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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
 Posted - 09/02/2007 : 07:49:57 AM
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Or, to expand the discussion:
Can blue men sing the whites?
(Prizes for knowing the source of this obscure bit of trivia... More prizes for the next line.)
Ta Tao for Now!
Mark
whose desk is messy, except when it is clean. |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 08:09:41 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Russell Letson
Years ago, after a conversation about a movie, my sister asked, "Can't you stop analyzing and just enjoy it?" And my answer was that analysis is part of my enjoyment. It doesn't negate or diminish the primal experience of the art--in fact, for me it is inextricably bound up with it.
Here's something you and I share, Russell. I recall a work meeting a few years back, when a local dj came to our music-programming office to share with us a number of new releases in a mix of contemporary styles (in an electronica/drum-and-bass/acid garage vein.) We were a roomful of music-heads, sitting there picking apart each tune, identifying the samples used, the processing, aspects of the arrangements, etc. The dj just looked at us and said, "can't you guys just enjoy the music anymore?"
Cracked us all up. That IS how we "enjoyed" music now. No, we could no longer just listen to it the way most people would; but we were glad that we could listen the way we did now, and I'm still happy to have a brain that breaks it all down in different ways.
But I'd bet you've discovered, Russell, that while some people will get something out of your analysis, there are a lot of people who think you are ruining the experience for them, by taking them behind the curtain (as it were.) It's a balancing act, for certain. It's great that you've been able to turn your talent for analysis into the art of teaching and writing. |
Edited by - Retro on 09/02/2007 08:10:08 AM |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 08:11:37 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark
Ta Tao for Now!
You're Evil. Pure Evil. (Name that sitcom.)
BTW, aren't the Blue Men mimes--?
R.
(Who aspires to Evil and sometimes achieves it)
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 08:12:26 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark
Can blue men sing the whites?
I thinks of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, mese'f. |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 09:02:58 AM
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quote:
I thinks of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, mese'f.
Right you are. That was the easy part... now, to win the Shirt Event (another Bonzo ref) give me the next line of the chorus.
And, for the bonus, what fairly recent pop band did they influence in a roundabout way? (you should get that one by nature of your former job, Mr. Retro.)
And, for a double bonus, who was credited with playing `ukulele on one of their songs?
And you wondered how we'd get back to TaroPatch territory....
Mark |
Edited by - Mark on 09/02/2007 09:05:12 AM |
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noeau
Ha`aha`a
USA
1105 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 09:41:39 AM
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| Just a wild guess because it just sounds like something Pooh would say from his corner of the world. And if not, then it should have been. |
No'eau, eia au he mea pa'ani wale nō. |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 10:19:07 AM
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Russell, my desk was very messy for several reasons. First,I acted on the very small number of really important documents immediately and then threw them away as the results were achieved, unless I needed the docs for CYA or blackmail. Those I put in a safe straightaway, until I needed to use them, or burn or shred them as they lost utility or became too hot. Filing the other documents would have required me to assign them to a single set (as instantiated by a file folder) and, since the ideas on the paper were always multivariate, I knew I would never find them when I really needed them. But, I could always find them in the mess, as like documents were always near like documents in 3 dimensions - the Euclidean metric of similarity: SQRT(a^2 + b^2 + c^2). I also learned over the years, that all externally generated documents in the messy piles on my desk would lose importance over time, and, if I just ignored them, that I could sh*tcan them during a quarterly (approximately - because my world is always approximate) desk cleaning, when I would just brush all of them off the top with my arm directly into a very large round file and have them sent to a shredder.
So, for 3 or 4 days out of a year, my desk was clean.
...Reid |
Edited by - Reid on 09/02/2007 10:21:00 AM |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 11:00:27 AM
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Naw, man, pie are round--*cornbread* are square.
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 3:54:30 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark
quote:
I thinks of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, mese'f.
Right you are. That was the easy part... now, to win the Shirt Event (another Bonzo ref) give me the next line of the chorus.
And, for the bonus, what fairly recent pop band did they influence in a roundabout way? (you should get that one by nature of your former job, Mr. Retro.)
And, for a double bonus, who was credited with playing `ukulele on one of their songs?
And you wondered how we'd get back to TaroPatch territory....
Mark
1) "...or are they hypocrites for going "wah, wah, wah?""
2) Death Cab For Cutie (according to my Canadian guest, Stephen Fearing.
3) Eric Clapton, "The Intro & The Outro" - and it really was Clapton.
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Edited by - Retro on 09/02/2007 5:04:26 PM |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 05:50:27 AM
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I think I need hipwaders. Ya'll need more time with your guitars. Reid, that's the 1st time I broke out laughing during a theoretical discussion! Good one!
We may as well ask the meaning of life, but that would entail discussions of food, recipes, different types of dental floss, the joy of new socks and watching squirrels freak out when they see themselves in a mirror.
Being analytic is good, it enables you to more quickly percieve chord changes, bass lines, harmonies and just what Uncle Leonard's thumb was doing. |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 12:58:44 PM
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Retro, you are a man after my own heart. Right on all three. I owe you a beer... or double skim milk latte, no foam, or whatever the heck it is you Seattleites drink.
OK, here's why I started this little diversion (aside from a general inclination towards stirring things up):
The "is it authentic" musical discussion has been bandied about for generations, about every musical style you can name. The more passionate the amateur (used in the true sense of the word -- look to the root) the louder the discussion.
Why would this matter? I can think of a couple of reasons, chief among them that more and more people from outside the tradition are now playing slack key, writing what they are calling slack key, and, most importantly, performing and recording publicly.
My point is this: if you are going to say you are playing slack key, it would be a good idea to have a firm understanding of what that might mean. I don't mean culturally, I mean stylistically.
Over the years I have heard the same question from numerous mainland guitarists: They play me something they made up, and then they ask "Is it slack key?" To which I often reply "No, but it's beautiful." And I can list a pile of real, concrete musical terms to back that up.
Or I can just say "it doesn't sound like slack key to me." Same difference, actually. 
Much of what I hear -- and much of what I play, for that matter -- might better be called "West Coast" or "Mainland" style. That's not a putdown, just a note that it is different.
What's different about it? More emphasis on chords, less melody, longer arrangements, less improv. The pulse is usually more straight up and down (less swing). Might use long passages of pattern picking over chord changes. The pacing is often very very slow. The bass is either very regular, or not regular at all. And it is almost 100% instrumental, and extremely guitar-centric.
Sound like anything you may have heard-- or written --- lately? Again, this is not a put down. Just an observation. I happen to like pretty guitar music.
Culturally it's EZ: if a slack key master like Ozzie or Led plays it, it's slack key.
Heck, listen to Atta's playing on "Two Slack Key Guitars" for some seriously out there slack key playing.
Thanks for reading.
Mark
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Edited by - Mark on 09/03/2007 1:50:51 PM |
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noeau
Ha`aha`a
USA
1105 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 3:33:49 PM
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Chet Atkins comes to mind. As falling into the mainland category. However Arlo Guthrie almost there with the slack key sound.
I once said that thumbs and I could be two slacks on guitar. |
No'eau, eia au he mea pa'ani wale nō. |
Edited by - noeau on 09/03/2007 3:42:42 PM |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 5:07:30 PM
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| This is what I have always said, even though I am not a guitar picker. There is finger picking and then there is kiho`alu. I grew up with finger pickin' down in the hills and although it is pretty darn swell, and although the musicians are quite talented, and although they may use alternate tunings, it is not slack key by anyone's strech of the imagination. It is the heart and the soul that makes it feel different and what makes it touch people so. Mayhaps the mainlanders want to strive for that, aspire to that. Some have it in them, some do not. Plain and simple. Just like some people have loving and caring and sharing hearts and some do not. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 3:08:37 PM
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Don't you try to lay no boogie-woogie on the king of rock n roll!
I'm no further than I was 6 pages ago. I don't claim to be smart; too many people know better. What I'm trying to be is pono. At this point in time, if I play in front of any one outside my house, I'll stick to chang-a-lang, and save the attempts at slack key for after I've had an honest critique by a player whose opinion I trust.The possibility for mis-informing the listener is too great just now.
Paul |
"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2007 : 05:49:43 AM
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| If you can play so as to make Hawaiians (on the mainland) homesick, think of their small-kid-time, of members of their family that played slack key, that would fit, wouldn't it? |
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Defining Slack key
