rhythmic complexity and syncopation; (an odd time signature, or complex rythmic scheme)
individual improvisation and stylization; (do I have to explain this?)
call-and-response; (musicans will “trade fours” or play four bars and have another play respond for another four)
engagement between individuals and the community at large; (the individual has it’s own role that contributes to the form)
commentary in the form of satire, parody, or boastful competition; (a sense of humorous playing or “battling”)
and a sense of group consciousness (nobody “conducts” a jazz combo. The bass player, pianist, drummer and horn player(s) all contribute to the time and structure, which is subject to changes, alterations and complete fucking overhauls during the course of a performance)

Good Stuff, Giuli!

It struck me as I read that this is probably the core of the origins of the jam band scene. To this day, when the dead play, their music continues to be a work in process, continues to be an experience they participate in with the fans that choose to come out and play with them (play in the ‘game’ sense, rather than the perform sense). Unfortunately, many of the newer ‘jam bands’ are following a ‘formula’ — their music meanders and flows, but often its just following a meander that was once conceived and written down, rather than truly being an ongoing artistic exploration……………. although they too often hold the audience as more participants than the mainstream……

Anyway, beyond that, I’m with Jim… drum circle (guitar circle, sing along, what have you….)!

Janene

The Beatles? Just a band.
Led Zepplin? Just a band.
The Beach Boys? Just a band.
The Sex Pistols? Just a band.
The Clash? Just a band.
Crass? Just a band.
Minor Threat? Just a band.
The Cure? Just a band.
The Smiths? Just a band.
Nirvana? Just a band.
The Pixies? Just a band.
Oasis? Just a band.
Radiohead? just a band.
Bloc Party? Just a band.
The Arctic Monkeys? Just a band.
The next big thing? Just a band.

I’ve been meaning to start writing on this subject for a long time, since it was largely my experiences with institutional music-making that first made me open (and then quickly sympathetic) to a critique of hierarchy.

Lately I’ve been looking at orchestras and noticing how their structure and organisation are perfect miniatures of industrial societies: division of labour, pre-programmed individual units of production (interchangeable if they malfunction), an assembly line from the initial blueprint with each factory worker performing their task dutifully but with no intrinsic meaning… it’s all there. Holistic artisans no longer, their work only has meaning within a larger context which they can’t appreciate from their position. An orchestra isn’t a circle! If you watch the individual players their attention will most often be focused on the page in front of them or on the conductor (glorious leader?), NOT amongst each other. That’s not communication, that’s a reinforcement of social isolation. They might as well be in cubicles behind glowing screens.

(Ahem. A bit of residual indignation left over here - I’ll have to go into more depth elsewhere and work through it at an appropriately slow pace…)

A strange thing about artists who have been put on ‘genius’ pedestals during their lifetimes is that their work often suffers as a result. It probably must seem like they’ve found a ‘winning formula,’ so any subsequent creative evolution has to stagnate in order to accommodate that one trick which pulls the punters in. Could this be our society’s way of saying: “so much creativity, but no more”?

I think you hit the nail on the head with ‘literality vs. orality’. Improvisation and spontaneity has no place in truly civilised music. The final composition of the genius composer (how can a work of art ever be ‘finished’? - surely you work on it and it works on you until the day you die) is a representation of his macho struggle for eternal, changeless immortality against all natural odds. Like David Abram’s ‘alphabetic civilisation’ (and as Jason is fond of pointing out) it’s the worst animist heresy.

Maybe the jazzers swung the pendulum too far over the other side away from conformity to rigid structure, overall turning the music into a bit of an ego-driven tuneless mush, but I still recommend improvisational fluidity as a key to keeping things live in the short term and a-live in the long. Jhereg mentioned the blues as a solidly anti-elitist base on which brilliance can still thrive (as a teaching example for all in the circle), so I’ll let Stevie Ray wrap this one up for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWLw7nozO_U

Rawk on \m/

Oh… and as an aside — Hey Jason! What in the worlds are you talking about — “Song” and “Story” as cousins. Yeesh. Same person. Shapeshifter. Likes being female sometimes, other times likes being male. And other times… well, lets just say “Silence” is as powerful an un-gender as I can think of to include in this list!

So, with that, thank you again Guili.

Best

Bill Maxwell