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Re: [microsound] |-| Re:eR [microsound] autechre/richard devine//techniques ]]



----- Original Message -----
From: "Guillaume Grenier" <gollum@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

> I didn't gather that from the post of yours to which I replied. I saw no
> mention of "time spent learning it" or didn't see anything that seemed to
> infer that "face" of the issue.

the discussion topic was: what is helpful to produce quality experimental
music?

now the answer will of course by "as much as possible" .. eg: all branches
of information will be helpful to a degree. but, human lives being as short
as they are, the factor of time becomes a concern. which information is the
most useful?
therefore i judge information/skills not only by their function but by their
requirement of time spent learning. and of course this is also a relative
thing; if you can learn all of music theory in a 2 week course then why not
do it.

sorry that you misunderstood me but i thought this was implied by the
discussion topic.

> However, I think it's bloody important to form the broadest musical
> background you can for yourself

i wasn't addressing that issue. i was saying that to form a very specific
musical construct could be detrimental. no matter how varied its uses, music
theory unfortunately fails to function outside of its mode. and i would say
that microsound is DEFINITELY outside of the music theory mode!
(however any examples otherwise are welcomed, would be interesting..)

i also realize that i'm implying in this argument that by learning something
you incorporate it into your being to the degree that you emulate it or are
confined by it.

well this could be true or it could not. but i believe this: when one learns
something well enough to have skill at it, one will also be blind to things
outside of the reaches of the implied mode of thought accompanying that
skill. eg: sight-reading and transcribing/writing music acts as a subtle
agent of reinforcement for the concepts implicit of music theory: 12-tone
system, time signatures, and fallacies like precise pitches/rhythms or any
number of ways to "judge" a piece by its harmonic content. not to mention
the complete ignorance this system has of any "sound" .. reducing everything
that is heard only to its pitch! that's as absurd (and impossible) as
squaring the circle.

so anyway, if you take this into account then you will see that either:
A) music theory is detrimental
or, if you haven't sufficiently become functional in a music theory mode,
B) music theory is useless

> Let's say music that meets your creative impulses in a more satisfying
way.

hmm, still sounds like "better" music. just a PC way of phrasing it! ;)

is there any music that will meet everyone's creative impulses in a
satisfying way? how do you define this?

> What I meant, is, "*all* things being equal" (as is often said in a
> scientific approach)

hasn't the scientific approach been disproven enough times? why does this
still exist?

> Having more means to achieve one's ideas. It's as simple as that.

right but the question is, more of what?

we must constantly choose what to spend our precious little time doing. the
usefulness of "more means" isn't the topic, its the usefulness of specific
means that is questioned.

> I think the discussion has slipped a bit... ;) You're now referring to
> "songwriting theory"... while what we were discussing earlier was more
> fundamental music theory (to be more specific, harmony). I'll concede that
> "songwriting theory", a rather narrow field of knowledge, would be of
little
> use to someone not interested in writing songs. So my answer to your
> question would be: "Indeed, that would be mostly pointless."

by songwriting theory i meant all musical analysis of any sort from the past
2000 years.

its a very huge field, in fact that is the bulk of music theory.
fundamentals are something that you learn in an afternoon. music theory is
something you learn at 4 years of college.

and btw your specifying "harmony" as a category of fundamental music theory
seems a little inaccurate. harmony has a much larger construct of academic
thought surrounding it than fundamental things like notes, triads, etc. in
fact the study of harmony is more thoroughly explored through songwriting
theory.

but yes fundamental theory deals with harmony, so you see that even basic
theory implies a much larger musical construct.

> But, let's return to our earlier subject of discussion, fundamental music
> theory (such as harmony). What do you get from learning things like that?
> Obviously, an understanding of music built using the principles inherent
to
> the theory --
> and thus, probably, more pleasure when listening to it or
> performing it.

show me one music theory professor who gets more pleasure from listening to
music than..
a dancer
a musician
a drug user

there are many things that can influence the amount of pleasure received
when listening to music.

(not to mention sex)

> Also, a good foundation for understanding the music that
> started to *break* with those conventions.

if it can be described in terms of "those conventions" then it has not
broken them.

> The experience you acquire analyzing the music governed by the
> Principles *will* translate when you'll consider music that evolves
outside
> those boundaries.

right. you will wear these chains for the rest of your life. ;)

> I think that the very avoidance of those "traditional rules" is a pretty
> strong relationship... (this leads back to "learn the rules so you can
break
> them")

how so? certainly active "avoidance of traditional rules" will bring said
rules into the picture, but how about "ignorance of traditional rules" ?

this is the same thing as saying "having no relationship whatsoever to
traditional rules" .. and this is what i mean by experimental music.

-jonah