Re: [microsound]Ikeda's Matrix

[jonah dempcy <jdempcy@xxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "gabriel burian-mohr" <gabeb@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "microsound" <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2000 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: [microsound]Ikeda's Matrix


> >it seems to me that all artists make either implicit or explicit demands
> >about how their music be received. the simple fact that they release
music
> >implies a manner in which it must be received, ie: if it's on CD, you
must
> >have a CD player etc.
>
> i'm sorry, that's not really what i meant...i was thinking more in
> the realm of artist's making perceptual requests i.e. the way in
> witch we are asked to listen to a work, specifying the
> quality/context of the playback medium...

the CD example addresses this in one sense, because a CD is a playback
medium (so in that case the artist was specifying the quality/context to a
certain degree, not to the ultimate degree)

to take that example to the extreme would be to say something along the
lines of "by producing sound one is implicitly forced to listen to it with
their ears, hence an artist producing sound is specifying the
quality/context of the medium."

but, this is ignores environmental quality/context which i think my next
example addressed.

> >the question of how far this goes is just a matter of taste.. but keep in
> >mind that 95% of the techno music out there doesn't sound good unless
it's
> >on a huge club soundsystem, just like 95% of jazz music won't sound good
> >with a subwoofer set to 10! ;)
>
> but this is a whole new question all together, this is more a
> question of context than anything else...

which is a whole new question? what i said? sorry, i'm confused. but let me
explain the example in a different way--

techno music is written with the implicit quality/context of "rave"
atmosphere, loud soundsystem, etc. jazz music is written with the implicit
quality/context of a different atmosphere, perhaps more suited for a cafe,
lounge or bar setting.

i guess my point in bringing this up is that an artist specifying _in words_
how they want their music to be heard is nothing new, because artists are
always specifying _in music_ how they want it to be heard. although i guess
there is a difference, in that it's not always up to the artist how their
music is categorized.

the way i look at it is this: all sorts of social/ideological
quality/context constructs/mediums exist with which for music to be heard,
and all music will be subject to categorization into one of these
constructs/mediums.. so i guess an artist specifying in words which they
prefer seems like a good thing to me!

what do you think?
-jonah