"While I definitely like electronic music, I do understand where the
lack of respect for Hip Hop, Acid Jazz et al comes from, and to some extent
agree. The increased availability of music making techno-logy has given
people
with no musical aptitude the ability to turn out music. Much of this music,
even the stuff I genuinely like is really catchy rhythms, not actual songs.
80% of the stuff I like now, I will not be playing in two years, while
many of
the jazz records I have I play all the time."
It's very clear that this observation is highley debatable. Arguments
over what qualfies as "real" music imply very conventional notions of
what being creative means. Is an orchestra's mechanical reproduction
of a composers work that has out lived much of its signifigance anymore
creative than the works of thousands of musically untrained folks with
acess to electronics (i.e. samplers, turntables,etc.)? While degrees of
discipline in musicianship can be applauded, I don't think actually
playing instruments catagorizes what is and what is not "real"
music. Being able to communicate your ideas through musical
expression is what counts above all. Along with the concept of "real"
music goes credibility accusations. Such behavior ultimatley results in
the type of division that fuels many of the elitist conotaions that prevade
jazz, classcal and experimental musics. In the end you wind up with an
abundace of neo-tradational musicans breeding stagnation within their
repective areas of music, the whole young lions myth in modern jazz is a
perfect example of that. Innovations of the past should be acknowledged
and in some cases praised, however, in doing so one shouldn't write off
the classics of the future.
Craig Willingham