By way of introduction.....

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:44 pm

OK - I just viewed the archives!! There's over 6000 songs to listen to!!??!!
That's more than many a day will be lost in there Luke! I've got a long road ahead of me!
Cheers all.....

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 3:07 am

Yeah, Phillip, you may want to filter those a bit. Lots of onion makes a great stew, but not without lots of other stuff

I wish I could say "just listen to the winners" but that doesn't always work the way you'd expect. But at least you'd hit a much higher percentage of pretty good entries.

I hope the library has good speakers on their PCs! Enjoy. Welcome, again.

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 3:22 am

Hi Roymond,

Thanks for that. Maybe not every winner is a winner !! I think it was Elvis Presley who once said that he didn't know much about music, but that in his line of work, he didn't have to! I could be wrong....

I get a lot of energy just talking about music and the different ways other folk create it - so I'm looking forward to that, if these forums take in such discussions. I haven't had much of a chance to view what's what - I got wedged between five lines and four spaces writing a somng this weekend....

Anyway, thanks for the welcome again, and cheers to everyone out there!

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 3:23 am

What's the Horror of Yig???

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 1:28 pm

Phillip Wilcher wrote:What's the Horror of Yig???

Our incredibly creative Administrators here are freaks, lol. They have different titles for you as your post count increases. The Horror Of Yig is a song by GWAR.

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 3:38 pm

OK. I won't ask what GWAR is!! As soon as I get a chance, I'll explore the forums more and learn more.
Thanks for that!!

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 10:30 pm

GWAR is one of the best rock spectacles of all time and one of my favorite bands ever.

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:06 pm

Hmm - thanks. Somehow I can't see them singing one of my songs!! But then, you never know......nah!
They look a bit like an Acapulco version of Kiss!
Thanks for the sharing! Appreciate it!

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 2:54 pm

Hey, Luke....

Since you posted the photo of GWAR, I've been thinking about showmanship and how it can either add or take away from musicianship. The dualism of it, in a sense, but also the dualism sometimes inherent in the act of creation, especially where things can be consciously willed. By that I mean you don't have to be sad to write a sad piece of music, or happy or angry to write music depicting these emotions. In "classical" music, I don't think sorrow registers - why? Because I think sorrow becomes synonymous with beauty. There are the notions that Mozart had a divided personality, sometimes demonically possessed and also the theory that everything he did was possibly just enviornmental - he absorbed the world around him. I don't necessarily believe that one's work is one's biography. Again, emotions and ideas can be consciously willed. I wonder how other folk view what they do - is creativity a self growing obscurity from within by which we know ourselves that little bit more or more a sign of the times - a reflection of outside stimuli?? Do eras get the art they deserve?? Sometimes when I see/hear a performance which is "caked" in showmanship, I wonder what lies beneath - is what I'm seeing/hearing what really makes the person tick?

You might be interested in listening to Liszt's "Mephisto Waltz" - it's a dance with the devil. Also the Russian composer Scriabin wrote two subtle but disturbing pianos sonatas : "The White Mass" and "The Black Mass" and another piano piece called "Satanic Poem". Throughout history people have claimed to see flashes of light and colour listening to his music. I think from memory he identified himself with God.
The strength of these particular pieces of music comes from their subtlety - the "evil" is almost whispered into the ear! Anyway, I don't know what I'm saying here, really - and it's probably a bit weighty, but I'm intrigued by the reasons different things register with different people....I wonder what GWAR are like when they are not being GWAR?? Are you your music? Is anyone...??? And what about silence - that can be deafening and sometimes scary in itself : "the silence was deafening."

Best wishes....

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 3:17 pm

This is awesome, someone who really wants to discuss music not only on a technical level, but a philosophical one. On the subject of GWAR, I do think the spectacle IS the music, for better or worse. They even say that they pretty much put out albums as an excuse to do a new, bigger and badder tour.

As far as me being my music, and maybe this is a sign of my young age, I'm inseparable from my music. Even at my most abstract, I am autobiographical at all times. My happy songs were written when I was happy, my sad when I was sad, although they're blending more now into that wonderful all-encapsulating reflection of life, which is never purely one sensation. The evil and the beauty (here's hoping) in my music is always both from inside me and is a reflection of the world around me, as to me the two blur together. Not to be terribly existential about it, but I rarely see myself as an entity living independently of the world around me, but rather entangled in all of it.

I've been criticized for not being able to decide if I am a musician or an artist, and at first I didn't get it, but as music has become more an outlet for me than an expression I have realized what it means to be both. A musician plays music, and an artist lives it. For better or worse.

To quote one of my heroes, D. Boon from the Minutemen in the song "History Lesson Part II": "Our band could be your life."

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 3:23 pm

Luke - I'm going to live with your thoughts for a day or two before posting a reply - you have given me much to think about and I thank you for that!
For now, when September 11 happened, I virtually couldn't speak - like all I was numbed by it - I lost my voice. I found it again through writing a piece of music titled "One Tuesday In September" which has been singled out as my only ever "bitter" piece of music . Whether I consciously willed it, I do not know - I do know that like all times when I'm writing music, I'm not aware of the world around me - although everything around me seems to be heightened, acutely so. But leave your thoughts with me a while - can I get back to you about all this....??
Cheers/Fears/Tears to you.....

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 3:26 pm

Absolutely! Take all the time you need!

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 3:36 pm

I'm at work now, but just quickly, when you say you've been criticized for not being able to decide if you are a musician or an artist, I think perhaps the question is, are you an artist in your music?? The difference between music and art (in the sense of painting) is that music inhabits time and art inhabits space - they stand back to back. Music is the remembrance of things past and can be nostalgic, or it's a "memory" of the future, whatever that means!! But being an artist in your music has something to do with not settling for second best, the relentless shaping towards knowing thyself that little bit more etc etc....way leads on to way.
It was said of Leonardo da Vinci that in order to give to the world he had to divorce himself from it - it was a silvery sadness - but i understand this, the older I get, and I'm almost 50!!
I have to go now, but I'll definitely get back to you in a day or two.

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 3:55 pm

Luke, it always amazes me at how well you can understand your life and put it to words or terms. Not that you have the answers, no one does. But you are very good at seeing it, labeling it, and putting it on a shelf to help you deal with it. I unfortunately could never label my feelings or issues, so I instead bottle them up and hid them from sight. My only outlet has been music. I wouldn't call my music art, but I can whole heartedly call it therapy.

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:01 pm

I don't live music. My music is still art.

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:04 pm

Hi Billy's Little Trip,

If your outlet for your feelings and emotions is your music, then you aren't bottling them up and hiding them - and possibly you are adding to their growth in that for anyone who listens to what you have created, they then bring to your emotions their own to interpret it as they will. Does this make sense?? It's like when a pianist plays a piece of music written by another composer, they then bring to that composer's work the stamp of their own patina...I think

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:07 pm

Hi Eric,

Does your music help define you? Does it add to the defintion of you?
I don't know if I live my music either, or if my music lives me....horses for courses, I guess. I can consciously will things but then, once an emotion has been consciously willed, is that emotion then me - something that was lying dormant etc etc....

Cheers...

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:11 pm

What about the thought that are lives are art?? We may not live our music, sure, and our music is still art, yes - why? Because it's a reflection/approximation of the greatest art of all - humankind - if humans could only be kind! Crazy world.....

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:27 pm

Phillip Wilcher wrote:Hi Billy's Little Trip,

If your outlet for your feelings and emotions is your music, then you aren't bottling them up and hiding them - and possibly you are adding to their growth in that for anyone who listens to what you have created, they then bring to your emotions their own to interpret it as they will. Does this make sense?? It's like when a pianist plays a piece of music written by another composer, they then bring to that composer's work the stamp of their own patina...I think

That make sense to me. I should have said that I bottle up for many years before I started writing. Then when I found that my writing helped me to step back and understand myself a little better, I felt a little more comfortable in my skin. Soul searching maybe? But writing and making loud music was the only way that I seemed to be able to express myself and let it out.

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:42 pm

I'm a "classical" musician, whatever that means, so the writing of my music satisfies many imperatives - sometimes that imperative is a physical one in that my hands "tell" me they need to follow a certain path at the keyboard - often I feel my brain at work through my hands...other times not. What touches me about finding you folk through this forum ( as different an expression of self as it may be to what I do) is that there are so many folk out there, young and old, who are creating, and whatever the emotion behind the creation, the very fact that you are all doing it is a positive thing in this world which seems so geared towards negative outcome. I'm not preaching here and I hope it doesn't come across that way, but there is a lot of thought out there, particularly in our young people, which I find noble and I applaud that. I have to go now - I'm at work - but my brain is now wired for this discussion....but have you ever considered the absolute strength that can be departed just through a whisper. I'm thinking of that scene in the film "The Shawshank Redemption" where the prisoners in the yard hear for the first time a sound of a soprano singing (or was it a solo violin??) and mountains move for them.....sometime's things said loudly can be weakened through the loudness. Yes??

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:44 pm

These discussions can get a bit ahead of themselves. For instance, what's the difference between writing and exploring sounds as an expression of specific emotions-a desire to relate a particular feeling/message/emotion and exploring/composing sounds as a celebration of the sonic qualities themselves?

Is it that one is judged for its ability to communicate or evoke a specific response and the other for the joy ride? Will one always be judged as "higher" art? Is success for the sonic composition considered a pop hit and little more?

When I studied music over the centuries the stories about Hayden's Farewell Symphony resonated with the blueclass background I came from. But it didn't help overcome the fact that he still used the same themes and orchestrations as dozens of other pieces he pumped out in his patron's service. Fortunately he had a larger vocabulary than Vivaldi at least.

But should the motivation in our art be taken into acount when we present it? I think not. But it can't hurt.

Phillip Wilcher · Post by **Phillip Wilcher** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:52 pm

I like that Roymond - the exploration of sonic qualities! I guess it's all part and parcel - the exploration of a harmony, a texture, a sound...

Maybe too I write my music to keep people at a distance. There's a thought. Composers have identifiable fingerprints - like a voice - and I would think the way to learn to write music is to swallow your influences, imitate, and then when your own voice shines through, you've struck gold. Perhaps everything (even in all genres) is just a variation on a theme, that theme being this time called life. Who knows...

I'm hooked here now, but I'm at work - I really do have to leave for a while. Somehow I don't think my mind will be on my work though .... cheers! Thanks for the sharing. Still thinking about your thoughts Luke!