@Ishkur - Are you familiar with Billy Collins and his 'Paradelle'? I was reminded of it when you mentioned 'all' media.

if anyone is interested, Billy Collins, who was the American Poet Laureate, basically invented a deliberately limiting form of poetry which he called the "Paradelle" (like Villanelle, Elegy, Ode, Sonnet, Limerick, etc etc) From this form he was able to essentially generate the poem given a basic text.

quote:

The paradelle is one of the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in the langue d'oc love poetry of the eleventh century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only those words.

Click here for examples

Skip, it's one thing to disagree, it's another thing to insult. Feel free to disagree with me.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec smc, while you might call them pioneers of styles, they were also among the pioneers of methods, which is the center of my interest. The styles were due to the methods, style was slave to method, it was infused with method.

Were they the first to ever use a drum machine or what are you saying? And so what, that's the case with all music. A guitarists music is much a result of the method he employs, playing on a guitar. My music is a result of the methods i employ. If someone gave me a didgeridoo and bongo drums my music would sound quite a bit different.

quote:

I think you misunderstood the use of their names - I brought them up because they were pretty much everyday kids subverting new technology. I was just suggesting that more people to day ought to subvert technology rather than be slave to it. Programs like Pure Data can work to this end...

Can you give examples of subverting technology and being a slave to it?

Last edited by SMC on Apr-01-2007 at 20:40

subverting technology example #1

adjusting two turntables rotational speed to match the tempo of two different pieces of music so that they can be seamlessly overlaid.

#2

using a roland tb 303 to generate squelchy, screaming, acid noises

#3

dragging a record below the needle in rhythmic patterns to create a musical sound

#4

using frequencies of telephone tones to send messages to telecommunications companies in order to make free long distance calls

etc etc

using "contemporary larry heards and derrick mays" is an example of "synecdoche", which is a literary device that involves using a part to refer to the whole. In this case, I am using the term larry heards and derrick mays to mean "young people in the 80s who were making early forms of music out of technology that wasn't expressly invented for those forms of music."

Obviously they weren't the first.

And I agree with you - that's true with analog forms of music for sure. But now there are sampled guitars in rock music, for example, that are not even the actual sound of the player! So again, my interest is in how transparent the process is - does the final musical result reveal how it was made or is it basically a musical 'facade' on a textbook structure?

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec Skip, it's one thing to disagree, it's another thing to insult. Feel free to disagree with me.

what did you expect? that everyone would praise your theory and just take it word by word with no criticism?
i haven't deliberately insulted you. i may have insulted your theory though as i think it's ridiculous and i think it's ridiculous that you don't even back it up. so i don't really think that you believe in it yourself even. come on. prove me wrong.
and i'm sorry if you feel that i've insulted you, but i've only said what i think of your theory. i may have been blunt about it, but there's no point in sugarcoating every negative opinion. negative opinions are great IMO as they really aid the formation of a true conversation. if everyone agrees, there's nothing to talk about.
so if you really believe in your theory then try to come up with some convincing arguments for it and answer the questions i presented. if you won't do that then there's really not much to talk about here.

___________________

Get Dropbox, with 250 MB extra space!

And how is one a slave to the 303 for example?

@skip - it's not my theory. these are ideas that have been circulating since the 70s and probably earlier, and are popular now in other discourses such as architecture.

again, I don't care if you disagree with me, that's fine. I just don't see the need to label things as bullshit. It's not about sugarcoating, it's about being mature and respectful. Why does what I am saying seem to personally anger you?

I agree, negative opinions are the reason the world goes around. Check my signature for a quote on that. By that same token, if the ideas I am bringing up are a denial of the status quo, yhen we are really in the same game, aren't we...

I think the first paragraph of my post says "this is not really an argument, more of a question". I didn't post this looking for arguments, like I said, it's not my theory, and I don't really believe in it, I only find it interesting and I wanted to bring it to public attention. If you think the ideas are fruitless, maybe you can say that in a more respectful way.


Maybe in 5 years after I have thought about it more I will be able to form an argument about it, and then you can tell me it's not convincing, but for now you are wasting your time because you're arguing against an argument that doesn't even exist.

On the other hand, I suppose I have made some of my own claims in this thread, and if you want to debate it, allow me some time to make the proper arguments. I don't really see how you yourself have made a 'convincing argument' or what that exactly is for you - are you talking sources etc? Because part of me thinks you call it unconvincing only because you disagree with it.

@smc - with that particular machine you're not slave per se as you would be using like a jp8080 with presets, but I suppose the slave end of the spectrum for the tb 303 would be to use it as a bassline, which is how the machine is described, and the subversion is to use it as something other than a bassline. I see your point.

Last edited by nefardec on Apr-01-2007 at 23:24

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec @Ishkur - Are you familiar with Billy Collins and his 'Paradelle'? I was reminded of it when you mentioned 'all' media.

There was a French art movement in the 19th century that is also like that called Parnassian. Where the structure and rules are so rigid and defined that following them is harder than the actual artistic expression.

Kind of a "let's see how creative you can be while thinking inside the box" mentality. I've often referred to a lot of electronic music genres (among them trance) as being Parnassian.

quote:

Originally posted by SMC Can you give examples of subverting technology and being a slave to it?

The history of electronic music is literally nothing but the history of renegade musicians and artists distorting, corrupting, destroying and bending their instruments far beyond their intended applications.

Plastikman - Spastic is ONE 808. ONE. Go ask Richie how he did it.

There are a lot of words I don't know and I don't feel like looking them up right now. Maybe later.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec @smc - with that particular machine you're not slave per se as you would be using like a jp8080 with presets, but I suppose the slave end of the spectrum for the tb 303 would be to use it as a bassline, which is how the machine is described, and the subversion is to use it as something other than a bassline. I see your point.

And i don't see yours, it's all arbitrary and very abstract. Using a thing for what it's originators had in mind, what's so negative in that to inspire the notion of being a slave to something. I mean, are you a slave to your toothbrush because you use it to brush your teeth?

To explain it simply, SMC: Yes, you are. The toothbrush defines and controls your behavior when you hold it. In a sense, it is using you, not the other way around.

Read Mcluhan's "Understanding Media" (a caveat: he defines media as anything that is an extension of man, used to extend man's senses past his corporeal self. A hammer is media--being an extension of the hand, the fist, of man's penchance for striking--just as much as a television is). He explains exactly this sort of thing.