[microsound] post-laptop era?

[David Powers]

1. On my choice of artists

You should note, I never picked any one style. I do mention classical
and experimental music, which certainly covers Stravinsky, Shoenberg,
Cage, and Xenakis. Kraftwerk, Zappa, and Autechre are all worth
listening to as well, they just don't happen to be influences that
touch me as deeply on a personal level. My example was John Coltrane,
who recorded "My Favorite Things" in 1961. Is he not as worthy of
mention as the composers you mention? (If I was going to be harsh, I
would ask, who is elitist when you mention all people of white
European descent and totally ignore the great 20th century innovations
of Afro-Americans in music?)

2. On "coherence" (admittedly an ambiguous term, in retrospect)

By the way, your argument about coherence is problematic; I don't
think you understand what I mean. Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Cage,
Xenakis, Kraftwerk, Zappa, and Autechre all develop their music in a
coherent way. They take it seriously, and they see the consequences of
what they are doing, and their art progresses over time. So how is
coherence limiting to them?

What is limiting, is when people just string a bunch of sounds
together for no reason and call it a piece. Unless they happen to be
blessed with unusual genius, it is precisely this which is limiting:
since there is no reason for one sound to follow another, there is no
ability to evaluate whether the piece is a success, nor is there any
reason to try things one way instead of another. In short, some kind
of internal coherence is necessary for sustained coherence: even if
the result of this inner coherence seems incoherent itself (one might
say that Cage blends coherence and incoherence in an interesting
way)!!!

Your reference to story telling also confuses me. Of course stories do
not need to be "told in a coherent way." But that doesn't mean an
author shouldn't follow some type of procedure that is itself
coherent. I never said the results have to be "transparent" or simple
or understandable to common sense. Is Finnegans Wake coherent?
Definitely, but it is not in any way easy to read or understand. Its
coherence resides in its inner structure and the procedures used to
create it.

It is the outwardly "coherent" pop songs of today, that are the least
coherent in their internal structure, after all.

What I have a problem with is the cut-and-paste pastiche, where
everything goes with everything else, and where there is no reason why
one sound should follow another. Imagine a music producer in the
studio whose conversation is something like this: "Okay, let's put a
sample of a sitar on top to make it sound exotic. Then, lets put the
voice through auto-tune, cus it really worked for Kanye. Hmmm, let's
put some weird glitch effect here cus glitch is cool right now. And
let's use an 808, cus that sound is so classic, the kids love it."

And sorry, for my "stereotyped" idea of digital music, I'm looking at
the records that are selling on Beatport and that DJ's around here
play, and listening to some of the things I hear passing for
exmperimental. I'm not at all saying that there aren't great musicians
out there. It's just that, I don't know who they are or how to hear
them, and they certainly aren't that easy to find.

3. On elitism, relativism, and democracy in art

First of all, being elitist is no crime. We need more elitism, if by
elitism you mean making aesthetic and ethical value judgments,
challenging the mainstream ideological discourses, and asserting the
possibility of experiencing a real freedom. Elitism is always the
defense of relativist postmodernism, which itself is just the ideology
of the marketplace where freedom means freedom to choose a brand of
soap and where everything is equal only because everything is offered
up for sale.

As far as computers allowing everyone to make music, well, everybody
can already make music. If you have a voice or hands, you can make
music. You don't need a computer for that! Or a melodica, for
instance, costs only $35 at the nearby store, it is an easy instrument
to learn, and far cheaper than a computer.

Why do you believe that only with computers is there a trend for
"everybody to make music"? Isn't it true that people have been making
music together for thousands of years?

Why is a computer more liberating than the ability to sing or play an
instrument? I would argue that technological advances absolutely
CANNOT and WILL NOT liberate on their own. The ear is the fundamental
instrument, without the ability to perceive, the discipline to learn
from what you hear, and the awareness of human freedom to create,
technology does nothing to liberate individuals to be artists. Not
only that, but digital technology tends to make people less and less
aware of their vibrations as they become physically removed from the
sound and become less sensitized to the actual vibrations their
actions are creating.

Take the example of poetry. Does the fact that everyone can speak make
everyone a poet? Anyone can come up with a rhyme, but creating
something that is moving or profound or meaningful takes discipline,
persistence, courage, and hard work. Even something as simple as
telling a joke well is not something that everyone can do.

Finally, This has nothing to do with "schooled" versus "unschooled." I
dropped out of college, am about 95% self taught in the area of music,
and was already happily making music before I get to college. But
being unschooled is no excuse for not learning from the past and
applying those lessons to the present.

Why are people so afraid of learning from our past? What is the
resistance to learning from the great traditions of music? Shouldn't
everyone who aspires to make music WANT to learn as much about it as
they can, in order to make the greatest impact in our limited time on
this planet?

~David

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 8:18 PM, isjtar <list at isjtar.org> wrote:
> your argument, articulately worded I must say, is elitist and
> surprisingly uninformed.
> I'm not a big fan of pop culture, but that everybody can make music is a
> great trend. I've heard wonderful things made by unschooled people, a
> lot more engaging than many pieces made in the fine tradition.
> aside from that, you seem to deliberately ignore 20th century evolutions
> in music. we didn't get to this point from nowhere.
> from stravinsky, shoenberg, cage, xenakis and from kraftwerk, zappa,
> autechre, whatever.
>
> the reduction to "coherent" pieces of the great tradition is as limiting
> as imposing "coherent" story-telling in a film in the american way, oh
> and there's Hollywood again.
> the evolution of different paints and pigments did have an enormous
> influence in painting. inventing new instruments was always important,
> most instruments played now are very young in their current form.
>
> furthermore, many composers and musicians are very aware of the various
> traditions and try to understand and learn from them.
>
> actually where does this stereotype of current "digital music" come from?
> the traditionalist theory is stale.
>
> getting into semantics about "foundation" is pointless too. can you say
> the the nocturnes by chopin would sound the same if they were played on
> a harmonica and trombone? of course an 808 is not a singular blob in
> history, but it was extremely influential in the evolution of popular
> electronic music.
>
> David Powers wrote:
>> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 5:15 PM, michael trommer <trommer at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> Re. computer with a non-computer interface - it seems to me that most
>>> digital gear is exactly that, be it an mpc or one of those 'workstation'
>>> keyboards.
>>>
>>> Re. the loss of musical traditions, I think that many
>>> hip-hop/glitch/house/techno artists would disagree - many would argue that
>>> the mpc/303/808/909 etc. is/are at the foundation of the style and sound of
>>> their music.
>>>
>>
>> Does music made with an 808 etc. have anything to do with the rich
>> tradition of human music making that is thousands of years old? I
>> think it is pretty clear that it does have to do with that tradition,
>> that the sounds people came up with in 1982 or 1992 or 2002 or the
>> present didn't just appear in a vacuum. In a way you prove my point...
>> If someone thinks the 808 is the "foundation" of their style and
>> sound, they have entirely forgotten everything that came before the
>> 808 existed. I would argue that there is no foundation at all, rather
>> than a foundation there is a history, and you can always look deeper
>> into the history.
>>
>> Not only that, but if a machine is the "foundation" of a style and
>> sound, what exactly is the role of the human being? What is the role
>> of human freedom and creativity?
>>
>> Finally, I'm not sure if you are actually saying anything at all: you
>> might as well say that "paint" is the foundation of the style of all
>> painters. But does that statement, in itself, have anything more than
>> formal or tautological meaning?
>>
>>
>>> Sampling as 'merely a sound effect', eh ? Wooh...there's a can of worms
>>> you've opened...
>>>
>>
>> Note, that I did not say sampling is necessarily, or always, or only a
>> sound effect. I in no way mean to imply that sampling is somehow, in
>> its essence, problematic. I would add that it is not only sampling,
>> but also most DSP, and, if one seeks a less controversial example, how
>> about the ubiquitous presence of the "Auto-Tune" effect on vocals in
>> pop music in recent years?
>>
>> I do see the trend in digital music making as similar to a trend in
>> Hollywood, to create movies that are always bigger and "badder" with
>> always more special effects, but at the same time always less
>> coherence, less construction, until the film threatens to become
>> nothing but montage of effects strung mindlessly together to form a
>> bombastic surface. And while digital music is the easiest culprit to
>> pinpoint within the current musical landscape, I would add that for
>> American music produced via industrial processes, this is nothing new;
>> I would say this goes for most popular music made since the creation
>> of music became an industrialized process.
>>
>>
>>> i'd also be careful about positioning the 'old' 'real' aesthetics of a
>>> coltrane against the 'new' - it reminds me of when people were arguing that
>>> 'real' music was played on guitars (or whatever) and that anything played on
>>> electronic instruments wasn't 'real' music. As a kid it usually boiled down
>>> to a drunken argument of zeppelin vs. kraftwerk...stupid.
>>>
>>
>> Now here you have entirely misread me. The question isn't about the
>> authentic old against the real new; the question is, why isn't the new
>> really new? Why isn't technological progress leading to much apparent
>> musical innovation.
>>
>> As far as Zeppelin vs. Kraftwerk, though I'm not as big a Kraftwerk
>> fan as some, I think my argument would clearly be aligned with
>> Kraftwerk as really making a kind of break from their tradition, while
>> Zeppelin were rehashing the same old rock and roll riffs. The Coltrane
>> example was picked not because it involved acoustic instruments, or
>> because it occurred in some golden age of authentic music. It simply
>> was the example that occurred to me most spontaneously, and I'm sure
>> that there are musicians working with digital technologies in the year
>> 2009 that are following in the same tradition; I'm just not
>> immediately aware of them.
>>
>> I stand by my argument, though, that innovation in its current phase
>> probably requires, not a return to tradition, but an awareness of and
>> willingness to learn from tradition in order to move forward. There
>> are plenty of interesting theories and traditions of music; if one
>> were to seriously study even one of these traditions, and take that
>> tradition seriously, I have no doubt that something novel would be
>> created as a result. The problem is the postmodern tendency to
>> equalize all traditions as being simply individual preferences, and
>> then to use them only as empty signs, rather than seeking to penetrate
>> the inner substance of these traditions with all their contradictions
>> and unrealized possibilities. To put it another way, innovation
>> requires tension, an encounter with some Other that challenges the
>> coordinates from which one creates--even if that Other is in fact
>> found within one's own work or tradition. One key problem with much of
>> today's music is that there is no inner tension, and thus nothing can
>> ever really develop. Familiarity with the great musical traditions can
>> help develop the sense of history and the awareness of how great music
>> works, allowing one to see the inner tensions in one's own practice
>> and develop them into something new. Especially key here is to examine
>> how substantial innovations have occurred within the great traditions,
>> to examine the practices and internal contradictions that brought
>> about Beethoven, Chopin, or Charlie Parker.
>>
>> Ultimately, I stand by my point--the future is not to be found in new
>> technologies, better interfaces, and all the rest. The future is in
>> fact already here, hiding within the past and the present, but only on
>> the condition that as a free human being, one has the audacity to open
>> one's eyes and see it.
>>
>>
>>> On 12/15/09 3:00 PM, "David Powers" <cyborgk at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> 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
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> microsound mailing list
>>>>> microsound at microsound.org
>>>>> http://or8.net/mailman/listinfo/microsound
>>>>>
>>>>> Adern X
>>>>> http://www.xevor.net
>>>>> http://www.myspace.com/adernx
>>>>> "Boredom is the mother of creativity" (Ron Arad)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> microsound mailing list
>>>>> microsound at microsound.org
>>>>> http://or8.net/mailman/listinfo/microsound
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> microsound mailing list
>>>>> microsound at microsound.org
>>>>> http://or8.net/mailman/listinfo/microsound
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> microsound mailing list
>>>> microsound at microsound.org
>>>> http://or8.net/mailman/listinfo/microsound
>>>>
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> microsound mailing list
>>> microsound at microsound.org
>>> http://or8.net/mailman/listinfo/microsound
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> microsound mailing list
>> microsound at microsound.org
>> http://or8.net/mailman/listinfo/microsound
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> microsound mailing list
> microsound at microsound.org
> http://or8.net/mailman/listinfo/microsound
>