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Can something be something before it's something...

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Eaglebauer On July 23, 2019
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Saint Louis, Missouri
#1New Post! Aug 25, 2017 @ 12:45:47
Wait.

Lemme explain.

What I mean is, can you call something a part of a certain musical category if it came about prior to that category being known by a specific name?

I have heard a few references to 60s garage rock (which I was very much into for a long time) as "60s punk" and I absolutely see it as a seminal movement that morphed into the proto punk genre (think Flamin' Groovies, Dictators, Stooges, etc) which would give birth to punk rock....but the term "punk rock" wasn't even coined until '71 and wasn't really used to refer to an entire genre of rock music with several artists being its purveyors until a number of years later.

What got me thinking about this today was this absolutely, f***ing brilliant, amazing, toe-tapping, gorgeous, exciting piece of music I listened to on the way to work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAi5f3M3DjU

(the link for whatever reason won't post when put into the YouTube format on this site....but it's TOTALLY worth a listen if you copy and paste it to a browser or just search for it on YouTube).


There are a lot of rock historians who consider this to be the first recorded rock and roll song and it's from 1944. Illinois Jacquet's "Blues (Part 2)" and a listen of it on YouTube will tell you why.

But can it be rock and roll if rock and roll wasn't really a thing until almost ten years later? Granted, there will always have to be those "firsts" that make the mint in which all future coins are minted, but when talking about a gap of almost a decade, does it count?

Just to add another layer, consider this:

A lot of people consider The Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" to be the first actual punk song. It was released in '76 right around the sweet spot for early punk music on their eponymous album, but was actually recorded in '72 and laid dormant. So it was recorded before music was largely being dubbed punk rock and really before punk was an actual subgenre of rock, but released just as the genre was being defined.

Thoughts? Anyone else care?
mrmhead On March 27, 2024




NE, Ohio
#2New Post! Aug 25, 2017 @ 14:44:29
Well, you need something to define something.
If there were nothing and you said there is something, nobody would know what that something was, with nothing to compare it too.

Once there is enough of something that doesn't quite fit with existing somethings, then you can define the new somethings as a new something!


Interesting article on the labeling of Jazz music:
https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/04/jazz-baseball/

as apart from the entomology of the word Jazz itself:
https://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=jazz

by 1912, American English, first attested in baseball slang; as a type of music, attested from 1913. Probably ultimately from Creole patois jass "strenuous activity," especially "sexual intercourse" but also used of Congo dances, from jasm (1860) "energy, drive," of African origin (compare Mandingo jasi, Temne yas), also the source of slang jism.
If the truth were known about the origin of the word 'Jazz' it would never be mentioned in polite society. ["Étude," Sept. 1924]
Meaning "rubbish, unnecessary talk or ornamentation" is from 1918. Slang all that jazz "et cetera" first recorded 1939.
Erimitus On July 01, 2021




The mind of God, Antarctica
#3New Post! Aug 26, 2017 @ 01:43:54
Once upon a time I was at the music store in the village and the kid asked me what I played; and I told him I played the piano. He said “no; I meant what style (genre)”. I could not answer the question. I really do not copy or try to imitate any particular music.

I don’t even listen to music that much. I practice on my keyboard every day but do not try to imitate anyone. The music that I have heard is (of course) an influence but it is unconscious.

The sounds that I make just happen and they are only for me. I am my only audience. (I use a headset) It is really different when there is no one to impress.

A usual example of entropy is photo copies. When a copy is made of a copy of a copy of a copy…. Each successive copy has a little less fidelity and the hundredth copy is blurred and only vaguely resembles the original.

Doh!!! I was going to say that copying music distorts it even if only ever so slightly. And …and the copy of the copy of the copy is not like the original. Which is what I was headed for when I started with once upon a time** …I was going to say that this was other than good. And then, …and then (yet another realization) the distortion is neither good nor bad it is only different (even if only ever so slightly).

That is the ongoing process of creation from one instant to the next. And some people don’t even know that.


***…by “Once upon a time…” I am saying that the following story is an abstraction from actual events. Of course all stories are abstraction; but some stories are abstracted from actual events. And …and I just realized that it does not matter. Don’t even read this.
Erimitus On July 01, 2021




The mind of God, Antarctica
#4New Post! Aug 26, 2017 @ 02:14:08
And ...and copies of music from 50 years ago are not the same as the original and could (and possibly should) be identified by another name (symbol)
mrmhead On March 27, 2024




NE, Ohio
#5New Post! Aug 26, 2017 @ 12:44:22
@Erimitus Said

Once upon a time I was at the music store in the village and the kid asked me what I played; and I told him I played the piano. He said “no; I meant what style (genre)”. I could not answer the question. I really do not copy or try to imitate any particular music.

I don’t even listen to music that much. I practice on my keyboard every day but do not try to imitate anyone. The music that I have heard is (of course) an influence but it is unconscious.

The sounds that I make just happen and they are only for me. I am my only audience. (I use a headset) It is really different when there is no one to impress.

A usual example of entropy is photo copies. When a copy is made of a copy of a copy of a copy…. Each successive copy has a little less fidelity and the hundredth copy is blurred and only vaguely resembles the original.

Doh!!! I was going to say that copying music distorts it even if only ever so slightly. And …and the copy of the copy of the copy is not like the original. Which is what I was headed for when I started with once upon a time** …I was going to say that this was other than good. And then, …and then (yet another realization) the distortion is neither good nor bad it is only different (even if only ever so slightly).

That is the ongoing process of creation from one instant to the next. And some people don’t even know that.


***…by “Once upon a time…” I am saying that the following story is an abstraction from actual events. Of course all stories are abstraction; but some stories are abstracted from actual events. And …and I just realized that it does not matter. Don’t even read this.


OK, I didn't read it.

A friend creates music and I've joined in on the creation at times. He usually doesn't try to mimic anything except what is in his head trying to get out.
People have asked "what do we play" - the "Genre" question - I've come to reply "Acid Folk" ... I don't know if there is such a thing. - but that is mostly when he is on his own. When he morphs his creations for a larger band, it falls closer into familiar categories.
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