Carol Kaye Declines Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction:

[Old Joad]

 

[Shane_B.]

I didn't watch the video, but I read an article about it. I think she's being a bit oversensitive about it. That said, a lot of people don't really give a flyin' hoot about the R&R Hall Of Fame so I've read.

I think I was there once at their museum or whatever it is. The only thing I can remember is seeing one of Bowie's costumes. And I don't know why I remember just that, I'm not a fan at all of his work.

[Notes_Norton]

I read an article about it (didn't watch the video) and personally, I think she is making a wrong decision. And I disagree with her sensitivity about the studio musicians being called The Wrecking Crew. If you are making a mint, doing what you love to do, it doesn't matter what they call you.

But it's her choice.

Sadly, it doesn't look likely that I'll ever get nominated.

But she is still a great bassist, and fine guitarist.

[Starship Krupa]

I don't think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is much of anything more than a tourist attraction.

Still, I don't quite understand her stance here. It seems like with her induction, their board or whatever is now finally recognizing the unsung session players.

So why would she not show up for the ceremony? Seems like it would be an opportunity for her to say something at the podium like "it's great to see the Hall acknowledging the contributions of the many great session players. I hope that they continue to honor the many other deserving musicians." Words to that effect.

I'd think it would be more constructive than a no-show protest.

[mettelus]

Or... do a performance with studio musicians (e.g., Toto) then decline the award in person when presented, similar to what Marlon Brando did in 1973. Nothing puts the "powers that be" on the spot more than a highly publicized face-to-face put down. They cannot hide that with social media white wash, and it would last forever.

[Notes_Norton]

11 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I don't think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is much of anything more than a tourist attraction.

I agree with that. 

When an industry creates awards for itself, much more than what they say the award is about gets involved.

Politics and money get involved in the award nominations and winners.

I don't care if my favorite artist is in there or snubbed, and if something like this doesn't present itself to me, I don't even know who is in or who is out. 

But that's just me, others care very much about it, and that's OK, too.

[Starship Krupa]

4 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

When an industry creates awards for itself....

I agree that entertainment industry awards seem to be silly opportunities for self-promotion and phony virtue signaling. The Motion Picture Academy lost me the year that Kramer vs. Kramer won over Apocalypse Now and All That Jazz. 1980 I believe. 1980 did a pretty good job of warning me what the next decade was going to be like.

The Grammys have always seemed hopelessly out of touch to me. 1966: The New Vaudeville Band, a studio-only project, won Best Contemporary (R&R) Recording for the novelty song "Winchester Cathedral," which was a pastiche of English Music Hall music. Maybe there were some rock 'n' roll singles that came out in 1966 that would have been better choices. Have they ever lived down handing the Best Metal Album award to Jethro Tull? I've never paid much attention to them anyway. The artists I really like tend not to be Grammy material, and even if they were, who cares about the tastes of a bunch of record industry people?

The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame seems to be below even those standards. The main criterion for inclusion is probably "who will make the greatest number of people likely to visit (and deflect accusations of racism and sexism)?"

[Brian Walton]

The RHoF is a sham and I can understand why some would want to reject being a part of it.  However, the reasons I've seen stated from her don't make logical sense.

Reject it because it doesn't give recognition to the unsung heroes?  Isn't that exactly what they are doing by adding her?  She is a legend that for decades very few even knew about and frankly outside of music circles and youtube videos drawing attention to her as this "bet you didn't know" kind of content - she wouldn't be known to any kind of mass audience unlike the artists who's albums she put down tracks for.

And as for the wrecking crew name.  Well I think technically speaking there is some validity that group of amazing musician's did wreck the ability for others to get hired and fundamentally changed the artist / recording landscape in LA in particular.  

 

[Notes_Norton]

On 6/24/2025 at 3:49 PM, Starship Krupa said:

I agree that entertainment industry awards seem to be silly opportunities for self-promotion and phony virtue signaling. The Motion Picture Academy lost me the year that Kramer vs. Kramer won over Apocalypse Now and All That Jazz. 1980 I believe. 1980 did a pretty good job of warning me what the next decade was going to be like.

It got me the year Amadeus won. Being in the school band we played Mozart, never one of my favorites, but I watched it anyway. Basically it was a flop. Stayed in the theaters a week, and left.

Then it won the Oscar for best picture (it was OK, but not best picture), ran through the theaters again, and became a smash hit.

That's when I realized, the Oscars are nothing but either a pat on the back, or an advertisement.

Sorry to touch on this as some will disagree.

Rap doesn't belong to be called as music. Music needs all three, melody, harmony, and rhythm.

Can you get out some music paper, put a staff, time signature, and key signature and notate the rap? Then get your piano, guitar, saxophone, or voice and play it? No. Because there is no melody.

I can open a music book and play the melody and chords from songs by Duke Ellington, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift, Burt Bacharach, Leiber & Stoller, Goffin & King, Rogers & Hammerstein, Stan Kenton, Hank Snow, Zac Brown, and millions of others, but not Kanye West or any other rapper.

Rap is a valid art form, it's poetry to a beat, but without a melody, it's no really music, and therefore doesn't belong in a music hall of fame.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[pwalpwal]

11 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

Rap doesn't belong to be called as music. Music needs all three, melody, harmony, and rhythm

Rap is the vocal style, hip hop is the music, some of the modern stuff is shockingly good , for example

 

[Notes_Norton]

Quite entertaining, I enjoyed it, and it's definitely an art form, but other than the guitar solos, it's not music. 

Poetry? Theatrics? Whatever. But until you can notate that on a staff and play it with piano, saxophone, guitar, trumpet, or whatever, IMO it isn't music. 

It would be like saying a Shakespeare play is music if you gave it a guitar intro. Or the Beat Poets of the 1950s reciting poetry over Charlie Parker recordings.

Music needs all three, melody, harmony and rhythm.

What I'm not saying is that Rap is bad. Some is good, some isn't. What I am saying is that it isn't music. It's an art form but not a song.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[fjz]

1 hour ago, Notes_Norton said:

Quite entertaining, I enjoyed it, and it's definitely an art form, but other than the guitar solos, it's not music. 

Poetry? Theatrics? Whatever. But until you can notate that on a staff and play it with piano, saxophone, guitar, trumpet, or whatever, IMO it isn't music. 

It would be like saying a Shakespeare play is music if you gave it a guitar intro. Or the Beat Poets of the 1950s reciting poetry over Charlie Parker recordings.

Music needs all three, melody, harmony and rhythm.

What I'm not saying is that Rap is bad. Some is good, some isn't. What I am saying is that it isn't music. It's an art form but not a song.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

So are you saying that, if you take a Charlie Parker song - which I'll assume that we agree that it is music - and add poetry recited in rhythm over top of it (however unpleasant that would probably be to listen to), it then ceases to me music? 

What about African percussion tribal music? Is that wrongly labelled as music?

One example of a 20th century expressionist movement piece - Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg - is mostly devoid of melody in the vocals except for a couple of notes here and there. Would that be considered mislabeled as music?

There's a lot of music out there that are just cords playing. I can usually hear melody lines within those chords (as well as harmony and rhythm). If a rapper then adds his part to it, it doesn't mean that the song has no melody. It just means that the melody is not in the vocal part.

It's all music IMO.

fj

edited for punctuation

Edited Saturday at 09:19 PM by fjz

[Salvatore Sorice]

On 6/27/2025 at 4:35 AM, pwalpwal said:

Rap is the vocal style, hip hop is the music, some of the modern stuff is shockingly good , for example

 

That Ren video has been posted a few times - for, I feel, a good reason. It is great! Not my genre or taste but I really appreciate the artistry. 

[PhonoBrainer]

100% it's really because she's old, and can't be arsed to travel to Cleveland.

[Notes_Norton]

17 hours ago, fjz said:

So are you saying that, if you take a Charlie Parker song - which I'll assume that we agree that it is music - and add poetry recited in rhythm over top of it (however unpleasant that would probably be to listen to), it then ceases to me music? 

What about African percussion tribal music? Is that wrongly labelled as music?

One example of a 20th century expressionist movement piece - Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg - is mostly devoid of melody in the vocals except for a couple of notes here and there. Would that be considered mislabeled as music?

There's a lot of music out there that are just cords playing. I can usually hear melody lines within those chords (as well as harmony and rhythm). If a rapper then adds his part to it, it doesn't mean that the song has no melody. It just means that the melody is not in the vocal part.

It's all music IMO.

fj

edited for punctuation

The beatniks called it “Beat Poetry”. The Charlie Parker part was music, and they added poetry on top. The result was a hybrid.

I'm not posting a criticism to Rap, it's an art form all by itself, but it's poetry, often over some music. 

Is a woman doing a strip tease to music, doing what you would call making music? No, she is dancing to the music.

Is that mockingbird outside my window making music? No, it's beautiful but melody without rhythm or harmony. 

African Tribal Percussion is not music if it lacks all 3 elements. That doesn't mean it's bad, it can be delightful, and I get lost in the rhythms, but it isn't music unless it has melody, harmony, and rhythm.

That's like saying "I woke up this morning, ate breakfast, and caught the bus to work" poetry. It's just prose.

It's all good IMO as long as it has someone who likes it, but we have to be careful with watering down our definitions, or they eventually become meaningless.

Rap is poetry that can be recited over music. Like the beatniks did, only more modern. 

Music: 1. The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.

That's what I was taught in school. Rap may be great, I might love it, but it fails the definition. This is not a criticism, just an observation.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[fjz]

1 hour ago, Notes_Norton said:

The beatniks called it “Beat Poetry”. The Charlie Parker part was music, and they added poetry on top. The result was a hybrid.

I'm not posting a criticism to Rap, it's an art form all by itself, but it's poetry, often over some music. 

Is a woman doing a strip tease to music, doing what you would call making music? No, she is dancing to the music.

Is that mockingbird outside my window making music? No, it's beautiful but melody without rhythm or harmony. 

African Tribal Percussion is not music if it lacks all 3 elements. That doesn't mean it's bad, it can be delightful, and I get lost in the rhythms, but it isn't music unless it has melody, harmony, and rhythm.

That's like saying "I woke up this morning, ate breakfast, and caught the bus to work" poetry. It's just prose.

It's all good IMO as long as it has someone who likes it, but we have to be careful with watering down our definitions, or they eventually become meaningless.

Rap is poetry that can be recited over music. Like the beatniks did, only more modern. 

Music: 1. The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.

That's what I was taught in school. Rap may be great, I might love it, but it fails the definition. This is not a criticism, just an observation.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

I understand that you are not criticizing what you say is not music and that you're simply applying the definition that you've laid out here, and that in your opinion, rap does not meet all the 3 requirements to be called music. I think it does.

You previously mentioned Kanye West as an example of not fulfilling all of the requirements to be called music, so I'll link to one of his songs and point out where I hear the requirements being filled.

 

1. Melody - Kanye opens with a short melody before the rapping starts and brings it back throughout. Then there's that repetitive melodic theme with occasional variation in the background vocals. 
2. Rhythm - Well, it's everywhere.
3. Harmony - Synth strings (including what I will consider a melodic theme in the top line)

I'm fairly certain that the definition of music is to differentiate unorganized noise (for example the noise that a washing machine makes) from noise that is organized with rhythm, harmony, and melody.

I see the point you are making that rap doesn't meet the definition, and I'm making the point that it does... A counterpoint, if you will   .

fj

 

[Notes_Norton]

Then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this subject.

[Amberwolf]

5 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

Is that mockingbird outside my window making music? No, it's beautiful but melody without rhythm or harmony. 

By that definition, no acapella vocalist, or single-tone-instrument (flute, clarinet, etc), picked guitar, etc., could ever be music.   

That seems very strange.

 

[fjz]

On 6/26/2025 at 8:03 PM, Notes_Norton said:

Music needs all three, melody, harmony, and rhythm.

I can't seem to find a definition for music that clearly states that all 3 elements must be present.

Here's the definition(s) taken from thefreedictionary.com. Number 1 looks like the definition you posted earlier today. It list 4 element but doesn't say that all 4 must be present. Now look at Number 2. It says that it needs "a degree of melody, harmony, or rhythm".

 

1. The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.

2. Vocal or instrumental sounds possessing a degree of melody, harmony, or rhythm.

3. 

• a. A musical composition.
• b. The written or printed score for such a composition.
• c. Such scores considered as a group: We keep our music in a stack near the piano.

4. A musical accompaniment.

5. A particular category or kind of music.

6. An aesthetically pleasing or harmonious sound or combination of sounds: the music of the wind in the pines.

fj

[Notes_Norton]

20 hours ago, Amberwolf said:

By that definition, no acapella vocalist, or single-tone-instrument (flute, clarinet, etc), picked guitar, etc., could ever be music.   

That seems very strange.

 

I'll stick with what I learned in school, and via the Berklee Correspondence course.

What you describe is a melody, a component of music, but not music.

Edited 2 hours ago by Notes_Norton
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