Who Is IOZ?: Nodules

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Nodules

This poor girl is going to destroy her voice before she's twenty:

She's a remarkably, incredibly impressive mimic, I'll give her that, but she can't breathe, she doesn't support, she doesn't know how to open her mouth, and she doesn't actually know how to sing the notes she's pretending to sing. Now, as an antidote, here is Montserrat Caballé, from 1975, when she was still near her vocal peak. (Caballé isn't my favorite interpreter of Puccini, and this isn't a wonderful recording, but she is indisputably one of the great masters of vocal technique.)

Someone should get Jackie Evanchko a proper voice teacher. Most women reach their real vocal peak in their thirties and forties. As it stands, Jackie is unlikely to make it through puberty.

58 comments:

Hail Stan! said...: reminds me of little league pitching phenoms. however, i know little about pitching mechanics and muscular physiology, but even less about opera and shooting your mouth off.; 10:25 AM
¯\(°_0)/¯ said...: Uh, it's called "America's Got Talent," not "Spain's Got Fat Old Ladies."; 11:07 AM
Anonymous said...: So, is that justice?; 11:28 AM
Anonymous said...: dude, no wants to watch fag hags in black and white.; 12:09 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: this is more my style.; 12:16 PM
Anonymous said...: Thirty years from now she and Stephen Strasburg will be stumbling drunk through the streets of Pittsburgh; Francis Phelan and Helen Archer in the flesh.; 12:40 PM
Devin Lenda said...: IOZ says:
This connection you think you feel between yourself and your world is illegitimate. This most intimate of experiences, this aesthetic, this "all you've got," is nothing. You think this girl can sing. No. no. no. I'll tell you who can sing. I know what you should like. I'm smart, you see, or unrepressed, or...well, anyway, my opinions apply to you. You SHOULD like what I like. If you don't, you're less than (me) you're unclassy, prole-ish. Oh, no, this is NOT an authoritarian attitude, an attempt to universalize the personal, to pit my experiences against yours.

But dude, this is intellectual violence. This is over-against. This is...justify it. Quantify it. Give me a reason to believe your experience of beauty, or your analytic, your arguments, are anything more than that, that they have anything to do with, or can enhance, my experience of beauty.; 1:33 PM
IOZ said...: Lulz. He's Knox Harrington. The video artist.; 1:45 PM
Anonymous said...: Whoa. Who would have guessed that the most polarizing post in Ioz history would be a fairly benign one stating a fairly obvious fact, even to those of us who don't know about opera.

Is a child who can sing in key as good as a real opera singer? Probably not. It doesn't take not being a prole to figure that out, Devin Lenda.; 1:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Yo, Devin Lenda.
By juxtaposing the amateur with the professional, IOZ has enhanced your experience of beauty.
Get a band-aid.; 2:01 PM
Devin Lenda said...: Thing is, I didn't bother listening to either because it wasn't necessary for the point I was making. Of course you can say most people prefer the sound of a symphony to the sound of a 2 year-old banging rocks together. That's not the issue. "Most people prefer" is not the point IOZ先生 is making.

your use of "as good as" is the problem nonny.; 2:07 PM
tim said...: freakish; 2:13 PM
Anonymous said...: @Devin

Why is IOZ responsible for your inferiority complex?

Of course, IOZ is totally incorrect in his opinion of The National.; 2:15 PM
Devin Lenda said...: He's neither correct nor incorrect...please reread.; 2:17 PM
j r said...: is there anyone worse than Nick Cannon?; 2:20 PM
Montag said...: maybe i can't read, but i thought IOZ's point had to do with technique rather than beauty.; 2:21 PM
Devin Lenda said...: Either way it's normative, montag. I don't see the difference. Sing this way if you want to make beautiful music. Sing that way if you want to suck.; 2:26 PM
Hail Stan! said...: I like music that I can break shit to.; 2:33 PM
Montag said...: was it said that she sucks? or that she an incredibly impressive mimic?

sing this way if you want to make beautiful music over a long career. sing that way if you want to risk damaging your voice before reaching your prime.; 2:40 PM
IOZ said...: Oh, ahahahaha. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a blog post noting a technical deficiency--forever!; 2:46 PM
Devin Lenda said...: Good point, but...
"she can't breathe, she doesn't support, she doesn't know how to open her mouth, and she doesn't actually know how to sing the notes she's pretending to sing."

In other words, she sucks. In any case, there's no shortage of posts here at IOZ where our hero (and I do love his work, really) assumes unique access to beauty, as you must be aware. This novel sucks (OK if there's propositional content, but that's rarely the point), that band sucks...

My point, which I'd like to get back to, has to do with ANYONE's ability to make universal statements about beauty that people need to accede to or be considered less than.; 2:53 PM
IOZ said...: Which one is Logjammin?; 2:56 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: this is hilarious.

"dude, if you let a little air out of your tires, you will float across the bumps, rather than chatter."

"FASCIST!"; 2:56 PM
Devin Lenda said...: All truth claims are normative. If I assert that X is true, I implicitly claim that you're wrong, irrational, in some way bad, if you disagree. All truth claims therefore, involve intellectual violence. Which isn't to say that truth claims are bad, only that they need to be justified. The burden of proof is on the one who claims that, for example, my connection to reality or beauty is wrong. But what's your episteme IOZ先生? Where is it coming from?

Obviously (?), no one called anyone a fascist.; 3:24 PM
Montag said...: Opinion vs. Truth. fascinating subject.

i posit (opinion) that there are universal aesthetic truths. of which, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," is not one.

so what if IOZ is often critical? "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all," isn't exactly a universal aesthetic truth, either.; 3:24 PM
rowan said...: See? IOZ does think of the children sometimes!; 3:26 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: "enjoy your chatter! the um, 5mm allen should tighten most of the bolts back up on your bike. "; 3:30 PM
Devin Lenda said...: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" is not what this is about. Sounds like one those Inkberrow accusations of excessive empathy (you love the victims!!!). This is a technical question. Again, what does anyone's opinion about beauty have to say about anyone else's? What kind of person tries to put his own opinions about such matters between another person and that person's most intimate connection with reality (aesthetics)? No one has even attempted to answer the question.; 3:35 PM
Lucid said...: Uh, Devin, suggesting that poor technique will wreck your voice in the long run is neither a comment on beauty, nor a normative truth claim. It's a statement based on long standing empirical evidence. I know a little something about vocal technique - you don't protect your instrument, suffer the consequences.; 3:39 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: why don't you go consult Steven Strasburg's fucking elbow. some said his mechanics would land him on the DL. what say you of them?

god you're a tool.; 3:40 PM
IOZ said...: America's got talent is my most intimate connection with banality, anyway.; 3:43 PM
KEn said...: Devin, you're out of your element.

This girl is trying to be an opera singer. IOZ, who apparently knows something about opera, points out that she isn't an opera singer yet, and worse she never will be because her technique is damaging her vocal cords. What's the problem?

If the girl were just trying to make beautiful music, I would see your point. But she's trying to do something (in a technical sense) and failing. IOZ is just pointing that out.

PS: Hell of a Caucasian, Jackie.; 3:44 PM
Devin Lenda said...: Lucid, Montag already said that, although he didn't mention how awesomely talented he is. That would have tied his argument together.

I'll try to keep your concern for orthodoxy in mind next time, Mr. F. Also, thanks for answering the question.; 3:46 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: BUS!; 3:52 PM
la Rana said...: I guess if one posits a sort of aesthetic utopia, wherein beauty and truth are one, and the most beautiful necessarily rolls the most strikes, our eastern-european tennis playing friend here makes some sense.; 3:53 PM
Devin Lenda said...: KEn, I'm taking on art crit as such. If you want to argue that in this case IOZ is making no claims about beauty, in spite of the quote I copied and pasted above, go ahead. He's made such claims in the past, as I also mentioned above. It's a valid point you make about technique, if that's all it was (it wasn't, you can't separate technique and beauty like that), but even so, an issue would remain.; 4:00 PM
Montag said...: Again, what does anyone's opinion about beauty have to say about anyone else's?

if one person's opinion differs from another's, it means they disagree. in the absence of consensus, must all communication cease? i don't get it.

What kind of person tries to put his own opinions about such matters between another person and that person's most intimate connection with reality (aesthetics)?

what kind of tenuous, weak-ass connection do you have with reality, if IOZ (someone on the internet!) can run interference on your perception and interpretation of sensory input? he's not bending sound and light here. also i don't believe for a second that's what he "tries" to do.; 4:07 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: orthodoxy! LOL

oh right, now I'm the UCI to the kid's Graeme O`Bree, simply because I point out that your reach is too far and is throwing your hips off, which could lead to overuse injuries down the road?

wait what?; 4:24 PM
Leonard said...: Come see the intellectual violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'M BEING intellectually REPRESSED!; 4:30 PM
John said...: No, no, you're looking for the IOZ transmission and undercarriage shop, just down the street. This here's the IOZ vocal technique studio. On your way out you might check out the menu at T.G.I.Flowcharts, also owned and operated under the IOZ umbrella. To be on the safe side, you might want to steer clear of the IOZ melon cart for a week or so, just in case.; 4:43 PM
Anonymous said...: Devin, you asspackage, he's clearly saying that the "beauty" of her "remarkable, incredibly impressive" mimicry is outweighed by the fact that she's going to destroy her ability to do anything but croak and squawk if she isn't taught proper technique. How many ways can you keep missing that wholly unobjectionable point?

Really, you just look fucking stupid here. Keep your powder dry for the next time he sneers at some musician or novelist on grounds of taste (which will probably be in the next four days or so).

Thank fuck he didn't confuse her with a different Jackie, or this post would have quadruple-digit comments on it.; 4:44 PM
IOZ said...: My art has been commended for being strongly vaginal.; 5:56 PM
Anonymous said...: The word itself makes some men uncomfortable.; 6:27 PM
Jeff in Texas said...: Devin, man-- give it up. I read IOZ, I like his stuff, but you have to take the good with the bad, the unique perspective with the skewed priorities. You're taking issue with a guy for whom a critique of a kid's vocal technique at a talent show = point well worth making, but for whom an article on a backward culture that represses women and celebrates pederasty is so much wasted ink. Just sit back and enjoy the show.; 6:35 PM
la Rana said...: I believe both points were made, actually. You are on the right track though: IOZ prefers his reach arounds back-handed.; 7:07 PM
Lucas said...: Yeah, well, you know that's just like your opinion, man.; 7:19 PM
Montag said...: what's a pederast?; 7:29 PM
Anonymous said...: Eight year-olds, dude.; 7:51 PM
Michael Smith said...: The horror of vibrato...

But I don't think she was straining. She was marking. Microphone three inches from her lips, and a fairly obvious electronic reverb.; 10:18 PM
NutellaonToast said...: "it wasn't, you can't separate technique and beauty like that"

someone doesn't know the definition of either technique, beauty, or separate. possibly all three.; 8:28 AM
Devin Lenda said...: If I were to write it up as a blog entry, it would go like this:
MAKING JUDGMENTS IN THE GUISE OF OBJECTIVITY
Q: How do you use a hammer?
A: You grab it by the handle and swing thusly, bringing the head into contact, at speed, with an object such as a nail...

Is the answer a normative or descriptive statement? It may sound descriptive, and indeed it describes. But notice how the answer doesn't mention taking the hammer by the head and digging in the sand with it. It also doesn't mention eating the hammer, another plausible use. The answer contains a judgment about the proper use of the hammer. The question was interpreted as "how should I use a hammer?," that is, "what's the correct way to use a hammer?" It would be fair to say that the statement is both normative and descriptive but where the question is whether or not the answerer is passing judgment on hammer use, the answer is most definitely "yes." It's an implicit affirmation of a particular way of using a hammer at the expense of all other possible ways. It's a normative claim.

The desired result (or purpose) informs the technique. The technique cannot be understood in isolation from the desired result. Hammers don't make sense without things to hit...; 9:56 AM
Devin Lenda said...: Q: How should I take care of this hammer?
A: Keep it in a dry place, don't throw it in a blast furnace...

Obviously a normative answer. The word "should" is a giveaway. But a different question arises from this exchange that expands the lesson from the first exchange. Why does the answerer only make recommendations that protect the hammer's integrity while making none that harm it? It's assumed that the questioner wants to know how best to preserve the hammer so that he can use it in the way that hammers are generally used. So as long as we're talking about the hammer, as philosophers say, qua hammer, all claims are normative unless they're bracketed, as in "people say..." or "most people think..." In other words, it's not my normative claim, it's theirs.

If you're talking about a hammer as metal or wood, on the other hand, descriptions of technique may refer to some other end, such as chemical decomposition, and the same analysis will show that technique and purpose remain inseparable.

Recently, a non-anarchist anarchist who goes by "IOZ" posted an article criticizing the vocal technique of 10 year-old opera singer Jackie Evancho, lamenting that "she can't breathe, she doesn't support, she doesn't know how to open her mouth, and she doesn't actually know how to sing the notes she's pretending to sing. Now, as an antidote, here is Montserrat Caballé, from 1975, when she was still near her vocal peak."

According to commenters responding to my response to the article, I'm to believe this was a non-normative statement since it was about "technique." According to one commenter, IOZ is merely concerned about poor Evancho's voice.; 10:11 AM
Devin Lenda said...: The technique, of course, must be just so, in order to sing like Montserrat Caballé, who was at "her vocal peak." But "vocal peak" has nothing to do with the beauty of her voice, only its health, as if the term makes any sense outside the context of singing for the purpose of creating beauty. "Doctor, I'm a mechanic and I have a big problem. My voice isn't at its peak!"

If the issue were the girl's voice, as it relates to being able to speak without pain later in life, I'd grant the point. Her voice is the metal as it relates to chemical decomposition. But it's clearly about more than that and anyone who can read the above quote and interpret it as merely descriptive has failed to grasp the meaning of the word "normative."; 10:12 AM
Anonymous said...: holy shit shut the fuck up; 3:35 PM
Anonymous said...: your last three posts were on the order of 'nihilism wins philosophy because you can't prove anything exists', goddamn useless non-starter keyboard masturbation.

anyway lets back up to "how do you use a hammer?" the correct answer would be "I swing it by the ...", change the question to "how do i use a hammer?" and the answer becomes "i don't fucking know, figure it out dumbass"; 3:41 PM
Devin Lenda said...: Normativity=nihilism?
Jesus. How many false inferences can IOZ commenters draw in a single thread?; 7:56 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: you dildo. everything IOZ says that the young wannabe in the first video is not doing correctly is exemplified correctly in the second video by the Spanish lady, who just happened to be at or near her vocal peak in that video. a blog post is not an if---->then statement, you tool. sometimes we're left on our own to figure out what the fuck IOZ is talking about.

somebody put the baby back in his pen.; 8:21 AM
Anonymous said...: great post thanks; 1:54 AM

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Nodules

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