Is Music Obsolete?

Ok, this is going to be a bit long, though I tried to be as succint as possible given this is an internet forum about dance music. Maybe some of you will find this interesting or provocative. This post is in two parts: the first is exposition relative to architecture, the second is relative to dance music. this is not really an argument, but more of a question

As a student in a relatively connected architecture school I get to be around some cutting edge movements in design and to some degree, philosophy and epistemology....

That being said, these days in architecture, really since about 1997 but recently exploding there is large contigent of academics and practioners alike who have embraced emergent technology and new ideas about networks, globalization, social behavior, urbanism, etc.

Mainly what these ideas have in common is a complete submission to computer-driven processes and technologies.

In short, this means an utter denial of representative drawing and form-making, and an embrace of form generated by the system or the machine itself. This movement argues that 'modernism' in the classical sense (mies van der rohe, walter gropius, etc) was a half-baked movement that merely swapped aesthetic representation and 'style' from the decadent and decorative to the minimal and industrial without actually overturning society and thought.

These emergent architectures are called many times "parametric" architectures, because they are basically complex computer-generated systems with human-specified variables/parameters that control the specifics of the design. It revolutionary in the sense that these methods change the way one creates, the entire design process, and the discussion is in the process and not necessarily the outcome, because everything is essentially laid out beforehand as an intelligent system (as opposed to a society needing to figure out how to inhabit some arbitrary creation from man with a large ego)



Ok, so relative to electronic music:

I think in the near future there will be emergent musical technology that subverts the age-old definition of music as a discrete and representative form and structure.

The revolution in music, as with architecture, will come in the process of creation. Some of these processes will completely separate the musician from the musical outcome, by way of parametric, intelligent software.

Through machines we will create something truly organic

Even the most "cutting edge" music today really does nothing to change "music". The structures are all the same, the process for making minimal techno is the same as the process for making Filo & Peri - The Anthem. The sounds are simply an aesthetic.

Granted, the structure of music still maintains an important role in creating ideas about music, the idea of repetition and undifferentiation versus discrete sections, breakdowns, choruses, etc. All these structures though are age-old vestiges of classical culture..... (mabye it' s true that there is something archetypal and human then here, but i think that 'human' is no longer applicable in this age of utter globalization and machines)

the most innovative thing i have seen out of music recently is the machine called "Reactable" which is a parametric, group-oriented synthesis/performance/sampling device

I also feel like the internet has been completely removed from musical experience, for instance, if music of the future is generated from data in real time, parties of the future may be globally informed by the people attending them worldwide, and the actual movement and behavior of the people, rather than merely people reacting to discrete blocks of 'creation'. I think to some degree the DJ has begun this revolution with the idea of the mix, but true progress in the way of music has been consistently stunted by the capitalist notions of music business and music as a commodity, the "song" which is a vestige of old europe

If humanity ever overcomes the ills of capitalist commodification of music, I believe that we might be making music that is much more biologic, much more human in the sense that it is not created by one person and then consumed by another, but music which is created by machines which are parametrically controlled by the actual people who experience the music....

the future is a future of temporality and spectacle. the classical definition of art, architecture, and music as "pieces", discrete by DEFINITION, framed objects in the annals of history will die and give way to ephemeral musical reactions.


also i will say that this technology will be used for good or for evil. socialists will tout it as the end to bourgeois ideas about artwork. capitalists will worship it for its efficiency and ability to generate music without musicians and profitability...

architects were once considered artists, now they are increasingly seen as scientists as art and science become more and more the same

sidenote:
sampling in the 80s was a HUGE revolution in terms of musical innovation, which overturned age old ideas about ownership. sadly, sampling itself now has become a business, and the original idea is frowned upon... can't really think of anything else that has been revolutionary.

Last edited by nefardec on Apr-02-2007 at 21:20

lyk srsly




weee ftp

The structure of the music would only change if people instruct these machines to create something that differs from todays music. So if the originators of the ideas remain the same (humans) i don't see why/how these new tools/machines would bring about a revolution in the structure of music.

what i mean is

such a revolution would mean that one produces music that is a direct result of the technology used to create it, and NOT to achieve some kind of 'effect' or 'atmosphere' or 'style. of course it would have to be a human initiative.

more or less what techno began as. techno however quickly became seen as a "fashion" or "style" when it was imported to europe, and people were more excited about things it evoked than how it was made.


see what i mean is, you can take any sequencer and replace samples with a different set of samples or patches, and maybe change the tempo, and you can instantly transform it from an epic trance track to an electrohouse track. so what i am suggesting is maybe a return to a time where the process of making music is more closely related to its sound.

This is what happens when people take one too many pills or spend too much time talking with Tina

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That kind of technology is actually supposed to be coming in the new Spore game. Brian Eno is supposed to be helping to design a process-based music generation program for the game that uses a few prerecorded segments to create music that evolves from the simple beginnings to the more complex ending. There are no songs in that soundtrack, there is just the soundtrack.

I think it's pretty neat stuff, and has interesting repercussions for the EDM scene, I think.

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quote:

Originally posted by nefardec what i mean is such a revolution would mean that one produces music that is a direct result of the technology used to create it, and NOT to achieve some kind of 'effect' or 'atmosphere' or 'style. of course it would have to be a human initiative. more or less what techno began as. techno however quickly became seen as a "fashion" or "style" when it was imported to europe, and people were more excited about things it evoked than how it was made. see what i mean is, you can take any sequencer and replace samples with a different set of samples or patches, and maybe change the tempo, and you can instantly transform it from an epic trance track to an electrohouse track. so what i am suggesting is maybe a return to a time where the process of making music is more closely related to its sound.

But as soon as someone discovers that the tools can be used to create something that differs from the sound people associate with the tools, you have the same problem all over again. And i say problem because you made it sound like one, i don't really see what the problem is in all of this. And i don't think the line of reasoning behind the techno example, or other similar examples one could think of, is valid. The fact that many perceive the original techno as a typical sound of that technology doesn't make it a more direct result of the technology than any other music created with it. And it's not like the techno pioneers were the first ones to create music with electronic instruments.

quote:

Originally posted by thoughtlessjex That kind of technology is actually supposed to be coming in the new Spore game. Brian Eno is supposed to be helping to design a process-based music generation program for the game that uses a few prerecorded segments to create music that evolves from the simple beginnings to the more complex ending. There are no songs in that soundtrack, there is just the soundtrack. I think it's pretty neat stuff, and has interesting repercussions for the EDM scene, I think.

It's not really a new concept and it's not very complicated. Brian Eno has constructed music this way before, even as far back as on Ambient 1. All you have to do is take two or more instruments or sections of instruments that in some way evolve and move in a non-rhythmical way and not in sync with each other, and just let them repeat over and over. They will move in and out, begin and end at different points in relation to each other every time they repeat. Depending on the used material you may have to listen weeks or months before you hear the exact same variation you heard before. Back in the days they did this by playing different tape loops of different lenghts simoultaneously. Since they were not synchronized they would begin and end at different points in relation to each other every time they repeated and new combinations would arise every cycle of the loop for a long long time.

Read much Macluhan, nefardec?

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec see what i mean is, you can take any sequencer and replace samples with a different set of samples or patches, and maybe change the tempo, and you can instantly transform it from an epic trance track to an electrohouse track. so what i am suggesting is maybe a return to a time where the process of making music is more closely related to its sound.

Wow, I can't believe you're minimizing something so subjective into the sum of its minimal objectivity.

YES, of course there are certain constants that make a genre, and of course technologies shape the growth and development of it. There's no "going back", no matter how much pseudointellectual ism jizzum you spill. Sorry mate...

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec see what i mean is, you can take any sequencer and replace samples with a different set of samples or patches, and maybe change the tempo, and you can instantly transform it from an epic trance track to an electrohouse track. so what i am suggesting is maybe a return to a time where the process of making music is more closely related to its sound.

Can you really though? I think that's a gross assumption.

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lol, good discussion...kind of. Lets give the respect where its due...God gave us the ability to create beautiful things. Some use it as it was intented and some try to munipulate that intention. Weve all heard some terrifying, darn near nightmarish music but why complicate it? In its simplest form it posseses a strong ability to change peoples emotions. Stick to that philosiphy Costanza and we will enjoy it that much more. \0/

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quote:

Originally posted by SMC It's not really a new concept and it's not very complicated. Brian Eno has constructed music this way before, even as far back as on Ambient 1. All you have to do is take two or more instruments or sections of instruments that in some way evolve and move in a non-rhythmical way and not in sync with each other, and just let them repeat over and over. They will move in and out, begin and end at different points in relation to each other every time they repeat. Depending on the used material you may have to listen weeks or months before you hear the exact same variation you heard before. Back in the days they did this by playing different tape loops of different lenghts simoultaneously. Since they were not synchronized they would begin and end at different points in relation to each other every time they repeated and new combinations would arise every cycle of the loop for a long long time.

This is actually completely different from what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a computer process that writes music dependent on a set of variables using a certain set of prerecorded material. It may begin simply, such as the desynching you're talking about, but the actual nature of the music changes and becomes more complex as the music progresses.

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