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

[graham miller <grahammiller@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

some would argue we're using 'someone' else's laws of physics as well:)

besides, i'm not sure originality has much to do with this illusion 'pure'
authorship. look at (good) hip hop. look at akufen. emergency broadcast
network. or any other artists who work in with samples, collage, pastiche.
the artristry, the innovation and the originality lie in recombinance. i
mean no one would ever accuse a sculpturer for using granite or marble or
some other readility available raw material as 'source material.' even at
the digital level, the ones and zeros of composition, could be equated to
elements, hydrogen, helium, carbon... creating molecular models using those
elements, which adhere to the laws of physics (the analogy here being a
patch or a model with a programme or synthesizer) no one would doubt the
creativity, innovation or originality.  think of csound or a synth as its
own microuniverse, with its own 'physical' laws.

ultimately, though, these are all just tools for getting sounds. some are
or more suited than others of certain sounds. if i wanted to lay a kazoo
track down i'd get a kazoo.

g.

Alex Young wrote:

> 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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