• FAQ  • Search  • Memberlist  • Usergroups   • Register   • Profile  • Log in to check your private messages  • Log in 

Rap isn't "music"... But could it help repopulariz


Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    trumpetherald.com Forum Index -> Jazz/Commercial
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Crazy Finn
Heavyweight Member


Joined: 27 Dec 2001
Posts: 8331
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota

PostPosted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 2:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm surprised that I didn't weigh in on this back in the day.

Anyway, I have no appetite for rap but even I wouldn't say it's "not music."

I do remember some thread were I did say that being a DJ wasn't the same as being a musician and surprisingly got a fair amount of pushback. But, whatever.
_________________
LA Benge 3X Bb Trumpet
Selmer Radial Bb Trumpet
Yamaha 6335S Bb Trumpet
Besson 709 Bb Trumpet
Bach 184L Bb Cornet
Yamaha 731 Bb Flugelhorn
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Didymus
Veteran Member


Joined: 19 Dec 2017
Posts: 306
Location: Minneapolis, MN

PostPosted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:26 am    Post subject: Rap, tradition, creativity. Reply with quote

Crazy Finn wrote:
I'm surprised that I didn't weigh in on this back in the day.

Anyway, I have no appetite for rap but even I wouldn't say it's "not music."

I do remember some thread were I did say that being a DJ wasn't the same as being a musician and surprisingly got a fair amount of pushback. But, whatever.


I dislike most hip-hop, but every so often I will dust off my thirty-year-old CDs of Arrested Development.

Had I responded to this thread when it was still "alive" I likely would have opined that rap began its life as the late twentieth century's contribution to the tradition of musical spoken word.

Every culture seems to have its own tradition of musical spoken words, or spoken prose & poetry, set to rhythm and music. Europeans had the troubadours, for example, and you can even get recordings of historically-informed music groups recreating it as best they can.

One thing I noticed about musical spoken words is that it's almost always low-to-mid brow whenever it shows up. It's often an expression of the culture at large and from the mouths of those concerned with navigating the challenges of everyday life. The subject of most hip-hop lyrics may not appeal to many, but much of it is a reflection of what the audience sometimes experiences on a daily basis. It's telling the stories of the common man, with some hyperbole and exaggeration thrown in to emphasize the point. It will have that appeal to its listeners, and thus always beat the more "music for music's sake" for their attention.

I don't think that people danced to most spoken-word. But at a certain point, and quickly after its "invention", some rap also became danceable. After that, it was game over for any critic who wanted to put it in a different category than music. Its listeners simply accepted it as part of the musical fabric they were used to. It became music to them. It is music. Maybe they'll still say that Gil Scott-Heron is spoken word and thus a different genre which uses music, but they'll call his hip-hop artistic descendants musicians, and their creation, music.

Concerning the argument about DJs, especially hip-hop DJs, it takes a considerable amount of taste, skill, and musical knowledge to be a good DJ. You're like an improvising recording producer rolling out his product only seconds before the audience gets to hear it. The difference is you're working with other people's recordings instead of something you organized on your own. But what comes out of the speakers of your rig better get people on the dance floor and having a good time. You don't get to huddle in the studio with the musicians and other producers for hours or days at a time to figure out how to make it compelling. You have to figure it out right there, right there on the spot. That takes its own type of talent, IMO, a talent very similar to what the better improvising musicians have.
_________________
Enjoy the journey.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Croquethed
Heavyweight Member


Joined: 19 Dec 2013
Posts: 609
Location: Oakville, CT

PostPosted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 7:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

No one in contemporary society has made more money for her good taste than Martha Stewart.

And she and Snoop Dogg seem to get along just fine.

The people rest, your honor.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
sd4f
Veteran Member


Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 102
Location: Australia

PostPosted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 7:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Crazy Finn wrote:
I do remember some thread were I did say that being a DJ wasn't the same as being a musician and surprisingly got a fair amount of pushback. But, whatever.


I would tend to agree, while there are some DJ's who do push the skill, and try to make an artform out of it, in general, I think the simple fact that they're using pre-recorded music, puts it in a different category.

As for rap, whatever floats your boat. I've listened to some of it, but in general I'd say it's mostly commercialised music for mass consumption, and mass earning, which doesn't particularly interest me.

It's funny because a genre that has kind of sprung up, and seen popularity particularly during the pandemic lock-downs, is chill-hop, that is a style of music which usually gets used in rap, without the rapping. I actually have enjoyed listening to some of that a lot, by the name, it is intended to be really chill, and music you can relax to.

The internet today, I think has severely fragmented music, and it shows by how much clout recording companies have lost. For the most part, they can't dictate what people want to listen to, not like they once did, and never before has it been easier and cheaper, to produce and distribute whatever you want. Sure you mightn't be able to get absolutely everything at little to no cost, but enough bedroom recordings are coming out, that it has gained attention.

As to the letter posted at the start between Herbert Clarke and Elden Benge, I wanted to respond to that (so going slightly off-topic) as it sure is quite a funny read, but I'd say that in general, that's a glimpse into human nature; people tend to get set in their ways, and music has certainly been like that at times.

For instance, we look at the trumpet now as a versatile chromatic instrument, but due to its historical use in royal courts and ecclesiastical services, trumpeters had their set repertoire, which had no need for valves, and it's my understanding that the trumpet guilds were loathe to change, when workable valves appeared, producing the cornet.

For what it's worth, trumpet and cornet sounds aren't that different, as in it's easy to mix up the two, so I'd say it's subtle, to say the least. What tends to annoy me far more today is looking back at how much serious music was done on completely foreign instruments, chiefly among that is playing baroque music on pianos. Harpsichords and pianos sound nothing like each other, and it really shows. With more and more historically informed performance of baroque repertoire, I generally can't take any baroque music played on a piano seriously.

This ties in to the topic in the following way; music gets written for the instruments that the composer has written for, or more so today, the technology that is available. Even though synthesizers have been around for a while, even stuff like streaming and tik-tok have changed music, as the commercial components to music overshadow pure artistic pursuit. My perception that the embodiment of that is basically making a catchy 4 to 16 bar melody, and repeating it until the listeners face melts off, for about 2-3 minutes at most.

Us instrumentalists are generally going to have it tough for the future, because while we tend to yearn for a defined setup, be it orchestras, any kind of band, or ensemble, we're all competing for a piece of the soundscape, and todays music just reflects that there's a whole new world of sounds and technology.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mafields627
Heavyweight Member


Joined: 09 Nov 2001
Posts: 3774
Location: AL

PostPosted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 11:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not a rap fan mainly because of the profanity and culture it promotes. But then something like Hamilton comes along and blows me away. In a way rap is just modern recitative.
_________________
--Matt--

No representation is made that the quality of this post is greater than the quality of that of any other poster. Oh, and get a teacher!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Subtropical and Subpar
Heavyweight Member


Joined: 22 May 2020
Posts: 615
Location: Here and there

PostPosted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 11:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just because I see a few commenters say things along these lines: rap is not a monoculture. Rap music, like modern jazz, exists all over the world, and is performed by people all over the world. Heck, India's entry to the Oscars for best foreign picture a few years back was about street rappers in Delhi. It was called Gully Boy.

So for those people who don't like "the culture" of rap, well, that is akin to saying you don't like ANY jazz because you don't like New Orleans music, or you don't like ANY classical music because you don't like Schoenberg.

This thread has an unfortunate feel of "Miles stopped playing jazz after his Second Quintet" to it.
_________________
1936 King Liberty No. 2
1958 Reynolds Contempora 44-M "Renascence" C
1958 Olds Ambassador
1962 Reynolds Argenta LB
1965 Conn Connstellation 38A cornet
1995 Bach LR18072
2003 Kanstul 991
2011 Schilke P5-4 B/G
2021 Manchester Brass flugel
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
GizB
Veteran Member


Joined: 11 Jan 2005
Posts: 198

PostPosted: Thu Feb 02, 2023 7:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sturgeon's Law is in effect. At a science fiction convention, sf writer Theodore Sturgeon famously said, "Ninety-percent of science fiction is crap. But then, 90% of everything is crap."

That said, there is some rap and hip-hop which I really enjoy. Is it music? Who cares?! I still like it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
kehaulani
Heavyweight Member


Joined: 23 Mar 2003
Posts: 8965
Location: Hawai`i - Texas

PostPosted: Thu Feb 02, 2023 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's right.

I've mentioned it before, but I was a Composer-in-Residence member of a national board on a project by the Ford Foundation and the Contemporary Music Project to, among things, to define the meaning of "music" and the implementation of its expression in musical performance.

We subsequently published three volumes by Harper&Rowe on music curriculum.

After a year's research and philosophizing, we could not come up with an air-tight definition of what is "music" and what is the difference between good and bad. And there were experienced, talented people. And we got in-person, outside views from people like Roy Harris, Alberto Ginestara etc.

What was the question?
_________________
"If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird

Yamaha 8310Z Bobby Shew trumpet
Benge 3X Trumpet
Getzen Capri Cornet
Adams F-1 Flghn
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Didymus
Veteran Member


Joined: 19 Dec 2017
Posts: 306
Location: Minneapolis, MN

PostPosted: Thu Feb 02, 2023 10:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

kehaulani wrote:
That's right.

(.......)

What was the question?


Can rap repopularize jazz?
_________________
Enjoy the journey.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
kehaulani
Heavyweight Member


Joined: 23 Mar 2003
Posts: 8965
Location: Hawai`i - Texas

PostPosted: Thu Feb 02, 2023 12:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



I can see Maria Schneider doing a Snoop Dog impression right now.
_________________
"If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird

Yamaha 8310Z Bobby Shew trumpet
Benge 3X Trumpet
Getzen Capri Cornet
Adams F-1 Flghn
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
wohlrab
Veteran Member


Joined: 30 Mar 2015
Posts: 131
Location: California

PostPosted: Thu Feb 02, 2023 12:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rap is music.

Jazz is Black American music just like rap. You don't have to like it all, but dismissing the genre, at least from my perspective, doesn't really support the culture. Again you don't have to like it, but if you support the cultural significance of jazz, rap is just as relevant
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    trumpetherald.com Forum Index -> Jazz/Commercial All times are GMT - 8 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4
Page 4 of 4

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group