Re: Marcus Paus ON the net -- The Fast Lane

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Date Posted: 17:16:09 08/19/02 Mon
Author: A. Davis
Author Host/IP: spider-tn061.proxy.aol.com / 152.163.207.71
Subject: Re: Marcus Paus ON the net
In reply to: G. Gerig 's message, "Re: Marcus Paus ON the net" on 20:22:24 08/14/02 Wed

>>Of course he can�t compose shit, and I prefer a
>>billion times anything Shawn has produced. Who cares
>>about speed anyways.
>>
>>Paus is the fastest, but Shawn is the greatest :)
>
>_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
>
>I listened to this guy and I wasn't particularly
>impressed. He reminds me of that 80s Yngwie clone
>named Impelliteri - speed for speed's sake, but zero
>melody. (But then Paus is a youngster so I'll cut him
>some slack.) Actually, although Yngwie was somewhat
>more interesting, he suffered from the same
>shallowness - speed for speed's sake, and melodic only
>in the sense that someone endlessly practicing
>classical scales is melodic.
>
>To my ears, what sets Lane miles above - in context of
>speed - is the same thing that sets people like Beck
>(Jeff of course,) Schenker and UJ Roth apart: Each may
>be playing faster than hell, but they never, ever lose
>sight of musicality. Which in turn is why the work of
>Lane, JB, Schenker, Roth has the unmistakable quality
>of timelessness, while the SpeedRacers are largely
>forgettable, often only months after they first hit
>the scene.
>
>There's another analogy I always think about in terms
>of speed. "Speed" simply means the quantity of time
>between two given notes. Assuming as a hypothetical a
>superhuman player with unlimited picking speed (maybe
>an advanced robot or something) - at some point in
>advancing speed the human ear will no longer be
>capable of distinguishing between individual notes. In
>terms of sound they'll have to merge into a continuous
>sweep.
>This idea hit me one day when I was looking at a
>waveform displayed in high resolution on a digital
>oscilloscope. At high resolution, the curve of an
>analog sine wave, for example, is actually converted
>digitally into thousands of tiny stair-step levels to
>display the equivalent of what the waveshape looks
>like - first up, then leveling off, then back down,
>etc.
>If you think of each stair-step as an individual note,
>then step back and look at it from a distance, the
>visual effect of the steps becoming a smooth curve is
>analogous to a lightning-speed string of notes
>becoming a continuous pitch-bend.
>(Midi techies will recognize the reverse of this as
>the mechanism by which an analog-to-digital converter
>does its converting - by sampling sound levels
>umpty-million times a second and assigning to each
>sample a digital quantity for immortalization in
>cyberspace, which comes out the other end in such high
>resolution that you don't hear the individual steps.)
>
>So what was my point? Hmmm (D'OH! I always do that...)
>
>Oyeah! The single-minded pursuit of speed can yield
>shallow results if that single element of technique is
>emphasized to the exclusion of the more vital and
>less-tangible fundamentals of musicality, taste, and
>melodic sense. I guess another word for that would be:
>"soul".
>
>This is not to disparage speed - it is in fact one of
>the most exciting elements in music, and a big part of
>why SL's music resonates to the core of my being. But
>for speed to enhance rather than detract, it has to
>carry with it the caveat of "used properly."
>The difference between a player who uses speed
>properly (i.e. tastefully) and one who does not, is
>always readily apparent.
>
>Ok, time for me to just shut up. 'Sorry for th

Nice well written thoughts. I agree completly and
I also think that when Shawn solos his improvisational
element- in playing not what he's practiced, but playing
spontainiously from the soul- is really beautiful and hip,
not just exiting.Sensibility not sensation.

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