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Re: [microsound] akufen



the reality of it is people enjoy working in an idiom - they like he
challenge of working within the aesthetic rules or parameters of a genre. it
becomes like a little game: how can i offer something original within the
boundaries of these rules? i always love when artists claim that they work
outside of an idiom - that their music is 'unclassifiable.' they are
ultimately fooling themselves and are simultaneously denying themselves the
opportunity for growth. there have been tremendously original works within
genres which usually 'borrow' aesthetic guidelines from other genres... in
the end, it's how humans come up with new ideas - they synthesize several old
ideas in a 'third' or new idea... no one operates in a creative vacuum. i
think that's why the this idea of mixing and the turntable are such nice
analogies for human creativity... i think it was derrick may who talks about
this idea of 'the third record,' the end result being greater than the sum of
its parts/vinyl.

the challenge with minimalism is 'how minimal can you get before it
disappears?' how micro until it can't be heard? i think a lot of composers in
this field are thinking in terms that the 'glitchier' the better, the more
micro the better... that the progressive lies down this path...  it's like
when one applies an image filter in photoshop over and over and over and over
and over again... i'm thinking the sharpen filter or the blur... after
several hundred application you end up with the same picture no matter what
you started with... extremism in this sense has a homogenizing effect. i
think it's an apt analogy to what's happening in micromusic - eventually you
end up with the aural equivalent of a single black pixel. (how about that for
a t-shirt?) there are similiar discourses happening in other genres - how
heavy can metal get? how funky can funk get? how loud can industrial get? how
catchy can pop get?

it's the artists who think horizontally or laterally - instead of vertically
- that are usually the true innovators. this is why i like akufen - he fuses
genres - he works across instead of through. there are progressive discourses
happening in all genres simultaneously. the trick is to 'mix,' to pick and
choose, to be the 'selecta.'

graham.

neil@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> again there is a lot of similar sounding music in general laptop or other
> wise... I think the problem is more about not enough people out there
> tring new things... to many people who hear a record and decide ok I want
> to make music like this, instead of making music for making music sake.
> I see it happening in almost every musical style... how many green day or
> pearl jam sound alikes are there out there?
> its really simple its not the tools its the attitude the creativity of the
> artist making the music...
>
> On Wed, 5 Mar 2003, hans molar wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > i don't know neil. i hear a lot of very similar sounding music these
> > days coming from laptops. since he went more into the radio cut up
> > thing I've thought that akufen sounds a lot like todd terry,
> >
> >
> >
> > or todd edwards!
> >
> >
> >
> > hans
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals
> >
>
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