Re: [microsound] Further (rambling) thoughts on stuff

[Michal Seta <mis@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 04 Jun 2002 20:08:56 +0200
Øivind Idsø <plateaux@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> In comtemporary music I´d say it´s often far fetched to assume that the
> music is either organized or it isn´t organized; you´d have to guess.

No.  You analyse.

> And
> to judge whether or not it´s organized you´d have to use a pre-established
> "law", so to speak, thereby reducing/subsuming the potentially different to
> the rule of the same.

In terms of contemporary music, many composers have their own 'process' of composition.  One can develop a skill of looking at the score (or listening to the recording and making notes) of the piece and figuring out the logic of the composition (providing there is one).  This way you could easily make a list of rules the composer follows.  And often, after having studied a number of pieces of the same composer you will find a set of rules which (almost) always apply in his/her compositions.  Those could change in time as his/her interests, research, easthetic changes.

> The "I´ve heard it all before" could simply mean
> you´re listening to it the "wrong" way, or that the "law(s)" you´re
> comparing piece X to has been misconstrued to begin with. The concept of
> the "originary" is highly problematic, not least when it comes to
> aesthetics. "Classical music" is such a powerful concept, and it should be
> deconstructed 24-7.

I agree.  The only thing with the deconstruction is: [and here comes a déjà-vu of a discussion from about a year ago we had here] do we deconstruct while we have no clue of what consists of the 'classical music' or do we know all the 'rules' and theoretical concepts and we know exactly which 'rules' we're bending?

> 
> I also very much doubt that you´d be able to distinguish (in this day and
> age) what´s aleatoric and what´s not in much, say, glitch music. (I won´t
> go into the microscopic fact that .completely. aleatoric processes can´t be
> produced on a computer, so that some kind of control is always
> involved--though not always on the part of the "composer"). So the
> "mistake" you might think you find could be based on a false premise. As I
> said, the composer could be in control, but it still sounds like a
> "mistake"--if compared to .your. form. If compared to the "form" of a
> writer in The Wire it could sound just like what the doctor ordered.
> 

OK.  We're side-tracking here off the original discussion which concerned _tonal_ idiom.  But you're raising some interesting issue here.  You could identify a mistake when it happens in a context which otherwise conforms to some set of rules.  And yes, this could be an intentional gesture rather than a mistake.  However, back to the tonal realm, such intentions usually are justified.  The justification could be seen (or heard) in an effort to maintain a particular voice leading or some other purely technical/theoretical reason or it could be dictated by some easthetic choice, 'emotional' aspect or whathaveyou.  That's my opinion.

> Is Oval´s "Ovalprocess" or "dok" highly organized or a more or less random
> collage of various semi-random/purely-random processes? I can´t tell. I
> reckon it would be impossible to make this call if you knew nothing of
> Markus Popp and his homecooked way of spinning the digits. What in The
> Legend Of Eer is random, what is not? And couldn´t the structure of the
> piece (as viewed from above, or as a "classical surface") be described as
> rather uninventive (it ends with the beginning and begins with the end;
> it´s almost aristotelian with its beginning, middle and end, and that would
> suit the greek Xenakis just fine)? But would the piece as a whole be
> characterized as uninventive?

Again, we're getting further and further from the original topic which was tonal music (and the set of rules associated with it).  Although deifinitely not tonal and not in the 'classical music' tradition Ovalprocess is defined by its own processes.  Whether they are random or not it does seem that all the pieces on the album follow a similar logic/process.  It could be that it is random to some extend but even on the first listening I could tell that there was a 'language' that Oval was using.  Learning the language is a different story.


> 
> Yes, yes, deterritorializaton and reterritorialization. It´s unavoidable
> and it´s fine. But the composer would not have to know that he broke a
> rule, as his intentions are not distributed through/with his music (unless
> you are one of those talkative electroacousticians cum writers who include
> ten pages of text in the booklet accompanying the CD to describe exactly
> what´s been done and why).

Although I don't think that the composer should have pages of explanations or talk for 15 minutes for the audience to 'get' his music I do think that the composer should be aware of what he's doing.

> Who broke what is determined on the receiving
> end (the musical collective, the socius etc.), and whether or not the
> artist serving the dishes knew seems irrelevant--unless he´d want to
> reproduce the rulebreaking, but why would s/he? "Breaking things for a
> reason" seems too formalized and political to me. Wasn´t it Schönberg who
> said he only "invented"/developed serial/12-tone music because history
> (musical) dictated it should be invented? Scary, that.
> 

I don't find it scary.

> > Then you can analyse
> > F.Bayle in light of Schaeffer and come up with some elements that are
> > similar.
> 
> Not to mention all the things that are very different. What´s more
> interesting - finding similarities or finding differences?

both.  It depends on your intentions.  I like finding similarities.  It's amazing how many contemporary works use the idea of high renaissance counterpoint but in a contemporary context.  I think this is what I find most fascinating about music.  No matter how it changes you can always trace it back to monody (and Pythagoras for that matter).  

> 
> > seems to
> > be living simultaneusly in hist past, present and future.
> 
> Aren´t we all?

Well not the way S.K. described it.  In the book the guy's future-self talks to his past-self and his present-self is kinda stuck in the middle of the conversation.

> Influence and incompetence doesn´t exclude each other.

hmm...  yes, you can have an incompetent composer, artist, politician, writer, inventor who claims to be influenced by x, y or z.  But conceptually the 2 terms signify completely different things.  I think, so, at least.  I might be wrong, english isn't my native tongue.
 
> > And please, don't ask me what's the right way.
> 
> I won´t. I´ll just say that "right" doesn´t sound good to my ears.

ok.
-- 
../MiS

Michal Seta		http://creazone.eworldmusic.com/doc/mis
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