Musical Improvisation and Play: Dead Beatles
Dead Beatles
The play of children and the play of ensemble improvisers like the Grateful Dead share numerous co-identifying qualities. Definitions of play and improvisation precede a comparison of the Dead and the Beatles. These two bands have been exhaustively described, but herein is a focus on the quality of play and the play ethos they both inspired. This spirit of play as it emerged in other forms of 1960s rock and its implications for communitas bespeaks the potential for playfulness and music to advance society, not unlike the message of dada-Surrealism. Get the scoop here…Dead Beatles: A Commentary on Group Improvisation
Considered the greatest artist of the twentieth century, Picasso produced paintings and sculptures that frequently embodied playfulness…but he put art first, play second. Duchamp and dada lived the reverse ethos that put the release of play into daily life first, with works of art the mere residue. What fun Duchamp is having, what masterful play....
The J.L. Mott Iron Works The entry and rejection of Duchamp’s readymade, Fountain, would be a Declaration of Play, in art and in life. His humble porcelain piece would sow a vision of a world where war was not possible. Elegant and notorious, Duchamp confronted the art world’s establishment, creating street theater that is a...
What could possibly make a better case for a world of playfulness and peace than its opposite, stupid stupid war. Our nations’ elites have clearly failed to create peace in our or any time, nor have they doused the flames of environmental abuse that engulf the planet. The brutalities of human destructiveness most currently demonstrated...
