On Wed, 2012-08-01 at 09:42 +0200, Thijs van severen wrote: It always was and still is the same. An older generation doesn't like the art of the new generation. When the idiots didn't understand that a comic has pictures + words to tell a story, the teachers just read out the text of mainstream comics to ridicule all comics. First mistake, a comic isn't based on words only, second mistake, for all popular arts, comics, music etc., there's more than just the mainstream. I wonder if they have their own semantics for "pop music". Regards, Ralf (45 years old ;)

On Mon, 2012-08-06 at 01:43 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote: No, I don't know "Commando" and after gooleing and watching all that Schwarzenegger pics I'm sure I don't know "those war type comics". Comics are no replacements for carpets, bottles and automobiles. Comics don't replace anything, they once upon a time were something new and never intended as a replacement for something, especially not for books, since comics are books too. English isn't the native spoken language all over the world, but the international language, so English has got many foreign influences. However, "Study Finds New Pop Music Does All Sound the Same". Chart music nearly does sound equal, because the customers want it that way. If you need shoes size 12, you won't go to a shoemaker claiming that everybody wants shoes of that size, so he won't sell this size anymore. The comparison of chord usage etc. between old and modern pop music is insane. The niveau of music has less to do with physical artistic and theory. I'm not watching Olympics, but playing complicated scale combinations very fast to complicated music theory harmonies IMO belongs to the Olympics. Some modern pop music became simpler, but that's a far cry from saying that the niveau today is lower. People should listen to music with their hearts (not with their brains (or dicks)). And we are free to listen to more than just 10 heavy rotation songs in the media. We are free to listen to a mix of old and new music that is composed and arranged in a style we do like. There is no averaged pop music. Especially today where we've got more and more different peer groups, there's more and more independent music. Watch the kids on YouTube, they play old music very good. They listen to old music, play old music, but they also listen to modern music and compose and arrange modern music. But yes, they often use an original Mellotron, pay analog studios to record their music etc., instead of e.g. using Linux, Microsoft, Apple for audio ;). Some people made another study :D. Regards, Ralf

On Mon, 2012-08-06 at 04:43 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote: That's the point and I already answered it. I'll repeat it more detailed. Most people paying for listening to music aren't musicians theirselfes. They neither are that (self-)educated that they need (or even are able to listen) to more complex music. Mass media have the order to sell, they don't have the order to educate, that's why we have idiotic chart music and heavy rotation of the top 10. But popular pop music isn't just what is played by mass media, even the pop mainstream is more varied. Regards, Ralf

On 08/05/2012 03:42 PM, Simon Wise wrote: I think another big impact of the advent of recorded music is that seemingly-perfect "performances" can now be heard. Is the singer in the studio slightly-off pitch, or ends a phrase not quite right? No problem - rerecord that pitch or phrase! Everyone involved can record and re-record until they've achieved technical perfection. Then it's released *as if it were a single "perfect" performance*. Hearing such technical perfection can have a very daunting effect on someone who can sing but doesn't consider themselves a musician. "I can't be that good, so I just won't bother anymore." In pre-recording days, you might have heard about a "perfect" performance, but you didn't actually hear it unless you were there at the performance. So it didn't really impact you the same way. To me, the negative result of widespread recorded music is to discourage others from making music and turn them into the good little consumers that today's music industry wants. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community http://clanjones.org/david/ http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/

On 08/05/2012 08:21 PM, Louigi Verona wrote: I didn't say it was either necessary or most common. It does depend on the person doing the hearing. But I remember many people whose response to singing or playing an instrument is, "Oh, I can't play like that," so they won't even try. Of course, this is compounded by the way at least the American education used to put a lot of effort into discouraging students from singing or playing music ... -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community http://clanjones.org/david/ http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/

On Mon, 06 Aug 2012 08:32:41 +0200, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote: *chuckle* As I explained in my previous mails, discouraging children to become creative already starts on German elementary schools. They teach them to use the left brain, instead of the right brain and they don't shy away from teaching dyslexics how to read by that ugly left brain thinking too. I wonder that they don't beat left-handers anymore. I suspect they don't understand what already seems to be known since the 80s, about how the brain seems to work. They have tons of affirmative action to teach the children arts, to teach dyslexics reading etc., but this seldom is done by artists, experts, it's done by social workers who miss to join their own psychotherapy. Regards, Ralf

On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:44 AM, Charles Henry &lt;czhenry(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: most kids aren't interested in <anything> unless <anything> happens to one of the powerful, salient motivators of human and primate and mammalian life for hundreds of thousands of years. as worthy and fabulous and simply magnificent as music can be, performing it just isn't one of those things for the vast majority of people.

Seemingly not all mails came through. On Mon, 2012-08-06 at 09:29 -1000, david wrote: You're mistaken, but it's not important, if I'm right or wrong, regarding to this. We have good research in Germany too, "good research" has nothing to do with German state schools. More than 30 years back school was a torture for me, today I experienced that children in elementary schools, who are not "averaged" are tortured in the same way, as they tortured people around 30 years ago. School is for "averaged" humans, somebody once has written: "Most people don't fit to the most people category." Btw. the knowledge we've got today about the way the brain works, in the "mass media age" becomes more and more important. When I was young I was a freak, because I'm thinking non-verbal, today "most kids ;D" do think non-verbal, since mass media are based on pictures. Most of the self-discovery of children is based on music. They don't dare to make music, because they got the impression, that they are to stupid, since everybody rant about 4 to the flour. We were more reckless than the kids are today, but this has to do with the different social situations we're living in today. "The kids are alright." Children love to be noisy. +1 +½ Teachers with the gift to teach often tend to quid the job very soon, because of disputes with the staff and school administration, those who don't quit often become seriously ill. At least on German state schools are not many teachers who love to teach and know how o teach. At the last elementary school where I cared for children, I ask who was the teacher who made that good drawings with the children, there were some outstanding pictures in a landing. The answer was, that it wasn't a teacher from the school. +1 And those children who are "touched by the gods", are not allowed to be "touched by the gods". Even this is a crime. They start to teach kindergarten children Chinese, to enable them a better live as a businessmen ;). Preliminary planning is everything, somebody has to work for the next pensioners. Children have got no time to be children, this is something we should expect for the so called Third World or the dark age, but not for western societies.

On Mon, 2012-08-06 at 18:53 -1000, david wrote: Strange, since in Germany it's not allowed and not possible by any trick to rescue your children from visiting a school, so some Germans emigrate to the USA, where it's allowed, or at least possible. Perhaps similar school systems, but different laws.

I was quite surprised to read this, with Germany being the birth-place of the Steiner/Waldorf education system, which VERY much goes against the sentiments expressed in this thread. Is it not correct that Waldorf Schools in Germany have full state funding/backing? I don't know why but I always believed this to be the case. I know there are some countries in Europe which do give funding for any "alternative" schooling. The one I attended in the UK has become the first to gain Academy Status and thus some kind of recognition by the State but I'm yet to know whether I believe this to be a good or bad thing. I went to the first ever Waldorf School in my final year (15-16 years of age) and I was quite blown away by the facilities and what the students achieve there! Every child had built typically either a guitar or violin in word-working classes by I think it was age 14 (might have been 12.) The child I stayed with had built a boat we went sailing in! Quite amazing really!! " In early childhood learning is largely experiential, imitative and sensory-based. The education emphasizes learning through practical activities.During the elementary school years (age 7–14), learning is artistic and imaginative, and is guided and stimulated by the creative authority of teachers. In these years, the approach emphasizes developing children's emotional life and artistic expression across a wide variety of performing and visual arts.During adolescence (age 14-19), the emphasis is on developing intellectual understanding and ethical ideals such as social responsibility to meet the developing capacity for abstract thought and conceptual judgement." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_School I will most definitely seriously consider sending my children to one when I have them and I would suggest anybody who is disenfranchised with the State education systems provided by their country of residence have a look into them and similar schools where they live. Regards, Dale.

On Sun, 2012-08-12 at 20:41 +0000, Fons Adriaensen wrote: In this case I suspect you aren't talking about the OP of this thread, but me, regarding to the school system. That's ok, but you shouldn't blame the wrong person. Sorry, you just blame yourself, the right person. :p Ralf

On Sun, 2012-08-12 at 20:41 +0000, Fons Adriaensen wrote: "Children from poor immigrant or working-class families are less likely to succeed in school than children from middle- or upper-class backgrounds. This disadvantage for the financially challenged of Germany is greater than in any other industrialized nation.[41] However, the true reasons stretch beyond economic ones. The poor also tend to be less educated. After allowing for parental education, money does not play a major role in children's academic outcomes.[42][43]" Blalbla - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany So the spoiled kid from Parma (not really Germany) does know more than people working in Germany *chuckle*. German education is for the spoiled only. That's simply a fact. Regards, Ralf

On Sun, 2012-08-12 at 23:47 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote: I'm really angry. The Ruhrgebiet is an area of pure people. However, we've got different "catchment area" for schools here. I worked at a school in an catchment area with socially disadvantaged children and in an catchment area with well-posed children. Most of the money (most, most, most ...) from the state went to the school at the catchment area with well-posed children, while the well-posed children are a minority. Most children in the Ruhrgebiet are below the poverty line. Fon's you're allowed to hate me, I don't care, but are you that arrogant that you hate all those children? What's wrong with you?

This is the same in the UK (well always has been historically. As I mentioned my old school now has Academy Status (if I remember the name right) which is a fairly new government initiative I admit I don't know enough about. Yet to see if it improves the school or affects it to much in the wrong way.) Maybe it's more they're recognised over there, as here many don't offer much in the way of qualifications (GCSEs) and thus applying to a college which doesn't know about the system can be hard. Not so detrimental as we're talking A levels, rather than university, but it does sometimes seem weird saying you only did 3 GSCEs where I believe most people do more than 10 or something... I don't fel it ever affected me negatively with getting on with life though, either professionally or personally. In fact there definitely are a lot of positives! Although the quoted price of schooling at one here is at the level of most private schools (a lot of money) they also offer many incentives, giving reductions for people donating their time as volunteers and I believe also some level of means testing if you're accepted. There was definitely quite a broad mixture of very poor background and quite posh families in my school. I guess that in itself goes towards the ethos of social schooling and learning to accept each person as their own individual. I did read a snippet earlier in the Wikipedia article you linked to mentioning how rich parents will make sure to move to a richer school catchment area before their kids come of age so there must be some truth in what you say about the disproportionate balance of the system over there. The same is quite true here and probably most places but I obviously can't personally share comparisons. Dale.

Seems to me the problem with Germany and the rest of the world is that education is a "system". By the definition of "system" it has be standardized, controlled, measured, etc. And that's probably the whole problem :) I think it was Robert Heinlein who said in a number of his books that education was 2 people (one a teacher, the other a student) sitting on a log exchanging information. (Complete paraphrase, I don't have time to look it up properly.) And if you think a state system, or a privately funded one, will end up like Heinlein's idea ... well, I've got a bridge you might want to buy. It pisses me off that teachers think that arts in schools need to be evaluated with exams ... but, honestly, I don't have a solution other than not teaching arts in schools. Nothing evil going on. Just people doing their jobs :) -- **** Listen to my CD at http://www.mellowood.ca/music/cedars **** Bob van der Poel ** Wynndel, British Columbia, CANADA ** EMAIL: bob(a)mellowood.ca WWW: http://www.mellowood.ca

I would say the system is working quite well in Western Europe. The rate of literacy is higher than it ever was before. Most 12 year olds do math on what would be considered university level 500 years earlier. And Heinlein's idea is just crazy...it's hard enough to find teachers as it is and to find the money to pay for them -- or will just any idiot with a log do? i

The subject is "Study Finds New Pop Music Does All Sound the Same." and from that we came to "education". I searched for "music" with http://www.google.com. I got "People related to music Lil Wayne Lil Wayne Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr., better known by his stage name Lil Wayne, is an American rapper. At ... Akon Akon Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam, professionally known as simply Akon, is a Senegalese American ... Flo Rida Flo Rida Tramar Dillard better known by his stage name Flo Rida, is an American rapper and singer ... Apple - iTunes - Browse the top music video downloads" and similar. No Bach, Mozart or even The Beatles.

On Tue, 2012-08-14 at 02:12 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote: It's to stressful for me to listen and translate at the moment. Talking about "Rothschild" in Germany is for understandable reasons a taboo. However, I suspect that the IMF doesn't have direct impact. I don't like conspiracy theories. Some standards for sure aren't bad, we've got a law about "compulsory school attendance for all children" OTOH many migrant children aren't allowed to visit a school! So becoming criminal will the only job they can do and than the government is allowed to deport them. I don't know how free private schools are in Germany. I suspect that many rich people let their children educate in private schools in e.g. Switzerland. I never heard about children of politicians visiting public schools and I had private discussions with some who have got highly gifted, but dyslexic children, something I suffered myself when I visited school. We've got all kinds off "good" enactments, but they are on the paper only, there are no competent teachers employed. We've got competent teachers, but they are unwanted. It needs parents, psychologists etc. to force strict observance of all those "good" enactments, but the weakest children don't get this support. Regards, Ralf

On 2012-08-06 08:21, Louigi Verona wrote: Oscar Peterson heard Tiger Rag and after he learned it wasn't two pianist on the record but one (Art Tatum), he stopped playing piano for two months: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=nDGzG-QWjAg -- Atte http://atte.dk http://modlys.dk

On 2012-08-08 09:26, david wrote: I'm sure you didn't play it like Art Tatum :-) He was something else, to say the least... -- Atte http://atte.dk http://modlys.dk

On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 2:03 AM, david &lt;gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com&gt; wrote: [ ... ] although its not really quite the same thing as having a population that generally sings and plays music as part of daily life, i would point out that there are more people recording more music and performing in front of others than at any other time in human history. i'm not too thrilled about the aesthetics of most of what gets performed, but that doesn't change that fact that there are currently many more people who play a musical instrument as a hobby, part-time or full-time profession than before recording came along (a lot of which has to do with cheaper instruments, probably).

On 08/06/2012 12:57 AM, Paul Davis wrote: There are more people alive now than at any other time in human history. I suspect the percentage of people actively recording and performing music is a lot lower. Back in Bach's time, everyone was expected to be able to sing, for instance. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community http://clanjones.org/david/ http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/

This was my thought too, but perhaps tavern songs where very popular. No television, no radio, hard work, alcohol as protection against sickly water. I don't know the history of that time.

On Mon, 2012-08-06 at 15:31 -0700, Bob van der Poel wrote: What is bad singing? Neil Young wasn't a good singer and today he's less good as in the early days, but it suits to his kind of west coast music [1]. A weak point can become groundbreaking, this is part of the work artist should do. We've got the technology to fix the singing of Neil Young. I bet nobody would buy a Neil Young + Crazy Horse "Antares" album. That reminds me that there's some truth in the study. Some days ago I listened to "Ragged Glory" 1990 and IIRC the chords and rhythm of more than the half songs on that album are simpler as for the old songs from him. [1] I'm not sure if in other countries Neil Young and musicians like him are called west cost musicians http://board.rapmusic.com/hip-hop-central/903136-top-100-west-coast-songs-a… "Cos what I call home you call hell" - Ice-T (Perhaps this is west coast music) Greetz from South Central Ruhrgebiet Ralf

This thread was the extra push I needed to blog about this research. http://oldmixtapes.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-science-of-making-boring-pop-mu… On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 5:05 AM, Ralf Mardorf &lt;ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net&gt;wrote;wrote: I talk about this at length--the meanings of "popular music" and "pop music" and their relation to "popular." Like a lot of scholarly research, this study tells us something very specific, not something sweeping about music in general. -Neil -- DJ Dual Core's Blog http://oldmixtapes.blogspot.com/ Order without government; Peace without violence.