Draw Me a Picture

My liberal arts education began, strangely enough, with a book that explored why stereotyping was necessary and good. The author's point (sorry--for the life of me I cannot remember his name or the title of the text) was not to encourage the blanket hatred of groups of people or the dismissal of new thoughts and ideas, but rather to suggest that without stereotypes, it would be impossible to function. Sure, we need to remain open to contradictions in our personally formed stereotypes and amenable to modifications, but if we didn't have them in the first place and instead had to think through every interaction we had from the beginning, we'd probably find it impossible to locate the car keys and leave the house.
I've been thinking a lot about what the identifying "new music" stereotypes are, and some of you have been leaving comments with similar thoughts and questions. If we're not cool like the jazzers, not hip like the indie rockers, and not formal like mainstream classical musicians, what are we? As a genre, it seems we are uncomfortable, or at least not cohesive. We cannot be recognized as a group for who we are musically by the presentation of our concerts or the slant of our cowboy hats. It's easy to see how this freedom is liberating. But is it also paralyzing and, to some extent, a little lonely--each new ensemble and collective trying to make it up fresh for themselves?
Instead of borrowing identifiers from our neighboring genres, which often fit us poorly, I'm curious: If you were passed the magic scepter and told you could dictate, how would you want new music to be stereotyped? Of course that's not how it works. A stereotype is an average--and a popularity contest (for better and worse). But if the music itself has no common practice, can (or should) the presentation and the performers have some semblance of one anyway? Instead of glancing left and right at what the other kids are doing, what tailored-to-fit features could we make distinctly (and comfortably) our own?
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