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-- music is obsolete (as we know it)
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quote:

Originally posted by SMC And how is one a slave to the 303 for example?

one just is, i think i haven't made even one track that doesn't use the 303 since i perfected my emulation of it a few years back

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec Did you know that "The Slim Shady EP" was used by the united states military a way to extract confessions from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay? Yet a lot of people would call that music even though it is used as a torture device.

did you know that water was used by the chinese as a way to torture people? yet a lot of people would call water a necessity for life even though it was used as a torture device.

quote:

Originally posted by thoughtlessjex What I see here is a few people taking their gestalt of a concept to be a valid basis of opposition

you're saying a gestalt of a concept is intrinsicly not a valid arguement.

quote:

Originally posted by thoughtlessjex What I see here is a few people taking their gestalt of a concept to be a valid basis of opposition, and thus are trying to pick at the edges of the concept without finding a good reason why they dislike the concept itself.

you're saying people are attacking the edges of concept rather its core because they (mistakenly) think they are right.


in other words, you don't know what you're saying and i'd advise you to stick to plain, spoken english.

quote:

Originally posted by thoughtlessjex SMC, skip, you aren't even trying to make discourse, whilst refusing to understand the questions and ideas that nefardec is proposing, you are leading the discussion into more and more unrelated areas where you are more likely to force him into a fallacy that will only appease your luddite sensibilities, and won't actually serve in any way to disprove the theories he wants to discuss.

the fallacies are already in the original text.

quote:

Originally posted by Allied Nations Does that matter?

to both the consumers and the musicians, yes, it does matter. a consumer wants to hear things that are worth hearing, and a musician wants to produce things which are worth hearing.

For the love of God man, the "Edit" button!

But I largely agree.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I need to see a logical reason why doing things a certain way is worth the effort as opposed to any other way. Why should we follow any of the technological trends he's mentioned as opposed to implementing anything else? And really, what would the point be? Randomly implementing shit until you stumble across something that can be concieved as having a point beyond existing for its own sake is not scientific.

exactly

edit button? that'd be a hell of a huge post

edit: i'm done anyway, at least until someone comes back with a new argument

No prisoners, no mercy.

quote:

did you know that water was used by the chinese as a way to torture people? yet a lot of people would call water a necessity for life even though it was used as a torture device.

lol of course - that's exactly my point as well

Psy-T - I agree with most everything you write - you seem to have a far deeper understanding of these things than most. I don't think anybody doubts that, especially after two pages of chain posts lol.

I just don't understand the hostility that I have seemingly invited through this topic.... can we not just talk about the future? if you think everything I wrote is bunk or old news, that's fine, thanks for showing me that, but since I do have a genuine interest here:

what do you see in all of this? anything? it seems you have a great degree of interest in the relationship of humans to their tools and also aesthetics versus methods as well...

a couple things you wrote I felt were a bit indeterminate -

"worth hearing"
who is the judge of what is worth hearing? (i'm not asking this rhetorically) is it a social thing? can something be 'worth' producing even if most people don't want to hear it? what determines musical importance? doesn't it come with time? what if the experiments are a necessary step to something that IS 'worth hearing'

"i most often view art as entertainment, i believe most people do the same"
true, a lot of art is viewed and produced as entertaining. but at the same time there are is a lot that isn't only entertainment - religious art and music, for example - it has cultural value, associated ritual, political message even....some art is deeper than entertainment. take arcimboldo, the 16th century court painter for example. he painted these absurd portraits of nobility basically as compositions of things like fish, vegetables, fruits, etc. one may see this as entertaining (which the nobility did), because it was a novelty and kind of humorous, but at the same time he was basically rebelling against the traditional, conservative ideas of what a court portrait should be, even using it to satire the art and poke fun at the nobles for whom he worked. also back to my example about slim shady - that is music used to torture people. what if the government actually commissioned enimem to make an album that was used for miliary purposes?

also i have to be cynical - is the purpose of music to entertain? or is it to sell? or is that the same thing? so another way of looking at it is - is it really the consumer in control? or can the producers create their consumers gradually? i think it's probably somewhere in between, in which case music would be more than entertainment. think about all the canned music produced to sell/brand products and corporate environments! actually this is something I am supremely interested in - right now I am working on a project for an office building in chelsea which integrates basically a set highly corporatized nightclubs/lounges/bars and art galleries as well - basically trying to make a proposal about a new corporate environment in which office and entertainment are no longer always separate. this is sort of a trend you see with new-school corporate environments like google. anyways, i am interested in the line between entertainment and function.

when i wrote this post originally i sort of was imagining the parametric stuff (yes i do like that word ) being used mostly in this way, by companies, for basically a responsive form of 'sonic imaging' (that's the phrase Muzak corporation uses lol) music to make people buy things, music that makes people eat more at restaurants, music that makes people lose weight, music that prevents sedition, music that makes babies


i'm going to bring up john cage - 4'33" again - i suppose this is entertaining (at least to me). it's definitely a spectacle, an event, which is a definite form of entertainment. but my question is - was it made because cage wanted to get a chuckle out of it, or because he was interested in subverting the idea of "music"?


i agree that the 'revolution' against discrete music came from the Dj. actually i'm sure there have been many instances throughout history where this has happened. I'm thinking about things like tribal drumming

i see that my statement about swapping samples/patches was very generalized and naive. certainly this is not always the case. i wasn't saying minimal techno was cutting edge. it's been around for some time, i am quite aware. i was just as much saying that the anthem was cutting edge. i suppose it is, after all, whatever one may think about it.

I just feel that the way most people talk about music is always like "it has bleepy sounds" or "it's glitchy" or "it sounds empty" or "it has a fat saw" rather than "there are two rhythms out of phase in this section" or "the timbre mutates in 32 bar loops" . maybe there's not a real difference, but i think a lot of the way people conceive of music today is very superficial, like, if it has a twangy guitar and voice it's country, and if it has a fat detuned saw bass it's electrohouse, and it it bleeps and glitches it's holden style minimal, etc etc.

maybe that's how it is and i should just accept it? there is certainly a lot of stuff to do in terms of manipulating genre.

but part of me, and that's the part that made me start this thread, asks the question, will music every be thought of more in terms of the processes used to make it (as everyone and their grandmother becomes a producer)? or will it always be an aesthetic thing, a stylistic thing?

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec what do you see in all of this? anything?

an opportunity to improve my language skills, my debating skill, my theories, and my projected worthiness.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec a couple things you wrote I felt were a bit indeterminate - "worth hearing" who is the judge of what is worth hearing? (i'm not asking this rhetorically) is it a social thing? can something be 'worth' producing even if most people don't want to hear it? what determines musical importance? doesn't it come with time? what if the experiments are a necessary step to something that IS 'worth hearing'

that which is enjoyable to you is worth hearing, that which is not enjoyable to you is not. it's not a social thing in this context, rather an individual thing.
something can be worth producing even if most people don't want to hear it (as long as someone wants to hear it).
importance is different though, it does not necessarily equate to worthiness, and it could be determined by a large variety of things: genre defining; creating something largely worthy with severe limitations on methods; winning a competition; staying worthy to a large extent beyond the genre's fashionability; noticeably impacting society; being commercially successful; et cetera. it can come with time, but time's passing alone means little, other conditions must be met.
experiments which aren't worthy for their own sake aren't the domain of the musician, rather the scientists/developers.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec "i most often view art as entertainment, i believe most people do the same" true, a lot of art is viewed and produced as entertaining. but at the same time there are is a lot that isn't only entertainment - religious art and music, for example - it has cultural value, associated ritual, political message even....some art is deeper than entertainment. take arcimboldo, the 16th century court painter for example. he painted these absurd portraits of nobility basically as compositions of things like fish, vegetables, fruits, etc. one may see this as entertaining (which the nobility did), because it was a novelty and kind of humorous, but at the same time he was basically rebelling against the traditional, conservative ideas of what a court portrait should be, even using it to satire the art and poke fun at the nobles for whom he worked.

hence most often...

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec also back to my example about slim shady - that is music used to torture people. what if the government actually commissioned enimem to make an album that was used for miliary purposes?

well for starters, it'd be a poor choice. amateur powernoise will get most people to crack far more quickly than eminem's music would.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec also i have to be cynical - is the purpose of music to entertain? or is it to sell? or is that the same thing? so another way of looking at it is - is it really the consumer in control? or can the producers create their consumers gradually?

i'd say entertainment is usually the major purpose. in order for you to sell your music, it usually needs to be entertaining, so while they're not one and the same, selling is mostly dependant on entertaining.
the individual consumer always has a measure of control, exactly how much control he has is determined by how large the market is. the collective consumer on the other hand has had control only theoretically for a very long time now; the market has 'him' pegged down and knows exactly how to dictate his tastes for him.
the producer can create his consumer base gradually, as many amateurs do.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec i think it's probably somewhere in between, in which case music would be more than entertainment. think about all the canned music produced to sell/brand products and corporate environments! actually this is something I am supremely interested in - right now I am working on a project for an office building in chelsea which integrates basically a set highly corporatized nightclubs/lounges/bars and art galleries as well - basically trying to make a proposal about a new corporate environment in which office and entertainment are no longer always separate. this is sort of a trend you see with new-school corporate environments like google. anyways, i am interested in the line between entertainment and function.

the only functions of interest to the musician are usually marketability and promotionability (is it too long for radio play? is it dj friendly?), and they do affect their creations (ala colour within the lines), but not to a very large degree: you either follow them, say with a 1% margin for innovation, or you scrap them entirely and go against the grain.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec when i wrote this post originally i sort of was imagining the parametric stuff (yes i do like that word ) being used mostly in this way, by companies, for basically a responsive form of 'sonic imaging' (that's the phrase Muzak corporation uses lol) music to make people buy things, music that makes people eat more at restaurants, music that makes people lose weight, music that prevents sedition, music that makes babies

hmm, thankfully, subliminal messages in audio aren't quite there yet, the subliminal comands you have are roughly: come, stay, leave, dance (in a huge variety of ways, i'd say this command is the most evolved), chill, and be ecstatic. that's roughly it

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec i'm going to bring up john cage - 4'33" again - i suppose this is entertaining (at least to me). it's definitely a spectacle, an event, which is a definite form of entertainment. but my question is - was it made because cage wanted to get a chuckle out of it, or because he was interested in subverting the idea of "music"?

hmm, well cage never really considered himself to be a musician, he knew he didn't fit in, yet he still wanted to work in music. he's the kind of guy who can do experiments with music without worrying about worthiness...

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec i agree that the 'revolution' against discrete music came from the Dj. actually i'm sure there have been many instances throughout history where this has happened. I'm thinking about things like tribal drumming

what was discrete back in the drum circles of yore to revolt against?

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec I just feel that the way most people talk about music is always like "it has bleepy sounds" or "it's glitchy" or "it sounds empty" or "it has a fat saw" rather than "there are two rhythms out of phase in this section" or "the timbre mutates in 32 bar loops" . maybe there's not a real difference, but i think a lot of the way people conceive of music today is very superficial, like, if it has a twangy guitar and voice it's country, and if it has a fat detuned saw bass it's electrohouse, and it it bleeps and glitches it's holden style minimal, etc etc. maybe that's how it is and i should just accept it? there is certainly a lot of stuff to do in terms of manipulating genre.

you don't really have to accept common genre definitions as they are, though it helps communication when you do. catalog your collection and define your genres anyway you see fit, just make sure to explain yourself when your definitions deviate significantly from the norm.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec but part of me, and that's the part that made me start this thread, asks the question, will music every be thought of more in terms of the processes used to make it (as everyone and their grandmother becomes a producer)? or will it always be an aesthetic thing, a stylistic thing?

many producers already think in those terms, here's an example:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=171369

quote:

Originally posted by Psy-T lol, the larger most of the music you probably listen to is made exactly like that. but go on doubting

yes i know that most of the stuff i listen to is made on machines. but there's a difference. my comment was on the music nefardec is talking about, which to my understanding is music made without any human intervention after the parameters are set. i personally don't think it would work so well that it would make current music obsolete at least. i really don't think most music i listen to is made by setting a bunch of parameters for the machine and then hitting the play button and then listening, recoding and releasing whatever comes out. i'd think there's more to it than that.

quote:

, which to my understanding is music made without any human intervention after the parameters are set.

yeah but that's a human intervention

the difference basically do you intervene here or there, which can pretty negligable. i think what's not negligable is the degree to which your product reveals how it was made

what's the difference if you invent the algorithm? it's just like deciding to use cubase over protools

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec yeah but that's a human intervention the difference basically do you intervene here or there, which can pretty negligable. i think what's not negligable is the degree to which your product reveals how it was made what's the difference if you invent the algorithm? it's just like deciding to use cubase over protools

i think there's a huge difference there. i think any producer could come up with a nice tune just by using the random buttons on his synths and programs and choosing the sounds he likes best/he thinks would go best together and combining them to make a track.
from what i understood your system would consist of parameters written in advance. so IMO the human selection of the sounds is missing. i wouldn't count the crowd interaction parameters as human selection really. what would the machine be programmed to do if the crowd didn't dig it? try randomly each and every sound/chord progression etc. until the crowd would dig it? would there be anyone left listening when the machine would hit the jackpot? would it mark up the chord progressions and sounds the crowd would dig in its database? if so would it resort to being a modern shit jukebox that would only play the "hits" people would want to hear over and over again as it's based on crowd reaction and lets face it most of the people today don't have any idea what they really think is good, they just go with the flow.
i just can't see this working in the near future at least, because the AIs we've developed aren't really up for it yet IMO.

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