[linux-audio-dev] Re: XAP: a polemic

Tim Goetze tim at quitte.de
Wed Dec 18 12:56:29 UTC 2002


vanDongen-Gilcher wrote:

>> rhythmn is always based on one integral periodic 'pulse'. if 
>> time is not divisible by this atom, there is no musical time.
>
>Nancarow, Ives, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Boulez, Schaeffer, Henry etc. etc in 
>the classical field

can you point at a specific work? those scores are costly and
hard to get. 

those works of boulez and stockhausen i remember seeing the
scores of don't specify a meter at all, and where they do it
was nothing out of the ordinary afair.

you're not talking about absence of notation, right?

>Taylor, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Coltrane, Mengelberg, Broetzman, Zorn, 
>Ayler etc etc in jazz/impro

if you mean what i think you do: these guys don't prescribe a
meter in the first place. give a pointer where they do and its
not integral, please.

>lots of ambient stuff that I don't know the names of.
>lots of acapella vocal music from various cultures.

likewise, but i may be wrong. you don't need a meter to cover
time that is not organized in cycles, right?

>There can be easily multiple time-frames going happening in a single piece 
>of music that have non-lineair relationships.

we do agree on this afaik.

>A computer can also be used to make sounds that a player cannot make.
>A sequencer/daw will also be used for non-musical ordering of sounds in 
>time. It might be handy to use an extended beat/measure structure for 
>setting event frames for dialog editing for a radio play.

you're perfectly right in all these cases; but to describe what
is happening then, a musical meter isn't adequate anyway, is it?

>Anyway my point is that the A/B concept of measure if only really relevant 
>if your dealing with western _notation_, and then together with the entire 
>score.

the A/B concept may not be perfect, but it is able to express
rhythmns from all over the world in integral time units, which
is of great help to musicians and musicians programming computers.

tim




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