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Re: [microsound] process vs achievement



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/