Re: [microsound] process vs achievement

[Joshua Maremont <thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 01:24 AM 10/5/00 -0700, edhall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> effect.  But I don't always listen in that way, and what I have
> experienced when I've let go of my internal mental process suggests
> to me that electronic music may be a means of emotional and spiritual
> expression of unprecedented directness and power.  These experiences
> impart a much greater sense of awe in me than any involvement at the
> level of musical mechanism can.  And when all is said and done, this is

This to me is the central split within those who are both listeners and 
musicians, and the struggle to keep a dissective technophilia out of the 
listening experience when successful allows for a more direct and emotional 
- and to me profound - involvement in the sound itself.  There are, I hope 
for all of us here, life-changing musical experiences in our pasts, and for 
me at least these have had little to do with a patchcord analysis of 
effects pedal routing or an interrogation of driver versions; despite 
various misguided attempts along the way, a doctor has yet to discover 
happiness or wisdom by rooting around with tweezers and scalpel.  For me as 
a listener gear lists and system notes and technical dissertations merely 
interfere with my direct experience of listening, while for me as a 
musician such data provides little enlightenment as to why an amazing 
record is amazing.  I found, for example, Francisco Lopez' gesture in "La 
Selva" quite interesting in this context, for there he provided a detailed 
explanatory booklet, sealed it, and suggested it not be read.  For the 
moment, I have taken his advice.  To return again to Oval and the longer 
thread, I agree that the imperative tone taken has been somewhat 
disturbing.  I say "for me" above because listening to music and making 
music are both personal and subjective experiences about which those 
involved exercise aesthetic choice in the freedom allowed to us as beings 
in human form.  Just as it is up to me whether I want to read the geekspecs 
on the inner sleeve of an album, it is also up to me whether I wish to 
publish my own; in my own case the fact that I generally do not print such 
things on records has nothing to do with a desire to hide my processes but 
comes instead from a hope that rather than picturing a studio with this 
instrument and that software listeners will allow the sound itself to 
conjure their own worlds out of the vibrating air.  I choose so not because 
it is Right or Wrong but simply because for me such a choice leads to more 
pleasurable aesthetic adventuring, and if others choose otherwise for the 
enhancement of their own experience that different choice is just as valid 
as my own.  Certainly there are ethical issues along the edges of the 
aesthetic experience, but at the center of making and hearing sound I fail 
to find any such issues able to justify the claims and assumptions made 
along this thread as to the righteousness of Herr Popp's choices for his 
software.  It is nevertheless rather interesting that in a field crowded 
with "Ovalish" releases, people lacking Poppware have nevertheless managed 
to parrot the sound while at the same time missing the depth and 
personality so clearly evident on Oval's own albums.

np - Kawabata Makoto "Inui 2"

joshua maremont / thermal - mailto:thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
boxman studies label - http://www.boxmanstudies.com/