Overdue Thoughts About Friday

I know I’m not a big fan of all music experimental, but I actually enjoyed the Vox Arana concert last Friday. I mean, I wasn’t running out and telling my friends about it, and I’m not going to be buying any CDs, but I’m not wishing that I had those hours of my life back either, and felt I learned some things. So it was, overall, a good experience.

A few observations.

I thought that everyone asked good questions, except me because I didn’t ask one which probably says something about my artistic sensibilities. I thought the whole discussion about Vox Arcana’s differences with Cage about taste in music were interesting, and I liked the question about how VA (I’m tired of typing “Vox Arcana”) incorporated music into their concerts like Cage did.

If I had asked a question, I would have asked “Despite the similarities between your compositions and Cage’s, what, in your opinion, is the primary way in which you depart from the Cageian ethos?” But I didn’t ask it because it would have made me sound pretentious and annoying, and I didn’t think of it till later anyway. Besides, I think someone already asked it. So it’s probably a good thing I kept my mouth shut.

I couldn’t help but notice how the band was dressed. I don’t know what I expected, but they seemed to go for the “college professor” look. Except for the celloist, who looked like he was playing a Russian peasant.

Of the pieces they played, I liked “Silver Fence”, though they really didn’t have to play it twice (during the workshop, then later), and that one piece Angelle (I think) mentioned in class, though I have absolutely no idea what it was called. But it was closer to mainstream music than anything else we’ve listened to this year, so maybe that will ring some bells.

Nobody outside our class really had many good questions, did they? I mean, I didn’t ask a question, so maybe I’m not one to talk, but still, is “do you do this for a living?” really the best the rest of the FYS’s could come up with?

I was talking to someone after the workshop, and she was all like “that’s not music, that’s just noise.” That surprised me, because VA is the most mainstream stuff we’ve listened to all year. Unless you count Dylan, and I don’t, because that really wasn’t for our Cage course.