[microsound] post-laptop era?

Tue Dec 15 15:09:15 EST 2009

I almost agree, it's not really important the surface or the hmi. It's  
important if there's some sort of thought behind the music. The  
controller help if it's important for the structure, it helps some  
gesture. Sometimes the controller is ... "everyone can now make music".

Hi,
A.X

Il giorno 15/dic/09, alle ore 21:00, David Powers ha scritto:

> Personally I believe that there is a problem with this hypothesis.
>
> To begin with, I have yet to see a human/machine interface that gives
> me the kind of nuance that I achieve when I play piano. Even if such
> an interface existed, when encounters the problem of technological
> obsolescence. The lifespan of technologies is too short, and for any
> new instrument, there are no teachers and no tradition. Thus, it is
> difficult if not impossible to achieve the kind of virtuosity that is
> possible on more traditional instruments. This in turn means the range
> of performance possibilities tends to be rather limited, or if I might
> say so, even rather "amateurish".
>
> However, I am even more disturbed by a trend I see arising as a result
> of the prevalence of digital music making: I believe that much
> important musical knowledge is being lost. If one considers the great
> musical traditions of the world, which for me would include Indian
> classical, Chinese and Japanese music, West African drumming, European
> classical, jazz, and contemporary compositional practices, there is a
> huge range of harmonic, rhythmic, melodic, and timbral knowledge and
> possibility available. Yet, most of this knowledge is being forgotten,
> leading to extremely narrow musical practices. Instead of mastering
> the structural aspects of these musics, one usually encounters them,
> if at all, as directly sampled appropriations.
>
> The problem with this is that sampling (like the application of novel
> dsp effects here and there) normally exists entirely at the surface;
> it is in most cases merely a "sound effect". It has no impact on the
> inner structure of a musical composition. Consider the difference
> between the influence of Indian music on, say, John Coltrane's
> saxophone improvisations, with a piece of music that merely samples a
> sitar riff. The difference is obvious: by taking seriously the inner
> structure of Indian music, and using the insights gained in this way,
> Coltrane was able to produce a radical new musical space. Coltrane's
> recording of "My Favorite Things" is precisely an Event, opening up
> the space of freedom, proposing a new way of creating vibrations. One
> might even say that at a certain level, the sitar sample is, in
> Hegelian terms, an abstract negation of Indian music; it is simply an
> empty signifier for an exotic Other; it refers to another tradition,
> the better to avoid any real encounter, to keep this alien Other at a
> distance. Coltrane's approach, on the other hand, is to wrestle with
> the Other, not to reproduce it but to critically encounter it in order
> to produce a synthesis that produces something really new, something
> which is no longer just jazz, but is not Indian music either, nor is
> it just a simple pastiche of the two.
>
> In conclusion, I would say that one must distinguish between mere
> progress, which in our day and age is only the passing of time under
> the rule of capital, and the radically new which comes as an Event
> rupturing the structure of reality and opening up new possibilities
> for freedom. Technological progress is not bringing more freedom, it
> is not opening up new possibilities, precisely because progress
> remains entirely within the coordinates of the market place and the
> society of controlled consumption.
>
> If we wish to really discover what is new, in art as in life, perhaps
> it is time to take a deep breath, to step back, and to not be afraid
> of what is considered "old-fashioned" and traditional; not so that we
> can slavishly recreate a tradition, but in order to find the seeds of
> the new, the possibilities for freedom that lie dormant within the
> accumulated cultural experience of the global human society.
>
> ~David
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 12:45 PM, Graham Miller
> <grahammiller at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>> the future is in control surfaces and human/machine interfaces...
>>
>> On 15-Dec-09, at 1:27 PM, Adern X wrote:
>>
>> IMHO in the last two years laptop moved from being a music  
>> generator to the
>> state of a music controller. In other words, if some times ago  
>> laptop music
>> used mostly sinewaves as input, now it seems more interesting doing  
>> realtime
>> manipulation of samples (or somenting coming from audio inputs) or  
>> play with
>> other (real?) instruments.
>> The result is that it seems less "laptop-music" perhaps because,  
>> for me,
>> music using sinewaves seems in a creative cul-de-sac.
>> Hi!
>> Il giorno 15/dic/09, alle ore 18:38, Kim Cascone ha scritto:
>>
>> over the past couple of years I've noticed interesting developments  
>> in new
>> music
>> one is the seemingly sudden plethora of laptop musicians
>> the other is the death of laptop music
>>
>> interested in hearing opinions regarding the state of new music  
>> culture and
>> .microsound
>>
>>
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>> Adern X
>> http://www.xevor.net
>> http://www.myspace.com/adernx
>> "Boredom is the mother of creativity" (Ron Arad)
>>
>>
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Adern X

http://www.xevor.net
http://www.myspace.com/adernx
"Boredom is the mother of creativity" (Ron Arad)

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