The categorical dilemma.....The conditioned left brain...

[Mike]

I figured "It's all in the Mind' would be a suitable sub-forum....or category....

Why is jazz the operative term, as in free jazz?
If it's free then why label it into a specific? Then it's not a free music in spite of the sequences
and intervals expressed. They're just sequences and intervals.


If we're going to be free about it then sever the baggage that genres bring. Dadaism, for instance, is a reaction.
All music is a reaction in environment. In reaction brings category. In category brings parameters that are expected of it. Weird, iconoclastic, or non-traditional music, or esoteric in particular, is a categorized and labeled entity. It's specific no matter how way out the music is. It's expected! It's caught in a bubble.


How about we just play music and forget all about how we could tuck it away neatly in some obscure grouping where all the other music sits side by side squished together and can't breath? Well, how do we do that with the environmental conditioning thrust upon us? How do we transcend condition?


Music in it's essence is totally free no matter what it is we choose to do. The ambient sounds of nature that circumvent our surroundings are free as it gets. Is that music? In my opinion, yes it is if we're aware of it and understand it's importance in relation to honking on a saxophone. When the band stops music does not stop....Listen to the modulation. I get off on it all the time. it's a practice. The applause, or what have you, is a part of the overall scope. Too esoteric? Not at all because it's perpetual.
It merely modulates into dissonance. When we actually play music through our free will we're merely injecting a modulation into the already circumvented sound momentarily. We contribute to it ephemerally. We are, by no means, isolated from it. It's all part of the same element.


Isn't that what free jazz or esoteric music gravitates to? The organic nature of sound? The rebellion so to speak, if so? Where does this inherent impulse come from?
What we do within that circumvention, as in our own personal contribution in sound, is just as free. The category reference collapses that freedom because of the literature denoting it's destination. It becomes pigeon holed because of a needed accessibility in finding what we want, which is a desire. Desire is an attachment. Attachment is not free. it's a vicious circle.


Free music now! Free Jazz now! Open the window and let all category and reference fly out the window. Let it all just mingle amongst itself in a non-prejudicial way where it all becomes one with itself, which is exactly where it really is...........


But if we do that then no one will find us? Or, we won't find them! Them and us........The most profound illusion I can think of.


There is no them, there is no us......There is only consciousness, or more suited, quantum consciousness, which plays it's game under the guise of category which each of us are. Each of us are in our own category. That's not free and so if we're not free then any music we choose to play isn't free either.

What to do....what to do.....


I figured some free thinking couldn't hurt....But in essence it's not as free as we may or may not imagine.
It's still conditioned upon...................

 

[Jamesmac]

I figured "It's all in the Mind' would be a suitable sub-forum....or category....

Why is jazz the operative term, as in free jazz?
If it's free then why label it into a specific? Then it's not a free music in spite of the sequences
and intervals expressed. They're just sequences and intervals.


If we're going to be free about it then sever the baggage that genres bring. Dadaism, for instance, is a reaction.
All music is a reaction in environment. In reaction brings category. In category brings parameters that are expected of it. Weird, iconoclastic, or non-traditional music, or esoteric in particular, is a categorized and labeled entity. It's specific no matter how way out the music is. It's expected! It's caught in a bubble.


How about we just play music and forget all about how we could tuck it away neatly in some obscure grouping where all the other music sits side by side squished together and can't breath? Well, how do we do that with the environmental conditioning thrust upon us? How do we transcend condition?


Music in it's essence is totally free no matter what it is we choose to do. The ambient sounds of nature that circumvent our surroundings are free as it gets. Is that music? In my opinion, yes it is if we're aware of it and understand it's importance in relation to honking on a saxophone. When the band stops music does not stop....Listen to the modulation. I get off on it all the time. it's a practice. The applause, or what have you, is a part of the overall scope. Too esoteric? Not at all because it's perpetual.
It merely modulates into dissonance. When we actually play music through our free will we're merely injecting a modulation into the already circumvented sound momentarily. We contribute to it ephemerally. We are, by no means, isolated from it. It's all part of the same element.


Isn't that what free jazz or esoteric music gravitates to? The organic nature of sound? The rebellion so to speak, if so? Where does this inherent impulse come from?
What we do within that circumvention, as in our own personal contribution in sound, is just as free. The category reference collapses that freedom because of the literature denoting it's destination. It becomes pigeon holed because of a needed accessibility in finding what we want, which is a desire. Desire is an attachment. Attachment is not free. it's a vicious circle.


Free music now! Free Jazz now! Open the window and let all category and reference fly out the window. Let it all just mingle amongst itself in a non-prejudicial way where it all becomes one with itself, which is exactly where it really is...........


But if we do that then no one will find us? Or, we won't find them! Them and us........The most profound illusion I can think of.


There is no them, there is no us......There is only consciousness, or more suited, quantum consciousness, which plays it's game under the guise of category which each of us are. Each of us are in our own category. That's not free and so if we're not free then any music we choose to play isn't free either.

What to do....what to do.....


I figured some free thinking couldn't hurt....But in essence it's not as free as we may or may not imagine.
It's still conditioned upon...................

Hi Mike
what you say is true, but does it matter if we can go over something and analyse it. Possibly we need to do that to trigger certain emotional responses, which is what people generally use music for. As a player we can play what we like, will people understand it. Messian used to listen to bird song and write it down. But then he needed to interpret it for instruments and players that could play it.🙂

 

[Mike]

Hi Mike
what you say is true, but does it matter if we can go over something and analyse it. Possibly we need to do that to trigger certain emotional responses, which is what people generally use music for. As a player we can play what we like, will people understand it. Messian used to listen to bird song and write it down. But then he needed to interpret it for instruments and players that could play it.🙂

Nah, apparently it matters not, Jim.
I'll give you a for instance in my own application. As you know I never play heads. I don't see a point
in doing that because it would have nothing to do with the music I'm improvising. Jazz is about improvisation and so I get right to it. When I listen recreationally, I usually fast forward to the improv. That's just my way of thinking of course. Chris's work I treat as a 'field' Sort of like an Akashic field. An all informational membrane. Unfortunately, I'm using words to describe this. When I improv I'm providing information that is coming out of that field in which I try to avoid harmonic reasoning. I avoid harmonic dictation and apply my own thoughts to this field (Chris's work). It's all around us in this perceived emptiness.

So, I have no traditional entry point and no traditional exit. I merely combine with the ambient sounds of nature and make my place ephemerally. This field I speak of is all around us and we gain information from it and operate through it and around it. We are actually this field in a metaphysical text. The harmonics of it are without any particular destination or niche. It all works precisely and legitimately without regard of the over-current that we all hear. I'm merely an analogy of this whole process. That's the only way I can approach music today. It's labeled for obvious reasons but jazz has absolutely nothing to do with it.


How we trigger certain emotional responses is an individual thing based on our nervous system. But the nervous system is actuated by consciousness. My whole approach to music is field and consciousness so i don't see playing themes or heads pertinent for me. I'm just [pragmatic about the whole thing. it's personal.


Unfortunately, jazz is a term that is synonymous with improvisation. it's labeled and it cannot escape that label. But it's perfectly fine if it remains there. The conditioning of our minds have adapted to that logic. It works because in a physical identification we have category that help us decide. Decision is a desire and it's attached. It's all about duality. Hot/cold....Good/bad...etc....Essentially those are just products adapted by mind to adapt into three dimensions.

 

[kernewegor]

Since I was old enough to use a corkscrew and when I wished and was capable of articulating on such matters I used to use the expression "free form" which must have been current - at least in the circles in which I moved (often small ones, usually ever-decreasing).

Wikipedia seems to be unaware of this term. We were clearly a select few.

It is not necessary to add "jazz".

Who else but jazz musicians would improvise without boundaries?

 

[kevgermany]

I believe it's impossible to escape from compartmentalising music - for without descriptions that are broadly understood, we have no way of discussing or describing it. Or, in fact, knowing whether or not it's likely to be of interest - or being able to explore further the works of other musicians along a form that interests us. We mustn't mix rules and descriptions, any more than we should - in free forms of music, impose limitations.

I'm all for freedom. But I want to be able to discuss it in a common language that others understand.

 

[Nick Wyver]

Who else but jazz musicians would improvise without boundaries?

Rock musicians? But I guess some would say they were playing jazz.

"Classical" ones - there were, maybe still are, some composers in the sixties that required it of the performers.

I've even heard a few folkies going totally bananas. Actually, now I come to think of it, I've got some bagpipe music which is really quite way out there. Erwan Keravec springs to mind.

 

[Mike]

Since I was old enough to use a corkscrew and when I wished and was capable of articulating on such matters I used to use the expression "free form" which must have been current - at least in the circles in which I moved (often small ones, usually ever-decreasing).

Wikipedia seems to be unaware of this term. We were clearly a select few.

It is not necessary to add "jazz".

Who else but jazz musicians would improvise without boundaries?

Free form is definitely a suitable term. I'm okay with it. The issue I present is that terminology is forced into category because of conditioned positioning for it. Free form has to fit somewhere. It can't just float out in space untouched. The 'word' is forced to define the 'music'. That's not a good parallel in definition. Words never do the approach to music any justice.


Category is fine. I'm merely speculating that 'location' has everything to do with prejudice and preconception, and it's becoming more and more complicated. Actually it matters not which genre improvises. There never have been borders placed. They are constructs of the ego and so we imagine them to be there and we've programmed ourselves that they exist when in fact there's nothing there to stop anything. The 'outside' thing is just an example
of defining this erroneous depiction of border. There is no outside, nor inside. It all exists on it's own.
Our conditioning is based on what we hear and how we choose to define it.
Our thinking is outside or inside but the music just is.
Jazz is an awful word, in my opinion. It's like saying I'm Caucasian. My consciousness has no color. Nor does anyone else. Because of my pigment, which really has nothing intrinsic to do with my consciousness, I'm place neatly in a category because my color is not black, or any other shade. What about the consciousness creating the color?

 

[Mike]

I believe it's impossible to escape from compartmentalising music - for without descriptions that are broadly understood, we have no way of discussing or describing it. Or, in fact, knowing whether or not it's likely to be of interest - or being able to explore further the works of other musicians along a form that interests us. We mustn't mix rules and descriptions, any more than we should - in free forms of music, impose limitations.

I'm all for freedom. But I want to be able to discuss it in a common language that others understand.

Yeah, your're probably right, in a societal setting. How does one de-condition oneself? We would have to escape society and re-examine our potential. The potential is always there...Always!
Potential energy is always ready to manifest.
Once we de-condition ourself, then what we do is to re-condition ourself in another way that is not societally connected. Condition will always be present because of environment, however.
Not a very ideal thing to do, but the option remains.


Discussing and describing it is what creates category which manifest as desire. Desire is attachment. That's not free.
And so we cannot operate in a free concept unless we too are free. To be free of category would be to be free of likes and dislikes. Like and dislike operates under duality. Duality operates under illusion.
But we're mired in illusion and so we operate within that illusion and must place order where order has no business being. The brain is not comfortable with unresolve. To define position, is a product of egoity. The ego's main function is to indentify, either the self, or the external part of the self, it's environment.


We take something like sound and try to do it justice by using a very limited form of communication, which is words. It may appear to be suitable, and for now it is, but language is the main reason for misinformation. Everything contains information. There is always correct information. But there is high potential for misinformation to be gained because of an inability to properly access information.


When music, or sound, is played or performed. That's a high detail of information presented. Is it a universal form of information? Does it have one intrinsic meaning? Is this information coded and could we analyze it and decode it? It's pretty extensive in what it really is. Frequency/vibration/oscillation
all happening from where? What put it in place to begin with? Or was it always there? Now, how could we determine it's function with words? I beleive it to be ineffable, as in words cannot possibly explain it in a phsycial realm when the reality may be that we're manipulating something of a non-physical orgin.


It matters not what the music is because like a magnet it will be assigned a a position. Even the sounds of nature have no laternative then to be assigned placement.
Trying to escape the pitfalls of destination is futile. It's become a law of nature just like water having to freeze at 32 degreesF. But those are physical laws........That's the dilemma.

 

[kernewegor]

Rock musicians? But I guess some would say they were playing jazz.

"Classical" ones - there were, maybe still are, some composers in the sixties that required it of the performers.

I've even heard a few folkies going totally bananas. Actually, now I come to think of it, I've got some bagpipe music which is really quite way out there. Erwan Keravec springs to mind.

My rhetorical statement re boundaries
Did not apply to musicians whose sound varies
Far from what is the norm
Though less than free form
Definitions are such a great brain tease.