September 26ths

9/26/1999

Music is an extension of our ability to hear. [“Discuss the human Umwelt”] https://bit.ly/musingonmusic 

9/26/2016            

There has never been any period in music history that has not faded out. What is different in the last 20 years is the internet, which disincentivized and devalued music as a viable art form. Music downloading disincentivized it even further, as well as other factors, such as a glut of other content the internet made possible, diverting attention away from pursuing music. But this is not to say that there won’t be a resurgence at some point, even a zeitgeist. The catch is whether the cultural wisdom remains, and will have not collapsed into pure nostalgia, as opposed to learning and playing music for its own sake, and not as a way to simply replay (or deliberately reconstruct) memories: From the article, When jazz stopped being cool: “Here’s a depressing fact for jazz fans: One of the best-selling jazz records today was made in 1959. Davis’ Kind of Blue still sells a thousand copies a week on vinyl.” People aren’t buying the music to enjoy it for its intrinsic value; they buy it for the nostalgic power.”            

If you build a music based on a solid musical and cultural foundation (in the 60s it was blues, jazz and classical), you can make a Beatles or a Led Zeppelin. Without that foundation I’m not sure that you can repeat history. There has to be a parentage, and that same parentage is no longer there.            

There might be a (non-nostalgic) equivalent of a Led Zeppelin in the 2050s, but it will be built on another foundation, perhaps not at all related to music of the early-mid 20th century, but it will be a zeitgeist nonetheless, and it will have to generate profits quickly, as that is the engine that keep that kind of thing going. It’s amazing that in retrospect rock ‘n’ roll was a devolution from jazz, but was ultimately its greatest benefactor in history. And now both are “on-display” as museum pieces, which I think is a high honor.            

The changes in the industry is as Trump would demur: “It’s just business”, which is a sentiment that could be a degrading factor. Everything is not about money; it’s about the contributions appreciated in hindsight.

[“Discuss nostalgia in music”]

9/26/2021

I was at Thatcher Woods reading a book, and that line came to me. It was the notion that the summer had left yet the leaves had not yet changed color. They still looked like summer leaves). I thought, what if you were actually leaving on some journey in September, like a child that leaves for college in September? I took this image:

Was thinking about diaries of relatives. They must exist, but hunting them down is a daunting prospect, even with social media. In 50 years this will seem to be easy, but who will have the keys to lots of those accounts?            

I don’t think there are any diarists in the family that I know of. There probably are because most people kept diaries or journals back in the day, even if they were to keep tallies of things, like cab fares.       

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Drummers (and bass players) are ‘engines’. Language is also an engine, but its source is much more fragile, yet it has the same kind of power in how ideas get forged into tangible things.    

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9/26/2024

Last night I watched an episode of The Album Years podcast by Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness–1982–albums by Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel (Security), Roxy Music (Avalon)—all albums that I loved at the time. I was in music school studying classical and jazz but in the evenings I was writing pop songs. What’s interesting about their generation is that they see it in a different way. (I was in my 20s and they were still teenagers). What’s also interesting is that I was watching a podcast, something that was inconceivable in 2005. Media can merge in interesting ways and will continue to do so into the future. Younger people might not know anything about the early “pod” era. 

9/26/2048            

Album Review: Zonz: Scenarii