Re: [microsound] failure

[Albert Tan <atan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> what separates brilliance from obvious dsp noodling?
> 
> the ultimate answer to this question, of course, is personal taste...
> but, over the past couple of days, as i'm headfirst into a new
> project.. i find without a whole lot of history or points of
> reference.. it's hard to tell if what i'm doing is any good or not..

for a long time i've tried playing this type of music for people who
have never heard it before; the immediate response is usually along
the lines of "what the hell is this? it's just a bunch of noises
and shit all thrown together and they want to charge me $15 bucks
for it? is this supposed to be some kind of 'art'? how ARROGANT."

i usually sit patiently and laugh in understanding; my initial
response was similar but after awhle i learned what i liked and
what i did not. (taylor's observation is absolutely dead-on, it
really does come down to personal taste; Joshua's points are also
excellent...)

but i've been thinking about this lately and have come to wonder,
since this form of music is so abstractive and personal, is it even
possible to have a standard of taste, or even skill for that matter?

if not, then isn't there a risk that this is all really a superficial,
ego-driven activity in which we avoid being held to any kind of
measurement for quality? in most forms of music it is relatively easy
to do; for example, taylor's 12k label has a lot of excellent techno
and ambient music...the quality is there, you can tell comparing it
to others. (that is, if you've listened to a lot already.)

as such, the techno/ambient 12k artists hold to themselves a
level of excellence, of avoiding 'trite', typical musical solutions.
as a result, it's easy to tell work that has been given a lot of
thought and care into its creation, because certain standards exist
from which everyone can judge. shuttle358 chose 12k specifically for
this reason, because of the excellence of standards/taste.

on the other hand...

i can take a bunch of my dsp-based software, create a few
relatively nice (in my opinion) sounds, bang them out at random
while recording it and call it microscopic music. if i'm really
adventurous i can even have them loop in time in something like Max
and bring stuff in and out, thus giving the impression of a
kind of structure or composition.

here's the clincher: this will take me all but a whopping twenty
minutes to do at most. it's easy, painless, and most people couldn't
tell the difference between that and something that took someone several
months to complete. on the other hand, taylor can tell in about ten
seconds my lame-ass attempts to write ambient music as well as dan (s358)
does. :)

i realize this is an extreme example but the point was recently raised
when i had a conversation with a fellow musician; i couldn't say anything,
he was absolutely right. in the end product is what it all boils down
to, you either like it or not. spare me the artistic PHD-speak, i still
think it sounds like a series of test tones. ;)

personal taste is one thing, but how do we keep any standard of quality
amongst ourselves? or is this impossible...?

taylor's question poses an interesting dilemma...

when you guys write such music, do you use anything to compare yourself
to in terms of quality? if not, are you really an 'artist' in the positive
sense of the word or an 'artist' in the cynical one?

hence was the question posed to me...

-a/.
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