[cc-community] Musicians Unity?
Shakti S
mail at shakti.id.au
Tue Jan 22 09:20:39 EST 2008
Thank you Kevin and David for elaborating upon my topics, I feel
honored that someone has the time to engage in some thoughtful
discussion. I have tried to get some interest in musicians issues, in
the past, but unfortunately I think musicians are united in their
disunity. The sad day for me was in 1980 when I saw my first drum
machine used in a live gig, no longer did music breathe but had to
keep up with the machine. And then music started to sound like a
printing press that I used to operate. I wondered why do they feel
that they need to replace a percussionist with a machine. The only
answer I could come up with was, to make things easier, but in doing
this they avoid the mutual benefits (and compromises) of collaboration.
Anyway the world has moved on and a lot of really stupid things have
happened: Ignorance of a climate problem, while there is mindless
consumption, people fly planes into buildings, and others blow
themselves up for a "cause", millions die for the sake of getting
every last drop of oil, the gap between the rich and the poor gets
wider, and we have just lived through the bloodiest century in human
history.
I feel that music has a very important role to play in process of
"smartening back up", and in that light I am starting to become
skeptical of those who are proud of what they can't do. It seems to
me to be wanting to go to heaven but not wanting to die. Comparing a
virtuoso to someone in a garage band does not impress me. One cannot
know what it is like to climb Mount Everest or to walk to the South
Pole by reading a book, or pretending that one has had an experience.
Smartening back up has to have a connection to reality.
> The expression that comes through in the individual performance
> doesn't lie.
What worries me is that when someone claims to be original, and yet
a lot of others seem to be playing the same song. I hear about two
minuets of content and then a ten minuet loop of repetition. I hear
those garage bands still play the same songs I used to play 35 years
ago. I hear someone performing with a backing track of a whole
orchestra, and sing out of pitch. I also hear a lot of good music
(that still sounds like a lot of other music) from some very creative
people, but when I think about the diversity of Bach, Scarlatti, and
the richness of Ravel and Debusey, I just see someone just trying to
get a view of the earth from the ground. Music has the potential to
take one to great heights, and to replace that potential with
consumerism insults the 30 years it takes to become a master, and
that is where the journey begins, unconscious competence (but it is
not unconscious, rather super-conscious)
So what has all this to do with Creative Commons? I would like to
see if it is relevant to a moment of real time different from any
other moment. Why would someone need a license to do something that
others can't? Or is this still just a part of someone trying to take
a piece of the pie out of what someone else does? So if we want to
share everything freely why worry if someone else uses it? Now I am
speculating that if we don't need to earn money, but rather live our
lives as we enjoy in a way that includes everyone else,
(interdependence) we can do what we enjoy, and have what we need
(note the word need rather than want) in a post oil society.
http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/01/12/02127.html
"The age of canned entertainment is coming to an end. It was fun for
a while. We liked “Citizen Kane” and the Beatles. But we’re going to
have to make our own music and our own drama down the road. We’re
going to need playhouses and live performance halls. We’re going to
need violin and banjo players and playwrights and scenery makers, and
singers. We’ll need theatre managers and stage-hands.
The Internet is not going to save canned entertainment. The Internet
will not work so well if the electricity is on the fritz half the
time (or more)."
Please feel free to disagree, I celebrate all comments and states of
mind. I will not be intimidated by anyone pretending to know more
that I (how could they know, equally how could I know what another
knows), for I have lived, experienced, achieved learned a lot, and am
keen to keep going. Also the chances that I know something that the
one disagreeing doesn't are quite high. I do not know that much about
CC, and am teasing it out in my own way.
Regards
Shakti
www.shakti.id.au
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