Re: [microsound] FW: [Xchange] questions - making music on the net

[Bill Jarboe <billjarboe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 1/20/02 2:12 AM, Derek Holzer at republikasleazka@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> ***********************
> 
> 
> 1.  To begin with: How do you describe yourself?
> (concerning your audio activities)

A highly sensitive man with a strong personality and a g3 macintosh ( since
february).  
> 
> 
> 2.  Tell me about your network projects (very briefly). How do they involve
> the network and which consequences does this have for the resulting music?
>
 I have sets of mp3 files available ( groovylab , insine , tiln). I maintain
a website with works in progress and some experimental downloads that I
update frequently. I plan on having a u.k. webpage ( designed by a 17 year
old ) with an upload area , articles and features on other artists , recent
work etc.  
>

  I have also exchanged some files with other musicians and
interdisciplinary artists and done some work with converting audio to text ,
text to audio audio to video , video to audio . . . different results from
the same data presented as a whole.

  I write text and dabble in graphic design, pinhole photography.
 
> 3.  What kind of »product« do you ultimately aim at? Can we hear net audio
> projects like yours as music like we have known it, or is it fundamentally
> different?
> 
> 
  I'd like to produce the kind of records I would like to hear ( not
necessarily listen to ). It is a vision ( and sound image / or series of
sound images) thing for me. I imagine certain tunes and images and if I
can't find them produce them myself. Sometimes my compositions sound akin to
what other people have produced , sometimes they don't.



> 4.  One could argue that since the net is a time-based medium it would be
> especially suitable for musical application. Do you think that the net has a
> specific and strong musical potential?
> 
>

  The immediacy and the sense of community; I mean when I upload something I
really like , I can tell when it 'hits' , when someone gets it.

   
> 5.  Does the net with all its drawbacks and with all its new options imply
> special guidelines of what you can musically do with it and what you can not
> do? Which would that be?
> 


  It's still difficult to write a song with someone , or work on a session
at the same time.  
> 6.  Which technical tools or options of musical communication via the net do
> you miss?
> 
>
  Emu Drumulator.
 
> 
> 
> (The next part asks for more detailed analytical aspects of networked
> music-making: concerning the listener, the musician, and the arts in
> general.)
> 
> 
> 7.  The listener of net audio is usually interacting with the production
> process of the music in one or the other way, and this is just logical,
> because active involvement is the most characteristic feature of the
> Internet. Does this mean that interactive audio works shift musical
> responsibility from the musician to the listener? Is the interacting
> listener a creater of music?
>

 That can go both ways , depending on the interests of the listener.
> 
> 8.  How interesting can music be that is being brought about by musically
> untrained people? Isn´t that getting close to automatic Farfisa-organs? Or
> is it not so much the sounding music that is interesting about net music? Or
> are there totally new forms of music listening or a new type of listener
> evolving?


 It's possible to effectively work with trained and untrained musicians in
an ensemble setting , perhaps similar to the way someone would sing backup
vocals on one part of an elaborate and highly produced pop song .

 I didn't know Farfisa manufactured automatic organs . I always thought the
Yamaha models were cooler, though those were actually synthesisers, so
whatever. I think there is alot of suggestion happening in net compositions,
where one doesn't have to intently listen to the whole thing to get the
idea; kind of a casual hologram. There are compositions which consciously
counteract or work alongside an urban environment.With high resolution and
wide bandwith audio ( frequency range ) it is possible to have very focused
or theraputic sonic environments , and even if the full fidelity can't be
replicated after data compresion etc. The original intent is often strongly
suggested , and the power of the source material is evident.
> 
> 9.  Do you see, on the other side, new forms of music making or new types of
> musicians developing? Is a player using a network setup working very
> differently from somebody using an electronic tool or a sequencer?

  Obviously there are more, or at least different options. Also, it is
easier to pick up and put down and, since composers usually work with
different media with the same machines , there is more of a multimedia cast
to the completed work ( general , I know).
> 
> 
> 10.  Musicians working in networked environments tend to abandon the idea of
> the fixed musical work. Many projects build on performance systems that keep
> music always in a flexible state. Does this imply an abandonnement of
> individual expression?

  No. More of a constant discovery or redefining of individual expression.

 Sometimes it is hard to ascertain who is responsible for what one likes.
> 
> 
> 11.  Installation art, performance art, audio art etc. ? These art forms all
> have to do with dissolving the borders between the arts. With the computer
> and now with the availability of every kind of software tool via the net,
> the borders bewteen the art forms are still more vanishing. Does this lead
> to totally new combinations or merges of the old art forms?
> 
   It makes the combinations more practical and hopefully less esoteric.


  
> 12.  Experimental arts also worked on dissolving the borders between
> high-brow and low-brow culture. A lot of musical setups and tools are using
> a kind of avantgarde approach in a public sphere, offering it not only to a
> small group of insiders, but to everyone. Does net music bring popular and
> experimental music closer together?
> 

   I think some of the best popular musicians have always been
experimenters. In my own experience sometimes when I get something right;
when the piece works it might sound 'popular' or 'commercial'.
> 
> 13. What´s interesting about networked music? What´s your musical utopia for
> the net?
>

  I think it would be interesting to trade and rework mp3 files , then have
scripting applications in the software utilized to extract the processing
information ( backtrack) and produce a high resolution version of the same
composition. 


  I have ideas of individuals structuring the urban environments to taste;
for instance instead of having background music at shopping centers , I
imagine spontaneous remixes and connections to sound systems via ethernet ,
perhaps. I also see theraputic restructuring of sound environments . .
negating sounds and making things quieter. I think the net could be used
effectively to plan something in one place and manufacture it in another (
acoustic  materials, harware , components etc.) . I also find ( from my
experience in urban planning)  that most peoples ideas of utopia are pretty
compatible.   
> 
> Thanks for your answers!
> 
> 
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