chops and toy boxes full of funny instruments--were pretty amateurish by today's standards), but it's also worth noting that there are critics and listeners who bash early music to make themselves look more musically sophisticated. "I can't stand listening to Baroque music," they moan, "because it sounds so flat..." (Trans: Look at me! I have Perfect Pitch!). Case in point: at the first concert I sang in at IU, one of my fellows told me that
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Slight Clarification Re: Jocularity Aside....shalmestereJuly 13 2007, 17:02:20 UTC
When I wrote "I can't stand listening to Baroque music..." they moan, "because it sounds so flat..." I should have been more specific: "I can't stand listening to Baroque on early instruments..." or "I can't stand 'historically-informed performance' [HIP] of Baroque music..." because said critics are usually happy to listen to mainstream Classical-style performances (big orchestras, big operatic voices) of Bach or Handel :->
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(Oh, and I loooooved John Doyle's interpretation of Sweeney Todd--"travesty," my foot! ::nyaah::)
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Yeah, I can see how it was intended as a pejorative, but I'm totally cool with that. Getting a reputation for being wild and scruffy and rebellious and forbidden usually works out really well for musical genres and the people who make their livings from them.
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Some of the criticism was justified (in the early days, some of the performances--with costumes, iffy technical chops and toy boxes full of funny instruments--were pretty amateurish by today's standards), but it's also worth noting that there are critics and listeners who bash early music to make themselves look more musically sophisticated. "I can't stand listening to Baroque music," they moan, "because it sounds so flat..." (Trans: Look at me! I have Perfect Pitch!). Case in point: at the first concert I sang in at IU, one of my fellows told me that ( ... )
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One wonders how such a "critic" could hear any music at all over the doubtless-constant stream of opinionated consciousness...
Being A Good Audience is not always innate.
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