grids and junk

[manys@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>filters.  As a tool, I would suggest that Max(and its offspring) opens up
>the possibilities for us to experiment and experience sounds that have, at
>least from the Western concept of music, been limited in our culture to the
>grid concept.

Well, "time" is a grid concept, so we'd have to break away from that as
well. Also, the way computers work, there is always a grid, but with a
higher resolution than Western musical tradition is accustomed.

>Cage's modified piano pieces or Stockhausen's Kontakt.  In that case,
>what does "real" sound offer over virtual or processed sound?  What kind
>of limitations do the object/FFT paradigms place upon our aural
>experience? What advantages do objects and materials provide over
>process boxes?  Where is our mind, culture and language at when it
>focuses on abstractions and simulations inside a computer, when we
>involve ourselves more deeply in constructing a reality rather than
>experiencing and manipulating the one in which we exist?  Essentially,
>Max/MSP is just like mathematics and physics, in that we approximate an
>aspect of the world around us, without it *actually* being that world.
>It is a language, and if we look at it as such, it has the potential for
>expanding and focusing our perception in certain areas while limiting
>our perception in others.

Not to be dismissive, but this entire paragraph is useless to me as a
music fan. As much as they were to derive meaning from their processes,
certainly the edgy composers of the mid century were asking similar
questions of themselves as they decided where exactly to place the nail.
How ridiculous is it to say "yeah, but it's just a piano with junk tangled
up in the strings" when that's exactly the thrust of this thread?