I'm not sure whether I can or cannot totally embrace being a DJ ( without being a musician ) as form of music or other art, because I am a "proper" musician as you put it, but you do raise some very valid points Alex. I think part of it for us older folks anyway, is that it's often almost second nature sometimes for many in a certain generation to embrace what occurs in their heyday, and find it all too easy to dismiss what follows. I also think that maybe it has always been this way. I remember thinking of Keith Emerson, Chick Corea and Rick Wakeman as the keyboard gods of all time. They certainly were among the best in their heyday, and may still be among the best. For me, John Mclaughlin and Al DiMeola were the ultimate guitar players, Billy Cobham and Bill Bruford the drummers of drummers.

Then I started listening to stuff Keith Jarrett and Monty Alexander did just before them on piano, Les Paul on guitar, and Buddy Rich on drums. I kept working my way backwards, right back to the composing mastery of Chopin and Mozart. Suddenly the lines weren't so clear any more. It's true that I don't see those types of people any more doing what they did, but I think it's also true that what Chopin did was not being done during Keith Emerson's heyday.

Off the subject a bit but also relevant, I was conversing with a fellow amateur radio operator last week ( I'm not particularly active in the hobby any more ), and he noted that what today's operators are casting gloom and doom about concerning the ruination and death of the hobby sounds remarkably similar to what was written in a magazine forum some 70 years ago, despite many rule changes and advancement in technology. The point for me being, I think by our nature alone a lot of the members of each generation embraces what's good in their time and then as time passes tend to look with disdain about things having changed.

So often it's " not the way it used to be ", as if that is always a totally bad thing. I wonder what Mozart, Chopin, or Beethoven would have been able to accomplish in the " Golden Years " of my generation or in todays generation with all of the machinery and equipment that is available. Maybe they would not have been appreciated at all because they couldn't get a record company deal... Hmm come to think of it, if the folklore is true, they were underappreciated in their OWN time, so how much different is it really ?

Korg AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 03-08-2002).]