'Wank'

Also, isn't the usage of the term contradictory when it describes stuff that goes on and on? I mean, if you flogged the hog for 20 minutes, you'd scrape it raw! Isn't punk or (early) grindcore a better analogue?

I dunno - I can wank for hours on end! But I think this fret wankery description comes about from wanking representing sexual gratification through self-stimulation. So other people don't want to listen to it, but any performer doing it does so for his or her own pleasure - and drags it out and out and out...

I think dave q needs a wanking masterclass.

perhaps it's the inability to say something musically concisely. Someone could ramble on and on in some weighty discourse, full of brilliant ideas and connections, but if they cannot say it in 50 words or less, then they are being entirely too fucking verbose. Being technical might be for the scholars and experts. The average person is average and doesn't have the time or training to get into anything longer, because they have other things in life that they might need to attend. Short attention span is a relative concept.
But i like the self-gratification divided by pleasure of listener = wankery factor.
Who would gleefully rub their hands together, and say, I love to watch wankery?

Agreed; if 20 minutes is enough to "scrape it raw", his technique must be pretty enthusiastic.

Aw, my post was meant to follow Nick's.

Aha! 'the average person'...maybe a short attention span (and corresponding powers of analysis etc)is what makes average people so average?

Oh, and during a crystal meth comedown it's possible to wank for three hours without climaxing. Surely the equivalent of that pinnacle of wank, the Damo Suzuki live 7-CD box set?

"I AM DAMO SUZUKI!" cried Mark E. Smith as he completed his 7 hour wanking marathon..

I dunno ... my personal definition of "wank" has always been a lot more specific, something like "Gratuitously extended self- congratulatory displays of technical skill," as best exemplified by the guitar solo that wails pointlessly on and on underneath the guitarist's scrunched-up "look at me wail" face.

I don't think I ever use "wank" to describe a whole piece of music, just ... just that thing, above. Plus, a piece of music so heavy on the wanking that every part of it was wank (i.e., 100% wank) would probably be sort of cool, in which case I wouldn't call it wank. I might say that is was "synchronized wanking," which would be a good thing.

"Synchronized wanking" isn't bad. 'Specially on a crystal meth comedown.

I'm kidding. Kidding! *looks around nervously*

Nitsuh - how do you know the guitar solo is 'pointless'? If a listener doesn't 'get it', is there anything to be gotten? Also, why is it always guitar players who get this? Didn't Coltrane 'wank' (or 'blow') alot?

Dave, that 'pointless' can only be a function of the listener-as- critic, no?

"average" is not necessarily an insult in every use, only in terms of quality. Average is quite a nice thing to be when puts a person on the scale of tendency to slip into schizophrenia or to commit murder... or perform musical wankery.

There's debilitating mental disorders that have the odd advantage of being able to focus on something for long periods of time. I'd prefer to be average.

Aphex Twin=Very small bollocks.

in musical trems, wank = music made by stoned people, that only sounds interesting to those particular people...

how do you know the guitar solo is 'pointless'

a.) The guitar solo was only the most accessible example -- wank can come from anywhere. I'm sure someone who knows a lot about jazz could point to specific Coltrane bits that qualify as wank, just as classical afficionados could listen to a solo piano performance and point out which bits of the pianist's interpretation were wanky.

b.) The "pointless" is an admittedly subjective call made by the listener, but I'd put it in the same category of the "service to the song" concept Tom was talking about in his last Freakytrigger part. "Wank" seems to imply a really egregious lack of service to the song.

But what if the song ,instead of A-B-A-B-C-B or whatever, is ACTUALLTY MEANT to consist of a loose modal structure or various permutations of scales etc?

... it wouldn't be wanking. As Nitsuh pointed out, a song designed solely for extended periods of musical wankery would be fine, because the only people who'd be listening would be voyeurs who get pleasure out of that anyway (ie. the performer's actions suit the needs of the listener).

The visceral impact of the "wank" is that it comes right in the middle of something more communicative of pleasure to the listener, disrupting the "natural" progression of pleasurable sensation and in itself failing to be pleasurable to the listener at all (like stopping sex halfway through so that your partner can wank - no analysis is necessary to demonstrate that this is likely to be jarring and not a little boring for the other person).

The reason why the criticism is so inaccurate is that artists rarely make music for one recipient, and what one listener considers to be masturbation is another's listener's favourite fetish.

all music making is wanking BIG OLD PILE OF WANK. not that there's anything wrong with wanking ( unless you're carlos santana eyeing up the ladies while failing to hold my attention by playing "some notes" in "a rhythm" OR tortoise winking at each other as they "stretch out" into a bongo led jam session (surely i could be doing something more constructive with this "audience time" here). or a composer composing or an improviser improvising or kid 606 or jim o'rourke being all bloody obscurant & pretending to be alien or postmodern (eurgh! that's just the worst). only accidental music is not wank. as soon as there is some "look at me" or "hear this" intent it's wank.

I think dave q needs a wanking masterclass.

Y'know if Wanking Masterclasses were taught by out of work porn starlets instead of Rick Wakeman, I'd sign up.