[LAU] Re: That must suck. For me it's about beauty--musicisjustone path

Chuckk Hubbard badmuthahubbard at gmail.com
Thu Apr 5 20:02:38 EDT 2007


As I've said several times, I don't buy that a jackhammer could ever
sound as sweet as a songbird; no one will describe them as
interchangeable.  I don't believe that anyone would say that a
super-distorted electric guitar - even if they love the sound -
arouses the same emotional response as a "lyrical" oboe solo.  Certain
sounds are by nature disruptive, certain sounds are smooth, and no
amount of conditioning to "like" or "dislike" can change that.
You are a big fan of putting words in my mouth, and of assuming you're
the only person who has done any research into music cognition.  Maybe
that's true in 99% of the groups you find yourself in, but believe me:
Some combinations of sine tones are simply more musical than others.
The actual research that has been done in this area has shown this to
be true.  Conditioning in 12-tone ET does not make musicians think an
ET third is more harmonious than a just third.  The ability to hear
consonance in a just major triad is not something that needs to be
learned, and it can't be unlearned.

-Chuckk

On 4/5/07, Ivica Ico Bukvic <ico at vt.edu> wrote:
> > > If placed within the right context, yes. As a matter of fact a lot of
> > modern
> > > electronica/glitch music relies heavily upon various kinds of noises,
> > including
> > > white noise. Besides, subtractive synthesis + white noise = a lot of
> > cool aural
> > > material...
> >
> > Well, there is a Linux program that will read the entire contents of a
> > hard drive as though it were one big audio file.  So I guess we have
> > no more need for musicians, because that would be a collection of sine
> > waves of various frequencies, and that's all it takes.
>
> Oh dear...
>
> There are sounds and then there is music. Commonly music within this context
> is a collage of such sounds assembled through human arbitration (direct or
> indirect). First you argue how certain sounds are not musical and that is
> this is a universal fact (which it isn't), now you argue that those sounds
> in and of themselves cannot be music (which again is not universal truth).
> Please note that two arguments are not synonymous, but rather separate
> issues altogether.
>
> That being said, I'd suggest looking into writings of John Cage which talks
> about the notion of "happening" and removal of human arbitration from the
> compositional process. To some extent the same goes for the Second Viennese
> school. For what it's worth, in that (albeit extreme) context, yes,
> sonification of hard drive data could be considered a kind of artistic
> expression. On a more moderate level, such sound could be
> harvested/recorded, just like one could record a bird song, and then use
> such material to shape a work of art. Therefore, the sounds which may or may
> not appear to be musical to you (but could appear to be musical to others),
> would be placed within a context where they are treated musically just like
> notes and/or pitches are treated within a traditional Western music. This
> would, by definition, result in a piece of music. Now, whether you like such
> an end-product or not is irrelevant from the fact that any sound can be used
> for musical expression and that music can be defined simply as a conscious
> [human] attention/musical treatment of any sonic material.
>
> Another eye-opening place I would suggest investigating is Ars Electronica
> which is arguably the most prestigious annual competition for the
> contemporary multimedia arts...
>
> Ico
>
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-- 
http://www.badmuthahubbard.com



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