Re: [microsound] points & clicks

[david turgeon <dt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>1.
>I think about points and clicks as two different objects: the difference
>lays all in terms of direction: i mean, if you start from a line and cut it
>again and again, you'll find clicks (a "part-of" entity); if you want to
>build a line, you must start from points (a "complex completeness" entity).

but not necessarily.  you can also extract a line from a larger work.  for 
example you can grab a popular melody from a larger work & reinterpret it 
on different terms.  you can reuse a certain note from a certain 
melody.  it goes both ways (reductive & additive) methinks.

>2.
>The fact you can use clicks as points to build a line, tells you that the
>completness of a point is set by your intention to use it that way.

yes, i also think that the point is, in fact, relative; see below.

>3.
>Are there "natural" points too? Is a line (a melody) really a succession of
>points? Is a melody a line? I don't think so..

i don't think we should talk of 'natural' this or that.  points, lines, 
works, these are handy keywords used by composers in order for them to 
understand & categorise what they do.  in this sense a melody & a suite of 
points can be a line & a line doesn't have to be a melody or a suite of 
points.  but a melody can be a point if you find it fruitful to see it this 
way (& in much hip hop music, for example, this makes perfect sense), re:

>4.
>A point as a complex completeness means that you want to conceive it as a
>wholeness, not formed by parts; i think a drum loop can be taken as a point,
>but doing so i must conceive that a point is fluent, not solid, not coherent
>in its whole.

right, you will use the term 'point', or 'line', or 'work', in order to 
assign a name or a concept to something that you will find 'whole' without 
having to think of it as a sum of its parts.  but the sum is ALSO there, 
implied: it's the first thing you find when you scratch the 
'wholeness'.  'point +> line +> work' is a handy tool for composers to 
conceive of music, but it is not THE matter of music.  whereas click IS the 
matter of music (or more precisely, recorded sound).  as quantum moss can 
be understood to be the fabric of all perceived matter, so is click the 
fabric of all recorded music.

>Last.
>A summary: points, to build up somethig more complex; clicks, the result of
>cutting; both of them are products of will to conceiving them so.
>I think there are no musical points, nor musical natural points, nor music
>natural clicks: it's all human.

again, points & lines are not so unidirectional.  they exist within a 
general paradigm of 'building blocks' (just like legos where there is a 
'block' & there is a 'constructed object' (i.e. a wall) & there is a 
'complete project' (i.e. a house with a car & a garden.)  none of them make 
any absolute sense, they are purely relative to what people have in mind 
when they consider this art object as the result of building 
things.  clicks exist into a different paradigm whereby there is a fabric 
of things, & they exist as the smallest measure of this fabric.  if we keep 
the lego analogy, we should say that click is the plastic of legos.

so there may in fact be a 'natural' click & even if there is no 'natural' 
point.  of course it largely depends on your definition of 'natural' (a 
loaded concept if i know one.)

hope this makes some sense,

have a nice day
~ david

------------------------------