Re: old thread

[jon <transmit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

hello,

sorry, i know this is an old thread, but i'm a bit behind with my 
e-mail.  like, two months behind.   i think i inadvertently fell off the 
subscription for the list, so i haven't been able to follow this thread - 
if it's already been done to death, or nobody else wants to hear about it, 
please respond off-list.

At 03:35 PM 11/28/01 -0500, david turgeon wrote:

"microsound is really easy to make, despite what everyone says.  but to do 
it well?  when i hear taylor deupree's _occur_, or say, kim cascone's 
_pulsar studies_ (& i hope he doesn't mind me being a fanboy here :), i 
hear an effort & a research in pure sound design which i can recognize 
because it contrasts with what i know as the "default microsound" which 
most anyone, myself included, is capable of making.  to take a different 
example, if i hear the work of the aforereplied jake hardy (aka holzkopf 
whose album _a bad harvest_ i can only recommend), or for example, rj 
valeo, i can see that there is no attempt to "construct" a sound (you can 
easily recognize them) & that the effort is put on the shape itself.  this 
once again is a departure from default, which is to just jam."


i think that perhaps the "ease" of making a rather standardised sound 
probably comes from laziness and a lack of ambition.  call these 
unambitious products "homages", if you will.

anyway, what i am really interested in is alternative approaches.  this 
relates to the above passage in the sense that.... well, for me, 
"microsound" is something rather difficult to make (though i never really 
desperately went after that sound).  i think this might have something to 
do with the fact that i don't use midi software, nor any of that max/msp 
shit, or something like that.

so, it got me thinking in a basic just-worked-another-night-shift kind of 
way.  i suppose this might be something loosely related to tech(nolog)ical 
determinism when i ask if you think new or at least more varied sounds and 
ideas result from a more unusual technical arrangement/context.  i mean, 
it's sort of true when they say everybody is now using max/msp just like 
they were using the same vst plugins a year ago, and i think it really does 
show when you listen to a lot of new electronics.  i think that within the 
microsound/abstract realm, there is still a lot of convention and to a 
degree, conformity when it comes to form and sound.  a real sense of 
"successful" or "failed" experiments.

anyway, fire some thoughts back if you please.  i haven't slept all night, 
so if this is a totally banal post, i'm sorry to have inflicted it upon you.


take care,
jon.

ps. oh yeah.  if anyone happens to read this list who lives in hong kong, 
would you care to drop me a line off-list?



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