Re: [microsound] blocks of time

[scott@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

> are you talking about in music?
Yes, definitely. Again, specifically "popular music" (defined very loosely)
- which nearly /always/ is contained in extremely small chunks of time.
Again, not making normative judgements re. long time vs short time, just
noting that there is next to /no/ engagement with long chunks in
non-classical, non-art music, with the interesting and notable exception of
the DJ.

> filmmakers deal with anything from 1min - 120+ mins
> so they are still the kings of hour plus blocks of time
> and sound artists or installation artists deal with longer blocks of  
> time - more like macro-events

Very true. Film has become extremely articulate very quickly in this
respect. Most people come into contact with long, composed stretches of
time pretty much exclusively through film. Sound artists too, though I
would say that one of the first differences to draw between sound art and
music is the way it deals with time. When I think something is  "more like
sound are / more like music", the first thing I think is "more like this
kind of time / more like that kind of time".

> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> also, 'narrative' is a rather stuffy (albeit modernist) concept and  
> it doesn't really exist in music
> there is musical structure which imparts a context (the old:  
> 'expectation, frustration, release' arc of activity)
> the only narrative is the one the listener constructs based on their  
> own associations and memories

Yes, I was most using "narrative" as a jumping off point to refer to some
more vague things that music /does/ have... structured events? parts w/
relationships? before's and after's? networks of causal chains? Narrative
/is/ a stuffy concept, but a useful one to employ on music, in a way. After
all, one can imagine the exact moment in the 4 hour dj set that "finding
the wolf waiting in grandmothers bed" might refer to (and again, I mean
this in terms of relationships between parts, befores and afters - one need
not go so far as to worry about which paul oakenfold track corresponds to
the woodsman in order for this metaphor to be productive).

- Scott


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