|
| 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
___________________
People who own my ass: Citric Acid, Boomer187, Tribu, Sand Leaper,
Jackson, venomX, jamie, Renegade, Konjin, Akridrot, Miss Bliss.
Psy-T - Down The Rabbit Hole (400minute long acid set)
|
