Re: [microsound] usefulness of compressors/mastering in experimental music

[Matthew Mitchell <matmi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>Absolutely. I love suprises! But I can almost guarentee that those 
people who can hack the pretty-looking commerical stuff and make it jump 
through hoops of fire have a knowledge of their computers as 
sound-and-data-processing instruments that the lazy GUI-addict simply 
doesn't. Their creative process with these applications doesn't depend 
on their skill in using limited possibilities given by the programmers, 
but on their skill in manipulating the computer itself.

This strikes me as unnecessarily pejorative in tone.  In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a hacker/programmer-type; I come to microsound from the side of the 'old-school' musician, though I've been working with computer music for a few years.  I use a PC, primarily running CDP, with AudioMulch and Granulab to help sometimes.  Though I have programming background from ages ago, long enough ago that its actually fairly irrelevant to what I'm doing now, computer-music-wise.

I'd counter, though, that there's arguably a world between the two poles you set out - fire-breathing hacker vs. 'lazy-GUI addict' - and that some people may choose to live near the equator.  

Plus, I'm hard-pressed to think of an artist who doesn't want restrictions (your 'limited possibilities') within which to work.  [not crowning all plug-in addicts as artists, of course]


>>Take Woody and Steina Vasulka, who pretty much invented everything that 
VJs take for granted now--the direct interaction of audio and video 
signals. They started by hacking the tools of analog music synthesis and 
running video signals through it because the tools for what they wanted 
to make didn't exist. But this took a level of familiarity with the 
technology, and not just blind luck pushing buttons.
 
Maybe you wouldn't go this far, necessarily, but by your logic, in order to be better musicians, then pianists, drummers, etc. need to understand the physics of the soundwaves emanating from their instruments.  In any case, I wouldn't agree.

> I've seen umpteen Pd/Supercollider/Max-based laptop 
> performances with no thoughts beyond 'making cool sounds' which somewhat 
> disillusioned me with the whole affair.

>>In this case, the art on display was 
the code itself--and code worthy of the name "art" it was. The video on 
the screen, however, was simply one instance of that code at work [like 
a lot of Live or Reason tracks...]

I'd be careful about calling code art, regardless of the sophistication involved.  No doubt this will raise the ire of programmers, but it doesn't exist for its own sake - it has other uses, and aesthetic considerations are not primary.  That alone makes it 'not art.'  Code programmers are closer to artisans than artists, I'd say.  I do know that for me, though, even with my quite limited knowledge, code certainly has more 'net intellectual value' than much shitty music.

>>One approach is very limited in its scope and tends towards the 
production of default results, i.e. what the software was intended to 
make. I've referred to this elsewhere as "digital folk music", and I'll 
stick by my guns on that one.

This again is pejorative.  By placing such a term on such music, you're arguably tying the music's worth to that one characteristic.  It strikes me as being as meaningful as saying that music that uses oboes is automatically 'classical music'.  

Plus, do you really think that you could tell the difference between 'digital folk music' and ' the other kind' (the 'good' kind) in a blind listening test?  That is, do you really think that you'd know it if you heard it?

>>The other approach can also, necessarily, produce "bad art" or "bad 
music". But I am interested just as much in the process of how art is 
created as in the end result, or "instance", of that process. It is 
necessary to the context and the enjoyment for me.

I am too.  I should mention that I am, in fact, geniunely interested in the programming aspect of computer music.  Anyway, perhaps my objection is purely based on my distaste for placing process on an equal plane to the artistic result.  That may extend to distaste for at least some music that's intentionally created in such a way too, though I'm not entirely sure.  But all art is at least partially the result of processes that are not quantifiable by code, and I'd say that's true with 'microsound' as well.  That's part of what makes it art.

-matt

www.mattmitchell.us  
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