[
Date Prev][
Date Next] [
Thread Prev][
Thread Next]
[
Date Index][
Thread Index][
Author Index]
RE: the diatonic-chromatic-noise paradigm
I know, it's crazy how far, complex, and off the deep end
one can go, yet still do something that might appeal to world. I supposed
I could learn how to play the guitar, but finger every single note up or
down exactly 1/4 of a tone, just to keep busy for another 10
years, yet make music that has some popular
appeal.
You make me think of something someone once said to me
about my music that made me step back and re-evaluate what I was doing
artistically...and it applies to looping and improvisation. It has to do
with the "process" involved with creating music vs. the just the output by and
in itself. It must be how peoples' brains work when they try to understand
music, but I have met some people who are only interested in
the nature of the final sonic output of a composition, and not "how"
or the process by which it was created. For example, one of us in
this discussion group could create a totally improvised looping
composition that has multiple layers and take several minutes
to build, or someone else could possibly have created the same composition,
or something very similar, by writing out all the parts in advance,
scoring it out, and then recording it via traditional multi-tracking technology.
In contrast, someone could use some compositional method to create a piece of
music, one that involves some complex mathematics or playing approach, and
someone else could possibly perform a similar piece off the top of their head
with no methodology. These are extreme examples, of course, but for me, the
process is very important, just as important as the emotion that arises from the
final output, and has a lot to do with how I frame a piece of music and
understand it. Others are more interested in how the final output makes
them feel....they are not interested in the non-tangible aspects of the final
song and how it was created, as if that doesn't really add anything significant
to the final output...that has to be added or tacked on "conceptually" to
the composition by the listener, and factored into the evaluation. I think that
is really interesting - how people combine inherent and non-inherent
characteristics to define an object....it can get so wonderfully complicated and
fuzzy, and generate all sorts of contradictory conceptions of things...I
love contradictions, anything and everything that forces us to re-evaluate the
so-called truth of the matter.
In any event, if I recall my interaction with this reviewer
correctly, I was raving about the process by which I created some tune of mine,
and the other person basically didn't care...it was all about the final
output...they didn't like it (how it made him/her feel), and no amount of
information regarding "how" the composition was created would
change his/her feelings. I don't think there is anything right or wrong
with this way of thinking/feeling...it is just a facet of the diversity of human
emotion and the thought (or lack thereof) that goes into liking music.
Again, I think it is just how peoples' brains are wired. I have to remind myself
of this frequently when people try to understand or react to anything I compose
that involves looping and improvisation. Some people just aren't concerned with
the process of the composition, but the inherent properties of the composition
itself. We can't force or obligate anyone include the non-intrinsic
characteristics of a a piece of music in their emotional judgement of the music.
And if you think about it, if someone, many years from now (or an alien from
another world) were to find a CD that had a bunch of our looping music on it,
but there was no literature that explained the process by which we created
the music, all this being might be have to base their affinity or lack
of affinity with the music IS the output itself and the raw, intrinsic
characteristics of the music. We wouldn't have the luxury of them knowing how we
created the music to appreciate the process and hard work involved in that facet
of the composition. So it appears to me that there are intrinsic and
non-intrinsic characteristics that we can pack, or not pack into a concept that
defines a piece of music....or any "thing" for that matter. Sometimes
we grow so fond of the non-intrinsic characteristics of music, that we begin to
believe ourselves that they are really intrinsic properties of the music... or
at least we talk in a way that implies this; whereas philosophically, we can't
really maintain this position.
Thanks for providing the spring-board for me to wander,
Monica. :)
Kris
,,,or get hip to some Slonimsky and start
infra-inter-ultrapolating -
both symmetrically and asymmetrically! And don't
forget to invert those
varied interval dodecaphonic progressions! 
Monica
"loop.pool"
<looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:
Kris
Hartung wrote:
"Because I've grown weary of pretty....I've played
diatonically for the
last 25 years as a guitarist.... part diatonic blended
with "outside" in
the last 5, and now I'm pretty much thinking
chromatically when I
improv....no key. It's just a personal quirk of mine
at this point in
the game. Who knows, maybe in another 5 years, I'll be
playing noise. :)"
Whatever floats your boat makes me happy for you
Kris, but I do want to
point out that with over
a 1,000 Indian Rags and
hundreds of exotic world music scales, let alone
just scales, microtonal
scales,
and found scales, etc. there are a lot of different places to go
out there
in the world of constrained melodic and harmonic
systems.
I can't even keep up with the geniuses at the Music Theory
tribe at
tribe.net with all their discussions of different
systems to
investigate.
"pretty" only relates to a couple of the greek modes in
western
harmony..................................lydian, for example, is
far from
pretty. It is bittersweet
with a touch of melancholy to my ear
and emotions......................add a
flat 7 to the scale and you are in
a different and exotic emotional universe
altogether. It's just one of
those Rags.
I guess I'm saying that there are other continuums to
explore besides the
"diatonic-chromatic-noise" continuum which seems to
me
to be a typical paradigmatic trap in western music.
with respect,
Rick
Asgard Guitars
"guitar technology for the new emerging edge..."
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired
of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
