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Ron Dough
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« Reply #15 on: 19:38:42, 03-08-2007 » |
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It's not impossible that the poor chap was an out-of-work muso/singer, of course, or perhaps a mature student funding musical studies.
On the one hand we're miffed when people have a clichéd view of music lovers, yet on the other we seem only too happy to accept equally barmy clichés about taxi drivers and the like...
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pim_derks
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« Reply #16 on: 19:58:25, 03-08-2007 » |
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On the one hand we're miffed when people have a clichéd view of music lovers, yet on the other we seem only too happy to accept equally barmy clichés about taxi drivers and the like...
Well said, Ron!  |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #17 on: 20:02:46, 03-08-2007 » |
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When I was studying in the US, a fellow student friend (not a musician, actually a law student, I'll refer to him as LB, as those are his initials) had the following conversation on their first ever journey to New York, on the taxi from the airport:
TD: Where are you from, then?
LB: I'm from Britain
TD: Ah, you must know the work of Bertrand Russell, then.
LB: Yes, I do, a certain amount.
TD: Personally, I'm more interested in the tradition coming from Kant and Hegel
LB: Really? I find Hegel very difficult to read myself
TD: Nooo - it's not really that difficult. It's just all these various commentaries on the work that make it seem that way.
(etc.)
I think Steve Reich drove a taxi for a while (or was it Philip Glass?). What does anyone imagine a conversation with him in such a scenario would have been like?
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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pim_derks
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« Reply #18 on: 20:09:05, 03-08-2007 » |
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When I was studying in the US, a fellow student friend (not a musician, actually a law student, I'll refer to him as LB, as those are his initials) had the following conversation on their first ever journey to New York, on the taxi from the airport:
TD: Where are you from, then?
LB: I'm from Britain
TD: Ah, you must know the work of Bertrand Russell, then.
LB: Yes, I do, a certain amount.
TD: Personally, I'm more interested in the tradition coming from Kant and Hegel
LB: Really? I find Hegel very difficult to read myself
TD: Nooo - it's not really that difficult. It's just all these various commentaries on the work that make it seem that way.
(etc.)
I think Steve Reich drove a taxi for a while (or was it Philip Glass?). What does anyone imagine a conversation with him in such a scenario would have been like?
Wonderful story, Ian.  Yes, it was Philip Glass who drove a taxi for a while, after he came back from his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #19 on: 20:12:47, 03-08-2007 » |
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Reading is very suitable hobby for people who work in shifts. In a 'between studying' period (after graduating from uni, before going to study in the US) I worked briefly as a security guard at a site mostly housing very large quantities of wood (yes, I know all the laughs this might get, how they couldn't be less 'secure' and so on). Working shifts - managed to get through a huge amount of literature that way, being a quick reader - remember plowing through the bulk of The Brothers Karamazov on one shift; other reading particularly featured Kafka and Orwell, if I remember rightly. There are probably many others doing such jobs who are engaged in the type of reading that one wouldn't necessarily associate instinctively with such professions. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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pim_derks
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« Reply #20 on: 20:56:03, 03-08-2007 » |
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In a 'between studying' period (after graduating from uni, before going to study in the US) I worked briefly as a security guard at a site mostly housing very large quantities of wood (yes, I know all the laughs this might get, how they couldn't be less 'secure' and so on). Working shifts - managed to get through a huge amount of literature that way, being a quick reader - remember plowing through the bulk of The Brothers Karamazov on one shift; other reading particularly featured Kafka and Orwell, if I remember rightly. There are probably many others doing such jobs who are engaged in the type of reading that one wouldn't necessarily associate instinctively with such professions. Why should people laugh about you working as a security guard?  I'm a slow reader but I hope to find more time for my books soon. Perhaps that taxi driver knows a lot about classical music because he's listening a lot to the radio?  |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #21 on: 21:01:34, 03-08-2007 » |
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Why should people laugh about you working as a security guard? Ah, if you knew me, you might not fit the face to the role ideally (for those who do, would you believe I worked one day in a trendy clothes shop as well? They didn't want me back...) Perhaps that taxi driver knows a lot about classical music because he's listening a lot to the radio? You are Roger Wright and I claim my £100. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #22 on: 21:08:05, 03-08-2007 » |
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The reason I'm surprised when a layperson reveals a copious knowledge of a specialised area of music is probably because I know how few people who work in said specialised area know any significant amount about, for example, those Kants from Darmstadt.
Which of course ought to be a reason not to be surprised but there we are.
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pim_derks
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« Reply #23 on: 21:20:46, 03-08-2007 » |
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Perhaps that taxi driver knows a lot about classical music because he's listening a lot to the radio? You are Roger Wright and I claim my £100.  |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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ahinton
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« Reply #24 on: 22:10:36, 03-08-2007 » |
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Oh dear - I'm beginning to wish that I'd not mentioned it now. Having done so, however, I can assure everyone here that the taxi driver was NOT Roger Wright.
All I can say in addition to this is that one can never be absolutely certain who may want to know about whose work...
Best,
Alistair
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George Garnett
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« Reply #25 on: 00:15:34, 04-08-2007 » |
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On the one hand we're miffed when people have a clichéd view of music lovers, yet on the other we seem only too happy to accept equally barmy clichés about taxi drivers and the like...
Well said indeed, Ron, though I believe that those, like taxi-drivers, who work for a living in capitalist economies are incapable of understanding anything other than simple pop songs using I, IV and V chords by themselves without having their consciousness raised for them by the likes of computer science lecturers from the University of the West of England. Presumably a few are lucky enough to have had such people in the back of their cabs at some point to give them a helping hand away from false consciousness but, without such help, they are largely stuck I'm afraid - or so I gather. |
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« Last Edit: 00:54:00, 04-08-2007 by George Garnett »
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richard barrett
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« Reply #26 on: 00:32:35, 04-08-2007 » |
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A postscript to my taxi driver story: he turned out to have been previously a wine merchant, and (therefore?) acquainted with several composers, before circumstances forced him to sell out (what might those be, one wonders - a falling-off in demand?? or maybe the serialist b**tards took their custom elsewhere) and find alternative employment. While his views on modern music were pretty intemperate he turned out to be a Bruckner enthusiast.
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Bryn
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« Reply #27 on: 00:44:53, 04-08-2007 » |
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George, I 'ad that that Lord Longford upstairs on me bus when I was a conductor, in the mid-70s. The experience did not set me to prison visiting. On another occasion I let a barman at Ronnie Scott's travel to work free (he'd forgotten his bus pass). As he got off he gave me a load of comps. Never did use them, otherwise I might be more into jazz, I guess. Must admit though, I have never yet met another bus worker with anything like similar musical interests to mine. |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #28 on: 00:47:33, 04-08-2007 » |
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Well said indeed, Ron, though I believe that those, like taxi-drivers, who work for a living in capitalist economies are incapable of understanding anything other than simple pop songs by themselves without having their consciousness raised for them by the likes of computer science lecturers from the University of the West of England. Presumably a few are lucky enough to have had such people in the back of their cabs at some point to give them a helping hand away from false consciousness but, without such help, they are largely stuck I'm afraid - or so I gather.
No false consciousness on the part of taxi drivers could ever compete with that possessed by classical musicians, classical music listeners, r3ok posters, former civil servants and other such types.... If you want authentic consciousness, you're more likely to find it in the girl who works at Boots (and I do constantly make that argument to Gordon - though, as he grew up on a council estate and I grew up in a lower middle-class suburb, I'm not sure I have any right to lecture him on that subject)! |
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« Last Edit: 00:52:53, 04-08-2007 by Ian Pace »
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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George Garnett
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« Reply #29 on: 01:02:48, 04-08-2007 » |
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Must admit though, I have never yet met another bus worker with anything like similar musical interests to mine. You haven't been doing a bit of taxi driving on your days off have you Bryn, to give people anecdotes? |
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