Tell Me I'm Wrong About This

In my opinion...
Re: loudness
1: You made me feel old; my guitar amp stunted my hearing, but i was born in '71.
2. I think you want it louder because the venue is too large. Hearing acoustic music in enormous halls causes problems. Especially for chamber music, but sometimes for larger groups too... We are now accustomed to hearing chamber music in spaces that are way too big for the instrumentation.

Re: Play it again syndrome
I think "popular" (for lack of a better term) music works nicely on repeat. Short songs that you can listen to closely, or not, and still enjoy hold up well in many different contexts. However, "serious" (for lack of a better term) music makes you, the listener, work harder - and therefore functions differently. Subsequently, we consume this music differently - privately, and in social / public contexts.

just my two cents... and I don't think you're a fraud. You just consume this "new music" stuff differently, as one should (in my opinion). After all, if it functioned the same way for us as more popular forms of music, it would be more popular(!) and we wouldn't be doing all of this hand wringing about how to find an audience and how to market what we do, etc., etc.

1. Louder is only better if you are already deaf.
Many musicians have significant hearing loss, even if they are young.

2. more complex emotional states/ more difficult emotional trajectories are ones that take more psychic investment, and hence are less appealing to repeat over and over. Simple pleasures are more repeatable, whether we're talking sex, food, music, or drama.

I think the mp3 format and iPods have actually done more to desensitize people's hearing than any single amp.

I think repetition has more to do with ritual and one (or a group's) person's perception of time and space. Michael Veal's recent and (in my opinion) important book on Jamaican Dub music discusses repetition as a component not only to making music but to navigating your (and your culture's) past, present, and future. Listen to James Brown with these ears. Through speakers (not via an iPod).

P.S. What Zorn track are you playing? Have you heard "Pueblo" from his Filmworks CD? Zorn has said he'll put that track on at home on "repeat" for long periods of time...

Molly adds: I get that. In my own case (and probably for many others), the need for repetition usually comes out of a nostalgic need for the emotional state (not "my boyfriend left me" drama, but a more encompassing, total mindset package sort of thing) I associate with the music. And sometimes it's really not about the art but about the company in provides.

As for the Zorn, not sure what track was getting to him, but playing something every 30 days and it still getting a hot reaction like that--pretty intense.