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Post by neilnv2 on Oct 11, 2022 4:30:03 GMT -5
Savage Rebellion (9) Love & Rockets and beauty and.. PS having seen through Red Ryder, Little Beaver never says "you betchum". People must imagine it as Indian speak. Connie or Blubber are more of that stereotypical mode.
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Post by neilnv2 on Oct 18, 2022 4:11:06 GMT -5
Savage Rebellion (10)Primeval Disney. PS As I'm off the board I'm leaving off writing for now. However, there is a shock announcement coming up. See website in next few days.
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Post by neilnv2 on Sept 19, 2023 4:17:06 GMT -5
Finally got someone at the so-called 'establishment' to agree, so thought I'd share this exchange with Denis Noble.. Against Dawkins/musicNeil Mcewan <neil24714@gmail.com> 17 Sept 2023, 08:24 (2 days ago) to denis.noble@dpag.ox.ac.uk I agreed with all the interview save the musical analogy. After all, a musical score contains everything, genes don't. Specifically, a score contains time, genes don't. Therefore they neither contain space. One interprets a score but additional information is added to genes. Specifically, time and space. Genes are more like 'useful mistakes' that are used by the body. That's not a score, it's chance. Carrying that on, chance can make it seem like a program even when it's not. But the program is not in conventional time and space. This makes it much more amenable to computers which are in variable or Einstein time. In other words, there is a parallel reality of variable time amenable both to genes and AI. It's not reality, but it gives the semblance of life. The movements in cells are the reality in invariable time. These connect us to the stars, astrological speaking. That view is essentially non-Einstein or non-machine and by implication amenable to God or gods/goddesses. Get Outlook for Android Denis Noble Sun, 17 Sept, 08:46 (2 days ago) to me Largely agree, and of course metaphors are always only partial fits to their targets. My only quibble with your analysis is that not all music is score driven. Jazz not. Even many classical pieces allow for improvised decoration. But your point is nevertheless very well taken At the end of THE MUSIC OF LIFE I invite the reader to let go of the metaphors. My aim is not to replace Dawkins selfish gene metaphor by another metaphor. But rather by the reality of the limitations of gene-centrism. I think we are largely in agreement. Many thanks for contacting me.Not sure if Noble realized he was agreeing to there being an alternate reality, but I followed with.. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Neil Mcewan <neil24714@gmail.com>
Sun, 17 Sept, 20:04 (2 days ago)
to denis.noble
I don't want to bug you again but happen to be a fan of B-movies. In this film, there is a big sense of 'vagueness'; the faces of the replicates are vague, people are scared of 'something', even the lighting is constantly shifting.
Our culture is overflowing with information, but people's opinions are on the vague side (or they're cancelled, JK Rowling's persistent biocentrism.)
I'm not the only one who thinks this way (KT Tunstall said exactly that at Lobero.) Culture can replicate in terms of information without the simplicity that is a human face, with the simple sense of proportion that denotes unique character, the creative instinct of self.
Rob Brezny the avant-garde astrologer said exactly that in his band World Entertainment War; Entertainment is a missile that crushes with 'style' (or what passes for style.)
I wouldn't bother you, excepting it seems I'm nor alone in this anti-modernist view. Science has become informed logic, clearly leading to AI (or an alternate reality.)
One could carry on from there that we're inside the parallel system when it becomes 'real' - it's that simple. It takes an Einstein to establish the reality logistically (IE for AI), a Newton to establish the geometry of light. Now, over to neilnv2 (At 1 hour 4 min there's a pertinent remark on our information age) Was Einstein the original cancel culture? (PS I was reading on inertial frames.. it's more correct to say Newton established experimental protocol, facts follow the experiments).
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Post by neilnv2 on Oct 1, 2023 10:40:56 GMT -5
More on inertial frames. I wrote a query to both Noble and Vincent of UVS-model website. Neither replied, so here is a paraphrased version..
An inertial frame is a state where objects have momentum but no acceleration. They may have zero velocity, since no exterior force acts on them. The inertial frame is used in SR to maintain that the laws of physics are the same in any inertial frame.
From that one gets the postulate that c is always the same in all inertial frames. Newton leads to SR because an inertial frame says zero velocity is the same as a moving object (both have zero force acting on them.) This leads to the physics of Relativity.
This leads to a machine/parallel universe (of calculation.) However, in nature, things are moving all the time- inside cells, in a river. The experimental results of SR reflect a universe where action/movement is not a priori. The science can just as easily be static and explained by information, the logical, calculated universe where time is variable owing to the inertial frame.
SR in that sense is a product of classical, Newtonian physics, despite any differences. Anything spinning clearly has rhythm or invariable time (Earthspin, galaxies or movements in cells), but is that a priori? (see Vincent)
SR = Special Relativity, c = speed of light
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Post by neilnv2 on Oct 3, 2023 5:32:04 GMT -5
I'm quite the fan of dams, probably owing to a family connection with Robert Robertson (see 'Fuller's Earth' on website) who lived in Pitlochry and championed hydroelectric power. It's interesting that both Pitlochry and Oroville have fish-ladders (visible in the short vid on left at end), and Millie Kay is very good at taking a halfway route between the technology and the river(ie. fish, salmon in the case of the former.)
This is a question of balance, the physical universe has logical, rational component parts, but balance itself is irrational. The parallel system we usually live in does not admit that (ie. does not admit an a priori action, see prev.)
It's not possible to write too much here, but the active environment is quite contradictory. Why do salmon swim upstream? Because they have to have sinewy movements in following their migratory route. The ecological scene is contradictory because it starts with sinewy or snake-like swirls, the primitive or primordial reality.
In the age of advertising, this is not a comfortable reality. Primitively speaking, the throat shallows, cowboys spit and so on. I picked-up 'Gweilo' by Martin Booth, a childhood memoire set in 1950s Hong Kong, znd the Chinese culture is quite antagonising..
'Another notice bluntly stated No Spitting. The 'other half' had z habit of spitting to clear their throats of phlegm or catarrh. They also blew their noses by thumbing one nostril shut and bthe, leaning forward into the gutter, blowing hard. Consequently, it was commonplace to see gobs of pale green snot lying by the side of the road alongside cracked melon seed shells and chewed wedges of sugar cane.' (page 245)
It's a rough sailor's lot downtown, with a mix of Tom and Jerry cartoons and seedy nightlife, probably not unlike 19th century Shanghai (see website), smelly and filthy as well as exotic. Advertising can't deal in contradictions, only comfort, but if contradictions are the psychic reality we need them, the sinewy and primeval action. (Physical and mental health together, a large area partly explored in website, the opposite of hospital hygiene, a harsh environment with benefits.)
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Post by neilnv2 on Oct 6, 2023 5:12:53 GMT -5
I sent this query to Vincent of UVS-model website, following his reply. Non-inertial tendency to spin.. ..on the subject of spin or twirl, a dancer is repeating shapes rhythmically. That can give the impression of stillness. It's energised stillness. The body is energised stillness, and I suppose the universe.
Inertial frames do not have this idea of energy in stillness, which is more or less energy from nothing. The 'nothing' is simply the spin itself, the a priori reality. Right?
PS I happened on a Poul Anderson short story, Kings Who Die, with the theme of persuasive treachery against the human. The cold calculation of a cyborg against hot-headed human blood, moral certainty against uncertainty. Octavia Butler's Imago has the same theme excepting it's not a cyborg but a sexy gene-manipulating alien. This is part 3 of her Xenogenesis trilogy. A tough but rewarding read.
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Post by neilnv2 on Oct 13, 2023 4:38:41 GMT -5
Carrying on from the Noble exchange.. Neil Mcewan <neil24714@gmail.com>
Sun, 17 Sept, 09:05
to Denis
(Also the movements inside cells are essentially rhythmical, or everything would be chaos. Galaxies spin, all is rhythm in invariable time )
Denis Noble
Sun, 17 Sept, 09:20
to me
Got it, thanks! A moving amoeba is a joy to watch.
Denis
--
Professor Denis Noble CBE FRS
Balliol College, OX1 3BJ, or
Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, OX1 3PT
..My final comment was.. Neil Mcewan <neil24714@gmail.com> Sun, 17 Sept, 13:37 to denis.noble Striking while the iron's still hot, Dawkins-Man has yet to evolve as far as the amoeba, in terms of survival skills, hunting and fishing and so on.
Reading The Man With a Thousand Names, van Vogt has a scene where a guy is being is being fed by spoon and attempts to speak, causing choking. The throat alternately swallows, breaths, sings or talks. The function is prescribed by time 3 ways while, of course, the neck holds up the head, swaying and turning. In short, the activities of survival are a priori to genes; a worm does similar. The a priori reality is swirling and turning and basically contrary (muscle-pairs). Anarchic balance is articulate reality, interlacing like Celtic design. The function of things in a hierarchy is classical ornament (see www.philipsteadman.com/blog/greek-temples-made-of-wood/)Classical is the a priori reality that underpins everything else. Modern science enters a perspective illusion that convinces ego with information (DNA, AI.) Van Vogt's book is a fantasy concerning a giant ego who attracts the alien AI 'Mother', and winds up breeding from a harem of proto-Greek savages. That Heffneresque scene would be OK if ego and DNA and AI were all there is. There's also lifedeath (cycle), interweaving tapestries, gardens, trappers of game, hunts, gamewardens, spears, axes, bows. Rather than a breeding-machine (is that The Selfish Gene?), let things be and dig the revival of rough strength, the rewards of degredation and chaos seen in decadent art or art nouveau. When you let things be, they are in-the-moment. Weeds happen, and growth is followed by decay and regeneration. Conversely, if you don't let things be, there is no lifedeath cycle. Modernity exists in a complicated illusion that convinces the ego of acolytes. Addendum On a personal note I'm moving flat and doing the heavy-lifting since my other half is a crippled runt. Gene-expression is affected by gravity (I was reading), and bones of course take most weight. Body strength is the PROPORTIONATE USE of the body. IE strength is reliant on the body as a whole, its balance and proportion, timing or rhythm. There's no way that can be reduced to any other factor.
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Post by neilnv2 on Oct 18, 2023 5:35:31 GMT -5
On the subject of weakness and strength, I've been a fan of Francis Stevens since reading this seafaring yarn. Here's a mini critique in line with the above sequence.ClaimedDr Vanaman represents what Jean-Luc Godard calls 'neurotic man' (Le Mepris), the modern-scientific type who's beset by facts and overcome by confusion of fact versus fiction..
"If we may at all trust the Greco-Egyptian legend as written by Plato, Atlantis was the center of very high civilization and its people may well have been the possessors of many arts and inventions whose secret was lost when the land perished. Also, they were worshippers of Poseidon, the sea god, who was supposed to have founded their government.
"Now, Blair, the vast, terrible being who haunts you is nothing—nothing, do you understand? Or rather, he is only a thought and idea—relic of an ancient religion dead long ago and revived in your mind by your temporary ownership of an object once surrounded by myriads of people who held the same belief. Those people are dead, as you say, these many thousand years. But the thing you found still radiates their ideas as thought-waves, reproduced much, as sound-waves are.
"That is my honest belief in respect to the green box, Blair. That enshrined in it is a secret, indeed—a secret of the ancient peoples, who were wiped from the earth when the cities of Atlantis fell before earthquake and flood. The secret which our modern science has groped for, but not yet found—a device for recording and reproducing thought vibrations." ('White Horses)
..Everything has a scientific explanation which leaves-out the a priori reality. If the psyche emanates from the physical universe (Theosophy), it's because we live on a spinning globe. The bass-note pulses with night/day; the midgard serpent (sea)/ sunlight (sky, reflection).
White horses are sacrificed to a pagan religion (the trueblood 'Mirror out of Sunlight'). The bass-note is musical, and without such music there is no strength of psyche that establishes a rhythm in the cosmos. The Biblical imagery of Claimed evokes that that has been lost to modern science, the words and images of invariable time that pulses with the old gods of nature.
PS velocity = distance/time. No calculation is needed for that equation when rhythm is there (if you're in a car, just count the bollards by the side of the road.) Without the rhythm, time is calculated or in other words variable.
In The Citadel of Fear, the profane experimentalist Reed breeds 'unclean meat' as per lab-grown steaks of our modern scene. No dirt, no cycles of regeneration, no clean green fields. Francis Stevens, like Octavia Butler, is a cautionary prophet for the ages. ['The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar' is a short story written for Argos at 19 in 1904, telling the origin of a superman! In it, she makes the point that a muscle is nothing without the spark of life (the body itself.)]
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Post by neilnv2 on Oct 26, 2023 11:22:08 GMT -5
Having been listening on audio to Francis Stevens, I think her last published book was 'Sunfire'. It's apparently of lesser interest from a story standpoint, but has her keen intuition.
Set in an Aztec-style 'lost world', I was startled to hear the line, 'a monotonous double fluting', since the exact same line and sound occurs in CL Moore's 'Jirel Meets Magic'.
In her story, Moore relates the dual-note to diabolical reflections which confuse and confound the sense of reality. What is it about a dual-tone? It's difficult to pinpoint; in one way It's simple but the continual fluctuation is irritating and almost maddening!
It's one note that continually changes and then back, so basically like a digital code of ones and zeros (as on website.) I know these talea predate our era, but these women had intuition.
Stevens' story deals with light (a giant lens), and light is the basis of modern technology (photoelectric cells). Electricity is easy to code into digital form, and this is the logical system we (sadly?) inhabit.
If you think in terms of music, say, signals are compressed in digital form, modified and then reconverted to analog. The ear is hearing sounds which are too complex for 'reality' in analog terms.
The confusion of music may apply more widely. An analog turntable sound-system has a purity that is difficult to define. KT Tunstall defines it as the vibe of the single take to tape. Basically, the less digital process the better. Jamaican dubber Lee Perry being the best of all (4-track recorder.)
Regardless of music styles, CSNY and Kanye West have in common the low-key pulse and snatches of searing melody (Neil Young's penetrative twang.) A complex rhythm is essential; digital makes it easy to push it in-your-face (and defeat the object.)*
Another feature of the Stevens story is her focus (pun intended) on Aztec-style buildings. The temple has hidden levers that move massive stones. This makes the point that leverage is a fundamental principle of physical bodies, as in skeletons
A muscle is nothing without the leverage on the ends of bones (joints.) The muscular force of a body displays leverage, and also psycho-sexual leverage. The attitude one poses in.
The physical world - if you take leverage as a type of balance - has also a psychic state. Without the balance - the a priori physical reality which is rotating, spinning - the sense of psyche is a type of illusion. Very convincing but unreal.
[file under female intuition of early fantasy writers] * R&B pioneer Lloyd Price in his memoir comes out of 50s dance halls where blacks and whites were spontaneously desegregating. Black music 'got lucky' he says, but the intrinsic rhythm of r&b logically makes it a dance sound (leading to rock'n'roll dance era). What's nowadays called 'dance' is not intrinsically rhythmic; the body is intrinsically rhythmical in terms of its shuffling movements, the actual physique...
Of course, a world without rhythm - distorted rhythm - affects the psyche, the ability of the physical body to express itself. You can dance all night long while the physical reality is a logical illusion. Convincing to the ego, sold. Marketing and capital are all very well and have worked for awhile, but the underlying substance is real and no illusion.
It doesn't help that science talks of 'virtual photons' emitted by charged particles such as electrons. I'm not saying a virtual world doesn't exist as an alternate reality (light, sun, electromagnetism.) That alternate future is going away from psyche and strength, a weak illusion. Reality is intrinsically balanced; a look at a few of the aforementioned musical performers might suffice..
Subject matter is in the mystical and ancient rather than the so-called present (individualistic head.) Buffy Sainte-Marie was a digital MIDI pioneer in the late 80s. Lee Perry worked with electro-dub collaborative Dubblestandart. Nona Hendryx's Skindiver is full of programmed sequences, and "deja vu, ancient dreams, and primal screams that lie beneath the conscious stream." The strong personality dominates the machine. The psyche bound by time to the landscape. psychic power rather than individual weakness.
footnote on current Buffy controversy: the Indians will stand by her as they value spirit above any race question.
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Post by neilnv2 on Oct 31, 2023 9:52:03 GMT -5
The least irritating band to my ear is Quicksilver as they are so untidy it's untrue. I doubt if they know what a mixing desk is (though the 'ribbit' at end of track must have been dubbed?)
They have the one take to tape imperfection favored by KT Tunstall. Tunstall, though, has a weakness for electronics and is often prone to the slick-mix, as in her latest album Nut.
Nut has in common with Skindiver that it's a concept album, both more or less about the psyche of a physical plateau (canyons, sky, mountains.) Hendryx is prone to perfection, not surprisingly since it's a programmatically sequenced sound that she sings over (#2, Women Who Fly, was covered by Darby Gould of Jefferson Starship and is a far rougher, rockier version.)
If rocky is untidy, that is the perfect sound - imperfection. It's real because it's happening in time, no mere optical illusion however perfect. The vibe, the tempo are everything because in nature everything is happening in sync (synchronicity?) That's what a shady grove is. Without the rhythmic foundation of time, all is illusion (however perfect.)
This goes back to the 'dual-note' of our digital era; it's irritating because it's so programmatic. Unstoppably perfect. The beauty of Lee Perry's dubbing is that it doesn't sound programmatic or unstoppable. The machine never dominates Lee 'scratch' Perry.
(Is Dino Valente an Italian in name only?) (Is monotony a form of hidden oppression going by the name of AI?) (Is stopping snd starting against the law? Which law?) (Is AI colorblind? Why?) ..that's enough queeries, ed.
This is off the wall, but Daisugi is a Japanese forestry technique for growing straight shoots off a trunk. They are harvested without need for felling. The technique makes use of a mutational species of tree, so the gene must control variety in growth (ie there's no variety in a straight shoot.) Growth itself is controlled by hormones; the gene controls the hormones. There's no genetic control of growth per se, which is time-oriented and must be hormonal. This is the type of linguistic trap that gene promoters exploit.
Oct 1 'inertial frames.. this leads to a parallel universe of calculation..' Zero movement has inertia, but of course woodworking relies on the grain of the wood, the growth cycles. In other words, artisans of craft traditions rely much less on calculation, more on feel. (Genes are only there to switch things off and on, they don't 'do' anything, or to be switched off and on. Clearly, if something in cells is moving - ie hormones - it's logical to have a way of switching them off. Genes are that logical universe.)
PS Newtonian or any modern physics requires a force to overcome inertia (mass). Obviously if movements are a priori that's not required. It's much more spontaneously happening shapes that appear.
Musically, this from Joan Armatrading's 'The Key' (wiki): "It takes me very little time to write rhe song, ten fifteen minutes at the most. But to arrange the song I take all day. The song is written with whatever rhythm I've come up with, and I put the arrangement on top of that.. I sit at home with my little Portastudio, and work up the bass part, record it..the guitar part, record it, the string part whatever.." The rhythm could be anything from calypso to r&b funk so is very varied. A Portastudio is a rudimentary 4-track recorder (slightly inferior to Lee Perry) and is used for arrangement, having set the rhythm style. The arrangement (which is complicated) incorporates the rhythm (style.) Science tends to work the opposite, by having a complicated arrangement imposed on rhythm (a dam uses a valve-system to steer water-flow on a river.) I'm not saying it's bad, it's just a technique that has limits. Science is 'valve first' or technique. The reality is the beat of a heart, the flow of a river.
This quote from 'Jirel Meets Magic' (CL Moore) makes it clear the two-note monotone describes a world of reflections. Possibly a world where normal rhythms are subordinated to the corrupt rhythm of a very convincing illusion (perspective or false perspective)*: 'The notes took on a form that overstepped the boundaries of the aural and partook in some inexplicable way of all the other sense too. She could feel them, taste them, smell them, see them.. They'll walls reflected them and those reflections became swifter and brighter and more numerous until the air was Full of flying slivers of silvery brilliance, until shimmers began to dance among them and over them, and that bewildering shift of mirrored planes started up once more. Agsin reflections crosses and dazzled and multiplied in the shining air as the flute poured out its flashing double notes.' (page 108,109)
I've not got the reference to hand, but CL Moore pioneers both parallel and virtual realities. In 'Judgement Night' an entire virtual asteroid replete with corrupt reptilian hybrids collapses into one torrential nightmare of merged environments. Environments that are in some sense parallel have no unifying principle such as some underlying symmetry. It may not be science, but the earth, air, fire, water symmetry is pretty apparent.
* All reflections are perspective illusions. Accurate. As CC Beck says, he "throws down a vanishing point" when he feels like it, it's helpful without the need for constant accuracy. A world bound by perspective is an illusion if you reckon other things are just as real, symmetry. In a dappled wood there's an underlying sense of symmetry in the roots and branches. There's also less sense of perspective owing to the rough, uneven territory. (One tends to notice symmetry occurs in quantum physics frequently. Science seems blind to its presence in 'normal' life round and about them.)
Let's face it, if cosmic symmetries didn't exist - left/right, up/down, in/out, defence/attack, ground/sky - Tai Chi wouldn't be pssible as a coordinated discipline of the breathing body (able to survive in the wild)..
(The Cipollina track 'Three or Four Feet From Home' starts with a dog barking which on vinyl is startling. 'East or West, up or down where's the best for roaming?' Is it relevant that vinyl goes up and down physically while digital is a binary signal?)
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Post by neilnv2 on Nov 17, 2023 6:23:45 GMT -5
After reading some online info on mixing, I deduced the following on the auditory line..
It has to be used extremely subtly to be effective, and there is a lot of vague bullshitting. Those who are able to compose/play tend to be vastly better (Linda Perry Studios has a brief YouTube series, and she seems more of an engineer than a mixer.) If you want transparency (and untidiness) you're better off with no mixing and listening to vinyl (Quicksilver live at Fillmore from '67.) Whether you're talking analog or digital, something is added or subtracted. That may be an artform, but it doesn't equate to playing instruments or singing.
We're back with the physical reality that has a vibe - and that one tries to capture. Anything else is electronic admixture. Joan Armatrading has since 2003 done her own engineering, and it's probably relatively basic. Armatrading can play any genre (even dabbling with a symphony later this month) and in 2007 ventured Into the Blues. While blues purists might not be impressed, the problem with that is that too rigid a stickler for tradition has a deadening effect. The vital looseness in the playing is what delivers a vibe.
So while Clapton or Stevie Ray Vaughn enthusiasts may not be impressed, this is a fun track that is just as 'bluesy'
Anything loose and unprocessed will have a vibe, and vibe is the physical reality that is the purpose of music, whatver the genre. I actually initially got this from Armatrading's '79 concert at Rockpalast, so loose and unforced it's untrue - 'Guileless beyond hope's imagining' - Byron (the '80 Rockpalast performance is the commercial version.)
The physical vibe is what imbues the psychic reality. If a digital future takes us further from the physical (than analog, seeing as both are electronic media), and into the dual-note illusion (of corrupt rhythm), that has to be very negative for the psychic force. (The Linda Perry link is 'Real to Reel') "Clichés aren't negative..they tell you what's there." From very long Armstrading interview (paraphrased) on 'Everyone Loves Guitar'. You can probably relate that to her "confidence" in knowing she's good. It's not a purist's perfection but strong style.
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Post by neilnv2 on Nov 19, 2023 9:47:58 GMT -5
Extrapolating from the last post, it's very easy to relate to CL Moore's Jirel Meets Magic (see quote Oct31.) The common assumption is that the auditory - the things we hear - encompasses a description of all other senses. A song (a story) encompasses sights and feel, perhaps not smells but it's implied.
Armatrading's Into the Blues has a 'sleazy and sultry' sensibility. Perhaps this is her reinvention of the dark Southern bayous and the entire rural culture of the active (smelly) body. One can get immersed in the delta aesthetic; this track from '78's To the Limit casts a similar spell.
I picked the word 'immersed' on purpose, as 'immersive' is often used for the 'meta' verse of crossover media (beloved of, well, Meta.) If you go back to the CL Moore quote, the auditory signifies what is NOT THERE in all the other senses.
The common assumption is that the auditory does not lie, it signifies what is there. Typically, if it's slightly clichéd, we know what it is. The common assumption, the cliché, is a very useful thing. And it also relates to a physical reality (even if it's historical, folklore.) What Armatrading says in the long interview is that otherwise we don't know where we are. In other words, if the auditory signifies what's NOT there (physically), we don't know where we are.
The CL Moore quote describes an alternative reality that is essentially virtual; a highly convincing perspective illusion. The 'dual-note' is a type of accurate monotony that lures us into a false-perspective, the machine perspective of variable time.
Invariable time is sort of difficult to discern compared to the accuracy of machine-time, but it is reality (spin - see UVS website.) Non-rhythmic time is non-physical and to that extent an illusion. If rhythm is a priori it cannot be included in any parallel reality of calculated time. These are the corrupt rhythms we are approaching (fast.) Naivety, creative spirit, psyche and strong style - if you hear it, it's real. (Armatrading in the interview implies she is always positive. Her songs might dispute that!) PS In terms of the actual 'mix', since 2003 she plays all the instruments so could be a case of take 1, take 2 to tape (also makes use of digital but no one's perfect.)*
*It might also be a case of percentages. For a composer/player, that is most of what they do. Recording is not a hassle, it's fairly easy. If they choose to use a digital platform for convenience it's their choice. Armatrading knows she's good (at the former) and that the vast majority don't have that talent. It's not ego, it's honesty, justified pride. Being dishonest is trying to put digital forward as a panacea when it's the exact opposite. Honesty is knowing what's good, intuition, pride in performance. (Ricky Hirsch, who played guitar at Rockpalast, is clearly appreciative of the mindset that the band acted as interpretors. On YouTube, he recounts their first rehearsal where someone says "how about we do it this way?" Joan turns round and says, "I am paying the bills." It's the difference between interpreting that allows variables in performance, and just a jam. The sophistication of the songs is such.)**
** Hirsch went from playing hectic Swamp Rock in Mobil to sophistication, which sounds like a big switch. However, Southern Rock covers country and blues; if you know the form you don't have to be told, so probably was pretty good training for the somewhat thoughtful songstress.
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Post by neilnv2 on Nov 21, 2023 9:53:38 GMT -5
I'd better tie this up as I don't want to appear obsessive..
Why does Armatrading know everything (in her music)? Because she's not told anything.
Modern Man tends not to know anything when he's told everything. This is the parallel reality we're in that consists of calculated time. In that reality, clichés are almost outlawed - even the difference between men and women, more obviously the racial ones.
Clichés are things that come out of the physical reality; a milieu, Harlem, rhythms and music. Armatrading can create almost anything she wants being reasonably well-read, and put it into roots music. For example, 'Wishing' appears to be about a blood-jewel of death that falls from the sky.
If you're told everything, it's a very good sign that the reality you're in has to be an illusion, otherwise you would intrinsically know it by feel and rhythm, sounds and the other senses.
The roots music goes back to the time when things were felt, and therefore didn't need to be told. The knowledge of the music enables things to be told in a folkloric, felt way.
As we approach an optical illusion (in the desert) that is the false-perspective of variable time (calculation), it's as well to be aware of the intrinsic knowledge that comes out of invariable time in the knowledge of roots music,the ability to perform exactly what one wants to, to be told nothing.
Footnote. The fact that the clichéd forms of nature tend to be powerful - like say sabertooth cats or dinosaurs - may simply mean that nature is intrinsically powerful. The spontaneous, circular movements, sinuous muscles. A poet is a body as well as a mind; the mind separated is weak or deluded. Strength is being true to self (even a timid animal has the decisiveness that is true to self, one can admire. 'This is the Ape Man Travelling through creation' Lee Perry (Oct31) Stories and songs of the Earth spinning in invariable time (or creating time by spinning.) Cosmic time is physical time, and one could say the physical imbues the psychic dimension.
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Post by neilnv2 on Nov 24, 2023 10:04:30 GMT -5
Branching-out from all the previous, being introspective is the equivalent of being thoughtful, so a major question is, 'What is thought?'
Rather than answer it directly which would appear highly presumptuous, indirectly thoughtful is the opposite of unthoughtful. In what situation is unthoughtfulness apparent? Clearly, the answer has to be, 'Where there is no introspection'. As to what thought or non-thought is, it's not necessary to say, only whether or not introspection is needed or can easily occur
This takes us logically to the Zuckerbergs and Musks since, however presumably intelligent they are, they have zero introspection. This has to be because they inhabit the monotony of a perspective illusion* which leads them to think introspection doesn't exist.
Monotony has its own universe with its own logical thought-processes. However, in terms of introspection, the processes are unthoughtful. Introspection has to access the roots of things, the unprocessed things. In music these are bass, harmony (chords), melody, rhythm. All of these are played on a guitar in roots music.
While monotony inhabits a highly processed area (that convinces the ego), roots music is unprocessed and thoughtful. Because the auditory is presumed to affect the other senses - feel, sight- one has a sense of being aware of common clichés of the physical reality.
So it's a mix of thoughtfulness and traditional forms. All of this is undermined by the monotony of logical thought-processes in a perspective illusion. * or monotonous dual-note (CL Moore quote)
RELIGIO-CULTURE (Reggae) The type of monotonous dual-note of logical thought-processes is counteracted by religio-culture. Religious thoughts are signified in music, so the introspection has an ethical context, the strength given to Man by the cosmos (Ja.)
Since the auditory is presumed to signify what's there in the other senses, physical reality, roots music signifies the unprocessed strength of living as man, woman in dance, song, active life. Roots relates to older days through the unprocessed sounds of bass, rhythm, melody.
(Lee Perry and the Upsetters, recorded lyrically as 'Small Axe' by Marley)*
The battle between Ja (cosmos) and "the opposition' is never clearer than in Jamaican Reggae, probably owing to the entire social milieu jigging with a strong religious affinity. That's not to say there aren't commercial affiliations ('The Harder They Come'), just that they have not superceded the old ethic of active life in the body, seat of the soul (heart, blood, psyche.) *can't upload track at this time
[With JA's symphony out, she has an interesting quote. Asked by BBC Radio 4 "What were the thought-processes that led you to compose it?" She replied "There weren't any, I just wrote it." Since she previously said there's "no theme", one might ask, what's it about? Clearly it's about the roots of music. Bass, rhythm, melody, with a bit of counterpoint (canon or staggered) in the arrangements (harmony is a given in the chords, without necessarily big orchestral developments, more of a suite.)
That's another way of saying it comes from the heart or soul rather than the head, and that makes it introspective. The compulsive, irritating repetitions found in contemporary music are only convincing to the head.] The symphony or 4-part 'suite' is being broadcast 28 Nov; I intend posting a female-slanted piece in view of the fact there are few classical female composers (Lili Boulanger springs to mind), as opposed to some garbled 'Bach Goes to Town' mishmash.
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Post by neilnv2 on Nov 28, 2023 16:13:54 GMT -5
Can a legend go wrong? Sure, that's why we like them. Joan A's Symphony No 1 has a lot of promise and the reviews I've read are very fair, apart from one. The Guardian implied she didn't write the score, and even suggested her pet monkey did. That aside, here are my notes on the movements.
#1 Very linear with no progression until it get into staccato and bass that propels it along nicely. #2 Cute intersecting melodies, somewhat Vaughn Williams. Impulsive staccato piano fits well with #1. #3 A drag. #4 Repeated refrains at end on wood and string work well. Staccato is too severe here.
I don't suppose this review is getting read, but I would definitely advise thematic development as the next step, seeing as any symphony no. 2 has to be different. How do you differentiate without a theme? Her use of the raw elements (bass, counterpoint) shows that thematic development is there in theory.
This is far superior to McCartney's Standing Stone which ostensibly had a theme. On her Facebook page people were relating her symphony to other pop efforts, but I don't think this is appropriate. Her symphony contains the roots of music without a theme, which makes it far more classical. Yes it is weak on harmony, but the corollary is Steve Reich who has extremely thought-out harmony that is sleep-inducing. Harmony can be 'natural harmony' of the chords and counterpoint. Possibly more feminine.
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