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Re: [microsound] Getting started



As always, Frank provides a great perspective of the crux of the
entire affair. It would be wise to heed his words!

Right now I use Ableton Live because it suits my needs for a DAW that
has a highly flexible set of optimized DSP tools bundled with it, and
that alone is enough to satisfy most of my creative energies
musically. It will probably happen some day that I will use another
software for everything, and hopefully it will be open sourced. As for
right now, I am still enjoying the benefits of a bit of capitalism to
speed up the development cycle of proprietary software.

But the way that I use Live is _COMPLETELY_ informed from several
years of strain and sweat over things like Pd and Csound, using books
like Richard Bourlanger's edited The Csound Book, the Dodge & Jerse
book, and also the tomes of Curtis Roads.

Knowing the fundamentals will allow you to quickly develop a creative
sound design strategy with any software that you happen to be stuck
with.

But then again to Graham's point: you've got to start with a creative
kernel of some value. For several years, I was selling myself the idea
of being a 'genius composer' because I was learning how to randomly
apply various effects and noises. It was easy to be very snobby about
it and what tools I was (mis)using. In retrospect, those 'songs' were
more like etudes, simple learning exercises.

After having a job at a computer all day, I really hated sitting
behind one at home, so I purchased a cheap 1960s Silvertone acoustic
guitar and started to relearn what I had abandoned during high school
for the computer. Writing songs on that guitar and then porting them
electronically, or even to piano or other instruments has been the
biggest boon for my creative musicianship. I hope that everyone on
this list can have an experience similar to that, if you are feeling
mired in the muck of the screen + mouse interaction paradigm.

Digital tools are great, but what will we all do when the grid
collapses and we're living like in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal?

Thanks for 'listening' to me wax all sentimental about my Silvertone.

~Kyle
On 5/15/07, Frank Barknecht <fbar@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hallo,
isjtar hat gesagt: // isjtar wrote:

> agreed there is stuff and you can abuse the max docs but:
> On May 15, 2007, at 11:13 AM, Benedikt Koehler wrote:
>
> >Hi,
> >
> >>But then for basic stuff you can also just abuse the Max docs to
> >>learn
> >>Pd. Both programs share very similar basics. At least I learned a lot
> >>from the popular Max courses like Peter Elsea's stuff, and I keep a
> >>Max-manual-pdf in reach.
> >
> >and then there's always Puckette's "Theory and Technique of Electronic
> >Music" which has many examples done (of course) in Pd.
> that book is seriously not didactical for beginners however
> theretically balanced it is.

I must say, I learned Pd also from books not about Pd at all, like
Dodge/Jerse's "Computer Music" etc.

Pd itself, like Max, is dead simple to use, but like many instruments
difficult to master. But the basics of Pd can be learned in a couple
of evenings. Everony can quickly learn what [osc~] is and connect it
to [dac~]. The problem then is: What more to do with it? And for that
you need to work on your theoretical background for example using
books like mentioned.

Ciao
--
 Frank Barknecht                 _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__

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