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Blah, you've missed my point. And the comment about my learning to listen and not simply hear deserves no response, but... I make a living out of listening to music and plan on doing so till I retire or die. It's laughable that you think you can preach to me.
I admit that I have a penchant for absolute music and that I'm not as big a fan of visual art, but that's beside the point.
So, my dislike of the terminology stems from a deep mistrust of the form and isn't a cause of anything. I don't actually mean to suggest that sound installations are uniformly bad (or bad at all); in fact, they're not really the issue. For the record, Prof. Poppinfresh is ME and I was bored. I thought everyone knew this, there was a big thread a while ago about me changing my name.
There's no reason that the music (and it is music - I have a wide umbrella in my mind) in sound installations can't be fabulous music and the whole a great work of art, and that's why it doesn't really factor into my point. A sound installation could have any kind of music good or bad. It's actually a musical problem that I have--the combination of music with other art forms is not the issue. The Prof. Poppinfresh aside was a red herring and a JOKE at that. Get it? Sound art?
Anyway, to make my point clearer, I don't like the terms because while they're useful (aptly describing a certain kind of music that undeniably exists), the terms imply that simply saying "music," "musician," "clarinetist," "drummer," "composer," or whatever doesn't suffice. The musician (usually electronic music it seems) is creating music, "sculpting" sound, in a way analogous to the way an artist works.
The term signals to me that I won't like the music very much, and that kind of terminology has indeed been used in the past to denigrate someone's music. Boulez described Messiaen's music this way, but he has since lightened up of course. I don't like the terms because I think they encourage this kind of music making. Just call them what they are: musicians making music.
So again, to recap: I'm actually referring only to music. Sound installations are beside the point, becuase the musical content can be anything. I'm sorry if the little Poppinfresh joke caused confusion. The music I'm talking about is frequently electronic, but doesn't have to be. The technique is usually some sort of juxtaposition or endless exposition with no consideration for musical rhetoric or logic. I am less likely to like this music. Calling a musician a "sound sculptor" is an insult. Calling music "sound art" is an insult. The use of these terms as simply descriptions annoys me. It's a personal preference, yes, but I hoped that this would blossom into a musical discussion, but all was side-tracked into the world of sound/art, rather than sound art (if you know what I mean), which wasn't what I was getting at, but it's my fault. I can't expect everyone to know about the Prof. Poppinfresh thing and to get my meaning in a couple sentences + a red herring.
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