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arranging & the like



it's interesting what was said about the minimal visual arts etc. but the
thing is when presented with a blank field of colour (or your rothko or
whoever did that white square in 1913 or whenever it was....) or irregularly
patterned natural surfaces that the tendency is still there for the eye to
both move over the picture - examining & isolating sections of it in a
linear fashion ("i'm looking at the picture sure, but now i'm looking at the
centre, I'm looking at the edge, I'm looking at the centre again....) - i've
seen maps of this kind of "cognitive eye traffic" if u like in popular
psychology reading or articles i'm sure...

one could counter this with arguments about different states of
non-discriminating consiousness or perception, but i don't really think that
is pertinent to this discussion, which, after all, is about modes of
composition rather than modes of perception....

but similarly, in a work that maintains a static sound field for it's
duration, there is still the inescapable reality of the fact that the
experience must, no matter how we conceptualise it, occour in a linear
unfolding of time..the perception will change even if the music does not -
although ultimately how engaging we would find a totally unchanging piece of
music, & what has worked so effectively in minimalist (both in the classical
music defn & the visual design analogy defn of the music) is the tendency to
variation in the elements - even if to the casual observance it sounds as a
unitary "unchanging" field of sound.

i guess in a way it's a bit of a personal rather than a theoretical question
(don't forget i'm the guy who also did that "Ruin" post...) - as when i
listen particularly to Vladislav Delay's Entain for example, there is a
sense of there being a genuine expressiveness & appropriateness about what
is taking place, despite the somewhat  static "surface / facade" of the
casual observance - the percieved unitary "same-iness" of the piece..

what interests me specifically i guess is maybe the extent to which the
"structure" in music perhaps promotes (or potentially exists because of
even...chicken or egg.....) the "expressive" nature of the
arrangement...(the tension & release guff..)..however ultimately "hidden"
(dare i say Discreet?) this arrangement/ process becomes....

which leads me to a question i have asked before on this list, but in terms
of "formalist or not" arguments, i'm interested in anything anyone has to
say about the idea of vladislav delay's jazz background contributing to the
"structure"/ "feel" / "expressiveness" of Delay's Entain - because i know
nothing about Jazz, & what other than perhaps a purely "free spirit of
improvisation" would lead to this kind of output...(bearing in mind, anyone
who's followed me this far, that Entain apparently was made without a
computer or a sampler...)

maybe what i'm really asking then is "how can i look to achieve more
variance within what is at times a fairly static process of essentially
"rendering" digital audio?".... how do you create shape & transfiguration on
a digital tool without resulting simply to cutting up & using your output in
a fairly "flat" way by then simply effecting/ filtering & or simply "grid
sequencing" (& looping..) the "microshards"? - to extend the visual
analogy - how do i make a movie instead exporting & chaining together a
series of photographs?

it would seem that for my purposes then lot's of multisampling & subsequent
"top to tail " linear arranging/ splicing may be, for me, the only answer...

does anyone have a more "1 step process"/ "expressive" way of addressing
this situation with digital sound tools/ processes? am i missing something
(i know what granular synthesis is for example...)

or am i stuck with having to basically knit myself a "digital blanket" from
all the snippets?

maybe i should just get into more MIDI assigning controllers etc....

i can only stress i guess, that as the problems becomes more specific,
invariably real world solutions start presenting themselves, but getting to
this point i think is where this discussion hopefully will help....

i don't really listen to a lot of "microsound" per se, so i'm glad someones
picking up on i hope to be the relevance & appropriateness of these posts...
thanks.

i'll be keen to hear that thomas koner album too...

& that Becks sounds like a mighty good idea - can we get 20% off that on
mention of the microsound list possibly? ; )

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