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

[Jan Larsson <jlarsson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

music without visuals is almost dead now and was but a parenthesis in 
the history and only existed because of technical limitations in 
mechanical distribution technologies (MP3, wax-rolls, 78:s, CD, LP, FM 
etc.).  the frantic downloading from file-sharing sites only proves 
that these people do not find satisfaction and they just keep searching.

and much of the music without visuals is marketed by visuals: pretty 
faces, MTV, semi-porn, fan-photos in magazines, sold at concerts.  it 
has worked on certain simple types of music.

audio + visual are so much more powerful when carefully composed 
together.

yes it requires much more effort, but why is that a bad thing? why is 
quantity so important?

i completely agree with you re fractals vs. dancers.  i have tried some 
of these automatic pattern generators (arkaos, artmatic and so on) and 
they just suck, they probably work to some extent with simple techno 
but are mostly useless with electroacoustic works and here i think they 
more often than not make it worse than going audio-only.

tisdagen den 4 februari 2003 kl 21.22 skrev Nicolas Grenier:

> 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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