Wednesday, March 02, 2005

David Raposa: Clogs/Stick Music Review: 26.3

A Pitchfork writer is one driven by extremely specific fame. Beyond this,they are, no doubt, seminal architects of musical critique. Notice how David Raposa explains, to the common reader, the baffling definition of percussion."A percussion instrument is one sounded by striking or shaking. This definition covers the usual suspects-- drums, maracas, washboards, xylophones. If you're willing, this also qualifies instruments that aren't considered percussive-- the guitar, the piano, even the violin."Now if your mind wasn't blown by the startling revelation that drums are a percussion instrument, and you got past Mr. Raposa's mastery of foreign language (maracas? Xylophone?) you would immediately be floored by his ability to save his notes from his freshman year music theory class. How else would we: common internet review readers, understand such words as legato or vibrato. Thank god Mr. Raposa has taken the time to school us in these important musical puzzles - for if he had not, we may have never truly grasped why Clogs:Stick Music is so important to the survival of not only our country, but Europe as well. Beyond that, he does not shy away from the adjective "Sublime" and yet asks us: newly devoted disciples of Stick Music, to understand that he owns a thesaurus, and will not hesitate to fearlessly not use it.