I may be speaking out of turn here, and I may be a little under informed about the depth of that conversation over there, but I’m going to sound off anyway.
I didn’t say anything over there, [2] mostly because it is a scene I’m not comfortable getting involved with… (I tend to avoid registrations at all opportunities, anyway)… and I have to tell you frankly that Hendrix was never really my bag either. I was always more toward the pop into the spectrum, then, and largely, since, though with my forays into blues and jazz in the last 25 years or so I do understand what his internal music line was doing, if you take my meaning… what was going on in his head, as it were.
That said, I always admired the man’s technical ability. I do note somebody in that thread saying he was a technician who was able to make the sounds that were in his head. Or, words to that effect, anyway.
While the commetor then proceeded to make jackass of himself, that particular line caught my eye. Mostly, because of a conversation that you and I had a while ago. Think back a little bit, when you got that blue guitar from your friend I think, (Number 67?)
You and I got into a conversation in which I told you I envied you that ability because I don’t have it myself. I can play the notes, without screwing them up to badly, generally, but I can’t play the music.Remember?
The difference between the two is something that some people never learn, and I suspect Olivia to be one of these, based on my short perusal. You’ll recall, I used the word envy with you in that context. It’s a word I don’t often use. Certainly not in the first person.
[3]Hendrix, to my mind, came at it from the other end… he may not have had the ability to play the notes, (At least in approved of ways) but he could make the music.You see?
I have often thought that one of the reasons that his music came out in the spectacularly fresh a way that it did was because he wasn’t tangled up in the formalities of the thing. Being unrestricted so, in combination with as mechanical talent, perhaps gave him opportunity to explore the music in ways few others could. Indeed, I think it could be fairly said that he succeeded in making some new notes in the process. Is that Genius?
Whether not Hendrix was a genius, this seems to me beside the point. He may very well have been. Personally, I think he probably was in the area of what he did with that guitar. Sadly, other areas of his life were not so pristine, else he would likely still be with us. Frankly though, genius seems to me a matter of context…. which seems to me a word significantly lacking in that conversation. (Chuckle) Context certainly seems to be a concept that has gotten right by Olivia at least, as well as a few others there.
See, there’s the thing ; better, by what measure? By what metric are we to judge the matter? That we can teach kids Rachmaninoff and how he did things, but understanding, much less teaching kids how Hendrix did things is nigh on impossible?
As an example, Olivia seems to think rather highly of Rachmaninoff, and justifiably so, I think. I suspect the same in her mind applies to all of the various great classical composers Liszt, Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky. Were these geniuses? Perhaps in their context they were.
Certainly a direct comparison between they and Jimi Hendrix is difficult at best to do. If those are the kind of names that she holds up as genius, one can easily understand why she has difficulty fitting Jimi Hendrix into that box. But I wonder if her qualification list for “genius” would include the Benny Goodman or a Glen Miller? Who could deny they had some genius about them?
I would suggest to you that while you would have to teach a kid Rachmaninoff for him to understand, there isn’t a teenage boy on the planet today who would not understand at least some of what Hendrix was doing back in the day, without being taught a thing. Is that her measure of genius, that as opposed to understanding coming naturally, it has to be taught to be even remotely understood? Seems rather backward to me. The great inventors were and are consider geniuses… they certainly understood and operated in areas that nobody taught THEM….
You see, I’m trying to find the edges of her logic, here because I am suspicious that what we’re dealing with here is a matter of taste getting mixed in with her measurements of genius in one person or another. Further, I am suspicious that her taste is driven by what she understands.
That sounds like an insult; It’s really not. Keep in mind, the context of where I’m coming from, when I say that. Look at the very top of this post. I said I was very much into the pop into the spectrum at the time that Hendrix was out. If at the time you’d have asked me if he was a genius I’d have said “Hell NO”. There’s a reason for that. I didn’t have a bloody clue what the guy was about.
Of course, these days, I have a better idea of what the blues is about. We’ve had other guitarists working in the same neighborhood. Stevie Ray for example. Bob Cray. Clapton. With my exposure to those people, I these days understand what Hendrix was doing much better than I did back in the day. One gets the decided in fresh and upon reading her comments that she hasn’t progressed quite so far in the directions I have, in her musical journeys.
At the bottom end, here, what we’re dealing with is someone who is totally out of her element.
I would suggest further that given that situation, any discussion she might offer on the topic of objectivism is suspect at the off. If you don’t understand context, and you damn sure don’t understand being objective. Odd, how she managed to slaughter that topic in the same thread.
I think what annoys me about that situation most of all, what set me off on this, is that on a larger level, she’s trying to apply her subjective viewpoint on music , as an objective (and unarguable) fact. I, on the other hand, have always regarded music as one of the most subjective things we can expose ourselves to. I suspect you’ll agree to that statement at least, if nothing else.
(Shrug) For some reason, I have this image in my head, which may never have actually happened, of Tipper Gore interviewing Frank Zappa.
In looking back at probably could have said this better, and at least shorter, but, as you say, onward.