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Re: Alternative performance devices



> but john coltrane plays music. he is not throwing a more or (more often)
> less structured stream of noise at his audience. music can stand alone.

My understanding was that his musical language was extremely radical in
its day.

I do think overall many elements tend to help (hurt). You did have a
drumer and upright bass playing alongside. He was often was doing a
radical interpretation of a jazz standard. Those things definitely help
as an entre. His unmistakable virtuisoity even though at the time his
musical content was extremely bewildering goes an extremely long way. 

One could disagree or go into much finer points. One can easily say that
the appreciation of his music is still here. You can't say that about
the vast majority of music then or now. 

I think virtuiosity is a word thats pulled out infrequently and often
not very convincingly when it comes to something like a laptop
performance. Though Machover and a occasionally others come to mind in
trying to build interfaces for players with a high dregree of skills on
some existing instrument. 
> 
> unless we are talking real commercial productions music always has a very
> strong element of human expression. electroacoustic (and its modern
> relatives like microsound) lack this element. purposely or not.

Electroacoustic often stikes me as being assembled or perhaps an
exploration, not necessarily a discovery. The latter surely isn't found
in extremely commercial productions but they do share an assembly phase
with a different goal.

> you can try to fix this with various controllers but they are much more
> indirect and simplistic than what can be achieved with normal instruments.
> the analog modulars is somewhere inbetween.

As someone who has played live with modular synths and knows some very
experienced composer performers I'm not sure you get the point of the
modular synth. After all one could argue that at one point all
synthsizers were modular (and not very portable) and only later were
they modified or had technology added to them to create instruments
argueably more suitable for live use. I believe the point why many use
modulars is you not only retain the knobs for most every parameter of
the sound being creative (quite possible but rarely done with
controllers for a laptop even though its quite feasible to hook up a
small box with say 64 knobs on it). Secondly an analog modular arguably
doesn't have the compromises that one would have with a fixed signal
path, the topology means there are always more choices and ways to
construct a sound. Third I guess it visually looks like science or
telcom gear and there is a natural curiosity still to see how how
someone works one. The fact that it isn't extremely live performance
friendly helps to make it a less frequent event. The sounds it makes
tend to be rather different than laptops or fixed archetecture synths too.

 
> this is part of what makes the old electroacoustic stuff stand out as more
> interesting. the primitive technology meant you had to work real hands-on.

Not sure if I agree.

First off I always suspect the love for something old always has a
component of time and others screening out a lot of the crap leaving
behind a higher proportion of good stuff.

A factor that partly weighs in I'm sure with "primitive" technology may
be that the tools used leave less an imprint of themselves and their
makers on the sound. Though it still is easy to argue that Moog, Buchla,
the EMS people etc. certainly leave an imprint on their likes and
dislikes on the overall sounds their instruments are capable of.

> today when everybody is using the same sophisticated software the software
> controls the composer more than the other way round (i.e. lack of
> expression) and it makes everything sound somewhat alike and bland.

Yes one stream of work out there does seem to be a building blocks
approach. The tools can aid in the assembly of something that fits the
bill so that is what gets presented. I think of this is as almost like curating.

I see a couple thinbgs going on though. There are numerous people who
see the tools and intentionally don't use them. Nothing wrong and
probably commendable though I've always had a problem with those who
seem to claim that their work is superior because their tools are
claimed to be superior or hard to learn. People after all are quite
capable to writing software that makes uninteresting sound.

Then what I mentioned before. There is a personal thrill to explore and
modify sound in real time. Many think the process is compelling enough
to somehow transfer to a passive listener. I think that works with one's
discoveries fare much better than what often seems to be a time span or
someone merely experimenting for a while without a goal.

> all this force the artist/composer into seeking novelties (or worse, rely on
> new versions of the software) to stand out rather than developing a skill.

I have a theory of convenience in electronic music. It stands to reason
that if a tool is available to make something sound "acceptable" without
much effort than it stands to reason (...ahem) that most people will
take it. They can for the most part validly rationalize that a
convenient path taken even if not ideal probably frees up more time to
work on another facet of a work. It seems to me that often people could
take options to have much more dynamic control on their music, to use
less of the same static sounds over and over. I also think not being
convenient or at least not all the time has a lot of fringe side
effects. For instance often using primitive tools makes initial results
come out so bad that one has work much harder to create something
acceptable, with skill and practice once the acceptable is found often
the superb can be found with a bit more effort. With a lot of tools that
deliver good enough results conveniently one quite naturally settles
with the good enough and goes on.

nicholas d. kent
http://www.artskool.biz/jem/ndkent/

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