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Post by japanesebird on Jan 19, 2013 12:33:45 GMT -5
welcome to another weird, controversial thread hosted by your least favorite poster currently active on the board. ;D
[that i assume, since people typically do not enjoy my style of writing and posing questions]
today's thesis: noise is for intelligent beings, while music [melodic expression of emotion] is for fools. the fool needs a recognizable melody that he can whistle. it becomes a meme in his mind, a thought virus destroying every brain cell it drifts by in its aimless movement. he needs something he can firmly hold on to to make sense of the chaos of life, like how people believe in god due to the fear of death the unknown. intelligent beings find more substance paradoxically in that which is without substance, music without ordinary melodic expression of emotion. it has no core as such, it is a chaos flow of abstract sound art. because it is beyond emotions, it has a wider range of appeal. emotions are but a passing show, ever changing, dependent on endless other causes. but the parts of the brain which interpret noise are more primordial and as such will always adapt to noise as environment, whereas melody will inevitably become irritating if it does not exactly match your own emotion or is not an emotion you would like to reflect in your experiencing of it as a listening mirror. as i have mentioned in a previous thread, animals are at home with merzbow noise, they fall asleep quickly to it at a moderate volume. if i play normal music around my cats, i feel embarrassed, like i am being too ape-like around them and should refine my feline instincts and think noisily rather than melodically. noise captures how 'i' feel almost all the time- like a chaotic blur of madness cum intelligence, witnessing the horrorshow of daily life, aghast at the pervasive misery, at a loss as to what to do... noise is my reaction to life, my resultant dissociation and depersonalization, my withdrawal and detachment, my disappearance into the 'creative nothing' of my inner space self, which is like unto two mirrors facing each other.
i firmly believe that merzbow is the mozart of noise, and that he has produced finer symphonies of sound than his predecessor could have ever imagined. i recall several years ago an email correspondent told me that acoustic music is dead and electronic music is the future. i did not even understand or agree at the time, but now i simply cannot disagree. if mozart heard merzbow, he would smash his piano and never play it again. i maintain that the only appropriate response to one's conventional instrument, such as guitar or piano, is to smash it to pieces in a triumphant transcendence of your own lesser emotions which would inevitably find expression through them. i embrace noise as the logical conclusion of human history, a slow march to an irreversible brain shift. let those days die which saw young mutant humans listening to the beatles while experimenting with psychedelics. replace your beatles with merzbow. live in kung-tu, korea would be a good place to start. confound thyself with mind obliterating, nihilistic noise, until its violent chaos is the only peace ye know.
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Post by ashessehsa on Jan 19, 2013 13:26:39 GMT -5
Ok, I want to distance myself from this post. It strikes me as mostly pretension and claims unbacked by science. Being one who enjoys listening to noise may reflect a more creative or open mind, but I don't think at all that it means the listener is necessarily more intelligent or objectively better. There is just no reason that a recognizable melody would become "a meme in one's mind" that "destroys every brain cell it drifts by," there is no scientific basis for that whatsoever. Even if I replace your "intelligent person" with "creative or open-minded person" and your fool with "less creative or more close-minded person," I still find this totally inaccurate. Music is just as valid an expression as noise, and real passionate appreciation of either reflects aesthetic taste and maybe creativeness. How are the parts of the brain that interpret noise more primordial? Where is your evidence for this? Maybe you could make the argument that noise is a more primordial artform, that's fine, but why does that necessarily mean that the parts of our brain that appreciate it are any more primordial than those parts that appreciate music?
Somehow I doubt Mozart would appreciate noise. Merzbow is certainly a preeminent name in noise, yes. Because music is as relevant as noise, smashing one's conventional instruments is not the only appropriate response to them.
Anything interesting you may have had to say was hampered for me by all of the things I find problematic and disagreeable. Noise as it is today is the result of all of our previous human progression, but so is everything else that happens now. It's another, newer form of self-expression, but it doesn't render previous ones obsolete. It's just another form of sonic expression, and it isn't really a whole lot more profound than the degree to which the listener lets it be profound.
I don't mean to come off as harsh, there are other times that you've said things I've agreed with to some extent, I just can't stand seeing people say that the noise they listen to makes them superior beings and that everyone who can't appreciate it and who just listens to what your conception of normal music is inferior. It's unbelievably pretentious and condescending.
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Post by andypandy380 on Jan 19, 2013 18:10:45 GMT -5
I too am having a hard time getting my head around and agreeing with that statement. Where do we draw the line between what is music and what is noise? I would still describe Merzbow's noise as music. He has still had to create those sounds, manipulate and structure it, I don't think that's so radically different to what any other musician does to warrant it as something differently entirely. I would say there is still a definite emotional motive behind it. I treat noise and all other music much the same way. If I like what I hear, I listen to it... yes I'm not the sort of person who wears my heart on my sleeve, consciously searching for music which exactly reflects my own emotions... but if I like something for whatever reason, whether it be a song on the radio or Merzbow's Pulse Demon... is that not just an emotional response to it on one level or another? I cant see that an appreciation of one thing over something else really has a great deal to do with intellect... I think Ashessehsa has got it pretty spot on. not sure there's really a lot else I can add.
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Post by Bucketfel on Jan 19, 2013 20:58:55 GMT -5
No inteligent person would have ever said or even thought of such a ridiculous claim. Must be a troll or someone trying to somehow see his own musical tastes as better than the rest which is equally idiotic.
Someone who is inteligent in music or at least has some knowledge about it would say that music cannot be placed on a scale or a straight bar signifying importance by height. The only logical way to see music is just as a universe of unimmaginable range and depth. There is no way to find a music genre to be better than others.
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Post by japanesebird on Jan 20, 2013 16:11:21 GMT -5
Ok, I want to distance myself from this post. It strikes me as mostly pretension and claims unbacked by science. what science? you mean those guys who make theories and refute them the next day? science is an illusion. all one has to do is look into the past to see how life is but a dream. there are no objective facts. i was just writing with gay abandon to spark discussion. if we're discussing intelligence we would need to define it specifically for this context. intelligence is a word we use to describe something that doesn't exist. can you hold intelligence and let me see it? i will admit, the brain cell death from melody memes was a joke, although i do not think it is altogether crazy. it is simply my experience that when i have a melody or entire song 'stuck in my mind', it is experienced like a meme. or to phrase it differently, when there is a song stuck in my head, i take it as a sign of being in a lower state of consciousness, open to the hypnotic suggestion that is most musical melody plus lyrical conceptual content. when 'i' find 'myself' in such a state, i usually use noise to 'wake up' from the narcoleptic melody meme. an example, i listened to some of "close to the edge" by yes. i was enjoying it until it got to the "i get up, i get down" parts which struck me as too mundane for me to tolerate further. furthermore, i felt that the melodies used throughout the song all evoked certain dreamlike vague emotions within me that i found fundamentally disagreeable. speaking "scientifically", it is certain that hearing such music was actively inducing a 'state of consciousness' that 'i' found disagreeable. when i turned the music off and put merzbow live in kung tu korea on, the change was obvious, out of one state and into another. if this is not different parts of the brain perceiving and interpreting different sound then what is it? how else could one explain the ability of music to induce 'states of consciousness'? it is no surprise that trance music is played at psychedelic festivals with lots of lsd and mdma, it is no surprise that grunge is played in dirty bars, it is not surprise that relaxing music is played in massage parlors, etc. as for why i propose that primordial parts of the brain experience/interpret noise music, consider that the prehistoric mind was not hearing 30 second tv jingles selling products, nor pop rock albums, nor symphonies. if they had music, it was their own singing or own crude instruments. other than that, they were immersed in the abstract, impersonal sound of nature. the wind, the rain, the insects, the birds, etc. their minds were always decoding this sound around them. mundane melodic music came later and its range of expression was largely limited to the realm of dualistic human emotions. so a sad man sings a sad minor key melody, a happy man sings a jovial major key melody. in the sound of rain falling, where is happiness? where is sadness? there is neither, for there is no one in rain to feel happy or sad. it is known, "scientifically", that the mind mirrors what it experiences. this is why, for a child, it is exceptionally traumatic to witness his parents arguing. he does not have a clear separation of self from other, and therefore he experiences the whole confusion of the situation. with this in mind, consider prehistoric man, immersed as it were in the abstract, impersonal sounds surrounding him. the lonely cooing of the dove, the tambura like cicadas, the emptiness of the wind. his mind would naturally mirror all of these things and fall into tune with them. you can do an experiment. find a lofty secluded place in nature and meditate all afternoon. when you have reached the highest peak, return to normal consciousness and play a top 40 radio hit. just see how it trivializes your whole experience, which was profound due to mirroring the nature surrounding you. it immediately introduces a foreign element - petty human emotional expression - and disturbs your detached state of consciousness. mozart would not like to be sold so short. it is much more likely that mozart, as a tremendous egoist, would consider himself the finest composer of music ever, and that all after him has been amateur composition, therefore the only other music he could enjoy would be noise. i think he would invite himself into bedroom, tokyo and take lsd while watching masami attain noise nirvana. true, as masami said in an interview, he cannot control how we interpret it. truer still that it does not render previous music as obsolete, however i think it shows the great distinction between "larval" and "post-larval" humans, to use a bit of leary language. can you honestly tell me that the guy who won't listen to anything but radio country music is on the same level of consciousness and intelligence as you, who enjoy and understand merzbow? don't sell yourself short, you're of a more refined evolution. no problems, i love a good forum debate when things get heated. i actually think that it's much better to discuss and debate heavy subjects online rather than in person. online is very impersonal, even if we were close friends for years, speaking online would give us a detached distance that would enable deep discussion without the all too seductive emotional reactions that seem to occur in personal interactions. Where do we draw the line between what is music and what is noise? I would still describe Merzbow's noise as music. He has still had to create those sounds, manipulate and structure it, I don't think that's so radically different to what any other musician does to warrant it as something differently entirely. I would say there is still a definite emotional motive behind it. excellent points, of course. however in the very deliberate avoidance of those mundane emotions which all too commonly appear in a songwriter's songs, merzbow stands aloof, in his own realm. his 'angry music' is an impersonal anger, like a tornado or volcano. it is ecologically aware compassionate horror at suffering [minazo, dolphin sonar, etc]. sometimes i think nietzsche's interesting quote "when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back at you" could be accurately applied to merzbow. there is a sense of somehow 'breaking through' beyond the normal level into a realm where the distinction between the artist and the art blurs and masami akita disappears as an agent into the cosmic noise. it is not an egoic emotion that merzbow expresses, which is my fundamental point. i maintain that merzbow is egoless music. that, of course, does not necessarily imply it is music without dispositionally conditioned form, only that it is devoid of ordinary egoic expression, such as we may find very easily in other music. No inteligent person would have ever said or even thought of such a ridiculous claim. Must be a troll or someone trying to somehow see his own musical tastes as better than the rest which is equally idiotic. Someone who is inteligent in music or at least has some knowledge about it would say that music cannot be placed on a scale or a straight bar signifying importance by height. The only logical way to see music is just as a universe of unimmaginable range and depth. There is no way to find a music genre to be better than others. first off, i'm not a troll. i am a merzbow fan and came to this board to discuss related topics. secondly, you must be unfamiliar with the human species. we have spent our entire history differentiating between one thing and another, establishing the supremacy of one over another. it is just our way. should one have no views at all? if i state my opinion, that certain music reflects one level of consciousness, and another reflects another, am i wrong? should i disregard the obvious, that there is a 'real' difference between music inasmuch as, for example, it takes a different kind of mind to understand and appreciate la monte young's well-tuned piano than the mind which can only understand radio rock [although, of course, there may be people who can enjoy both].
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Post by Bucketfel on Jan 20, 2013 21:14:14 GMT -5
i didnt meant to come across as trying to attack you but, you are right. It does take a different midset to understand/enjoy noise music but that doesnt mean there is a real difference between genres. Now, one has to be careful how to interpret this type of things because what i just said meas that it takes a different mindset to understand this type of music but never make the jump in conclusion that that means one type of mindset is better than another. Sure, you can classify them all you want but one has to avoid thinking that when classifying you are also prioritizing. Thats the obvious mistake that most people do when thinking of classification because all it does is take a big group and separate it into smaller groups.
This is music, it provokes and emotion in you, thats what its supposed to do and thats all it does.
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Post by japanesebird on Jan 21, 2013 12:30:52 GMT -5
bucketfel, you say "better". i never used the word except in quoting ashessehsa.
i would understand "better" to be a value judgment dependent on many intricate factors. what is it that colors our likes and dislikes in life? how is it that in hearing [________] you hear one thing, i hear another, and every other brain hears another thing? these issues can never be divorced from the complex interrelated causes and conditions that are a necessity for the arising of various phenomena such as value judgments.
that said, is this the case for "intelligence" also? i am not equating more intelligent with better, not better, both, or neither, but simply pointing out that the reason merzbow alienates the majority of people is because it is functioning, dare i say these challenging words, on a higher level, and it simply goes over their heads. their conception of music is pleasant 3 minute pop songs, their sense of time is extremely limited, their attention spans cannot withstand more than 5 minutes of a piece of music without dying of boredom. merzbow, with his hour long noise symphonies, is like some kind of alien mozart from the future, they cannot comprehend it at all. could it even be possible that their brains, upon hearing the 'noise' [which, as someone pointed out, is often highly structured or attenuated and therefore not a random chaos as such], really hear a chaos, and cannot fit it into a conceptual framework which allows for its existence as music? by confining themselves to the world of music as mundane melody, normative emotional expression, etc., they shut themselves off from the "universe of unimmaginable range and depth" that is noise as music, natural noise as music, non-human noise as music, impersonal dishuman human created noise as music, and so on.
it is known that the brain continues to develop and grow in various ways when it is given the right nutrition and appropriate stimuli. could it not then be deduced that by limiting oneself to very ordinary music, one is also limiting one's intelligence? i think there are 'intelligence increases' as we traverse through the life journey of expanding our tastes, and encountering a new musician can induce such an upgrade. top 40 music is there to make money, not to upgrade the mind into higher functioning. i think intelligent beings seek out knowledge and wisdom and a continual expansion of their minds. i see my cat learning new things every day, new emotions and states of consciousness. therefore, intelligent beings could not remain satisfied with top 40 money music, or money movies, they would seek out the more substantial stuff.
it is like a child in the first years of school whose parents had already taught him to read quite well. he will naturally excel beyond the other students and seek out books in the classroom more suited for his intelligence and reading comprehension level.
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Post by japanesebird on Jan 21, 2013 13:05:19 GMT -5
check out the comments on this video of merzbow-requiem: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgOg6aYqASY sanchibeatbox 2 weeks ago I somehow understand people who listen to such kind of music. I would do that too, but my broken TV is enough. a great comment: notrombones 1 month ago Wow. This is like John Cage meets Schoenberg. As Johnny Carson might say, Wild stuff.NameOfThisSong 3 months ago Do people take many drugs on concerts of this or festivals (are there even fistivals for this)? This is not ment to insult in any way. I'm just curious.i think i've had my favorite merzbow experiences while excruciatingly sober. although i have enjoyed it on dxm and weed several times with great success. merzbow-requiem is great on the latter. JahiriAtto 4 months ago Calling this music is really pushing it hilarious. it's probably one of the most normal tracks merzbow has done. takes a recognizable burzum sample playing at a steady tribal pace and adds merznoise over it. 7 minutes is short for merzbow. what would these same people say of hearing full albums like: spiral honey, hodosan, japanese birds vol 2, volume 13, or the live in korea soul to seoul, or that 2012 clip with the pyramid lights and INTENSE merztar noise halfway in- www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya3JH2kJH94 i'd say that is my favorite music clip of year 2012, it really captured the spacey vibe that was going on with the whole apocalyptic theme. now i think we are entering a new age of sorts, occurring as i complete a quarter of a 100 year lifecycle and feel no older than 8,000,000 and infinite on my best days. here's merzbow to take us into the fifth dimension...
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Post by andypandy380 on Jan 21, 2013 15:59:50 GMT -5
We do agree on one thing, I was blown away by that performance too. I still cant really get my head around a whole lot of what you're saying though.
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Post by japanesebird on Jan 21, 2013 19:07:50 GMT -5
We do agree on one thing, I was blown away by that performance too. I still cant really get my head around a whole lot of what you're saying though. it was filmed well with the different perspective shots. i especially love the brief side view captures of masami akita at his laptop. he appears detached and yet very aware of the sound. he looks cooler than ever. i hope i can live into my mid-50s and be as cool as the merzbuddha.
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Post by ashessehsa on Jan 22, 2013 12:57:02 GMT -5
Ok, I have a more positive view of what you're saying now, but I still take plenty of issue with it. At least now there's more to discuss. what science? you mean those guys who make theories and refute them the next day? science is an illusion. all one has to do is look into the past to see how life is but a dream. there are no objective facts. Yes, science. Those people who work to discover the nature of the universe using the best method we have. It's not perfect, but it's an ongoing process that has gotten us very far. Even if there is a definite, important subjective component to truth, I believe that there are still more constant, objective truths that can be discovered through empirical research. The nature of life is a metaphysical question, and as such cannot be entirely discerned through empiricism. Claiming it to be a dream is to make use of a metaphor at best, and is no better than science's attempts at understanding the nature of life. I find it interesting that you decry science and objectivity in one breath and then make claims supported by nothing but your opinion in the next. if we're discussing intelligence we would need to define it specifically for this context. intelligence is a word we use to describe something that doesn't exist. can you hold intelligence and let me see it? Good point. Intelligence is an abstract construct, and as such, we need to agree about what it means before we talk about it. When you say that noise is for intelligent people and that music is for less intelligent people, what qualities are you pointing out in those people who do or don't enjoy noise? I don't want to assume your meaning. Still, I don't think it's fair to say that people who can't appreciate noise are necessarily less intelligent in any way. It may very well say something about the imagination, creativity, or constitution of the listener, but I don't think it necessarily says anything about the listener's intelligence. i will admit, the brain cell death from melody memes was a joke, although i do not think it is altogether crazy. it is simply my experience that when i have a melody or entire song 'stuck in my mind', it is experienced like a meme. or to phrase it differently, when there is a song stuck in my head, i take it as a sign of being in a lower state of consciousness, open to the hypnotic suggestion that is most musical melody plus lyrical conceptual content. when 'i' find 'myself' in such a state, i usually use noise to 'wake up' from the narcoleptic melody meme. Ok, so it was a joke. Good. That was one of things you said that I took greatest issue with. I can see noise as being something that "wakes one up" in the sense that its loud and arresting nature might force your attention to the present, while simultaneously not being something that easily lends itself to becoming stuck in one's head, where it can echo in the unconscious. I don't think having a song stuck in your head means being in a lower state of consciousness, though. Still, you say here it's your own subjective experience, so I've got nothing to say against that. when i turned the music off and put merzbow live in kung tu korea on, the change was obvious, out of one state and into another. if this is not different parts of the brain perceiving and interpreting different sound then what is it? how else could one explain the ability of music to induce 'states of consciousness'? it is no surprise that trance music is played at psychedelic festivals with lots of lsd and mdma, it is no surprise that grunge is played in dirty bars, it is not surprise that relaxing music is played in massage parlors, etc. How else could one explain the ability of music to induce different states of consciousness? Simple. Music, like any other artform, has the power to express a very broad range of emotional and aesthetic experience. As such, it could induce just about any state of consciousness, the listener just has to meet the work halfway by giving it attention and really feeling whatever it is. as for why i propose that primordial parts of the brain experience/interpret noise music, consider that the prehistoric mind was not hearing 30 second tv jingles selling products, nor pop rock albums, nor symphonies. if they had music, it was their own singing or own crude instruments. other than that, they were immersed in the abstract, impersonal sound of nature. the wind, the rain, the insects, the birds, etc. their minds were always decoding this sound around them. mundane melodic music came later and its range of expression was largely limited to the realm of dualistic human emotions. so a sad man sings a sad minor key melody, a happy man sings a jovial major key melody. in the sound of rain falling, where is happiness? where is sadness? there is neither, for there is no one in rain to feel happy or sad. This is interesting from an anthropological/psychological perspective, but again, I think that it has to do with the type of listening we're doing (are we listening with attention to the aesthetics of the sound, or are we listening to get a sense of our environment? I get that the line between these are blurry). I have a feeling that the same parts of the brain are involved in listening to aesthetic works that are conventional as those that are involved in listening to those that are not or to any sound that we give the same sort of attention one might give to conventional music. you can do an experiment. find a lofty secluded place in nature and meditate all afternoon. when you have reached the highest peak, return to normal consciousness and play a top 40 radio hit. just see how it trivializes your whole experience, which was profound due to mirroring the nature surrounding you. it immediately introduces a foreign element - petty human emotional expression - and disturbs your detached state of consciousness. I agree with you here in terms of music I dislike trivializing the experience that music I really do like or that, for lack of a better term (I am an athiest), "spiritual" experiences bring. But if I were to play music I really enjoyed, it would not trivialize the experience I had meditating. So what music might trivialize that experience and what music wouldn't is subjective, based on the person. On top of that, science has some pretty friendly things to say about meditation. It's good for you. As far as to what degree science might agree with the other philosophies that meditation came from is another matter entirely--the jury is still out on that one. The thing about Buddhism is that it is non-dualistic, and by not acknowledging the subjectivity of musical preference and saying that certain sorts of music are less trivializing objectively than others, what you're doing is making a dualistic statement. You're dividing all music into music worth listening to and music for "fools." mozart would not like to be sold so short. it is much more likely that mozart, as a tremendous egoist, would consider himself the finest composer of music ever, and that all after him has been amateur composition, therefore the only other music he could enjoy would be noise. i think he would invite himself into bedroom, tokyo and take lsd while watching masami attain noise nirvana. Does Mozart owe you twenty bucks? One has to wonder, seeing as you seem to know him personally and can make statements about what Mozart would enjoy. The problem with your argument here is that you're assuming that just because Mozart mastered a certain kind of music, he would appreciate the work of another who mastered their kind of aesthetic work. Just because he was a great musician doesn't mean that he would appreciate the work of the "Mozart" of noise, if Merzbow could even be considered that. can you honestly tell me that the guy who won't listen to anything but radio country music is on the same level of consciousness and intelligence as you, who enjoy and understand merzbow? don't sell yourself short, you're of a more refined evolution. Someone of that sort is of a different mindset, and I probably wouldn't get along with them in that realm. But if they enjoy it, if it makes them feel good, who am I to judge? Maybe I have a more open and creative mind (which I don't like to claim), but that doesn't make me more intelligent or of a greater level consciousness, as you say, than someone like who you mentioned. I question whether musical taste is literally a matter of evolution at all. Putting myself above others because I like different music would just be garbage, in my opinion. I think the difference between me and someone who just listens to whatever is on the radio is that music can really effect me emotionally and I enjoy novelty, so I seek out music, and novel forms of music, passionately, whereas one who just listens to any music on the radio might just not get as much of an affective response out of music, so they don't seek more or more novel sorts of it. That doesn't make me better than that person, it just makes me different from them. Yes, I'd much rather spend time with someone who I can relate to in this way, but I don't think those who I don't relate to in terms of musical taste and passion are "lower" than me as you're implying I'd say more, but I've got stuff to do.
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Post by caligulabob on Jan 22, 2013 13:58:10 GMT -5
Hello! I'm new to the forum and posted a little info in the "introduce yourself" section. This might not be the best place to start as the topic is controversial, but each to his/her own. My wife and daughter think it's hilarious that I would actually spend money on Merzbow releases. Japanesebird's post is legit because it's normal for human beings to always feel some sense of superiority to others in the intelligence battle arena. My wife loves some of the most inane and ridiculous TV shows that appeal to mass audiences, yet when we have existential discussions, I am in awe of her. I've had first impressions of folks that I deemed complete dolts and after talking to them for a few minutes, Ive rightfully been knocked down a few notches in the self esteem department. The more you grow older and actually listen to people of all ages, backgrounds and (this includes musical tastes) the more you realize you have so much to learn. When I play Merzbow for a friend, I actually do it so we will have a nice laugh together. It's obvious I will never get them to become a fan or even listen to one complete album and that's fine. I've got a pal who is a Pat Metheny freak that gets me to put on Pulse Demon just so he can crack up. One of my favorite sayings of his is, "I don't like Masonna because he steals Merzbow's riffs. Step outside and try to see why people think Merzbow is laughable and you will find from that particular point of view their reaction is completely valid. That does not mean his art is invalid. As for the melody issue, I would go insane without a little melody in my life. I've had Napalm Death riffs in my head for days and that's fine by me. Merzbow's art makes me happy. It calms me down and I have no intention of ever trying to find out the reasons why.
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Post by andypandy380 on Jan 22, 2013 17:10:50 GMT -5
Definitely some valid points there. I still very much respect people who would call merzbow's music shit or whatever. It's really only an opinion... and about it being laughable, I understand that too... If I think back to my 13 year old self, I thought the idea of listening to Slipknot was laughable... let alone Merzbow... but I was very much into rock/metal at the time and the more I listened to any of that stuff, the more it made sense and became less and less of a cacophony... and then Napalm Death seemed more listenable, and then once I discovered Merzbow, that became more and more enjoyable. I admit it all took time... But it was those things I really didn't like then that I cant get enough of now. I saw an documentary about the Sun Ra Arkestra recently, and there was a quote about the things you initially dislike becoming the things you really love... I think there is some truth in that. But I wouldn't force noise music or any other genre upon anyone, my friends all have widely different tastes in music, I wouldn't say they were missing out on anything because they are content listening to whatever it is they listen to. Getting the same kind of enjoyment from Blink 182 etc that I get from Merzbow and Napalm Death isn't anything to be ashamed of. Although I'd be lying if I didn't get a little wound up about others attitudes towards bands I really don't like, but I guess that's only natural. I have no time for the sort of people who would watch Smash Hits saying "Why aren't you playing REAL music like Morbid Angel!?" There is a time and a place for everything. And in this day and age, listening to whatever obscure sort of music you like has never been easier, so why does it really matter if the rest of the world is listening to Justin Bieber? Somebody like my grandfather who listens to classical music exclusively and pretty much disregards all other types of music as nonsensical rubbish is still very much an intelligent man in my opinion. I don't know if all that really elaborates on any of the previous points or not... I think we're on the verge of over-analyzing things.
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Post by ashessehsa on Jan 22, 2013 19:12:22 GMT -5
Don't worry about whether you elaborated on the previous points, andy, you and caligulabob just made a couple of down-to-earth, realistic statements that I totally agree with. That, and I don't take noise too terribly seriously, it's just that the conversation kind of became about more stuff than noise. Science and pretension and blah blah
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Post by japanesebird on Jan 22, 2013 22:48:59 GMT -5
Ok, I have a more positive view of what you're saying now, but I still take plenty of issue with it. At least now there's more to discuss. Yes, science. Those people who work to discover the nature of the universe using the best method we have. It's not perfect, but it's an ongoing process that has gotten us very far. Even if there is a definite, important subjective component to truth, I believe that there are still more constant, objective truths that can be discovered through empirical research. The nature of life is a metaphysical question, and as such cannot be entirely discerned through empiricism. Claiming it to be a dream is to make use of a metaphor at best, and is no better than science's attempts at understanding the nature of life. I find it interesting that you decry science and objectivity in one breath and then make claims supported by nothing but your opinion in the next. i have immense faith in my own opinions. ;D i think that the ability to hear noise as music and music as noise [think masami akita's quote "if noise is defined as uncomfortable sound then pop music is noise to me"] suggests a certain quality of mind that is simply not found in the 'average person'. and i do not feel uncomfortable using such a term as 'average person', because the world is full of them. they are churned out by cultural conditioning, their likes and dislikes programmed for them. this quality suggests a certain independence from the cultural norms, which is typically a sign of greater intelligence. the herd of sheep fears the solitary wolf - because of his intelligence. not only its 'loud and arresting nature' but [at least, in merzbow's case] the specific avoidance of conventional melody and its personalism. i said at some point that i think merzbow is an 'egoless music', this also means it is impersonal, or depersonalized. could it be possible that through hearing it, it could induce such a state in ourselves? right... and those emotional and aesthetic experiences and alterations of consciousness are due to some change in brain functioning. it is fairly well established that our varied experiences throughout life occur in different 'brains'. to give a simple example, our fight/flight response is in the old reptilian brain, while our emotional bonding and empathy is in the mammalian brain, and so on. my personal feeling is that we should always attempt to maximize our life experience and expand our minds and trigger, if possible, a kind of evolutionary leap to higher levels. i think there is a great potential in noise music for this purpose. i am a musician myself, although i have no impressive credentials in that area, and my own experience is - conventional music is incredibly limiting for me, it feels stifling and as if it retards my mental development. whenever i have made attempts at noise music, it seems to reach out into the unknown, to those outer reaches i wish to explore further.
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Post by japanesebird on Jan 22, 2013 23:03:12 GMT -5
Hello! I'm new to the forum and posted a little info in the "introduce yourself" section. This might not be the best place to start as the topic is controversial, but each to his/her own. My wife and daughter think it's hilarious that I would actually spend money on Merzbow releases. Japanesebird's post is legit because it's normal for human beings to always feel some sense of superiority to others in the intelligence battle arena. My wife loves some of the most inane and ridiculous TV shows that appeal to mass audiences, yet when we have existential discussions, I am in awe of her. I've had first impressions of folks that I deemed complete dolts and after talking to them for a few minutes, Ive rightfully been knocked down a few notches in the self esteem department. The more you grow older and actually listen to people of all ages, backgrounds and (this includes musical tastes) the more you realize you have so much to learn. When I play Merzbow for a friend, I actually do it so we will have a nice laugh together. It's obvious I will never get them to become a fan or even listen to one complete album and that's fine. I've got a pal who is a Pat Metheny freak that gets me to put on Pulse Demon just so he can crack up. One of my favorite sayings of his is, "I don't like Masonna because he steals Merzbow's riffs. Step outside and try to see why people think Merzbow is laughable and you will find from that particular point of view their reaction is completely valid. That does not mean his art is invalid. As for the melody issue, I would go insane without a little melody in my life. I've had Napalm Death riffs in my head for days and that's fine by me. Merzbow's art makes me happy. It calms me down and I have no intention of ever trying to find out the reasons why. i laugh at merzbow music sometimes too, but it's more a maniacal laugh of "mwahaha i cannot believe this exists, it's so ridiculously extremely awesome". especially with an album like hodosan which just bursts out into an intensity that doesn't let up for a long time. merzbow gives me great pleasure.
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Post by ashessehsa on Jan 23, 2013 12:38:30 GMT -5
XD I am so sorry to hear about your uncle, Japanesebird.
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Post by qweasd on Feb 1, 2013 18:30:27 GMT -5
Why begin with such a limited view of what music is? That injures the argument from the get go.
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