Re: [microsound] matthew herbert big band/ manifesto of mistakes

[Alex Young <alex@xxxxxxx>]

I was thinking about how I have enjoyed using csound because my 
technical knowledge
of how sound can be created and manipulated has increased somewhat.  
Now I
occasionally write my own little programs to generate wave files to use 
in compositions.

But if you're using PD/csound/etc, you're still using someone's 
interpretation of how
something should be done, and even 'their idea of how sounds should be 
used' to
an extent; if you write your own software from scratch you're still 
using a language
someone else created and doing something according to their methods.

I could take this argument further, but all it says to me is whether 
you're programming a
synth patch, programming software or merely using presets to compose a 
nice
phrase, _in a way_ it's all the same.

Despite this, I sometimes liken composers who build their own software 
to mathematicians
like Gauss and Reinman.  Traditional mathematicians stuck on Euclid's 
2D plane found it
hard to conceive the curved space they defined, until many years after 
their deaths.  In
a similar way, some traditional composers today and fans of popular 
music find it hard to
understand how someone is able to make incredible music from writing 
software; sometimes
never even using a traditional instrument.  Hopefully people will start 
to 'get' computer
science a little bit more over time and be able to look at your PD 
works and my crazy broken
Python and C++ programs and say 'yeah, I get what he was trying to do.'

Add generative art into the mix and you can confuse people a whole lot 
more.  You can also
have nifty arguments about whether programmers are artists - and upset 
computer
scientists and artists in one go!  I've made that mistake a few times.

On Saturday, November 29, 2003, at 12:58  am, derek holzer wrote:

> It also brings me back to the reason I started working with Pure Data 
> in the first place: I didn't want to use anybody else's sounds, nor 
> their idea of how sounds should be used, nor their ready-made 
> synthesizers or patches, nor even their idea of how I should 
> graphically interface with said synth or patch. If I spend all week 
> making a granular synthesis patch from scratch which I honestly 
> beleive to be my own [no matter if I borrow tricks from others],  I am 
> much more satisfied than by messing with the default settings of some 
> commerically available one. It is the thing that seperates the 
> user/consumer from the artist, for me.

--
http://alex.bash.sh

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