YTSEJAM Digest 3865 Today's Topics: 1) 1. by email_address_removed 2) 2 by email_address_removed 3) LTE vs. FII, Getting into DT, lots of precious bandwidth wasted by Rob Jurado 4) Re: YTSEJAM digest 3863 by email_address_removed 5) Re: But glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity... by email_address_removed 6) re: Spock's Beard by Brian Hansen 7) Philly Show by Mike Pontrelli ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 16:15:00 +0000 From: email_address_removed To: email_address_removed Subject: 1. Message-ID: > From: "Agar, Jonathan (CAP, EURO)" > Subject: In defence of elitism This is exactly the kind of response I love, not because I have something waiting in a can to open up and toss out and defeat Jonathan's argument, but because it forces me to rethink my position and either better explain myself or admit where I'm wrong. And without coming to blows. Bravo. :) > So why is elitism a reasoning problem? It just means that people > have been 'chosen' (in most cases by themselves). Nothing problematical > about that. If you're familiar with the philosophy of Kuhn, you understand the ideas of incommensurabilities. What is meant by this, is the idea that one person's view of something is so completely different than someone else's, that he may look at one item and find a tremendous value in it, whereas another person will see it as disgusting. Kuhn applied this idea to every aspect of life, within a paradigm (which is where the song title Paradigm Shift comes from). An example he went into great detail with is the Copernican revolution. He felt that between the Ptolemaic system and the Copernican system, so much of the terminology and linguistic understanding had been warped, Copernicus could look at the same group of stars, and be literally seeing something different than Ptolemy. Their conceptual frameworks were incommensurable. I don't subscribe to this theory in the material world. But in the spiritual sense, the emotional sense, and the aethetic sense of this idea, I think the idea of Paradigms, and incommensurability holds extremely firm. A paradigm in music could be how Cock Rock was so big in the 80's, but now many of today's generation just can't understand why we liked it. Likewise, those of us from the former paradigm, often miss the value in Rap and R&B. You have to step outside of your paradigm not to miss it. Here's a visual example: I really like the hell out of the shape and design of the new Range Rovers. To some people, that looks like a glorified minivan. Some of these people love low rider pickups with really fat wheels, chrome rims, and multiple "carrying handle" type spoilers. To them, that's an extreme of automobile beauty. To me that's vomit on wheels. Our standards are incommensurable... mine can not be right and his wrong, or vice versa. Or if they can, I don't see how, and could use your help in understanding. :) With an elitist attitude, hypothetically, I as the elitist present that I am right for liking the Range Rover and the other dude is wrong for liking the pukemobile. You can objectively qualify on the grounds of cost, comfortability (maybe), cargo space, speed, smooth ride... presentability (you could pick up business clients in a Range Rover), etc... but these don't make the Rover more universally appealing. There will still be people who would choose to spend the same amount as the Rover cost, on a really beefed up, pimped out Ford F150. When you approach Hootie's music and DT's music and say "DT is more complex" then yes, you are establishing a determinable, quantifiable characteristic. But that complexity doesn't have anything to do with (necessarily) whether the music is better or worse on a universal scale. I can show you music by Ron Thal that is so complex that you probably won't like it. I can show you music by Tori Amos that is simple, but still, many members of this list WILL like it. Complexity isn't the issue. It's the overall appeal, which is something that I think goes beyond the ideas that can be qualified or quantified. > OK to an extent. But music, or art anyway, can do more than > entertain. Sure, but in my opinion, and my understanding, art DOES boil down to entertainment for the people experiencing it. > Doesn't have to. Rappers can carry on being entertained if > that's what they want. But there can be more to art than just > entertainment. And I don't think rap and such has it. This is where the problem comes in. You don't think rap has the profoundity of prog for the most part... but there are rap fans who say the same thing about metal. To some people, the thumpy beat, along with the stacatto rhythm of the rapping, and the melodies (there are melodies in almost all rap tunes, let's not kid ourselves) convey a similar profoundity to what we feel. I know some people who get goosebumps listening to certain rap tunes... they just "speak" to these people. I get goosebumps listening to LitS. It speaks to me. It entertains me, and offers me insight and profoundity. It's the same for me as it is for the rap fan. When you say "I don't think rap and such has it" you're making a true statement for yourself... I mean, clearly, you haven't heard the rap tune that will get you going the way a DT tune will. But does that mean Rap doesn't do that for other people? This is the incommensurability. > Sometimes people > even take the entertainment OUT of art, like that piece they auctioned off > which was a phial containing rolled instructions for creating an art work. To me, that would be entertaining. That is an awesome idea! (I'd never heard of it before). > Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but this looks like cultural > relativism to me. Just because we think some people have crap critical > faculties doesn't mean that no one has any critical faculties. It does sort of sound like that, but it's not a moral system. It's a system of judging subjectives. Can you tell me which DT song is the best, universally? No... you can't... it's subjective. Can you tell me which song (out of everything in the world) is the best? No... it's subjective. When you say "crap critical faculties" I think you're making a leap there. There is nothing to say that someone can't be a great philosopher, or a great lawyer, or a great judge, or someone who MUST have at least reasonable critical faculties, and still like rap music. Sure, there are idiots who like rap, and sure you can discount them by saying that they're idiots, so they must be wrong. But have you been on this list long? There are morons on this list (I may argably be one of them). You don't think that they're wrong because they have crap critical faculties. You think they're right because they match your opinions. :) > 'elitists' don't want to make people listen to or like 'better' music. They > just want people to recognise that there's more to prog than there is to > rap, for instance. What I'm arguing is that it is inaccurate to say that there is more to prog music as an artform than there is to rap music as an artform. Why are some men "lip men" and some men "ass men" and some men "...upper torso men" when it comes to their tastes in women? Why do I like girls who are physically fit, and some of my friends like girls who have more meat on the bones (Baby got back!)? Clearly, my attraction to the physical beauty of one female over another IS a relative issue. There may be a happy medium at which everyone would agree "This woman has the perfect body" but chemically, I have a reaction to some women that I do not to others, and other men have a chemical attraction to women that I do not find attractive. Beauty is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. Go Home and Practice! Chris Ptacek email_address_removed http://www.prognosis.com/madsman ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 16:15:19 +0000 From: email_address_removed To: email_address_removed Subject: 2 Message-ID: Sorry for the length!!! > I'd have no self-respect if I didn't place my standards above those > of certain others I could think of. I have a lot of self respect, and I refuse to place my standards above anyone else's, when it comes to art or beauty. It doesn't make sense to do so. The differences in standards are incommensurable. > introductions, and I found new things to see in primitive art, but a > lot of modern and abstract art still left me cold. Me too... I just don't get it. I miss the beauty. But some people study Picasso for their whole lives, and just spooge over the beauty of the artwork. I prefer several surrealist artists who many art critics would say "are not anywhere near the calibre of Picasso." Does that make me wrong? Does that make them wrong? > If a work depends on my reaction more than on the work itself, then > I don't have respect for the artist. How can artwork NOT depend entirely on your reaction? You have to experence it, and then react to it for it to convey anything to you at all, whether that be pleasure, pain, taste or distaste... art must be experienced to be understood at all, and that experience will form your reaction for you. I don't think that a painting you've never seen can hold any artistic value for you. If you're deaf, and never hear DT or Coolio, you can't say which is better, to you, as an artform... or which there is more to, or which is more profound. You never experience it, so you have nothing relevant to say about it. Yes, a painting that you never see may have been the ultimate visual experience you could ever have, had you a chance to see it, but without seeing it, and experiencing it, you couldn't form your idea of whether it's good or bad. > I think rap is similar. If you want poetry, get poetry. Why? Why do you have to get a collection of William Blake's work, instead of experiencing a different form of poetry? Okay... how's this: You like poetry? Get poetry. Put down that DT booklet and ignore those lyrics. Why should you want DT's lyrics, when you can have poetry? James should stop singing words... he should just stand there and hum the melodies. I know you didn't say that, but without expounding on your meanings, this is a reasonable conclusion to come to from your argument. Rap is a different kind of art than poetry. Or maybe it is a type of poetry. I don't know. But what you said doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and I hope the above example shows you why I don't think it makes sense. > But don't pretend the rap medium is more than redundant and > superfluous. I'm not pretending. I'm asserting that it is, in reality, often more than redundant and superfluous. Or maybe I'll agree, but then state the Prog is nothing more than a bunch of tired out licks, high pitched vocalists and overly ambiguous lyrics. No... that's not what I think. > The Beatles do have some complexity, mostly added by George Martin, > to whom they owe most of the respect they get. Not on the level of the complexity of DT. They're simple even by the standards of "The Foo Fighters." But I HOPE I've already established an argument as to why complexity is not a relevant criterion. If it was, DT wouldn't be "good" enough for me... I'd have to go full on into reharmed jazz and 20th century compositions, like Webern and Copeland and Ives, and ignore the simple "rock" or "Prog" that's coming out. There isn't a song in DT's discography that compares in harmonic complexity to some of the jazz I've heard. But many of DT's songs are much more beautiful, and much more expressive to me. > This is tantamount to saying that the Western canon is of no more > objective value than a baby playing on a toy trumpet if ever someone > says he prefers little Stevie to John Milton. I think we can do > better than that. If you haven't got the vocabulary, if you can't > use what's gone before you to stand on, you can't move mountains. This example was used as the problem case for me a year ago, or so. I have to answer that to some people, little Stevie is more musical than Mozart. It's a fact... I mean... it sounds impossible, but let's assume that Stevie's parents are people who spent years trying to conceive a child and failed. After a decade, they adopt a child. The music this child makes may be infinitely more beautiful to the parents' ears than Mozart's works. To us, that's nonsense. But how do we claim that Mozart is better, when to some people, even if only two, Mozart is not? Stevie's music may fail to entertain us... to us it may not be better at all. It may suck. But it's STILL profound music to the ears of the parents. It STILL conveys emotion. It STILL brings insight. It could not succeed any more as an artform to the child's parents. And that is all you can hope for. > Elitists are good. Disagreed on principle. > There can't be objective standards in music in terms of coolness or > jiveability. Agreed. > But just as wave theory says what tone resolutions can and can't > work, it should be possible to say that x is more harmonically > complex than y, or that a has themes with counterpoint while b is a > one-line melody. You're about to make a BIG jump. Wave theory says which tone resolutions clash and which do not. Agreed. Wave theory does not say which tone combination will be better to MY ears or to YOUR ears or to Mozart's ears. X can be proven to be more harmonically complex than Y. Agreed. But Harmonic complexity does not = profoundity, and does not dictate a standard of "bad, better or good.". If you don't agree with this, mail me privately, and I'll make you some MP3s to attempt to prove this to you via experiment. > And that this piece is more profound than that piece. This is the HUGE leap. Harmonic complexity is a quantifiable, yes, but give me some way of measuring profoundity that will hold true between all music listeners of reasonable intellect. No one will argue that a piece with key changes and polyrhythms and technique is less harmonically complex than a piece that stays in one key and just chugs away slowly and repetetively. That'd be like arguing that "1+1=37". People WILL argue that a simple song like Kashmir is more profound than Metropolis. There's no standard that I can think of to establish that would show the Zep fan that he's wrong (and I don't believe he is wrong). > Numbers have nothing to do with it. We're elitists :-) The argument was that there should be some hierarchy of standards. Offer me some other way of establishing a hierarchy. This wasn't a point presented to argue for or against elitism. It's a different argument. > Not that they're wrong to like it, only that their music is less > complex and less profound than ours. You keep mixing complexity and profoundity. I don't think the two are related by any necessity. To ME, any relation between the two is at least partially coincidental. If your experience differs, that only further establishes some slant of relativism. > I can't agree, sorry. Art conveys insight, art evokes by reference > to itself and the cultural heritage it springs from. Sure. That can happen, and that can be a part of what artwork is. But that doesn't mean that it's not entertainment on some basic level. Or expression on the primary level for the artist. > The theatre of the absurd didn't entertain people, or certainly not at first. > But it did give people insights. Entertainment wasn't the issue. People > who saw Waiting for Godot in the 50s may have been more entertained > by the Benny Hill show, but Benny Hill is less meaningful art than > Samuel Beckett. Again, to those who catch the profound expression and insight in the work, the art is successful. To those who do not catch on, Benny Hill may be more successful. Both can be considered works of art. They don't express the same things, but that doesn't mean one is better than the other. Laughing can be as profound as crying, etc. To those who are totally annoyed by this thread, I apologize. It's being discussed, and I've been addressed directly, so I felt it was okay to reply. If you can't handle it anymore, politely mail me privately. If your reply is not polite, I'll disregard it, just to annoy you. :) If there are more than just 2 or 3 people who hate this thread, I'll refrain from posting in it anymore. Go Home and Practice! Chris Ptacek email_address_removed http://www.prognosis.com/madsman ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 May 1998 14:28:38 -0700 From: Rob Jurado To: email_address_removed Subject: LTE vs. FII, Getting into DT, lots of precious bandwidth wasted Message-ID: Okay...I'm now enlightened. I got LTE about 16 hours ago. I bought the thing near my cousin's house about eighty miles from me. Yeah, I paid too much. Probably could have gotten it cheaper through mail order/the www/whatever. Do I regret it? Hell no!!! TMW kicks butt. I can't get enough of this CD. Kindred Spirits is my favorite so far. Woo-Hoo!!!! Mike Portnoy, if you're listening, GREAT JOB!!! Please relay the kudos to Messrs. Rudess, Levin, and Petrucci. A+!!! Okay, jammers. Just wondering if there are any jammers that would have preferred to hear the playing on FII go more in the direction of LTE. I think that there are some who would have liked to hear Rudess as the new DT keys guy. Just wondering what you think. Personally, I love FII. I give it an A now. There's some stuff that I don't really dig as much (JLMB) , but I'm getting into it more. I like that stuff more and more. Back to the aging of FII thread... I would have given it a B- when I first heard it. I was definitely trying like hell to like it better considering the flooring I had when I heard ACOS and when I finally appreciated Awake and really got into DT, which brings me to another thread, one that's not quite as old. I guess I'll join the band wagon with the "How I got into DT" stories. When I first heard DT, I was definitely not excited. Sure, I was into guitar oriented stuff like Michael Hedges, Tuck Andress, Extreme, Vai, Satch, Van Halen, Reb Beach. I kind of liked QR. Also, I was sick of the crappy hair metal of the late 80's. (In that category some would include the much-maligned band of the afforementioned Reb Beach.) Anyway, I was way into Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Red Hot Chili Peppers. So, to me, if it wasn't guitar oriented or alternative (as it was then), it was crap. OH MY GOD...I forgot my asbestos vest! I saw PMU's video on eMpTyV during my senior year at Vassar College in good old Poughkeepsie, NY. I bet the weather was horrible at the time. I seem to remember freezing rain, trenchcoats, and my L.L. Bean Maine Hunting Shoes complete with thinsulate. Not a pretty picture. I'm freezing just thinking about the freezing rain and thawing ground. So...I hated that PMU chorus. "Pull me under/ I'm not afraid". I thought, "What is this crrraaaappp!!!??? Pull me under what? Afraid of what? God!!! That guy's voice is ridiculous!!! The guitar riff is kind of cool, though. Anyway, I hate this crap. Why can't they show me some Extreme? Put that "Stop the World" video back on. Nuno is a god!!! Oh...Soundgarden. Okay, I'll keep watching. Chris Cornell Rocks!!! Thank goodness that stupid Dream Theater crap is finished. God! Just the name of the band is completely pretentious. I bet they're all these Berklee grads that can play the shit out of their instruments, but can't write a SONG to save their lives. Oh...sure, Doc. I'll have a Piels' too." Fast forward to 1994, or whatever year that was. I was waiting in Berkeley, CA for "Waiting for the Punchline". Nuno and the boys were kind of taking a long time. So, I just studied my lessons for my master's. I got hungrier and hungrier for some hard rockin' stuff by people who could play. I'd had enough of Tuck Andress and John Coltrane. It was time to rock out!!! "Where the hell is Extreme's new album? What?!? It's delayed?!? DAMN!!!" So, dejected, I went about the rest of my life lamenting the lack of good rock with hard guitar and good musicians. Then, I read a positive review of "Awake" in Guitar magazine, I think. "Okay...okay. The magazine says they're good. Also, in Mesa/Boogie's 'Amplitudes' newsletter this Petrucci character seems okay. Actually, he seems pretty cool. Anyway, he can't be all bad, because he likes Mesa stuff. I'll satisfy my hard music jones with this "Awake". Still hate the band's name, though!" So, I went to Tower Records on Durant Ave. and grudgingly bought myself a copy of "Awake". I thought, "Man, look at these stupid record covers. This is going to suck, but what am I going to do? There's no new Extreme to be had. Achhh! I'm desperate. I'll see what these jokers have to offer. After all, Petrucci seems to know what he's doing, and that might be good enough until Nuno and the boys get their stuff on the shelves. Sure it's not going to be funky and bluesy like Papa's Culture or Preacher Boy and the Natural Blues, but it's time to rock!!!" So, I put the thing in the CD player. I was bored silly. Sure, I thought it was nice and hard, but I just didn't have any fun listening to it. Extreme put out their new album a few months later. It kicked my ass. I was loving every minute of it. I loved that Extreme was getting into that "We're trying to capture a live vibe" band wagon. But to paraphrase another trendy phrase from a few years prior (pre-alternacraze), I was looking for a harder sound. So, what did I do? I fished out that "Awake" CD from the unruly pile on top of my CD player. I gave it another chance even though I still thought that Dream Theater was a bunch of Berklee guys that could play the crap out of their instruments, but couldn't write a SONG. At least, it was harder without getting too hard for my delicate sensibilities. I was washing dishes with DT playing. Needed some hard tunes for the drudgery that is house work. What came on and seduced me? "Scarred" started slapping me in the face with it's brilliance. I was like, "Wow...this is incredible!" It was like I finally understood. I got it right then and there. I still remember walking into the "living room" area of my apartment, thinking, "Why haven't I realized how good this stuff is? I'M A MORON!!!" Soon, all the stuff I didn't like about DT, the name, the album cover art, KJLB's voice all became wonderful seasonings in the DT soup. I finally heard JM's and MP's kick-ass skills. I finally realized how good JP was. Soon, I wasn't really reading Extreme newsletters as much. I joined the ytsejam as soon as I found out about it. Jammers were kind enough to tell me their opinions on what my next DT purchase should be. I think it was I&W. Then, ACOS. Then, LiT. I learned that balls and chunk is where it's at. I learned that JP is an "exaggerator," or something. Rock Discipline. LatM. TSM single. WDADU. Had to leave the jam for a while when I lost internet access. Then, I was jonesing for new DT. I ended up going to med school in the Philippines in June of 1997. I finally got e-mail again shortly after seeing an advertisement for FII in Guitar World or something. Got back on the jam. My father, who is also living in the Philipines now, was in the U.S. for a while. He asked me if he could bring back anything for me. I asked for FII, an absolute necessity at the time. Here I am spending my April-June "summer vacation" back home in California. One of my goals was to see some good live music here, because there is so little of it in the Philippines. So...I thought maybe DT would be touring. Sent some mail to the band via the rsabbs.com site. I asked the band to grant my wish of playing SoCal while I was still on break. MP sends me a note regarding plans to play the Galaxy and HoB. Woo-hoo!!! Love ya, MP!!! I'll be at the HoB on May 17, the night before I have to fly back to the Philippines. It's also my 27th b'day on May 20. So, that concert is like my own little glorious b'day present and a going away party too. I love DT more than ever now!!! All this from a guy who couldn't stand the chorus to PMU when he first heard it. Back to LTE and Kindred Spirits for the 5th time. -Rob ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 16:34:35 -0500 (CDT) From: email_address_removed To: email_address_removed Subject: Re: YTSEJAM digest 3863 Message-ID: >>On the subject of Charlie D. Yes I admit he doesn't have the best voice out there... but sometimes it reminded me of Geddy Lee (bassist and vocals of Rush). And maybe for people who have never listen to Rush, this is difficult to appreciate this kind of vocals.<< I dissagree. I mean, in his early years, Geddy could really wail, the Canadian gov't could amplify his vocals on Anthem and Temples of Syrinx and use it as an ultra-sonic device. But, I guess if you took a more nowadays version of Geddy's voice, it can come close, but no cigar IMO, then again, I haven't heard many Dominici tracks, since I dont have WDADU. the only stuff I've heard is Real Audio stuff off the net. Matt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 16:34:33 -0500 (CDT) From: email_address_removed To: email_address_removed Subject: Re: But glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity... Message-ID: Ok, I want to ask a question to all the Rush fans out there (since they are the best example I could find). Do you consider Rush any more unlistenable because of Half the World, Test For Echo, Stick it Out, Roll the Bones, Cold Fire, Time Stand Still, Subdivisions, New World Man, Distant Early Warning, Big Money, (I really could go on for a while...but I'll stop now). Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that around the time of Moving Pictures and Signals, Rush did get more "listener friendly" (I wont use the phrase "mainstream" since I feel it is a bad term) but you still do find stuff like say, Time and Motion, Driven, YYZ, and Leave that Thing Alone, as well as Manhattan Project, Marathon, etc. which is more in the progressive realm. All I'm trying to say is that, if Rush can get a little listener friendly, while still having some songs retain a progressive sound, then why can't DT? So what if they did more songs like You Not Me and Hollow Years? They will always (I hope at least) have those progressive songs like Peruvain Skies, Just Let Me Breathe (sticking to FII). Look at it this way, they write listener friendly songs, this causes more people who would normally not buy DT buy DT while still getting those progressive songs, hence exposing them to a whole new type of music. So don't knock DT if they write stuff like You Not Me, they'll still be doing stuff like Metropolis. Matt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 14:32:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Brian Hansen To: email_address_removed Subject: re: Spock's Beard Message-ID: At 03:51 PM 5/7/98 -0700, you wrote: > >I think the reference is to the episode in which there is an alternate >universe and the Star Trek crew have evil twins in this universe. In the >alternate universe, Spock has a beard. > >Gonz OK everyone, time to tell the real story here. Spock's Beard is not a reference to FACIAL hair at all! (For all of you jammers under the age of 18, please do not visualize, as this may constitute a criminal act.) ;-) BH _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 17:46:54 -0400 (EDT) From: Mike Pontrelli To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Philly Show Message-ID: If there is a gatherig in philly, could someone let me know? also.. i may be in need of a crash piut that night.. I nearly fell asleep at the wheel multiple times from the birch hill show also.. can someone send me digets 3060? thanks! AND THANK YOU DT for that MOST INCREDIBLE SHOW OF MY LIFE AT BIRCH HILL!!!!!! cheers -Ponte ------------------------------ End of YTSEJAM Digest 3865 **************************