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Re: [microsound] Max/Msp 5 is here



He?s definitely the foremost composer of what he calls (in Microsound)
?micromontage?. Of course, his account of ?micromontage? is essentially
just a description of how he composes, so this shouldn?t be surprising
that he's the micromontage Elvis.

It?s funny, an old professor of mine said about Roads? music, something
almost exactly the same as what Roads said about rave music (there
might've been a comment about "composing his way out of a paper bag"
also).

In a sense, I think that the comment about rave music is far too black and
white - maybe spoken by Curtis the politician more than Curtis the
composer. Rave music (this is maybe a silly way to refer to it, but I
think everyone knows what we?re talking about) DOES have narrative ? a
/very/ well defined, well developed narrative. And, in fact, I think the
?rave DJ? is probably the /only/ person in 20th century pop culture who
any authority on sculpting blocks of time longer than an hour or two (not
saying it's being sculpted in interesting ways, but it's at least being
sculpted). And, the narrative that unfolds in the course of a couple hour
dj set is an /extremely/ refined one ? the transitions, climaxes,
interludes, etc do what they do incredibly well.

The criticism that /can/ be leveled, I think, is that basically, every
iteration, every example of the dj set we?re thinking of, is telling the
same story ? in fact, it?s just repeating the same handful moments,
really, with some architectural baggage to make them stand up. Anyone who
has listened to great dj set knows what these moments are ? they?ve been
around for a long time, and have been retold, honed, polished, exaggerated
over and over (this endless refinement is why the music can be so
compelling), but it?s roughly the same story. One can imagine it
functioning like a folk tale, passed on by experience rather than
documented, told with different variations and in different styles around
each campfire ? nonetheless, the metanarrative is the same, Red still
finds the wolf hiding at grandmas.

And so, in the context of the academic project, this fireside storytelling
can be problematic ? the rave dj is placing himself in a long chain of
endless repetition of the same couple ideas, the same handful of events, a
cycle that it is almost impossible to break out of. The endless mutations
eventually produce new examples that are psychically
new/compelling/shocking enough to engage again, to sustain the lineage
when the old examples have work themselves down. I don?t want to be
dismissive, these aren?t normative judgements ? fireside storytelling is
valuable, but it?s important to understand what it is and what it?s doing.

I guess what I want to say is that the biggest difference between what
Curtis Roads does and what the rave DJ does is how they stand in relation
to history (and to the future). One can imagine the rave dj set, divorced
from it?s own lineage and placed inside the apparatus of academic music,
as being the first simple step in the development of a long line of ?great
works? (in the sense that CR might say those words). One can equally
imagine Point Line Cloud (Roads? major work so far) being part of a
fireside lineage, leading to an endless repetition and reiteration of the
same couple of moments and ideas. Of course, these things aren?t black and
white ? even with it?s academic machinery, I see elements of the fireside
repetition in academic computer music. And, likewise, there are plenty of
artists that have catapulted themselves out of the orbit of the rave dj
set, and into ?avant garde? territory in really interesting ways.

- Scott


> Please, expound.
>
> Paulo Mouat wrote:
>> In the academia sense and heritage he probably is. There is a
>> disconnect in the notion of microsound as expounded by Roads (and by
>> extension, accepted in academic circles) and that typically discussed
>> on this list.
>>
>> //p
>> http://www.interdisciplina.org/00.0/
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 2:09 PM, craquemat <craque@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> ha ha ha ha this made me laugh!
>>>
>>> i don't know if i agree 100% with his statements. and i don't know his
>>> music
>>> at all.
>>>
>>> i did find it curious that the article refers to him as "THE FOREMOST
>>> COMPOSER" of microsound.
>>>
>>> his discogs page sure doesn't belie that.
>>>
>>> -m
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Graham Miller wrote:
>>>> right...
>>>>
>>>> and roads' stuff is all depth and narrative?
>>>>
>>>> please.
>>>>
>>>> raver graham
>>>>
>>>> On 24-Apr-08, at 12:36 PM, craquemat wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I for one don't especially like this increasingly automated approach
>>>>> to
>>> making music. Ableton Live used to be a very neat tool for doing
>>> certain
>>> specific things, but it has swollen into this beast that practically
>>> makes
>>> the music on its own.
>>>>> And personally I am growing weary of so much computer-aided music
>>> sounding the same. I don't know how much of this can be blamed on the
>>> software or not.
>>>>> I suppose the real works of art will end up outshining the others as
>>> time passes. In some ways it's probably no good to blame the tools, but
>>> the
>>> humans who use them.
>>>>> There is a really neat blurb in this month's Wired (Steve Carrell on
>>>>> the
>>> front) about Curtis Roads and microsound. He makes an applicable
>>> comment on
>>> how "ravers" (which I take to mean not just literally people who go to
>>> raves, but the generation of music makers inspired by that tradition
>>> when
>>> making music) definitely make some beautiful sounds, but there is not
>>> much
>>> depth or narrative in what they're doing.
>>>>> In other words, the art isn't as rich, even if the paint job is
>>>>> stellar.
>>>>>
>>>>> Graham Miller wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> in that lengthy robert henke video i posted a little while ago he
>>>>>> says
>>> nothing will happen until max 5 is out and then he eluded to the pluggo
>>> product line, implying that there might some kind of function that
>>> allows
>>> users to build there own plug-ins within live... but he was pretty
>>> tight-lipped about the whole venture. someone asked him about jitter
>>> and
>>> video in live and he just smiled and didn't respond, saying 'he already
>>> said
>>> too much.' to be honest, they themselves probably don't even know for
>>> sure
>>> what's going to happen...
>>>>>> On 23-Apr-08, at 7:26 PM, Matt Tierney wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> DIY Live instruments/effects?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 12:08 AM, Hans Erik Nilsson
>>> <hasse@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> can't wait to find out what they're gonna do w/ ableton now that
>>> max
>>>>>>>>> is done...
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yeah, absolutely. Anyone on the list picked up on any rumours on
>>> what
>>>>>>>> could
>>>>>>>> be the outcome of the partnership between Cycling 74 and Ableton?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> /Cheers,
>>>>>>>> /Hasse
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Mr. Hans Erik Nilsson | Voice: +46 73 6636331 |
>>>>>>>> | Standard disclaimer file active |
>>>>>>>> "There are many futures and only one status quo"  - Brian Eno
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> http://artmentaldisorder.blogspot.com
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>
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