por Michel Leme

 

Outside - whatta hell is that? 
 
 
Part I: About the specialized press
 
Somedays before, I notice that some people still use the term "outside" to designate something that they listened to and couldn't understand and/or classify in the music of some artists.
 
(In Brazil, people use literally the term "Outside", wich represents a real problem; down here it sounds pompous and means nothing!)
 
Reading some reviews about events I've played recently - which has to be each time more "super": super resumed and superficial, following the "time is money" idea -, I saw the unhappy term detached in an attempt of description.
 
I think it works like that: "Hum, I didn't get what he played now...It is not an exercise that I know, no scale or arpeggio... Well, so I will call it OUTSIDE! Done".
 
And this when the journalist which signs the article really went to the concert! Sometime ago, I got a phonecall to describe a show which had already happened for the journalist that could't be present on the event. In another opportunity, I read a review signed by someone who simply wasn't at the concert..
 
Our specialized press still deals with some kids which call themselves journalists - maybe because of the cheap work or even free - and try to define the art of some musicians with this empty designations, like their own empty knowledge about music...
 
It wouldn't be much more interesting (since it is to cover a musical event) to really listen to the music and get deeper in the experience, to give more interesting, rich and creative images to the reader? I believe it would, for sure. It would be one more thing to attract people to music. But hurry doesn't let people to get deeper anymore. The globalized world requires "quick answers" and "total efficiency".
 
But , I wonder, since when " to answer quick" and " to be efficient" indicates intelligence, profundity or any other thing that can get close to these noble values? 
 
 
Part II: About the musicians  
 
 
The musicians themselves are responsible for spreading this useless terms, since tons of them are still using it, mainly in classes and workshops.
 
In 1994 , and here comes one "mea culpa", I did two instructional videos which were released by a company named Hélio Cortez Music - which, just to be registered, doesn't pay for the product created by me and released by them , like these videos and a book called "150 phrases of Jazz & Fusion" - , and of them was called "Inside and Outside". Few years after that, I realized that call an arpeggio superposition (or a simple modulation, etc.) of "outside" means to insist in a mistake.
 
Things are much more simpler...
 
For example: if a section of a song has the bass in F while I play E major and Bm, it means that I simply played E major and Bm over F. And just that! Or, still, if the section of a song is in a key and I play a melody in a half-step up, I just played one half-step over.
 
This is the way I explain for people who ask me. And I think this is much more honest than looking for empty cliché terms. And when I don't know what I did , I also say loud and clear: "I don't know what I did!". Let's be honest and let the music speaks for itself.
 
To name situations like the mentioned above like "Outside", for me, sounds so wise than call them "delicacy from escandinave" or "Totó". I doesn't make any sense! 
 
Part III: Attempt of conclusion 
 
Try to put an artistic expression inside of the small box of the written or spoken language is already something complicated, in my opinion; try to explain an artistic event with a cliché term, so, it's ridiculous!
 
"Outside" , for me, is the garbage which has been spreaded by the media with no truce in the head of the citizens of the world. That is "out"!!!
After all, it has never played so much "outside" like nowadays in the Tv, radios, Ipods, cars (in the traffic we hear so many creepy things...) and on the internet.
 
This whole ignorance should be "Out" and the creative artist should be "In", but it's not like that. The real artists are becoming more and more "out" to the zombies that accept all this media trash without even wondering why.
 
Well, I am not in the same ship of the people who use this kind of term, not anymore... I am "out" from the "Outside". 
 
Michel Leme