‘The Prisoner,’ is a cult classic from ‘back in the day.’ The Prisoner is a secret agent for the UK who resigns but ends up in a place called ‘The Village.’ He can’t escape from The Village, in fact every time he is about to, a large white blob known as ‘Rover’ comes and captures him;

Just like when, anytime we are about to escape ( our everyday existence) our memes show up and capture us back.

The later songs of John Lennon also come to mind when he writes of doing nothing but watching the wheels go ’round and people ask him what’s the matter he no longer plays the game.(He’s resigned.)

 ’Strange days‘ as well; everyone’s got something cooking but there’s nothing in the pot.

The term 'new' has been applied to music for so long now, it's really lost its meaning. Of course music has been called 'new' since day one. It can, of course mean a new work of music from an existing source, more like a 'new music release.'

In this day and age we seem to have become particularly obsessed with labels and 'isms.' Pedagogs look back at the centuries of western music and break it into Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern. Modern is given as all the music that starts in around 1900.

So all this music that starts around 1900 is supposed to be the 'new' music. Embarrassingly, the 'new' music is now a hundred years old.  So now we have had to resort to new, even more confusing labels such as 'post modern' (love that one!) 'new age,' 'new wave,' 'minimalism,' the list of dangerous isms just keeps growing.

So we wish to postulate a definition of a 'new music artist,' as one who is 'self actualized,' or 'freedom actualized.' This new music artist does not bend to authority easily but uses as their guide their own musical tastes cultivated from an intimate self knowledge.

By authority is meant all the 'experts' that are born of 'isms,' and things like 'popular opinion.' Whereas a 'new music artist' may have tastes that are in line with 'popular opinion,' these will be derived naturally and organically and not because they are being held there by societal memes. 'Popular opinion' has become increasingly antithetic to creativity in that, in this day and age, it has become more manufactured than ever.

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On Magical Mystery Tour, new music artist George Harrison has a song about a place called Blue Jay Way and he entreats his friends (who have lost their way) not to be long. The words are framed so it definitely sounds like a plea not to be long (in getting to Blue Jay Way, presumably ) but the real meaning of the song is don't belong.

The Beatles were always confounded by the movements such as 'hippies' and 'free love,' that sprang up, supposedly at the suggestion of something they had said in a song, very much like the movie 'The Life of Brian,' when he tells his followers to 'think for themselves,' and they all start chanting 'think for our selves,' 'think for our selves.' Finally, in desperation he runs away and throws his shoe at his followers telling them to leave him alone but they, of course, don't get the message and someone picks up the shoe, saying it's a sign and a movement begins of those who follow 'the shoe.'

Ultimately movements are just another way that we by-pass the issue which is, by the way, think for yourself, be self determined and free. However well intentioned a movement is, we are just giving away our power by saying we endorse a particular group to make our decisions and think for us. Even though we might be led to believe that there is more power in numbers, we are really subscribing to and defining our own limitations.

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New music artists 'The Who,' once raised the musical question; 'Who are you?'

At first impulse, one would be tempted to reply with a name.

Beyond this, one might attempt to answer by giving one's nationality, one's race, one's religion or one's political affiliation. The answer might have to do with sexual preference or social role.

One might think the answer has something to do with the generation they belong to, the music they listen to or the clothes they wear. One might think the question can be answered by what group or movement they belong to.

In point of fact, however, the answer has nothing really to do with any of the above definitions. All of these things are, in fact, who you are not.

The answer can only come via a process of deconstruction. The answer cannot begin with "I am…"

It brings to mind the story of the sculpter who, upon being asked how he ever was able to create such a beautiful likeness of his subject replied;

"It was easy. I just chipped away everything that didn't look like my subject."

It is only when we have begun to chip away everything that is not us that we can begin to see.

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Sometimes, while doing my gig as a 'serious classical musician,' we would be rehearsing 'The Rite of Spring,' by the Russian new music artist; Igor Stravinsky.

Usually, at one point during the rehearsal, I would remark to my stand partner how much the piece sounded like new music artist George Gershwin.  I always enjoyed the look of bewilderment and disbelief I would get. I mean, Igor Stravinsky was a 'classical' new music artist and George Gershwin was a jazz new music artist, I couldn't seriously be suggesting there was any similarity between the two, could I?

How could I not? In the first place the similarity is there for anyone to hear. In the second place, Igor Stravinsky speaks in interviews of incorporating jazz styles and elements into his music.

There is a story that when George Gershwin went to Paris, where all the 'serious classical new music artists' were hanging out, he went to visit Ravel and asked about studying with him.

Supposedly Ravel asked Gershwin how much he made a year and, when Gershwin told him, he said;

"Well, I should study with you!"

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When I was a kid, my next door neighbor, Billy, and I had a running competition. We were good friends but it seemed integral to our friendship that we compete about most things. If he liked Chevies, well, I liked Fords. It had nothing to do with the merits of the automobiles but, rather that we had to be on opposite sides of the fence on most issues.

He liked the Beatles, therefore I liked Beethoven. Actually I did like Beethoven and, actually, I was a bit fascinated by the Beatles but it would never do to let Billy know.

I remember once, on my birthday, Billy thought he would play a prank on me and he bought me a recording of a Brahms symphony only he put it in a Beatles sleeve, just to see the expression on my face. Actually, when I saw it I thought "well, that's cool, now I have a pop album." I think it would have been like the end of the world, at that point if I had said, Hey, that's cool, I can dig the Beatles too." Billy and his whole family had already built up this whole profile of me being a boring 'classical' musician.

I put up with this steriotype, not just from Billy, but from practically everyone, and then I went to a music school that only recognized the existence of 'classical' music, in fact this school had a professor there who was famous for saying that jazz would never last. Not a particularly original thing to say nor accurate seeing as how the school was in a town where a jazz club could be found almost on every corner.

Then the time came when I took my first trip. To my credit, I didn't say 'I know what it's like to be dead,' (I was thinking it.) What did happen however was that I walked into my friend Big Nose's dorm room and they had the White Album on.

Suddenly I understood the lyrics. I started making comments to the effect that the Beatles were comperable as songwriters to Schubert and my friends just smiled at me and said 'That's nice Brian,' even though they thought it was the controlled substance in me talking.

But I had taken the first steps there in divesting myself of the burden and limitation of artificial musical genre boundries which is one of the most benificial things a new music artist can do for themself.

Afterall, there are only seven different chords possible in any key and like the primary colors, three of them are in fairly constant use accross the board. The new music artist who allows himself to be boxed into a specific musical genre is like Linus in that Peanuts cartoon where Lucy allows him to color by himself but takes away all of his crayons except black.

Musical genre and labels are just about demographics when you get right down to it. Demographics are handy for business but they have proven to be the death of the new music artist.

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In reviewing the formative experiences that went into making me the new music artist that I am today, I cannot possibly overlook Music Appreciation. Music Appreciation was not a class that you would find in the school curriculum, it was extracurricular in the extreme.

Music Appreciation was conducted during the off hours in Dave and Marty's dorm room and was attended by anywhere from a half dozen to a dozen or more students. The attendance was divided roughly between the students from our institution and the art students from the Maryland Institute of the Arts.

Everyone was invited to bring along a musical selection of their choice and, after the opening formalities, all of the new music artists of the past and the new music artists of the present were heard with no additional commentary or preamble.

That what went on in Music Appreciation had something to do with the smoke alarms going off out in the dorm halls is pure conjecture and rumor, no doubt started by Bill Brown, a school 'guard' with whom I had a 'Tom and Jerry,' relationship.

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I came across something that might help new music artists to find a producer in the song business. It's a membership site called 'Meet a Producer.' The free membership seems to just let you have a look but the upgrade is only about $3.00 a month and then you are allowed to contact the producers in their listing. Here's the link if you want to have a look and see if it might help you to find a producer in the song business;

Meet a Producer 

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When pedagogs write books on music, they often look back at the performance and compositional practices of the past and try to present models of how composers of a particular era always did things. While these are quite useful if you are actually performing some of these works, it begins to be taken as an implication that there some sort of ‘rules’ that were used in creating these works.

Upon actually looking at a number of these works, however, it becomes immediately apparent that these  new musical artists of the past all had their own way of approaching the task and they often varied it from composition to composition.

This pedagogical line of thinking has accrued in modern times to the point where the pedagogs believed they had arrived at a sort of pinnacle of musical evolution and the route for a new music artist was plainly to utilize one of these ‘superior’ methods of musical composition, (which have now fallen into such disuse that no one today is even aware that they exist.)

One can see a distinct parallel in the pop music industry where the record companies have believed in a particular formula that has worked for them in the past and dogmatically tried to use it over and over in their selection, creation and promotion of the new music artist.

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