pynchon-l-digest V2 #1917

[Phil Wise]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Millison" <DMillison at ftmg.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 4:26 AM
Subject: RE: pynchon-l-digest V2 #1917


> CyrusGeo:
> Intriguing... In what way is that so? As I gather from your other posts,
you
> don't hold rappers in high esteem. Do you have the same opinion about
> medieval troubadours? Personally, I find absolutely nothing in common
> between the two. After all, troubadours were practitioners of an art that
> goes way back to the time of Homer (at least...).
>
> Storytellers traveling from place to place, telling their stories to
musical
> accompaniment -- that's how "those medieval troubadours *might
conceiveably*
> be considered *something like* today's rappers," and in a line stretching
> back to Homer. Many differences to discuss among their respective cultural
> contexts, of course.
>
> It's more accurate to say that I don't hold many commercial record
producers
> in high esteem, although I do respond to music in many genres, including
> some rap music and also including some commercial music.
>
> Re a point made in a later post, I wonder if the years of training
required
> to master a musical instrument and play jazz can really be compared to
> learning how to use the recording equipment that creates the accompaniment
> for rap. Having said that, I realize that untutored musicians can create
> transcendant musical experiences with only the most rudimentary tools,
> assuming they've got the creative ability and insight.  Very few
musicians,
> in any genre, have this ability, in my opinion,

Just as Jazz (esp post bebop) requires a certain level of technical
accomplishment for the whole thing to work, the rock-based genres (under
which I'm happy to include everything from Country to Hip Hop - everything
that owes Chuck Berry's rhythm, in other words) redefine the idea of
technical accomplishment.  Okay, I'll amend that, because the secret of
great rock is the rhythm section, from which all other things follow, and
the drummer and bassist and rhythm guitar must have chops.  But they also
have to have something usually called "soul" which can transcend technique
(Pynchon understands this dynamic: check out the way the Bach he describes
toward the end of Vineland is reproduced totally mechanically, and yet is a
positive because it has soul).  That's why punk rock, say, is really easy to
play, but really great punk rock is pretty rare.  (I don't know where Billy
Barf or Fascist Toejam fit in, though).

>
> Pynchon resolves the high brow/low brow distinctions quite neatly by
> including a broad spectrum across musical and other media genres that he
> treats in his fiction. Didn't some critics find Vineland unsuccessful
> precisely because of its focus on pop media, compared to their perception
of
> a relatively larger proportion of high art content of GR?

Joseph Tabbi in The Vineland Papers, for instance.  Vineland criticism's
often interesting to read from my perspective because of the way
professional critics fail to come to grips with what lovers of popular music
know, and I really believe Pynchon is a lover of popular music.  (Thanks to
mike j for reminding me of the 13th Floor Elevators thing for Larroquette).
There's a really interesting paper if not book in the subject of Pynchon and
popular music.

Phil

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