Post by Neil HaverstickI just got on here, and followed the thread regarding Dan Stearn's music,
Welcome to usenet and the Dan Stearns Emotional Meltdown Hour. I'm sure
you'll provide us with a lot if relevant info in our quest to
understand "JAZZ GUITAR". That is, after all, what we do here in case
Dan didn't mention it.
Post by Neil Haverstick...and the rather astonishing anger it aroused in a few folks, mostly
Lord Valve (aka Fat Willie), and TD, who I do not know. First...it's ok
not to like the music that someone does, nothing wrong with that...we
all have our likes and dislikes. What IS wrong, I feel, is childish
name calling and viciousness for no real reason, which both LV and TD
seem to deal in a great deal.
I don't know if this is your first and last post to usenet, but it's a
cruel world out here. I assume you've done what Dan wanted and likely
won't read my response, but what the hell, maybe I'll get some laughs
out of my pals.
Some people here have given their lives to the pursuit of "JAZZ GUITAR"
and are very passionate about it. When they see what they believe to
be frauds, hucksters, imposters and intellectual blowhards (I'm one!)
you can imagine that gentility is not their first response. Perhaps if
the topic of the group was "personal semiotics" or "random reinvention
of art" it would be more appropriate.
Post by Neil HaverstickOf course, I can't know why people decide to be so angry on a public
forum. I often think it's because they feel safe, hiding behind a
computer screen, where they really don't have to account for their
actions face to face with someone. Cowardly is a word that comes to
mind, and others as well.
LIke you said, of course you can't know why, but you still call that
locus of your lack of knowledge "cowardice". Suprisingly illogical.
The two users you mentioned and I myself are known, we are not
anonymous. We're hiding precisely the way you are hiding now: typing
out our heartfelt thinking in a public forum. We've posted here for
decades. You'll post here once or twice. Do you appreciate the fact
that you arrive here to castigate us for name-calling and begin by
calling us names? In what way do our crimes differ from yours?
Post by Neil HaverstickI personally think Dan is a brilliant guitarist/composer.
How 'bout Justin Beiber or Boxcar Willie? I'm sure there is a
hot-button somewhere on your control panel...
Post by Neil HaverstickI've listened to him for many years, and although we've never met, I
consider him a spiritual brother.
You misspelled "bother".
Post by Neil HaverstickHis sense of creativity and imagination is a real inspiration to me. As
for myself, I feel real centered about who I am as a musician...as a
professional for the last 42 years, I've played many thousands of gigs,
taught hundreds of students...
[ Resume excised. ]
Your resume is interesing in an off-topic and unrelated kind of way. I
see you too are a microtonalist, who (I'm guessing) find the
limitations of Western music confining. That's nice. As for us, we'd
likely be considered traditionalists in your thinking: We are jazz
guitarists. If you know a little history related to art you often find
traditionalists get into dust-ups with people who are inventing a
personal art form that rejects almost every conceptual underpinning of
their own tradition?
If Dan got hit in the face with a rotten tomato he should feel proud
that he's in a long line of mavericky "creators" that went
unappreciated in their own lifetimes but later on were forgotten
altogether.
By the way, do you understand how usenet is constructed--with different
topics of interest segregated by the *topic* itself?
[ Additional resume excised. ]
What does your resume have to do with the fact that many of us
disregard Dan's music as irrelevant and, within the context of "JAZZ
GUITAR", potentially irritating? We get spam from Muslims selling
Koranic wisdown, tennis shoe salesman from Indonesia, Nigerian Princes
with cash-flow problems, and Dan's stuff. All of it is generally
off-topic. Being on topic is certanly not law, but it's a good way to
avoid a tomato in the puss.
Say: If your resume got long enough do you think we'd buckle and
concede that Dan's music is either "good" or relevant to jazz guitar?
I don't think anybody cares whether y'all make noise and then call it
music or pizza or chisel it into marble. Why would we care? But if
instead you want to bring it to the wrong audience, be criticized for
it, and then go through a 3-day marathon emotional meltdown of
name-calling and insults, ending with drafting old buddies to give
testimonials: Honestly, you think this is an appropriate response?
The last time somebody said my music sucked I stopped calling them
names with a couple of minutes. And *I'd* be considered combative!
Three days every year or so--it gets to be real drain, y'know?
Think about it: Not every venue is a good venue for everything. He's
selling tacos at the Buddhist temple!
After a year of coddling Dan with questions about his approach, his
intent and his background, all of it unanswered, I gave up. If you
blame my "ignorance" you're going to have to blame Dan for fostering
it. Now some of us are actively avoiding him as he seems to be losing
his grip on reality. Is that better or worse than name-calling?
It's really pretty sad because it's quite obvious that this is really
painful to Dan, he gropes for elegant insults and logical syntax. It's
really just sad. I've always held him in some measure of "parallel
world" respect. But his temper tantrums--how the hell does this serve
his needs?
Post by Neil HaverstickIf I disagree with someone about their art, or whatever, I feel there's
an honorable way to approach that.
Does it involve name-calling?
Post by Neil HaverstickIf I don't like, or understand, what they're doing, I see no need to
attack them, as was done here with Dan.
That's very gentile of you. We try to be open and candid here, but when
that doesn't work we go with name-calling; just like in the rest of the
world. We've tried to make it more utopian but goll-darn it, it always
gets all stinky and human the minute you turn your back.
Post by Neil HaverstickMy feeling is, basically, that most of you here who attacked him have
no idea whatsoever what he's doing,
I've been asking him questions about his intent, methods and background
for probably 8 years or so, and he doesn't ANSWER the questions. I know
in utopia that's called "good manners" or "being spiritual" or
something, but here in stinky human land it's called rude, and more
importantly it's called *evasive*, and that adds another layer of
apparent huckster to the aura.
Post by Neil Haverstick...and your anger comes from the frustration of realizing that you are
very limited indeed as musicians.
Are you missing this simple curiousity: You were enlisted to come here
and spank us for calling Dan naughty names and your solution is...
calling us names!
And you say "limited" like it's a real curse. If we each played 20
instruments in 50 styles do you think that would be more gooder? Is it
okay that Casals really only played the cello or were his limitations
just something we had to put up with? How about when you're limited to
microtonal music, eschewing classic ballads, bossa, bop and blues--are
these limitations to be inexplicably revered?
Post by Neil HaverstickWhen I don't understand something, I always attempt to learn what that
person is doing rather than spray my ignorance all over the internet,
where everybody can see just how uninformed I am.
You keep your ignorance hidden then. Okay. I see no shame in
ignorance; usually I ask questions and the logic is exposed. If there
is logic, of course.
And say that like if you stare at watch long enough you'll understand
time. I gave his "soundscapes" my best shot. Not everything works for
everybody. I don't understand it with in the context of "music" in my
conception, because it doesn't attempt to BE music within my
conception. It attempts to avoid it, and succeeds. I don't understand
it and so I don't want to hear it anymore. Are you recommending I to
listen to everything I don't like until satori? Or just Dan's stuff?
If he wanted to make his "soundscapes" understandable he took the wrong
course of action. Do you think not "getting" his music is some kind of
curse or something? Jimmy is banging on a pot in the garage: What's to
understand? That if he does it every six weeks and brings tapes to me
like it's a treasure, this noise he extruded, that I'm going to weary
of the game. This, instead of assuming the lotus position and reminding
myself that to some people noise is a kind music, and that garbage is a
kind of food, and that up is a kind of down.
Post by Neil HaverstickThat might be good advice for the folks here who don't seem to know how
to have an intelligent and honorable conversation with people that they
disagree with...
We're also stupid and dishonorable. Thanks for the insults. I think
you've taught a lot of us how being insulting can be really kind of
spiritual when it comes from a man whose got a long enough resume.
We've now had two of these testimonials. Do you know how many more of
them are lined up?
--
Those who wish to sing always find a song. -- Swedish proverb
