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A real laptop symphony? (pg. 6)
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| PETRAN |
Nefardec, i really like you man, i had some grate conversations with you in the past, but your fan-boyism for techno can sometimes get rediculous...
"I think techno is first an foremost a philosophy..."
Yeah...its the philosophy of the random pissed-in-drugs punter who can't distinquish one track from the other but he goes to the club to get some and drugs, finally finding some XTC/coke-whatever and some crack-whore leaving her pregnant and ending-up vomiting in the toilet of the club in the back, without remembering last night what kind of music did the club had... and this is f*cking true for the 90% of today's EDM...
Lets get some grip here...i like my EDM too...but wtf...
It is just music to have fun in the clubs to begin with. This "futuristic"-"the machines create hyper-organic intelligent structures that arise from emptiness before mimicking ther dynamic environment of the deepest human voids"-is just... "bollocks" (as SYSTEM-J would say)
Techno may had futuristic roots and maybe it was revolutionary up to a certain point, at least when it first begun in Detroit. Although it certainly weren't the first futuristic music, neither it had some deeper ideology even back then. Musically wasn't special at all either. And that was the fun. It was machine music to move your body (and partly your soul heh) not to think about the deepest agonies of the human existence while listening to it.
As for your conversation i'm going with SYSTEM-J here. There are no "Shoulds" and "shouldnt's" and that was that music's ideology in the first place( the ideology of EDM is that there is NO ideology...)...chicago house...detroit techno... the direct-in-your-face hedonism lies in the fact that there are no shouldn't(s), no philosophies or ideological constraints. This is why all those gay black people jacked their bodies till they got sweaty and naughty to each other. Do you see any "shoulds" or "musts" in those simple-as- but funky-as-hell in your face pianos of the "Strings of life"? You shouldn't see any "Shoulds"! You just move your body!
When the ideologies got in they killed all the fun but thats ok. You can like "pseudo-cultural" music and i even sometimes like those unicorn-trance tunes that make kids feel like they are talking to god. Dub techno and all that pretentious deepnes. Cool, i like the auditory aesthetic. But its pretentious as , at least if you see it as a form of "philosophy" rather than what it really is, a kind of dance music that moves your body and your mind without any further thoughts. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
Yeah...its the philosophy of the random pissed-in-drugs punter who can't distinquish one track from the other but he goes to the club to get some and drugs, finally finding some XTC/coke-whatever and some crack-whore leaving her pregnant and ending-up vomiting in the toilet of the club in the back, without remembering last night what kind of music did the club had... and this is f*cking true for the 90% of today's EDM... |
ok, but it has also substatively affected the way we think about music, the way we make music, no? you're taking all the cheap shots here.
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
Lets get some grip here...i like my EDM too...but wtf...
It is just music to have fun in the clubs to begin with. This "futuristic"-"the machines create hyper-organic intelligent structures that arise from emptiness before mimicking ther dynamic environment of the deepest human voids"-is just... "bollocks" (as SYSTEM-J would say) |
i'm sorry you feel that way. there is a lot of that sort of thing out there, but i try not to waste my time with it. techno has always been fun to me precisely because it is revolutionary. there is nothing about electrical circuit glitch noises and oscillators and warehouses that intrinsically is 'fun'
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
Techno may had futuristic roots and maybe it was revolutionary up to a certain point, at least when it first begun in Detroit. Although it certainly weren't the first futuristic music, neither it had some deeper ideology even back then. |
why can't it? sounds like you're saying a 'shouldn't' *gasp*
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
There are no "Shoulds" and "shouldnt's" and that was that music's ideology in the first place( the ideology of EDM is that there is NO ideology...)...chicago house...detroit techno... the direct-in-your-face hedonism lies in the fact that there are no shouldn't(s), no philosophies or ideological constraints.
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that sounds a lot like an ideology to me, PETRAN. Just another opinion.
| quote: | | Originally posted by PETRAN dance music that moves your body and your mind without any further thoughts. |
that is what it is at the moment you dance to it in a club, but it doesn't mean you can't analyze it afterwards or produce music with philosophical intent. when i'm at a party i certainly don't think this about this stuff (maybe sometimes if i'm bored)
no wonder so much electronic music is , since there are so many people who feel this way. dancing in clubs gets old, really, really fast. |
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| Omega_Blue |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
i'll admit that it's possible, but if you listen to the mills arrangements and this pvd arrangements, you'll see it's nothing new under the sun. maybe it has to do with the imagination and creativity of the arranger. pvd's using bits from holst for god's sake.
i think essentially it does, and essentially this is what is happening. it's time for model 5000. the techno that is 'old' tends to fetishize a future of the past. but like I have said, I think techno is first an foremost a philosophy, and that if producers of contemporary techno were to apply this philosophy to their craft, like the originators did, rather than to dwell on specific 'syntactical tendencies' as you say, perhaps 'vocabulary' is a better word, then techno might avoid obsolescence. but there is no question about it, the spirit of the times are technologies that appear and obsolesce nearly overnight. even classical music's rise would be considered relatively overnight in the grand schema of human musical endeavor.
here's something for you to scoff at: :p
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_theory
btw - i don't purport to believe in this, but it interests me.
well just so we're clear, i'll say it for the third time: I have an aversion to orchestral arrangements of techno compositions, and this is my manifesto:
1- i have yet to hear something convincing produced in this way.
2- i think this is because the presence of an orchestra, with its familiar instrumentation, arrangements, and setting (under the pont du gard in mills case, no less) deprives techno of its greatest strength, which is its ability as machine-music to subject humans to and reveal unplayable/unimaginable rhythms,dynamics,frequencies,patterns. no instrument on earth can sustain a bass rumble for 4 minutes but thunder. no orchestra can transform the space it is inside with delay and reverberation units. no player on earth can modulate sound as perfectly repetitive and yet frenetically as the tb303 step sequencer.
I think techno is at its best, no less than a machine for human psychic development. Similar to the way we may be able to augment our bodies with electrical components to increase visual acuity or strength, I believe techno is, at it's best, a prototypical technology for augmenting human consciousness. Music has always been used to connect to the great mysteries of our universe, whether it is a stir in the heart caused by a section of swelling cellos, a choir proclaiming 'hallelujah', or a sublime tabla raga performed by a guru. But these are all archaic ways of connecting through to the sublime aurally, like an abacus for calculation. Today we have computers which allow us to perform incredible computations without pause. I believe techno has a similar role in allowing humans to transcend their physical and mental limitations.
I believe that every musical instrument invention leading up until now can be considered a step forward, leading to this. There are two prototypical instruments: one is the human voice, the vocal chamber, and the other is hitting something with a stick. Interestingly, a primary musical instrument is the same language device behind lyrics, which you dismiss as peripheral. Chanting is a form of music older than history itself! The pipe was the first abstraction of the human voice, the first digital (in the most literal sense) augmentation of a voice. It allowed man to speak through the voice of another. The reed then replaced the human vocal chord, and was eventually supplanted by the string.
Now we no longer use our fingers to create vibration in static objects, we inflect them with electricity and call them oscillators, and oscillators allow man to do what no man has ever done before. We can reproduce natural noises almost to an indistinguishable degree, as well as reveal sounds that seem wholly alien to us. The oscillator has replaced the vocal chord, pipe, reed, string, AND stick/drum/bell, reduced sound to its purest form, as energy, vibration. Now we can manipulate energy directly to reach worlds of sound previously unattainable, every schoolchild can create synthesize emotions and intensities with no musical training what so ever.
I believe that all forms of artwork are SUPPOSED to communicate something external to the artwork itself, or they become masturbatory, indulgent, and pointless. And I believe that, despite what you may think, most artwork is intended to, and does communicate these external things. Only until recent times have all the different forms of artwork become so separated.
With the rise of the global network and the cross-polination of so much media, we are living in a time where music is loaded with more meaning than ever before. I think your conception of this 'pure music, free from external meaning', while pleasant, is very naive and maybe quaint. You may be more idealistic than me even. In a world where everyone has something to say, it is impossible to live in silence.
This is the future, this is techno, this is transcendence, and I embrace it.
I have my manifesto, and you have yours: |
you could say the same for trance or any electronic music genre for that matter though, not just techno. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by Omega_Blue
you could say the same for trance or any electronic music genre for that matter though, not just techno. |
probably
techno is the origin for many, though. also i think other types of dance music like house don't put the same emphasis on technology, experimentation, and futurism - house is more connected to the older tradition of disco, funk, etc. dub music is another revolutionary form of music, because of the way it broke down the pop song to introduce the idea of remixing and pioneered techniques for creating soundscapes.
house music basically began as a DIY disco movement, when music technology allowed kids in their basements to make disco music all by themselves and then give it frankie knuckles to play out. then people started digging the electronic sounds and djs started to play more of it. house is about groove, acid and techno are more about rewiring your brain, as well as early trance music too, i think.
it's 'fun' precisely because it's so different. it's fun for the same reason people think taking LSD is fun, because it is revolutionary, exciting, etc. Partying in a field with 10,000 people on ecstasy is nothing short of cultural revolution. it's not just a party, no matter how fun it is. |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
why can't it? sounds like you're saying a 'shouldn't' *gasp* |
No i say it didn't/doesn't
| quote: |
that sounds a lot like an ideology to me, PETRAN. Just another opinion. |
Fair enough. The ideology of ideological absence. Still...forget the "deepest truths"...
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that is what it is at the moment you dance to it in a club, but it doesn't mean you can't analyze it afterwards or produce music with philosophical intent. when i'm at a party i certainly don't think this about this stuff (maybe sometimes if i'm bored) |
Analyze it as much as you like but thats not the music's point! You don't go to bloody Jeff Mills to analyze his sound. Ofcourse you can always say how awesome he was with the three decks !
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no wonder so much electronic music is , since there are so many people who feel this way. dancing in clubs gets old, really, really fast. |
Yeah but that's not the music's first purpose, thats why it is on a clearly pronounced Four-To-The-ing-Floor beat, to move your body not to drink tea while talking about the drama of the human condition... |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
No i say it didn't/doesn't
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so now you're techno's spokesperson?
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
Yeah but that the music's first purpose, thats why it is on a clearly pronounced Four-To-The-ing-Floor beat, to move your body not to drink tea while talking about the drama of the human condition... |
the beat isn't what moves your body, even, it's the other layered rhythms, particularly syncopated rhythms which move bodies. the four/four beat is more like a heartbeat or vehicle that drives the track along. i personally find it hard to 'dance' to simple four/four beats - unless you count fist pumping as dancing.
nevertheless, have you never found yourself at 11 am in a crowd full of ed up strangers, dancing to a four-four beat and thought about the human condition? I think it's unavoidable if you are a thoughtful person. Sometimes I am at a party and I'm like "what the am i doing here, and what are these noises? what is it about them that makes people all around the world do this every night until dawn?" |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
the beat isn't what moves your body, even, it's the other layered rhythms, particularly syncopated rhythms which move bodies. the four/four beat is more like a heartbeat or vehicle that drives the track along. i personally find it hard to 'dance' to simple four/four beats - unless you count fist pumping as dancing.
nevertheless, have you never found yourself at 11 am in a crowd full of ed up strangers, dancing to a four-four beat and thought about the human condition? I think it's unavoidable if you are a thoughtful person. Sometimes I am at a party and I'm like "what the am i doing here, and what are these noises?" |
I wonder what percentage of clubbers go to a techno event to think about the human condition...
Well, ofcourse anything can happen. You can think about the human condition with Vengaboys. But lets be a bit realistic...
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Sometimes I am at a party and I'm like "what the am i doing here, and what are these noises?" |
lol
sounds like bad E |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| The point about dancing is a good one, PETRAN. It's an example of exactly how electronic music elicits an entirely pure reaction divorced from social context or language. Paul Hartnoll of Orbital called it the "primal thump"- it cuts through society and goes back to a primal reaction. |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
The point about dancing is a good one, PETRAN. It's an example of exactly how electronic music elicits an entirely pure reaction divorced from social context or language. Paul Hartnoll of Orbital called it the "primal thump"- it cuts through society and goes back to a primal reaction. |
Exactly! If EDM has an "ideology" is this one, to destroy all barriers/thoughts/context and let loose yourself! (suggesting an absence of an ideology and this is what makes it completely free of any constraints. And ofcourse this is why it is/was loved so much...to the club, or in the open field or even in the peaceful environment of your house) Those "futuristic" and "spiritual" references was IMO the "coating" of that primary feeling. Basically because they were cool and congruent with those "free" sounds. |
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| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
Sometimes I am at a party and I'm like "what the am i doing here, and what are these noises? what is it about them that makes people all around the world do this every night until dawn?" |
Thats how you know it's a good one. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
The point about dancing is a good one, PETRAN. It's an example of exactly how electronic music elicits an entirely pure reaction divorced from social context or language. Paul Hartnoll of Orbital called it the "primal thump"- it cuts through society and goes back to a primal reaction. |
yes, this is the 'primal layer' of the music, but it's not the only layer of the music. this is like the reptilian core of dance music, the reason why people can get so ed up and stay at berghain for 2 days straight. but there are other layers and encoded messages that allow people to enjoy it in other ways. i have a theory of art that says that the best artwork is that which has so many layers that it can be appreciated by people of any disposition and level of sophistication/analysis.
i did a mix all about this primal thump, there's no denying it
in another thread I recommended an article on this called "Miraculous Voices: The Auditory. Experience of Numinous Objects" by Donald Tuzin.
if you have access to JSTOR, check it out here:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2743210?cookieSet=1 |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
Thats how you know it's a good one. |
yeah i don't agree with that. way too many forgettable nights for me.
i prefer beautiful moments, like when jan krueger dropped shed's 'well done' at noon at old miami last year in the midst of all that troy pierce pappycock
i guess that's a good reason for boring, mindless music - it makes good music seem even better |
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