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

[Michal Seta <mis@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

jonah dempcy wrote:

> ----- 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.

That's probably because I don't have enough basic understanding of rhethorics
and I don't make myself creal enough.

> 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.

You mean to tell me that s/he doesn't need to learn any principles governing
the fundammentals of indian music?  Common....

>
> > 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.

Again, it's my ignorance of the rules for formulating a proper discourse...
After all english isn't my mother tongue...

> 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.

How do you decide what is relevant or irrelevant without knowing about it?

>
>
> > > 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.

Ok.  So you need to know about the definition and the standards before you
challenge it.  COuld you challenge something you have no ide about?

>
>
> 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.

Yes, traditional theory deals with pitches.  But not only.  It deals as well
with relations between pitches.  A ratio 3:2 does not need to mean an interval
between two pitches played on a flute within a well-tempered scale.  It could
mean a ratio within any array of frequencies (you do agree that frequencies
exist in all types of music)  .   And such relationships could be applied to
more than just intervals of frequencies.  In fact, speaking of microsound (I
still haven't any idea what microsound really means) or generic electronic
music you can apply same ideas and derive theories to create "sounds" you
speak  about.  So why not go ahead and define a sound that is based on various
interval, rhythmic, and structural ration derived from Staravinsky's Sacre du
Printemps.  Actually, that's a great idea, I'll take a look at it.

It is very superficial to think of basics of music theory as definition of some
rules of manipulating pitches.  Of course, if you take a crash course on
theory, the one in which you learn some basics in 2 weeks, that's the only
thing you will learn.  But after an indepth study of different kinds of music
across the history you begin to see the relation between some basics and even
the most abstract stuff you could imagine.

ok, I think that I'm losing myself.
Could someone suggest some good books on writing?

MiS