From: Patrick Shirkey <pshirkey(a)boosthardware.com> To: linux-audio-user <linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org> Sent: Sun, August 29, 2010 4:13:08 AM Subject: Re: [LAU] re Subconscious Affecting Music On Fri, August 27, 2010 12:21 pm, david wrote: Looking for a scientific study of the effects of music...... Now that I've reread that statement, I would have to strongly disagree with the friend. Dog whistles-- has anyone ever heard the high pitched frequency of a dog whistle? So how did we know that dog whistles produced high frequency sound before the invention of the oscilloscope? Was it not the 'effect' of the dog whistle on dogs that was observed? And from this repeatable observation of dogs' reactions to a blown dog whistle, modern western science was able to 'prove' that dog whistles actually produced a sound. We refer to this procedure of inferring and proving something exists (through repeatable experimentation) when that something cannot be detected directly by the five human senses as the modern western scientific method. Now, where did this modern western scientific method come from? The Ancient Greeks. You know, the guys who brought us the proof that air exists by means of their experiments with the 'water thief' gourd. The Ancient Greeks, who also brought us the principles of rhetoric. I don't recall the reference, but I remember that one of their best orators would have a musician playing along with his speech. He would use rhetoric and the emotion evoking power of the music to completely influence his hearers. One of the earliest forms of brain washing, if you will. Best, Stephen.

Patrick Shirkey wrote: No, whole idea isn't stupid, just that there's been a lot of nonsense written on the subject. Given what I know of how he thinks, he's probably referring to the academic/scientific literature, but I wouldn't know. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

The problem with psychology in music/literature/whereever is that each person has his own understanding in this domain. And no matter what you say it will seem nonsense to some, genius stuff to others. It's delicate ground to tread on. Obviously music is capable of affecting subconscious. To do it in conscious manner, however, is very unlikely, as all human attempts to control subconscious were always with very limited success. As for the question with which the thread has started, I would respond to it in two ways. 1. It is probably less likely to be able to effect subconscious in a "good" way, because while "bad" seems to be very basic and same for everyone (aggressive and sexual instincts), "good" stuff differs from person to person, depending on his cultural level, context and education, as well as personal beliefs. And the person who would try to control people with "good" stuff will end up bringing up things which he believes to be "good", according to his views. 2. It is not a very good idea, all in all. The whole religious process of "becoming better" comes out of inner freedom of doing so. Any forceful effects would not be "real", they would be no more than influences which would never be able to ignite the actual flame of "betterness", "needing to change something to the better" within oneself. Do you see what I mean? L.V.

If you are assuming that brainwashing has this big an effect and that people need "guidance" to get out of it, then in my humble opinion this is an error. it is always easy to assume that we are smart and the rest of the public is "cattle" that needs to be controlled. i put it harshly for the sake of clarity. obviously you did not mean it that way, but in essence this is what your stance is based on. I do not see it that way. I see that any brainwashing has very limited effects and that in each, even most crestfallen person there is always inherently present force to fight back. I see many-many people around me who were into all that hype to slowly turn to different, more meaningful from my view things. Surely, there is nothing bad in trying to bring some good into the world. Just keep it in context and do not think that you alone can change the world to the better. you may try to do your small part and hope that your view of what "good" is is not too far off from the truth we all search - and it is as much as any of us can hope for. It is enough to make you happy, though. Cheers! Louigi.

"Also, maybe because you live in a progressive society like Russia you may find that you are not under constant attack buy your media like we are in the "western" countries." Ha! Thanks for "progressive society" ;) I hope we are progressing in the right direction ;) Mass media is here too, but people in general tend to ignore it or be very ironic about it. Maybe it is due to Soviet heritage that people despise of brainwashing and notice it very well.

I don't believe anyone will really benefit by western countries decline. And not simply because of economical reasons, but because humanity is now one big society, whether we want it or not. Anyone's problems become global. Plus, it is people we are talking about. I would want western people to make it through all their difficulties.

Hello! But when do you get in people's heads? When you have a special topic of lyrics or when you have the right tune or the telegene performers? I think lyrics are never something to attract people. At least not when you're thinking of pop and those who listen only to pop. There are some good lyrics, some better than the production of the music, but not often. Another argument: You say affecting the "bad" stuff, like aggressiveness and sexual instincts. I say: sexual instincts aren't a bad thing. That is very prominent - I feel - within people who are strong believers in their religion. I think mostly in the abrahamite religions. I think it's something laughed at, frowned at and twisted once too often. As some comedian once said: I'd rather have my kid watch two people fucking, than two people killing themselves. But maybe a little besides the original question. Still when it comes to influences in good or bad ways, there is a debatable issue, weather only bad characteristics of listeners are encourraged. Beyond that, I think we had attempts at our better nature: Friends will be friends and I remember, that there were more "let's all be good friends' songs in the mid to late 90s, even some coorperations between pop stars of the time. It didn't last too long. I suppose because the underlying music wasn't too good and catching. Kindly yours Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de

Hello Patrick! You really seem to have a desolate opinion of the masses. there always is the choice and it is not, that choices are hidden away in dark corners. You can look on youtube, in the stores, at the internet radio landscape, even at big collections of stations, including pop and/or poprock. You'll find loads of alternatives. I have the feeling - at least here in Germany - that among young peoples more and more turn, besides their interest in typical pop, to something of their own. Indi, oldies, 70s, folk... You name it, they'll like it and show it to others. I've seen that in several friends and friends' children. Warmly yours Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de

On Mon, August 30, 2010 3:15 am, Dave Phillips wrote: This backs up my theory that we have been subjected to a form of abuse for a substantial period of time now that may actually result in a Pavlovian response to the compositional technique... -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On 09/01/2010 01:07 AM, Ken Restivo wrote: CD's are indeed dead. So is downloading. Nowadays kids don't download stuff anymore, who wants an MP3 when you could also stream it anywhere, anytime any place? And the blockbuster hit thing, I fully agree. It won't happen again on such a big scale. I've read several articles on this subject and quite some music journalists are of the opinion that superstardom doesn't really exist anymore. The big stars of say 15 years ago have no more contemporary equivalents. There's no new Madonna, no new U2, no new Bruce Sprinsteen. There is Lady Gaga, there is Kings of Leon, there is The Gaslight Anthem but they're even more faded echoes then the aformentioned examples of Ken (Nevermind and OK Computer). Some even say pop/rock music will develop itself just like poetry did. Best, Jeremy

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 12:29:14PM -0500, Brent Busby wrote: Apropos of which, South Park Season 13, Episode 1, "The Ring" does a good job of skewering both Mickey and the Jonas Brothers, in the great tradition of Dan O'Neill's Odd Bodkins strip. -- Joel Roth

Am 30.08.2010 07:21, schrieb Patrick Shirkey: [...] > Hence I feel it is a worthwhile use of time, resources and energy to at > least try to counter the damage being done by the affect of what is > currently considered to be acceptable standards in pop music construction > on the greater consciousness. > For example IMO the song "Bang Bang Bang" by Mark Ronson with QTip and MDNR > http://vimeo.com/12581076 > is a good attempt at a subversive attack on modern pop and the > subconscious mind of the listener but I feel it misses the mark by being > too well produced, having lyrics that are too abstract and complex and > having performers who are too good at their art and not attractive enough > for the market. The song is nice, good OKayish pop that is welcome to me if played on the radio. I do not find it too subversive though. People that are conformist consumers can consume this as well. I do not understand the lyrics too well and cannot find them as text so it may be, that they make the tune really subversive in a way. But I do not think, that you talk about the lyrics here. You mean, there is something physical in the music that performs some influence on the minds of the listeners. Such effects are curiosities at best: nobody changes the way people think using some frequencies or rhythm-patterns. Music can change your mind as it is a way to communicate. It is a language that has means to go beyond the capabilities of mere speech. But the same as speech it relies on a socio-cultural context. If a person living in a slum in Africa listenes to a song, he or she may come to the decision: "Im not gonna take it anymore - see my children die of curable deseases, being robbed by corrupt authorities. No more!" Listening to the song can result in open rebellion,riots, revolution. Communication amplified by music. If you or I listen to the very same song, we may swing our hips a little and I would say: OK another nice world-music tune, not my cup of coffe anyway but nice... It's economics, reccources, status - no frequency can change the social conditions under wich you live. Music that can help to make people think about their lives must be authentic. An artist that is willing to give his/her audience genuine art can create a positive effect in a socio-cultural context. An artist, that betrays his/her vision on art cannot create anything beyond a consumable product that says and signifies nothing. Frequencies and patterns are just tools. If a certain combination of frequencies fits you vison, use them. If not: avoid them. Everything else is abuse. best regs HZN/Berlin

On Mon, August 30, 2010 3:57 am, Julien Claassen wrote: While your observation is certainly a desirable aspect of healthy consumption of art and culture, IMO we are also being subjected to a form of attack that is attempting to perpetuate the psychological oppression that forces us as a global mass to accept the status quo and allow it to control the direction of our lives and the events that are forced upon us as a global community. The highly aggressive and purely sexualised music forced upon us at every opportunity by the mass media is a reaction to the oppression that we are placed under and is actively promoted as a means of keeping us subconsciously subdued and fighting to keep our heads above water with the odds stacked against us resulting in the cycle being continued between each new generation. We are being conditioned to accept the system of abuse from the day we are born by the relentless attack on our subconscious from the mass media and the industry that supports it. Hence I feel it is important for us to not only create art that is challenging but to also take on the industry at it's own game with subversive production turning their techniques against them. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On Mon, August 30, 2010 4:32 am, Julien Claassen wrote: That's what I find is the biggest failure of good pop music. It takes too many listens to get to the root of the message. I feel if it is possible for the abusers or the people who have bought into that system wholeheartedly to make music that fulfills their agenda to manipulate and oppress the minds of the listeners through constant repetition of insanity then it should also be possible to make music that expresses sanity in as simple and direct terms. In a way you are free from the additional abuse of the visual media that often accompanies the auditory attack that IMO we are being subjected to. Possibly that makes you less susceptible to the subconscious abuse therein. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On Mon, August 30, 2010 5:25 am, Julien Claassen wrote: In this regard I agree with you that there is a technique of layering that is being used. I don't agree that it is easier to make a long track than a short track. It is hard to make a polished piece of work no matter what. It takes time and effort. A polished long player piece will require more time than a short player piece. Genesis had feet planted on both sides of the issue so what Phil Collins said on the matter has to be taken with a grain of salt. He obviously made a lot of money from short form pop so had a vested interest in pushing the concept that a number one hit is more of a work of art than a long player piece. In fact it could be argued that he was assisting the establishment in it's goal of breaking down and subduing society with statements like that. Although he also tried to portray a significant message so it may not have been his intention when he made the statement and may have been twisted and used to further the agenda of the pop music industry. All musical genres start to sound samey if you listen to enough of it. Yes, I agree the basic formula for mindless drivel has not changed much over the years. Perhaps that is why we have been dominated by a hereditary elite for so long now? motivation/energy > to delve into it. And that may be a problem. But with any type of music, Certainly each producer adds a degree of personality to a production. What I see is that recently there has been a wholesale assault on society by producers using a specific version of the technique that is easily absorbed by susceptible minds. For the rest of us we are expected to endure the punishment of being immersed in this abusive mind fuck whenever we step out into a public space again breaking us down and subduing us to conform to the goals they want to promote as acceptable behaviour. If we are accepting of this as the status quo then we get what we deserve. I feel it's important that we actively counter it by going so far as to attempt to subvert the technique and level the playing field, so to speak. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Patrick Shirkey <pshirkey(a)boosthardware.com> wrote: Patrick, I have no idea what has got you so worked up about this. It sounds to me as though you need to find some new clubs to hang out in. I can't recall the last time I was in "a public space" and forced to listen to this mystical "compositional technique" that you're referring to. My kids and their friends don't listen to it, or go to clubs that play it, either in LA or here in Philadelphia. I've been in plenty of bars/restaurants/lounges over the last couple of years that play Thievery Corporation much more than they ever play anything that fits the description you've been offering us. That was true in Barcelona, in Berlin, in Philadelphia, London and New York. I'm not even sure what fraction of any age group actually goes the kind of club you're talking about, although certainly its not zero.

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 8:43 PM, <fons(a)kokkinizita.net> wrote: I would just like to point out some (perhaps irrelevant) points: 1. The great western classical tradition which started around Bach (or a few hundred years earlier depending on how you look at/hear it) suddenly died around 1900. Classical music degenerated into varieties of insanities like serialism etc and pop/rock etc emerged over the next 50 years out of what was earlier simple folk music. 2. Western music has always used and experimented with varieties of well-tempering. Equal tempering only took hold in the 20th century ie after 1900 see for example: http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~mrubinst/tuning/tuning.html 3. The 'greatest' wars that humans have ever fought happened in the 20th century

On 30 August 2010 19:05, James Morris <jwm.art.net(a)gmail.com> wrote: and why did they do all this? because of the stifling restrictions of formal art and culture. traveling in circles is fun isn't it? -- _ : http://jwm-art.net/ ¯audio/image/text/code

On Mon, August 30, 2010 11:05 am, James Morris wrote: So you don't think the constant bombardment with dumbed down pop culture has anything to answer for? What do you think was the point of Pop Art? There is a good reason why Andy Wharhol was considered a revolutionary thinker at the time... -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

fons(a)kokkinizita.net wrote: I think sometimes that originality and creativity in the arts are being overwhelmed by the sheer volume and easy access to worldwide arts. In the 1800s, someone could start off an idea for a melody, share it would someone else who thinks it's pretty new, and develop it into a composition. Now that same person might have a melody, share it with someone else, and someone else might say, "Oh, that sounds like [some obscure band in the back side of obscurity], here's their YouTube link", and the person who had the melody idea thinks, "Oh, it's been done before, I won't bother." Now we all know that's simplistic and naive, but I think it gets the idea across. I live in the USA; on the mainland, 50 years ago I would have had very little opportunity to hear popular music from places like Korea, Japan or India. Now they're all just a few clicks away via the Internet. I can click from a Welsh men's choir to Gregorian chant to gangsta rap. Kind of easy to fill your head with everyone else's music, and crowd your own out. Compared to the 1800s, we have music all around us, nearly all the time - radios in passing cars, Muzak in elevators and offices, cellphone ringtones, etc. One reaction to having a plethora of material (both modern and historical) is to "compose" by essentially remixing different things. Even the classical period did that (stylistically) with pieces "in the Italian style," "in the German style," in the English style. Human warmaking technology has attained heights in the 20th century that no earlier human culture ever did, and human population count long ago exceeded that of any preceding era. So it shouldn't be any surprise that the "greatest wars" (if you go just by numbers and damage done) would happen now, when the most effective killing machinery devised intersects with the enormous selection of available targets ... -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 4:39 PM, <fons(a)kokkinizita.net> wrote: but mathematics and science's forward path is presumably in the direction of some kind of "truth", whether one believes in a platonic universe or not. in both cases, even if we cannot define "truth", we can establish metrics by which to judge the motion of math and science, the most obvious one being the simplistic test of "does it work better as a support for our manipulation of the physical world?" .... its not clear whether the arts have any forward trajectory at all, so trying to identify a particular period or a particular outcome as "ahead", "backwards", etc. seems a little odd. is the american minimalism of the late 1960s onwards progress compared to baroque counterpoint? is wagner progress compared to perotin? to me the most obvious thing that has happened to "music" since the mid-twentieth century is the fetishization of *sound* itself. adorno has quite a responsibility there, but his philosophical musings on this were supported and extended by composers across europe and the US, and have found a fertile breeding ground even within the context of modern popular music. most of the great art of humanity seems to me to have emerged from a dynamic in which chaos and control interact in very complex ways; the "serious art" of the late twentieth century seemed keen to see what would happen with more chaos and less control. but the "serious art" world is, thankfully, just one of many we have to choose from; as xenakis was messing around with stochastic music, cage with indeterminism, lots of people with serialism, stockhausen with whatever we want to call stockhausen's work and so forth, we had the jazz world, the world of carnatic music from india, african polyrhythmic music and many other traditions engaged in a continuation of the fine balance between chaos and control. we ended up with some absolutely awesome art, and it had very, very little to do with anything going on in the serious/academic world of "western art music", and very little to do with with fetishization of sound itself that seems to have been the hallmark of the western art music of the last 50-60 years. if i hear one more piece that wants me to marvel at the *SHEER JUXTAPOSITION* of this versus that, i think i'm going to scream. thankfully, we've got a generation fo composers now who haven't even read adorno, and feel free to draw their influences from an enormous, global selection. is this an eclectism that has "little power to survive", or a vibrant source of compost and nutrition for a field that would otherwise be on the verge of a monoculture die-off ?

To me the trademark of the XX century art is money. Instead of thinking about saying important things, art became about selling. Excuse the very commonly brought up thought, but commercial art sucks. It kills the whole essence of what art is, the essence of spiritual expression and search. In fact, in minds of many people it is so dead already, that it is quite fine for an artist to withdraw his creations simply because he did not get money or fame or whatever he is trying to sell. I do not understand how a real artist can choose to withdraw his work from the public because he did not get enough money. And I predict many people would be ready to tell me the good old "you want artists to starve?". Just for the clarity - I don't. But commercial art is not art and those products are not worth anybody's attention. Even the best of them. L.V.

On 1 September 2010 12:49, David Santamauro <david.santamauro(a)gmail.com> wrote: Agree 99% but think of Damien Hirst's "For the Love of God": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Love_of_God It inspires mixed feelings in me - mostly feelings of disgust. -- _ : http://jwm-art.net/ ¯audio/image/text/code

On Wed, 1 Sep 2010 16:15:53 +0400 Louigi Verona <louigi.verona(a)gmail.com> wrote: fair enough. My point is simply that such a broad stroke as "commercial art is not art" is just your opinion (which you are entitled) but clearly there are many magnificent works that have been created for the masses in search of fame and fortune that are worthy of attention. Most great composers were/are performers that needed to display their virtuosity in order to "break into the scene", Bach, Mozart and Beethoven being no exceptions. Are we to write off these works and pay them no attention? David

On Wed, 1 Sep 2010 16:36:01 +0400 Louigi Verona <louigi.verona(a)gmail.com> wrote: Bach wasn't exactly striving for fame, but he was surely trying to impress in order to secure a position that would allow him to provide for a family doing what he loved to do. The mentality changed through the course of the 18th century moving away from simply court-appointed "secure positions" to self-supporting composers accepting commissions and, yes, in order to get more commissions, these composers strove for fame -- there is much literature on the subject and although I've been schooled many years in music history, theory and composition, there are many others who can explain this change better than I. But it is this change that was pivotal. True, but isn't what I mentioned above still something that artists strive for? ("trying to impress in order to secure a position that would allow him to provide for a family doing what he loved to do"). Granted, this is a simplistic view, but a starving artist will die of starvation. An artist that makes enough money will continue to create -- a fact of life traceable to the ideas of Darwin, I'm afraid. So maybe the commercial company wants fortune, but the academics surely want fame ... which, of course, translates to money as the more famous a university is, the more students want to attend, the more government grants for research it will receive, usw. Again, if the amateur scene is providing enough to allow the artist to continue creating, I see nothing wrong with it. David

Louigi Verona wrote: Just out of curiosity: What biographies of Bach have you read ? Or do you just sort of "feel" like you know the guy ? ;) Best, dp

Louigi Verona wrote: The whole idea "real talent leads a person" is one of the fallacies that came from the Romantic movement. As if the "artist" was some special divine being, possessed by the spirit of the gods. I think many "genius" people lived in poverty because they chose not to do the actions that would get them out of it. If you are a "genius" painter, you can certainly paint and be paid for commissions: if you're willing to paint what others want, instead of being all wrapped up in yourself. If you can't paint an acceptable commissioned portrait, I'd certain question your claim to being a "genius." Also, some of the Romantics were insane (the reasons don't matter). Back then, insanity was frequently not treated at all - the insane who weren't a danger to others were left to wander their own lives ... Arrogance and egotism is what leads artists away from their true roots: specialized craftspeople. FWIW, I can appreciate a well-written and effective ad jingle as well as the sublime beauty of the Canon in D. I think the person who wrote that jingle today might have been writing chamber music in Bach's day. And who knows what Bach would have written today if he'd been born and raised in our times? -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Brent Busby wrote: But if you simply "had to write songs" at the expense of making a living, ended up living on the streets, still making songs, I think it would qualify quite well as some form of insanity. I understand OCD is very popular now. ;-) Yah, we have folk like that around Hawaii, too. Society really doesn't care if you're insane, as long as you don't hurt or bother anybody else! At least those patients were fed and treated for physical ailments, and the motivations of many of the treatments was to cure. Easy for people decades later to say those treatments were all wrong - but we have the benefit of the results of those experiments demonstrating they were ineffective. Hindsight's always 20-20, they say. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Louigi Verona wrote: Then yours doesn't qualify as OCD, does it? Please note the winking smiley in my original message. No, it isn't. I started writing poetry before I was in high school. Had to write poetry. So I do understand it. And I've been playing music since I was 3. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Louigi Verona wrote: Strangely enough, I actually made money from my poetry. Writing the poems I wanted to write - not greeting card verse or sappy sentimental booklets. ;-) I think we were arguing about seeming conflicts between doing art for money and doing art for self-satisfaction/one's own needs. But this thread has demonstrated the usual fate of discussion list threads and fractured into a number of things! I spent 2 years playing music professionally, and decided that I simply wasn't willing to sacrifice the enormous amount of life it would have taken to become successful. I have relatives who chose differently, and make very comfortable livings in music. But neither of them writes music. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

There are two voices I hear here vis-a-vis Bach: 1. Art for art's sake -- the romantic idea 2. Art for money's sake -- the distinction of commercial vs commisioned being a fine semantic distinction. Bach himself expressed a view however which does not fit in with either: * Anything done other than for the service of God is vanity* [I read this 30 years ago and google is not finding me a suitable quote -- sorry if its off the mark]

Hi All: Slightly deviating off the conversation, I am sharing with you all some interesting stuff that I encountered. I discovered this while I was walking besides the school of philosophy after completing my class in in engineering. As I was hearing to the sounds of leaves and birds, I was approaching my music lab at the Frost school of music. As I was about to get into my department, I heard a beautiful melody from a saxophone. I kept chanting the melody for sometime as I started to work on my computer. With time, I started to feel the image of the melody subjectively. But I felt that to be too faint to hear. I wanted it to be a bit louder and tried to turn up the volume button in me. I noticed that I could not do that. Any attempt that I made to turning up the level of the music only helped me transposing the melody up my one or two keys (semitones). Similarly, any attempt to lower the tone helped only in transposing the melody down by few keys. I started experimenting this at home by listening to music on tape. Then I turned the tape off and "immediately" started to listen to that piece subjectively. I turned up the volume button. It worked now. The volume went up in my head without transposing the music to higher keys. Seeing the contradictions, I tried the same experimented the next morning. This time, I was not able to have control over the parameters of the music. The volume did not go up but transposition happened again. Is the amplitude control mechanism not possible after data storage in memory? Does the feel of amplitude control experienced only if external matter is tweaked? That clearly re-defined the problem formulation in me about the "theory of forms" mentioned in Plato's Cave Allegory/Republic. These events lead me to think that memory plays a vast, unpredictable role in connecting independent events of the world and give a meaning to it. If memory does not work, each phrase in a music is an individual phrase; each note in a phrase is individual note, each part of sound in a note is an individual sound; each granular atom in a sound in individual grain. The necessary connections to these events are "believed" to be happening in human brain. But the existence of a human brain is also part of memory. The residence or location of memory is said to be in human mind. Wherein, the human mind dwells cannot be told because it comes from living experience. Regards, Arvind Venkatasubramanian Audio DSP Engineer and studio musician On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 8:55 AM, David Santamauro <david.santamauro(a)gmail.com > On Fri, 3 Sep 2010 17:56:13 +0530 > Rustom Mody <rustompmody(a)gmail.com> > > There are two voices I hear here vis-a-vis Bach: > > 1. Art for art's sake -- the romantic idea > > 2. Art for money's sake -- the distinction of commercial vs > > commisioned being a fine semantic distinction. > > > > Bach himself expressed a view however which does not fit in with > > either: * > > Anything done other than for the service of God is vanity* > > "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the > glory of God and the refreshment of the soul." > > God, unfortunately, doesn't pay for food directly. The refreshment of > the soul alone would have left him starving as well. > > Although he was extremely devote and clearly most of his inspiration > was generated by that religious stance, he was not above squabbling for > better pay. The fact that his employer was the church might also had > something to do with that stance as well. > > "He regarded himself as a conscientious craftsman doing a job to the > best of his ability for the satisfaction of his superiors, for the > pleasure and edification of his fellowmen, and to the glory of > God." [ Grout & Palisca: A History of Western Music ] > > David > > > _______________________________________________ > Linux-audio-user mailing list > Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org > http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user >

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 10:25 AM, Brent Busby <brent(a)keycorner.org> wrote: Brent: Very Interesting. But that's the skill of trained drummers to control the bandwidth of the spectrum by their playing skills. In the subjective memory music, if I listen to a note in a melody or percussion just 5 seconds back, I can have control over sound level, if I want to change sound level and pitch control, if I want pitch control. But after 10 minutes, I cannot do that. But from what you say, a drummer can do it anytime he wants because he is actually tweaking the matter (waveFORM) and not accessing (his?) mind. Regards, Arvind V

On Fri, Sep 03, 2010 at 10:30:13AM -0500, Brent Busby wrote: Yep. The drummer in Better Than Lahar plays with only one rack tom and one floor tom. When I was mixing our CD (in Ardour, of course!), I noticed a passage where he did a quick 16th-note tom run across all four toms. Wait, what? Four? He has only two! It turned out that by skillfully hitting only ONE tom (the rack) in different places on the head and with different levels of force, he got four distinct pitches out of that one drum. He's a funk drummer, but he studied jazz at university, and it shows.

Why I don't like such unstructured discussions is because in the end it is all labelled by some generic stereotypes and misunderstood completely. If everything what I was telling you believe falls into some romantic idea of art for art's sake then obviously I wasted my time. L.V.

I will comment on this Romantic idea how I relate to it. Depending on what it means. An artist should have the responsibility of what he is doing. This is one of the reasons why he puts his name on the work. * The artist does art for his or her own needs, not those of others. This is a tough statement. If an artist does work for the glory of God, then he is doing it for his own needs and needs of others at the same time. Taken literally, I do not agree that an artist does art for his own needs - this is very inaccurate to me. > * The artist is supposed to shock and offend others, and if others react > with shock and offense, the others are wrong and the artist is right. This is ridiculous. > * Others owe the artist support simply because he's an artist. If others > don't support the artist the way the artist wants to be supported, the > others are wrong/evil/the enemy/inferior. Even more ridiculous, although today copyright law assumes just that. > * The artist is exempt from the laws that apply to others simply because > they're artists. Same as above. Basically you are repeating the same idea, these are just conclusions - that an artist stands above the public. I oppose that idea greatly. > Some artists - particularly the French Romantic poets such as Rimbaud - > would be quite reasonably considered as severely traumatized and insane > today. Also, chronic alcoholics and drug abusers. Art at the expense of ones mental health is not something I would support. If a person cannot do art and keep himself in balance, perhaps he is not up for art. > I think way too many artists are simply wrapped up in their own egos. The > modern popular music industry is partly to blame for that, as is the modern > media industry (that meaningless frothing of spray blown about by the wind > over the waves!) that has turned players of games into exorbitantly overpaid > "stars". Much of it seems to be the behavior of a spoiled child demanding > attention: "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT WHAT I DID! AREN'T I GREAT?" This happens thanks to the music industry who make it all about personality. I argue that in times of Bach personality of a composer meant many levels less. This is why I was sad for someone to label my views "art for art's sake". My views have nothing in common with this Romantic idea, if you are sure we did not make this up here. -- Louigi Verona http://www.louigiverona.ru/

I agree on a lot of what you say. I just believe that some things are larger than what a person thinks of them. Being a craftsman, having glory, even being aware of one's achievements and getting a contract - I am absolutely not against those things. I am just saying they should be in correct perspective. Today, I argue, many people put money and personality into too much light. While a lot of those things should be kept personal, like awareness of achievements, not be shown on TV in form of a show where they show off houses and cars. L.V.

Man, this is EXACTLY what I am talking about. Exactly! On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 2:26 PM, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote: -- Louigi Verona http://www.louigiverona.ru/

On Sat, Sep 04, 2010 at 12:04:20PM +0400, Louigi Verona wrote: Craft is craft. It seems, from accounts I've read of the era, Bach was regarded back then in much the same way that people in the software world today might regard David Knuth. Not a rock star, by any means, but a brilliant master of his craft, somone who anyone who followed the field would be awed to meet. -ken

david wrote: Of course, the most famous user of that phrase today was a commercial movie studio at the time it started using the phrase, and grew up to be one of the makers of many films that made exorbitant amounts of money and art generally not considered "art house" movies. Paradox is a fun place to live! ;-) -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Rustom Mody wrote: Someone's un/subconscious might be aware of a sound that their conscious mind hasn't noticed yet. I don't subscribe to the theory that subconscious reactions can be measured by monitoring breathing/heartrate/skin conductivity: those all presume that the reaction is something unusual enough to change the person's breathing/heartrate/skin conductivity. I think that if you grow up in a typical urban environment, you get inured to a lot of sounds that would startle or alarm someone who grew up in a quiet rural environment. While being monitored as above, the city slicker might show no reaction at all, while the country bumpkin might be at the top of the scale on all of them. The real interesting measure of perception/influence of music on thought might require use of functional MRI scanning, which can show the actual electrical activity in the brain. There were plenty of tunings in Bach's day. If music over the centuries had NOT settled on a standard tuning that essentially displaced the others, would modern music have been experimenting with alternative tunings? -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Rustom Mody wrote: Functional MRI is much more than "brain-wave patterns". Functional MRI shows the actual nerve firings in the brain, flowing from cell to cell to cell. It provides a very detailed record of brain activity. The difficulty at this stage of functional MRI development is mapping what it shows to thoughts, to what it means. Yes, music technology lets us do things that previous musical eras couldn't even dream about. What I meant was: if western music had never settled on a standard tuning, and composers routinely worked with a wide variety of differing tunings, would there have been as much urge to invent new tunings? I think part of the urge to devise new tunings arose because using a tuning other than standard tuning was DIFFERENT. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

David Santamauro wrote: Wealthy churches in those days were often beneficiaries of very wealthy rulers, princes, too. And having what, 14 children? would certainly encourage you to seek better pay. I think that sums it up very well. Thanks, will add it to my quote collection! Notice: "craftsman". Not an "artiste" or a "diva" or any such thing. Now put "superiors" in quotes (most modern artists really don't consider anyone their superior), define "fellowmen" as "the small group of people who are learned/educated/intelligent/etc enough to appreciate what I do with music", and throw God out of the picture entirely (or substitute "ME" for "God") - and I think you've got the modern attitude. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

On Wed, 8 Sep 2010 17:04:37 -0700 Ken Restivo <ken(a)restivo.org> wrote: 10 that made it past infancy, actually, but I'd say that's plenty. It definitely helped his music, much the same as a broken heart, the birth or death of a loved one and many other sources of inspiration, including the love of money. David

Brent Busby wrote: Oh, yes! My inner teenager still wants a original Gib$on Le$ Paul Cu$tom Deluxe. $$$ :-) I think my next music equipment purchases will be an 88-key MIDI controller with aftertouch. I'll have to pick up another stand of some sort - I want to start using my synthesizer/effects box at church services, and will have to get something to set it on. And I'd like to replace my 4-channel mixer with an 8- or 10-channel mixer. Someday. Budget isn't cooperating! I'd like a vintage Moog - but that would be my limit for hardware synthesizers! I prefer software now. In general, I've decided that time is much more precious than equipment! Better to spend the time making music with what I have than to work an extra job to buy equipment that I then wouldn't have time to use ... -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

On 2 September 2010 08:01, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote: Oh no, they were for the masses. Most of Bach's product is church music and those days you can't get more for masses than that. Similarly there used to be plenty of concert halls where the musicians played fast and loud, mostly to the people leering and cheering. Most composers were not retainers by the nobility but would make money by selling the note sheets (and that's one of the many reason why Copyright came to be). -- Hakan (m1fcj) - http://www.hititgunesi.org

On Wed, Sep 01, 2010 at 09:24:26PM -1000, david wrote: Interestingly, they still are. Almost all the musicians I know of who are actually making a decent living, are doing so by playing churches, either the white megachurches or the black gospel churches. The megachurches in particular have sound systems that blow away just about any club or bar or even concert hall around. They have crazy money laying around, thanks to their own many millenia of marketing experience, and the American system of giving churches complete tax exemption. They spend a fair amount of it on music and musicians-- draws in the crowds and keeps them coming back. Christian music is pretty much the only end of the commercial music business-- outside of the Disney popstars-- that still exists as a going concern. Nice pun, the "masses" attending church. Were they then the B Minor masses?

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 10:40 AM, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote: I think we are talking about different things here - seriously. There is an inherent difference between commissioned art and commercial art, as I mean it in this conversation. The problem I have with the latter is that it has profit as a motivator to begin with. It is difficult to explain it further. I am sure there are people in this discussion who understand me. Think of it as a difference between profession and business. Both seem to do the same - do some work and get money. But in the first case profession means more than just means of getting money, it is what a person is, his mark in life, something he does, while business is an activity done for profit alone - meaning, the whole motivation is to get more money, not get something useful done. Something useful is done only because it brings money. As for musings about Romantic movement, of which I know nothing, it is a known fallacy of taking someone's statement, labelling it with some term and saying that it has been proven a long time ago to be wrong. I do not stick to any movement, I am just saying what I believe in, and I believe in it because it is part of my life experience. But with my argument that with time thinking changes, you yourself show it in your words. You say that art can be a cover of elitism. And indeed it can, but the mark of today's time is that it is seen solely as something about the artist. The figure of the artist is blown up way beyond what ever was during times of Bach. I cannot imagine composers giving interviews back then. Everyone was too interested in music. They would make a standing ovation, yes, the composer can become famous, yes, but he would be just a part of the equation, the main variable there being music, not his personality. In fact, today music is not about music at all, it is about the personality of an artist. And finally, when we say that understanding art at times requires experience and maturity, we have to understand that while it may be the cover for elitism, in many cases it is actually not. A lot of things in life require a lot of learning to be mastered. We cannot expect a person who has never listened to classical music to understand the beauty and complexity of Rachmaninov's second concert. Having listened to minimal house all his life, he might also say - you are being elitistic, go away with your arrogance. But in reality, it is he who is arrogant if he believes he should be able to instantly understand every form of art without any prior experience in admiring it. Cheers! Hope this conversation is pleasant and not irritating to all. -- Louigi Verona http://www.louigiverona.ru/

Hartmut Noack wrote: What Rome did to Carthage after conquering it would certainly be considered genocide by modern UN thought. Slaughter the population, enslave the few survivors, transport them away from their country. Demolish the city-state. Sow the soil with salt so it couldn't be used to supply food. Rome did not intend Carthage to ever rise again. And the Roman general who destroyed Carthage was rewarded very highly. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Hartmut Noack wrote: They usually were. But if they were really frightened of the other people, they wiped them out. Carthage was the biggest threat Rome faced until the massed non-Roman peoples around the decaying empire started moving in. I think there's a biochemichal/neurological contribution in today's times. Many many people struggle with impulse and anger control issues, violent impulses, etc. These are people born and raised in the very-polluted environment modern cities offer. Their nervous systems are loaded with accumulated lead and other heavy metals, exposure to toxic industrial chemicals, born to drug-abusing parents, etc. (Plus the generally-higher stress level that pervades modern culture.) So if you're a person with such problems - the "mad with sex and violence" music maybe exactly what appeals to you. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

On Thu, September 2, 2010 6:41 am, Hartmut Noack wrote: We have always had pop music. Doesn't it give you a cause for concern that we were able to create so much damage in the past without the modern mass media system brain washing us into complicity? That may have been the case when rock was considered a new form of art and it was not at that point considered commercially viable enough to warrant the interests and adoption of the mass media. It was in effect rebelling against the system by making it viable to feel and express sexual and violent emotion. My concern is that we have now come to a point where the producers making pop music are crafting works that explicitly aim to perpetuate a frame of mind that is beneficial to the ongoing production of their artwork (bank accounts) at the expense of disabling or hobbling the "positive" progression of the listener. IMO music and associated media that defines it's listeners as only interested in the emotions stimulated by sexual/violent imagery is given a priority on the airwaves over more intelligent options. I find it to be a detrimental and callous attack on the listener. It also makes me seriously concerned for the potential of society to improve when we are constantly being told what to think by the mass media who can only come up with the imagery of sex and violence as a sustainable business model. It is a self fulfilling system whereby the people who are prepared to participate in it are the ones reaping the rewards offered and the ones who are not are sidelined and kept out of the discourse even though the ideas they have to offer are just as valid and potentially more powerful than the status quo. By maintaining and accepting a system where the callous, manipulative and selfish are the ones who get rewarded we are allowing for the future generations to be subjected to the same abuse. Hence combating this abuse with carefully crafted subversive pop using the same production techniques with the explicit aim of rendering the effect of the more callous music null and void or at least significantly decreasing the effect seems like a reasonable use of an artists time. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

Did not get this mail please ignore, if you already had it in your box... Am 30.08.2010 19:36, schrieb Rustom Mody: It is easy to say serialism is a "degeneration". The people that created concepts like serial music or minimalism were confronted with a completely new availability of informations about artistic concepts and they came from a tradition that forbid them to simply ignore knowledge. If you combine the knowledge that is in Gustav Mahlers "Lied der Erde" with Ragas from India and classical Gamelan-Music and japanese Music from the No-Tradition what is left to to add in addition? John Cage or Alvin Lucier are in no way "degenerated", they took the intellectual challenge to add something original and substantial to all the things that became available in the second half of the 20ths century. Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Miles Davis, the Ramones, the Beatles, Patti Smith, P.J.Harvey, Kraftwerk, the Stooges, Suicide, Brian Wilson, Neurosis and even Bob Dylan or Neil Young: call anyone of the above a Folk-Singer or a descendant of folk-tradition and you make yourself a laughing-stock. I do not mean any offence but think about: none of the relevant pop/rock artists since Elvis Presley was something like a genuine folk-singer. They were all individual artists in a post renaissance-manner: all "nobody breaks my law!"- people not "I sing my songs on behalf of you, my kindred!". That makes artists like Johnny Cash or Skip James so fascinating: these are precious gems that carry on traditions long gone in 99% of the music recorded since World War 2. And they only survived because they found ways to mix their genuinity with the qualities, that make art capable to be relevant in the 20thst century: individuality that transports the secret only a single person can generate. Even in forms that perpetuate genuine folk-traditions. Tuning is irrelevant. You can make a mindless composition with mass-appeal based on untuned noise and you can put a very personal an abstract thought genuinely 21st century in a simple melody played by instrumets that were available in Mozarts times and that were tuned as usual in Mozarts times. Or you can use a preset from a Korg Workstation distorted by a accidentaly set chain of LADSPA-Effects to make a standard top-10 Hit and/or a glistering jewel of deep thoughts put into a never-before-seen space-cathedral of sounds. It is all about attitude. I doubt even that. Never before there were so many humans packed on this planet and never before we were so able to pass informations about things like wars. Some say: as Columbus reached Hispaniola there were 160 Million people living in the Americas. 200 years later there were only about 60 Millions left. Atrocities and genocide are no inventions of the modern times: in reverse! In modern times most cultures have learned to name things atrocities, that were known as "perfectly normal" or even "heroic deeds" in ancient times.

"It is my considered opinion and that of a large number of musicians and artists throughout the world that pop music is being used as social control." I would agree with Patrick on this one. It is not a conspiracy, it is just a matter of common interests of large corporations and powerful people. Maybe this control is not too big, its effect does dry out as I mentioned before, but it is certainly there. L.V.

On Thu, September 9, 2010 10:19 am, Ken Restivo wrote: I would agree with you except for the pyramid does not flatten out once you get to a certain amount of money in the bank. Hence even the Heriditary elite are subject to the structure of the system and are complicit in maintaining it in order to retain their status, wealth, power, etc... It's a self fulfilling system. IIUC, the way the system works is so that the ones at the very top whether it's the same people, families or a rotating door get the most out of the system. The closer to the the top you get the more the system offers you in return for the effort you put in to maintain the position. Technically it's not a conspiracy because that belittles the system. Anyone who thinks that understanding it in it's entirety and seeing it for what it really is constitutes a conspiracy theorist is misunderstanding the term conspiracy. A really interesting conspiracy would be if certain people at the top were actively trying to cover up information that would lead to them being taken out of that position or held accountable for the heinous crimes that they are committing. In that case I think we have ample evidence to prove there is at least one large conspiracy and several other supporting conspiracies at play. It is not news and as you rightly say it has even been used as the motivation to produce some of the finest works of literature and art. IMO to deny it is happening is just a cop out by lazy or scared people who don't want to admit the system is really screwed up. It also ensures apathy can reign supreme and the status quo is maintained. It is the simplest and most effective way for the system to maintain it's structure. Hence the mass media is used to encourage and distract from that way of thinking. The checks and balances in place now have been carefully weaved, bolted and welded into place over millenia. This goes all the way back to the Sumerians which means at least 12,000 years of documented civilisation. When the Egyptians and the Incas built the pyramids they were making a fundamental political statement as much as they were proving their technological prowess. The people at the top are still making that statement. Just look at Berg Kalipha... Denying it does not change the fact that it is happening. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On Thu, September 9, 2010 10:48 pm, david wrote: You don't need to take my word for it. If you are a brainwashed person then it will probably be quite difficult for you to see from my perspective anyway. If you take the time to do the research you will find there is more than enough credible published and publicly released evidence outlining a number of real, previous and currently active global conspiracies. I doubt there is a need or requirement to deal with or outline them all directly on this list. In the context of mass media being used as a form of social control I am not the only person who has identified patterns consistent with this issue. It's not my concern if other people can't also identify the patterns. Like I said I am interested in using the same compositional methods to create subversive material that directly attacks the fundamental structure and basis of the mass media's attempts at brain washing. IMO it is being done systematically already and the results are being seen in the affect on society as a whole. That a large number of brainwashed people particularly from a specific country don't care or are not able to see it and the results of that are exported to the rest of the world through the dominance of the media output from said country is a big concern for me. In fact it's safe to say that myself and people who share my views are a minority. actively pursue it not the ones who bury their heads in the sand and deny anything needs to be done. In fact it's the core reason I spent a considerable part of the past 11 years of my life to working on Linux and Linux Audio. I'm good at finding and fixing bugs. There are millions of other Linux people out there who have the same knack. We are being directly affected by a large number of people with much less wholesome agendas, bigger bank balances and more resources. But we still keep up the pressure and in many ways are actually winning the "battle". Like someone said earlier "Fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity". I don't see any point in fighting the system or the powers that be. It's clear they have all the weapons and motivation to win a physical fight. IMO subverting a key tool that is used to maintain the system is a reasonable use of ones time. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On Wed, Sep 01, 2010 at 06:11:53AM -0700, Patrick Shirkey wrote: What myriad of options ? I have no idea what you want to say here. What happens is a general dumbing down, of people refusing to think, be critical and form well-informed opinions. And yes, some people have an interest in this and do stimulate it, and a lot more just exploit it. Why this phenomenon exists in society is not something that can be explained in a few slogans. And if you reduce it to a 'conspiration of music producers', that becomes just an example of the very dumbing down itself. Without going into the details: the idea that there is some part of our mental activity ('the unconscious') that remains mysteriously closed to ourselves but is open for others to 'manipulate' just doesn't hold. You can't invoke 'the inconscious' as a magic wand to explain aspects of people's behaviour. On the contrary, the fact that we are not aware of some of our motivations needs itself to be explained. Terminology such as 'the inconscious', 'the mind', etc. is so vague that it is effectively useless. It seems to explain some things, but that is an illusion. If used at all in modern psy- chology such terms will be defined much more striclty, at which point they lose their capacity to apparently explain things. They just become words with an agreed-upon meaning, just as 'table' or 'combustion engine'. As used in everyday parlance, they are just placeholders for what is in fact a complete absence of understanding. Yet they remain popular even with 'intellectuals', mainly those who are into human sciences, who still worship Freud as a guru and analysis as the ultimate therapy. One reason for this is that Freud's work has literary qualities, apart from not being completely without merit. He was after all the first who at least *tried* a scientific approach. -- FA There are three of them, and Alleline.

On Sat, Sep 04, 2010 at 02:22:17AM -0700, Patrick Shirkey wrote: Not only a misnomer. It's wrong on two accounts: the mechanism used, and where the responsability for the result is to be placed. We humans constantly rationalise our actions, usually a posteriori - after the facts. We need to do this in order to maintain our self-esteem and dignity - the idea that we are doing things that make no sense to even ourselves is quite unsupportable for almost all of us. This is how marketing works: you offer a product, service, or in politics an opinion, *AND* provide or at least suggest a rationalisation for accep- ting the offer. The product can be crap, the opionion without any base, and the rationalisation completely bogus - if the target audience doesn't take the trouble to examine them critically it will work. For some people the rationalisation doesn't need to be of any value at all: it can be as simple as some 'us vs. them' argument often used in politics, or just 'popularity'. So while we *do* have impulses to behave in a very sexual way, or be violent, and those do indeed come from 'deep inside' and belong to the unconscious in the Freudian sense, it is not those that are being manipulated, but in general it is the rationalisation process which clearly does *not* belong the the unconscious - not even if many of our rationalisations are in fact just excuses. This also means that the responsability for accepting any product and the rationalisation for doing so lies with those who do accept it. You may think, and I agree, that trying to lure people into doing certain things is not nice, but it is just an attempt - the final decision is made by the target, not by the 'manipulator'. No. Brainwashing is a completely different process, it always involves some form of physical restraint without wich we would not accept to undergo it. Ciao, -- FA There are three of them, and Alleline.

On Sat, Sep 04, 2010 at 02:25:09PM +0200, fons(a)kokkinizita.net wrote: It's funny reading this thread, since I've studied quite a bit of this stuff (Bachelor's of Science degree in Psychology, couple of hypnosis certifications, etc). At this point in my life, I can sum most of this up by acknowledging that humans are little more than apes with very dextrous hands. The only "unconscious" part at play here, is that most of us are not conscious (unconscious) of the fact that we are just apes with very dextrous hands-- and very many of us are in active denial of that on a regular basis. We have the emotional system of primates, and it drives us whether we like it or not, and whether we admit it or not. This is often-- and very easily-- manipulated by salespeople, criminals, religions, politicians, bankers, advertising, trial lawyers, military strategists, propaganda, etc., and also by the most effective police and teachers. Our "reasoning", language, critical thinking, moralizing, calculating, philosophizing, and in general frontal-lobe activity, is a recent and thin layer slapped atop of millions of years of reptilian, mammalian, simian, etc evolution. Agriculture, civilization, and written history are only some 10,000 years old, whereas modern humans are some 200,000 years old, and even that is a blink of an eye compared to our mammalian and earlier reptilian histories. Why do humans do inexplicable things? Well, would it be explicable if they were apes, monkeys, or dogs? Then there's yer answer. -ken

Rustom Mody wrote: Some would say that Darwinism can't explain Darwin, either. ;-) What instruments did Darwin play? -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

On 08/09/2010, Rustom Mody <rustompmody(a)gmail.com> wrote: What's ironic about it? O RLY? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_musicology

On Wed, 8 Sep 2010, Rustom Mody wrote: [...] While I think we're still subject to Darwinian selection, I think humans kind of veered off the map a little bit when we developed our level of sentience and facility for seeing certain things as symbols for other things. We're probably been at the point for some time now where the reason for our own traits is as much because of past cultural and social things as from natural selection. Because of that, there will be all kinds of things about humans that Darwinism can't explain. -- + Brent A. Busby + "We've all heard that a million monkeys + UNIX Systems Admin + banging on a million typewriters will + University of Chicago + eventually reproduce the entire works of + Physical Sciences Div. + Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, + James Franck Institute + we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky

On Thu, Sep 09, 2010 at 02:41:17PM -0700, Ken Restivo wrote: Bach certainly was strongly motivated to develop his skills - you just have to consider his 400 km or so walk on foot to visit Buxtehude in Luebeck and his stay there for several months, without leave from his then employer in Arnstadt. And yes, faith can be a strong motivation. In either way - it can result in both the creation of beauty and in the most extreme atrocities. Ciao, -- FA There are three of them, and Alleline.

On Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:23:38 +0200 Florent Berthaut <florentberthaut(a)no-log.org> wrote: Wow! This is seriously impressive, although not what I would ordinarily be listening to :) Thanks for sharing. -- Will J Godfrey http://www.musically.me.uk Say you have a poem and I have a tune. Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.

Jorge Salgueiro a écrit : I didn't know Foetus. Thanks for pointing that, i'll listen to it . Florent -- Florent Berthaut ----------------------------- Research: http://vimeo.com/9206485 http://www.labri.fr/perso/berthaut Software: http://tardigrade-inc.com Music: http://hitmuri.com http://thehobartphase.com

Folderol a écrit : Thanks for listening ;) Florent -- Florent Berthaut ----------------------------- Research: http://vimeo.com/9206485 http://www.labri.fr/perso/berthaut Software: http://tardigrade-inc.com Music: http://hitmuri.com http://thehobartphase.com

Daniel Roviriego a écrit : Thanks, It was supposed to be part of an album but i could not find enough time to finish the other songs. Florent -- Florent Berthaut ---------------------------------- Research: http://vimeo.com/9206485 http://www.labri.fr/~berthaut Software: http://tardigrade-inc.com Music: http://hitmuri.com http://thehobartphase.com

On Monday 30 August 2010 08:25, Julien Claassen wrote: Sure wish they'd stuck to the easy route, then... Rob

On Mon, August 30, 2010 3:39 am, Hartmut Noack wrote: This is not the whole song but I think the bulk of the message... " Cruel world is sitting they got us all hitting with late night divisions and lab aquisitions with basement decisions defy our frequency and you clearly decided on how to handle me Imbecile, Imbecile is it fake is it real Are we dying on our feet Are we trying in our sleep There’s a rumour going round that the suits are running town if you look into the sky there are birds flying high, high, high We’re never gonna believe in the stories that you’re weaving We believing in the proof We believing in the truth We believing in each other not you, you, you Stories, So many stories Too many tall tales So many tall tales We climb the structure You scale the ladder You build it higher You make us madder So now the paradox We bust you in the chops You crazy ballhead Make it dead Do the web Pictures on the web Un Deux Trois No one ever does it like that anymore Bang Bang Bang The feathers, why you deny everything " It could be a pavlovian response mechanism that is being triggered. I'm not sure it's a curiosity. It seems to be considered an intrinsic part of the listening experience. I think it might go a little deeper than that. If the universe is built on strings as string theory would suggest then we are all a vibration at the fundamental level. Hence music is perhaps the fundamental fabric of the universe... If we are under constant attack then it makes sense to defend ourselves and it possible others who may be susceptible or not in a position to defend them selves from the attack. This approach to music may be placing a significant limitation on the true nature of musical expression. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On Mon, August 30, 2010 4:50 am, drew Roberts wrote: Apparently, it happens more than we are told. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On Sun, 29 Aug 2010, Patrick Shirkey wrote: Yes indeed, that's why I was thinking it might be best to avoid the whole idea of sex and aggression per se as being "bad". I think the best art makes people think outside of their comfort zone, but not necessarily in any one particular way, or to reach any one particular conclusion. It's enough to merely get people thinking. If one really does want to motivate social progress with art, I think one of the best examples of how to do that might come from the way Mark Twain treated racism. He started out appearing to agree with his audience, taking their side. Then he took the approach that if this attitude is something one should really agree with, then of course the reader won't mind more and more and more of it. Eventually, some readers found themselves disgusted with their own attitudes, and didn't understand why. He just showed them more of themselves than they could really handle. The reason I like that approach is because at no point during the process does the artist directly condemn. It's just a mirror held up for you to see yourself. If it's really such a pretty thing, then surely you won't mind looking at a whole lot of it. I think actually we're a little too late for that. *Is* music really the dominant media anymore? You know, the teen and college age groups mock the bands that are on the airwaves these days more than we do. I'm pretty sure the dominant media these days is the Internet, mainly the social media sites. When Viacom first acquired MTV and put Judy McGrath in charge, they were acquiring a TV network which, for teen and college age viewers, was more important than radio, more important than prime time shows, probably more important than any other media outlet at the time. MTV's previous management (before Viacom) had achieved the dream every broadcaster had always wished for since the dawn of television: Kids kept it on every hour they were home and awake. It was like a kind of video wallpaper. It was on when you were watching it, it was on when your attention was off on something else. It was on during the commercials and the bands you didn't like, and it was still on when something you wanted to see came on. It motivated spending on things that had nothing to do with the actual programming. In the history of television, nobody had *ever* succeeded in getting an audience to watch their network during all waking hours that they were near a TV. Kids in communities that didn't have it on their cable lineup even got their parents to specially request it until the local cable company gave in. In the course of just a few years, Viacom managed to make their own network culturally irrelevant. They took all the genres people wanted to see (metal, wave/alternative, rap) and broke them out into specialty programs (Headbangers Ball, 120 Minutes, Yo MTV Raps, etc). Instead of the free-for-all pop music used to be when these genres all competed together in the same airwaves for the same charts (which was probably very good for everyone, diversity-wise), we now had little 2-hour blocks for each style, leaving the mainstream pop charts open for such awe-inspiring head-trips as Whitney Houston, Gloria Estafan, and MC Hammer. Good pop music had become "specialty" programming, which didn't live very long disconnected from the life support of mainstream broadcasting. The mainstream charts were then left as a big crap bin. Then of course came the game shows, the politics shows, the fashion shows, and eventually, the horrid reality shows. In fact, MTV recently announced that they officially no longer have anything to do with music, and that (humorously) they themselves no longer know what the "M" in MTV actually stands for. People had been saying that in jest for about twenty years, but this was official, and they actually said so. They even downsized the "M" in their logo, as if ashamed of the fact that it didn't actually mean anything anymore. The "M" just stands for "M". The current generation is used to this, perceives it as a norm, and doesn't expect any different. They're all busy with MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook, and enough mobile devices to fill a small house. I don't think music is really the dominant media outlet anymore. Viacom had that right in their pocket once, but they killed it, and it's now quite dead. We probably mourn the music industry's passing more than teen and college age listeners do. You don't miss what you never had. I don't mean to be offensive, but that does sound an awful lot like what parents were saying when Elvis came out. :) I certainly won't argue that what's getting broadcast these days is poor art, if it's art at all. I won't argue that because of any kind of moral basis though. It just doesn't pass any of the usual tests for things people usually expect of good art: - Does it provoke thought or novel perspective? - Did it require mastering of a difficult technique to produce? (E.g., was anyone who knows how to play an instrument involved in this?) - Is it a representation of the artists' inner world that lets you see them with some sort of enhanced intimacy? - Are any of the traditions of previous artists of this type (musician, sculptor, painter, etc.) being explored or expanded upon, at least to any degree that these previous artists would be able to recognize? (In other words, is there a musician *anywhere* would would know what they're doing as music, upon becoming aware of how they made it?) It's always been really hard to define art, or even judge how good it is, but the kind of autotuned, cut-and-pasted stuff I think we're talking about here probably fails most of the above tests. Whether it's moral or not is probably not something that should be controlled, because as someone else effectively pointed out, "moral" depends on whether you're in Amsterdam or Riyadh. New wave (and styles related to it) was always really good at stradling the line between too "arty" and too "vulgar". You had the punk rockers who basically greeted you by vomiting, and then you had the progressives who were working on stuff in odd time signatures and alternate tunings with lyrics that may or may not have been comprehensible to anyone. It was nice having that freedom to be anywhere within that spectrum you needed to be at the moment without actually having to switch to a different style family to do it. You could even try being at both ends of the spectrum at the same time if you wanted to attempt it. -- + Brent A. Busby + "We've all heard that a million monkeys + UNIX Systems Admin + banging on a million typewriters will + University of Chicago + eventually reproduce the entire works of + Physical Sciences Div. + Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, + James Franck Institute + we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky

On 2 September 2010 07:52, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote: I'm pretty sure when Mozart came out to play & conduct a concert, a couple of ladies fainted and old women always said the same thing. :) (Note: The concerts used to be a lot more energetic those days, the silent, passive listeners were not (here's a good rant about iit http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/mar/08/classical-music-applause-rule-o… -- Hakan (m1fcj) - http://www.hititgunesi.org

On Wed, Sep 01, 2010 at 08:52:57PM -1000, david wrote: Yes, wasn't it the music of whorehouses? The piano player would sit there in the parlor, striding away, while the gentlemen were waiting for appointments or flirting with the ladies. -ken