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



oh oh... you've unleashed a can of worms... god forbid gesture should be
associated with musical sound:) even worse, you might even cause people to
dance... personally, i feel there can be tons of 'theatrics' found in various
forms of djing/laptop/electronic music performance - even without visuals...
the performances may be more subtle but nonetheless each artists brings their
gestural personality to the stage... i think of scratch djs, i think of akufen
stradling his laptop, i think of matmos in costume, i think of aphex twin, i
think of the chemical brothers rolling across the stage in office chairs...
there are plenty of new ways to 'wank' in the electronic sphere, some of which
are quite delightful.

Nicolas Grenier wrote:

> 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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