{"id":143,"date":"2009-05-20T13:07:06","date_gmt":"2009-05-20T13:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp\/?p=143"},"modified":"2009-05-20T13:07:06","modified_gmt":"2009-05-20T13:07:06","slug":"explain_yourself_sir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/2009\/05\/explain_yourself_sir\/","title":{"rendered":"Explain Yourself, Sir!"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

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So, the other day I was listening to a CD (not that unusual), and my attention kept drifting to the point that I’d forget it was even playing because it sounded to me like directionless sonic doodling. So I’d stop and start the track over, but I became increasingly hostile each time I had to hit repeat. Why would you write this down? I wished I had the composer on speed dial so I could make him tell me.<\/p>\n

Then I took a deep breath and got back in touch with reality. We can argue about whether it’s the composer’s responsibility to help me “get it” or not, but seriously, sometimes I think we could all use a What to Listen for in New Music<\/i> reference guide. Or at least I could. There are just those pieces that elude me like those magic 3-D posters they sell in mall kiosks. I’m sure I’m just missing something that’s waiting in the chaos to jump out and bite me, and I just wish someone would tell me what that was.<\/p>\n

At the Conference of World Affairs that I mentioned last month<\/a>, Roger Ebert does this thing called “Interruptus”. On the first day he screens a film in full for the audience, and then the next day they start playing it again from the beginning and whenever someone in the audience wishes, she just raises her hand and can stop the film. This year the film was Chop Shop<\/i> and the director, Ramin Bahran, was there on stage, as was the film critic Jim Emerson. As the scenes were reviewed, Bahran chatted about the challenges and goals of the project and how he did what he did and why–why he put the camera there, why he amped up the audio here, how he got that actor to make that face and those pigeons to fly that direction. Some of it was technical, some of it was quite esoteric. Emerson and the audience made comments and asked questions and everyone walked away with this deep understanding of the film and the the director, as well as a richer conception of the larger world of (well, at least indie) filmmaking in 2009. It was AMAZING!<\/p>\n

Would this kind of thing work with music? Is anyone already doing something like this? I like the concept because it neither dumbs down the art nor infantilizes the audience. In fact, it actually restarts the dialogue we supposedly blew up a few decades back, empowering the creator to take risks and the audience to question, poke, and grow alongside the artists and the art form. Anyone want to try?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, the other day I was listening to a CD (not that unusual), and my attention kept drifting to the point that I’d forget it was even playing because it sounded to me like directionless sonic doodling. So I’d stop and start the track over, but I became increasingly hostile each time I had to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}