Re: [microsound] Music DEAD? ALIVE! Music ALIVE!

["Nicolas Grenier" <greniernic@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think music is far from being dead, in fact it is more alive than ever! 
It's hard to get the attention from an audience because the majority of 
people aren't trained to appreciate all the rich sounds of contemporary 
electronic music; is seems alien to most of them and without a visual 
expression of the emotional content, they just can't get it.

I think that a live electronic performance need to have a visual dimension 
in order to please the audience. Think of rock/punk/"guitar + bass + drum" 
shows: in the reactionary town of Quebec where I live, it's the main musical 
attraction... how depressing ;). I often argue with rockers on how 
electronic music can provide much more intense emotionnal experience than 
"guitar + bass + drum" music and most of them reply to me that an electronic 
music show is boring, that it's no fun to watch a Dj turning knobs and 
pressing buttons. And they are right; what's lacking in most electronic 
music performances is the theatrical dimension. The simple execution of 
music is not enough to interest the audience because it is too simple; the 
Dj cannot impress the audience with his incredible knob twiddling 
capabilities, but the guitarist can with his boring epic solo, because it is 
theatrical, somehow heroic. The thing is that music performance is all about 
communicating emotions to the people, emotions that they could not feel 
otherwise, so why limit yourself to music? Emotion is not objectively 
present in the music itself, but in the mind of those who feel and 
understand it; it is our mission to explain and express these emotions as 
accurately as possible every way we can.

Music remains the main attraction of the electronic musical performance, 
it's quality is crucial but it needs additional mediums to carry the heavy 
emotionnal content; otherwise people cannot support it and they flee, scared 
by the sea of alien feelings (to them) transported by the music.

>What's left for the imagination? We have to get sucked in by a visuals >all 
>the time now. Visuals are nice, but you dont want them forced upon >you. 
>Listen to a track..let it take you somewhere, somewhere maybe not >intended 
>by its creator!
>Cheers!
>phoen

Why do you think visual are imposing an interpretation of music? Most are 
abstract and only reenforce the imagination. Imagination needs images to 
live and breathe just like it needs sound, smells and sensations.

>>music is dead, only used as filler by most. if you want some *real*
>>attention from the audience you need to do a computer game          >> 
>>(interactive music?) or a DVD.

It would be exciting to make an interactive performance like that, but it 
would require a lot of efforts, maybe too much. People do not require that 
you spend your life working on a single element of the performance to be 
satisfied. I think your ask yourself too much and that's what make you want 
to give up. Why don't you hire a bunch of weird people to dance during the 
show? Or maybe a body painting session on midgets :]. Or anything you can 
come up with that's going to catch the attention of the audience. Don't you 
think that it could be a lot more interesting than fractal images on a 
screen? Visuals and fractals are fascinating, but they're not the only way, 
do you realize that there's an infinite amount of ways to illustrate an 
infinite amount of music? How can we lose our faith in art in such exciting 
conditions!?!?

Nicolas Grenier

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