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Re: [microsound]: What is microsound ?



> >Well _I_ didn't say microsound has to be "quiet",
> but I definitely
> >think sparseness
> >(is that a word ?) is a defining quality of
> microsound. By sparse I mean that
> >microsound pieces tend to be made up of only a few
> elements. They're
> >not heavily
> >layered. 

If we're trying to find a common denominator for
microsound, a "defining feature", I think we'll be
misplacing our efforts looking at limited harmonic
material (what separates ms from [other] minimalism?)
or sparseness.  I sense a self-reflexivity in ms, this
tendency of ms works to not just call attention to
their structure, but to kind of raise questions about
the media, tech, methodologies, and interests from
whence they came.  Kind of an auto-interrogation of
its own composition, or a built-in invitation to
interrogate that composition.  Sound that portably
problematizes its own status as music; it would seem
that there is _necessarily_ a preoccupation with the
material being used, its properties and its
perception.  (I think of "lowercase" sound as being
more preoccupied with the phenomenological problems of
the sound; it seems reception- and perception-oriented
to me.) That might be why it's so easy to generalize a
"sparseness" or "minimality", because when music gets
stripped to its "presque rien", I think questions are
more like to happen; this is by no means the only time
this happens, though.  I've always had something of
chip on my shoulder about "New Age" music because I
think it makes an aggressive effort to conceal its own
machinations to make certain that the listener asks as
few questions as possible.  Incidentally, does anyone
here think of ambient music as _largely_ micro- ?  As
in: would you consider, say, Eno to be ms?  Lee
Scratch Perry?  Why or why not? 

----s
 

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