Re: [microsound] definition of microsound

["ph!L @ c e n t i b e l" <hellomynameisphil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Yo,

Sorry for the late response. 

Technically "microsound" refers to any music that works with the
micro-time scales most easily accessed by digital audio. Lots of early
microsound was quite noisy: Gottfried Michael Koenig, Otto Lake, and the
Utrecht school, and Herbert Brun, among others. Other more recent stuff
has been noisy too: Eric Lyon and of course Xenakis' microsound stuff.
The "sine waves and clicks" aesthetic is a very recent development; a
lot of it is not even really "microsound" in the technical sense. But
recently "microsound" has begun to be usefully imprecise, meaning
something like "vaguely non-commercial mostly-digital music." Part of
that is actually a function of this list, and the microsound.org web
page, which has some incredibly inconclusive definition of microsound so
as to include stuff that has no actual "micro-sounds" in it. I wouldn't
even say "microsound" refers to a technique, as you say, because not
everybody uses the same techniques. Maybe it's now more like a culture,
centred mostly around the internet and mailing lists like this one. Not
everything takes place within that culture - not everybody is on the
microsound list, even though they should be :-) - but lots of stuff can
be related to it. 

But anyways, I don't think noisy sounds disqualify you from being
microsound, at least in the expanded sense. Noise may even be useful,
since I think we've had too much of the "clicks and cuts" aesthetic. I
can't even believe MP is putting out a third volume of that compilation;
"C&C" is starting to become the "Rocky" of digital audio. Attali says
that new forms of noise heralds new social relations. Mandelbrot
discovered that some forms of noise obeys fractal laws, tending towards
infinite sparseness and yet never not present. Gregory Bateson remarks
in Mind_and_Nature that "All that is not information, not redundancy,
not form, and not restraints is noise, the only possible source of new
patterns." I think microsound could use some "new patterns," so noise
on, Jake Hardy! :)

ph

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<-----Original Message----->
> 
>From: jake hardy
>Sent: 21/11/2002 4:11:42 PM
>To: microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [microsound] definition of microsound
>
>hello, 
>
>i'm not interested in exact definitions, but i was
>wondering whether people's definition of microsound
>could include really noisey music? I mean, i am by no
>means an authority on the subject, but because of the
>huge variety of sounds being produced under the title
>of microsound i've come to look at it more as a
>technique than a genre, or maybe it's an are of
>interest in using short pieces, and "micro-waves" and
>expanding them and blowing them up. anyways, i've
>done some stuff with that interest in mind that ended
>up really quite abrasive? 
>
>how do people feel about that kind of thing as
>microsound? 
>
>i guess, to continue rambling, does microsound have
>boundaries as to what the end piece can sound like, or
>is it as i expected: a technique or an of interest in
>sound. i'm not going to be offended if i get told i'm
>not doing microsound, i'm just curious as to other's
>thoughts on noisey microsound. 
>
>=====
>jake hardy (aka) holzkopf
>www.holzkopf.i8.com
>www.daintydeathy.com
>
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