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

[jonah dempcy <jdempcy@xxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michal Seta" <mis@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "microsound" <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>


> > or more specific to microsound, learning about filtering, synthesis,
> > gear, technical things.
>
> I don't care if it's in college, university, private tutor, magazines,
books,
> you say yourself that you need to elarn these things.

i don't understand. yes, it is important to learn things about the type of
music you wish to create. would you tell a sufi vina player that s/he must
learn music theory? no, s/he would learn about the instrument, the ragas,
the religious tradition. i only used the synthesis example as something that
i _thought_ was relevant to microsound.

> And if you know about
> filtering and synthesis and gear there's a long way to making music.  Be
it
> songs or otherwise.

i'm not following you. are you saying that one must learn things in order to
make music? because yes, my point was to say that learning relevant things
is more important than learning irrelevant things like traditional music
theory such as what one would learn from a music college.

> > i was simply saying, why spend time learning songwriting theory if the
> > music you wish to create challenges the very definition of a song?
>
> How so?
> What is the very definition of song?
> And how is your music challenging it?

that was a literary fluorish but ok, i'll explain it.

how so: free-form experimentalism as defined by jeremy tolsma in another
email is something that "challenges" the definition of a song as put forth
by traditional theoretical standards.

the reason i say this "challenges" the definition is because it points out
some inconsistencies in the logic implicit in traditional music theory. such
as: a sound must have a precise tonal value, therefore a song (in the
absolute loosest sense of the term, "sound") must consist of notes. first it
is not true that there are precise tonal values to all sounds (or to any
sound). second, even if there were precise values, the tonal value wouldn't
have any relation to the sound itself other than that which we give it.
third, songs/sounds are just as valid/musical if they don't have notes or
pitches. free-form experimentalism raises these questions and hundreds of
others. i could go on all day.

> Charlie Parker was WAY outside the traditional rules of
songwriting/classical
> theory.  Just because many sax players today learn Perker's licks and ALL
jazz
> players study his solos doesn't mean that he wasn't "experimental".

i think jeremy addresses this issue very well.

-jonah