It seems likely that you don't like these sounds because of their psychoacoustic association. To put it bluntly if every morning you were being prematurely woken up by a beautiful bird song of a bird who lives on a tree next to your window, I am pretty sure that you would eventually learn to dislike that sound as much as you currently dislike the sound of your alarm clock. All sounds we are aware of are simply a combination of sine tones perceptible by our ears. Therefore, the only difference between a sound of an ocean and a steam engine is ultimately their "recipe." If you consider all sounds on this, much more equal plane, then it becomes rather apparent that all sounds have beauty that simply needs to be uncovered regardless of their source. This art is also known as acousmatic music (or a sound removed from its source). My take is that art is our attempt at emulating nature and realizing our ineptness (pointlessness?) in matching its beauty. For this reason, we tend to use art as our response (perception?) to nature. In this respect, man-made contraptions are just another extension of nature and its laws. Ico

On 4/4/07, Louis Acresti <lra4691(a)rit.edu> wrote: Only within one culture (or several closely tied cultures). It is just hard to clear your hearing/vision from all the cultural layers you were grown up with. Dmitry.

onsdag 04 april 2007 14:46 skrev Fons Adriaensen: I think it's correct in the sense that you are what you are and react with basic instincts on stimuli. But that might indicate that we should substitute emotion with instincts in this context. See. Pavlovs experiment with dogs. regards, -- - Bengan ------------------------------------------------------------ - KTHNOC - No1 Internet Offspring | http://www.noc.kth.se/~bengan --- - 08-7906586 (ej vidarekopplat), 070-6443325 ------------------------

On Wed, 2007-04-04 at 08:06 -0400, Louis Acresti wrote: or perhaps its a learned cultural thing. the whole western "major is happy/optimistic" and "minor is introspective sad" take on modes is highly culturally specific. the notion of "blue" notes is similarly constrained to a particular culture. try listening to some indian carnatic classical music sometime. if you have no background in the cultural construction of this music, it will likely mean almost nothing to you, or alternatively will mean something that is probably totally unrelated to the meanings in the minds of the performers.

You are taking my example out of context. Circumstances are what determine the psychoacoustic association, not the catalyst. Ico

On 4/4/07, Ivica Ico Bukvic <ico(a)vt.edu> wrote: I don't buy that. Factories and machinery have vibrations created and enforced by hundreds of forces working at different rates and in different directions, caused by objects that were assembled with very little regard for the sound they made. A song bird actually hears what it is doing, and makes patterns based on the sound. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

On 4/4/07, Ivica Ico Bukvic <ico(a)vt.edu> wrote: It is different because a human being is listening to the drumming and choosing what sounds pleasing and what does not. A single rhythmic vibration in a piece of machinery is one thing, but rarely does a factory have one machine. And the machines are generally not tuned to each other nor adjusted to make more pleasing sounds. I suspect the average factory worker would be fired if he changed the settings on machines in order to compose music with them. There is a fundamental difference between listening to something and learning to find value in it, and listening to something and changing it to make sounds in which you find value. There is a pretty well-developed science behind how people recognize pattern in what they hear and experience emotions in response to it. What is traditionally referred to as "music" didn't exist by accident; sentient animals create it according to their experience, which means there is a reason we respond to it. It was not just one of the many ways to arrange sound, it was the one that drew people's attention. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 14:28:42 -0400 "Ivica Ico Bukvic" <ico(a)vt.edu> wrote: Surely this sentence is the beginning and the end of the entire matter. I never attempt to analyse the music I enjoy, nor that which I compose myself. My experience is that the closer you try to examine something that moves you, the further away you get from it. I take the same attitude with all creative activities such as art, dance, prose & poetry. If I like it, then that's good. If I don't, well I know what not to see/hear. -- Will J G

Whoops, I meant E and D# here, in case you're wondering what I'm talking about. On 4/4/07, Louis Acresti <lra4691(a)rit.edu> wrote:

On 4/4/07, Ivica Ico Bukvic <ico(a)vt.edu> wrote: Well obviously whatever you say has bearing has bearing and what you say doesn't doesn't. You said: This is the part I don't buy: that people decide what sounds are worthy based on association. The sound of a "beautiful bird song" will never have the disruptive effect that an alarm clock or a jackhammer outside the window have. Of course if a knowledgeable person were given freedom to manipulate these sounds with all the software in the world, they could create something beautiful. Then you know "subjective" is a relative term. It does mean the effect comes from the observer, but it does not mean no two people have the same reaction. My point is that this music was invented, and early humans chose these particular patterns over the infinitely many others they could have chosen, and not because of some external association. Whose modern times music? Most of what I hear is not that different. If anything it's maybe more like music written 500 years ago. I suspect the music you're thinking of is the music of the minority. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

On Thursday 05 April 2007, Paul Davis wrote: I don't think it would sound too odd. It's just that noone thought of the idea before.. I am very much convinced that if i would take miles davis' "kind of blue" and go back 500 years i would find many people who would immediately dig that sound (religious zealots aside).. It's kinda like with inventions. Afterwards it's easy to understand. The difficult, time consuming part is coming up with them :) Flo -- Palimm Palimm! http://tapas.affenbande.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 03:56:41PM +0200, Ismael Valladolid Torres wrote: IIRC, some of Bach's music was considered too chromatic and dissonant at the time. - -ken

Ken Restivo escribe: I would consider amazing that you Remember Correctly what happened in Bach's era. ;)

On 4/5/07, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote: I always understood that JS Bach was fairly well-liked. He made a living as a musician, unlike 99.99% of the people alive at the time. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

Brad Fuller wrote: And he composed in unequal temperaments, too: http://www.larips.com/ c. -- http://www.cesaremarilungo.com

Brad Fuller wrote: I didn't say he was disliked or anything, but not all of his compositions were necessarily well thought of. Also, he was much more highly thought of as an organist than a composer. He wrote the Brandenburg concerti as an audition for a job - but he didn't get it because it was too old-fashioned for people. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 11:12:24PM +0200, Ismael Valladolid Torres wrote: What, am I the only 400-year-old who uses Linux for recording funk grooves? :-) - -ken

On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 03:56:41PM +0200, Ismael Valladolid Torres wrote: Not really. As much as I admire Bach's work (he's definitely one of my favorite classical composers), even the wikipedia article on Bach states that "he introduced no new forms" of music. Everything he did had been done before by others. Ever hear of William Byrd? Byrd was an English composer that lived and died before Bach was born, and yet when I first heard his music, I was amazed at the similarities between their music. Chuck

Chuck Martin wrote: What Bach is generally credited with is perfecting the existing forms of music. He did it so well that the generation following him turned to other forms and styles of music - they could not compete with his achievement. Yes, I played many of Byrd's pieces. There are similarities, but he didn't get to JS Bach's level of accomplishment. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Association is where psychoacoustics comes into play. Imagine a person who never heard of a bird in their entire lives. What do you think would be their first reaction? Most likely they would be alarmed, confused, and maybe even scared. Then again, all this depends upon their prior conditioning... This all goes back to the original argument: all sounds are simply combinations of sine tones with their respective envelopes and amplitudes. If we take this into an account any sound is just that, a sound. Anything else we associate with such a collage of individual frequencies is our own personal choice, whether that be conscious or subconscious. Two people may have the same reaction and they may not. This again stems for the most part on their conditioning. This is why Debussy's music changed so dramatically after he was exposed to gamelan music. This is why war and destruction brought about Dada, Futurists, etc. And the list goes on... "Particular patterns" were not chosen. They are a part of the fundamental physical properties of our environment. If you look at the harmonic overtone series the first 4 notes of harmonic overtones spell out a perfect major triad. Our cochleas are constructed so that concentric circles couple nerves which are corresponding to octave displacements. It took us however over 17 centuries before we reached what we refer to as equal temperament and as a matter of fact it is a compromise between nature and our interest in 12 arbitrarily assigned and tradition-imposed octave divisions. A majority of our society consists of conformists. Minority is what pushes the limits. I certainly don't expect Britney Spears et al to be the ones who are going to invent the next best thing in the area of aural arts. It is those who are not seeking riches, are not in position to do so, and/or have little to lose from risking their creative careers, that commonly push the limits arbitrarily established by the tradition. Now, whether their artistic output is adopted by the society within their lifetime (or ever) is another story altogether. Ico

On 4/4/07, Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote: It also serves little purpose outside of fixed-pitch instruments, like fixed-fretted strings or keyboard instruments; 12-tET Is very difficult for string sections or a capella choirs to create, even when they have been saturated with it. We hear a just major third as being in tune, and no Centuries of ET can change that. Benade found that even trained musicians, on hearing an isolated ET major third, reported that it was a "slightly sharp third". Again, ET made it possible to do all this on fixed-pitch instruments. The human voice can do it in any tuning system. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

Marcos Guglielmetti escribe: Not necesairly but there are artists who turn white noise into music and I admire them a lot. Again we very often forget what expresionism means and how it changed the way we understand art nowadays. Cordially, Ismael -- Ismael Valladolid Torres m. +34679156321 La media hostia j. ivalladt(a)gmail.com http://lamediahostia.blogspot.com/

On 4/5/07, ico(a)vt.edu <ico(a)vt.edu> wrote: 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. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

There are 12 frequencies of sound that are recognized by the human ear as musical notes. The limited use of other frequencies can produce rhythms to bind the notes into musical compositions. Technology gives us the ability to turn everything into a drum, but you still need those 12 frequencies to produce melody. I am sure that someone smarter than I could precisely describe mathematically what constitutes rhythm and melody. Not all sound is music, but any sound can be incorporated into music. On 4/5/07, Ivica Ico Bukvic <ico(a)vt.edu> wrote:

The Western scale is only seven notes. Ever heard of an octave? The Eastern (pentatonic) scale has five notes. If notes are notes only because I've been "conditioned" for them, why do the same notes show up in music all over the world? Probably has something to do with the limitations of the human voice and the human ear. Whatever the explanation, the bushman and Mozart incorporate the same 12 fundamental harmonics in their music. The sound of a yak belch can be part of a rhythm, but it is utterly useless as a component of melody -- unless it happens by chance to be a note. On 4/5/07, Fons Adriaensen <fons(a)kokkinizita.net> wrote:

Paul Davis wrote: I contend that traditional western harmony did imply a consonant or dissonant combination of 12-tone-based combination of 2 or more notes. But, today I would say that that could be _any_ combination of notes in any scale structure. And, to be precise, a tempered instrument can only come close approximating perfect harmony, of course. -- brad fuller http://www.Sonaural.com/ +1 (408) 799-6124

Charles Linart wrote: If by notes you mean the precise fundamental frequency, then you are incorrect. You might read up on other systems around the world. They are fascinating.

To clarify: I meant "fundamental harmonic" in the sense of the lowest frequency in a harmonic series, not in the sense of being fundamental to anything more profound. Each note does, in fact, have a fundamental harmonic, but it seems you may be right in the sense of there being nothing fundamentally important about notes in the making of music writ large.

Chuckk Hubbard wrote: I strongly believe that the overtone series is the basis of all harmony. In there you'll find the octave, fifth, major/minor thirds and seconds (actually only our octave and fifth are the only equal tempered intervals that are tuned as in the overtone series). The overtone series is not neseccarily the only "good" relationship between intervals, but it the one build into everything we and our forefathers surround(ed) ourselves with. An early man hitting a hollow piece of wood 40,000 years ago would hear the overtone series. Same with Josquin de Prez hearing a single voice singing a single note. Same with Cage. It's the common harmonic reference from which no hearing person cannot escape (although we can try, and make interesting music exploring along the way). However the equal temperament is just one approximation of the intervals found in the overtone series, one that for obvious reasons was so practical that it has enjoyed wide spread use. Different cultures (for reasons I will make no attempt to understand) made different approximations of the overtone series and/or made use of it's intervalic relationships in different ways, which brought us Bach, Miles, the Ragas of Indian music and then some more. -- peace, love & harmony Atte http://www.atte.dk | quintet: http://www.anagrammer.dk | compositions: http://www.atte.dk/compositions

Charles Linart wrote: Here's a simple and brief answer to your question (maybe): http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/Music/12Tone.htm c. <http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/%7Esbbc197/publicaties/proefschrift.pdf> -- http://www.cesaremarilungo.com

On Thursday 05 April 2007, Florian Schmidt wrote: Btw: i do not want to imply that it is impossible to make music with pitch collections that don't resemble any known scale based on harmonics.. I once played with random frequencies in supercollider. The result is a bit boring, but has very interesting textures at times.. http://tapas.affenbande.org/boggle_toggle,ogg So it is very possible to use weird or strange pitch collections, but i suppose there is something to how harmonics and slight deviations thereof sound that make them especially appealing to the human listener.. Flo -- Palimm Palimm! http://tapas.affenbande.org

On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 09:26:05PM -0400, Chuckk Hubbard wrote: Although I didn't remember the name, I recall reading about that album. I remember also reading that he stated that producing that album nearly ruined his perfect pitch. Chuck

Mathematically speaking, there is an infinite number of frequencies which are perceivable by our ear (20-20,000Hz by convention, plus their decimal subdivisions). However, not all of them are distinguishable by our ears. Still, I would say this number is pretty large, definitely much larger than just 12. You can use any collection of frequencies to produce melody, rhythm, or timbre. The 12-note division is an arbitrary (alright, semi-arbitrary, to keep Paul happy ;-) collection of pitches whose tuning is arbitrarily assigned. Actually, no sound is music unless consciously treated as such by a composer and perceiver, in which case any sound can be music. Best wishes, Ico

When I jammed with traditional musicians in Thailand, Korea, and Japan, they literally cringed if I squeezed out a "fa" or a "ti" in their do-re-mi-so-la constructions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scale Would be interested to learn of more "notes" in subcontinent music. Any references? The Indian and Pakistani melodies I've heard sound pretty confined to scales and notes -- exotic to be sure, but still the same basic sonic building blocks. There are a lot of different tunings and a lot of (approaching infinite) different resonances, but it's still the same 12 notes in at least 99 percent of cases. Maybe Australian aboriginal music falls outside of the normal notes/scales, but I've never heard anything else that does, including Tibetan singing bowls. On 4/5/07, Paul Davis &lt;paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com&gt; wrote:

Charles Linart wrote: ??? In what human ear are you referring? And in what context and/or culture? I guess one could define traditional western tuning as a standard on which westerners "learn" "music" I place them in quotes because what constitutes "music" is a very controversial topic.. "learn", in this case, could be thought of as "conditioning" - in that westerners are conditioned by what they hear as the learn to then understand and interpret musical conversations. Well... hmmm... what is melody? That's another topic. But, a linear sequence of notes can consist of any frequency as long as they convey a musical idea to be considered a melody. BTW: in western notation, a C major scale on a piano is different than a C major scale on a violin (I'm using the violin and piano as examples since one is tempered.) They are often played at different frequencies up and down the scale. I contend it is not a mathematical definition but one of art. many beg to differ that any sound cannot be music. I for one. -- brad fuller http://www.Sonaural.com/ +1 (408) 799-6124

Sorry for going off track. On 4/5/07, Rob &lt;lau(a)kudla.org&gt; wrote:

Hallo, Chuck Martin hat gesagt: // Chuck Martin wrote: One track on that album, "Just Imaginings" uses a 12-tone harmonic scale modulated over the 12 ET-tones which makes 144 different notes all together. Those of you who were at the LAC/C-base concert may have noted that I shamelessly stole exactly this scale in my performance. ;) Ciao -- Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__

On 4/6/07, Chuck Martin &lt;dsdhpnw02(a)sneakemail.com&gt; wrote: Well, it is impossible if you are using a fixed-pitch instrument. With talented singers, it's almost impossible to have any fifth or third not perfect. If tempered tunings are not limited to 12 notes, why should just tunings be? Btw, one other ET I've come across and read about is 31-tET. I'm not sure what its advantages are offhand, but Adriaan Fokker espoused it, and he's well-respected in some circles. I also seem to recall Hermann Helmholtz suggesting some ET in his book, somewhere between 50- and 110- tone ET I think. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

On 4/6/07, Brad Fuller &lt;brad(a)sonaural.com&gt; wrote: Primarily I was trying to say that singers of any caliber are not limited by tempered scales. In addition I was trying to say that singers with any kind of ear are going to have a hard time singing a fifth of 700 cents, or a major third of exactly 400 cents. Benade's studies showed that very good musicians, even those who swore by 12-tone ET, when presented with sine tones 400 cents apart, identified them as being slightly sharp thirds. Which they are. But it means that extreme conditioning to 12-tone ET does not make one recognize it as more in tune than just intervals. Of course there are a few musicians out there, including singers, who devote lots of study to 12-tone serialism etc, but I'd have to see some hard data before being convinced that they hit 400-cent thirds and 700-cent fifths perfectly. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

On 4/6/07, Chuck Martin &lt;dsdhpnw02(a)sneakemail.com&gt; wrote: Absolutely. And so they can have all thirds and fifths perfect in all keys, by using more than 12 pitches when necessary. I don't know about that one. Wendy Carlos spoke of and might have created a keyboard that would retune with a pedal. With computers it would be a snap, and could even be reprogrammed in real time. I like the idea: when you hold down the foot pedal, the next note you touch doesn't sound, but rather becomes the new tonal center. I programmed a Pure Data patch a while back that allows me to compose using a set of just frequency ratios, and will transpose with one key-press, so that, for instance, the 7/4 element of one chord can become the 1/1 of the next, and then the 5/9 of that tonal center can become the next 1/1, and so on and so on. This way I don't need to decide how many notes per octave I want, and I don't need to keep multiplying and dividing when I change keys. I think the ideal instrument for this would be a computer with a touchscreen. Real-time scaleless microtonal improvisation together with live coding. It would be unstoppable. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

On Fri, Apr 06, 2007 at 12:37:28AM -0400, Chuckk Hubbard wrote: Now that you mention it, I recall reading about that one, too. Again, thirds are more in tune than the 12, 19, or 22 tone scales, while fifths are less in tune than the 12 tone scale, but more in tune than the 19 and 22 tone scales (this from some quick calculation in a spreadsheet). Of course, the more notes you have in an octave, the more difficult it will be to play on any instrument in real time. Chuck

Yet, the concepts challenged during the avant-garde are the ones that shape the music of today. They are not the norm (thank goodness) but they have influenced the way we perceive music. And sometimes, that is good enough, as our music of today is nothing like that of pre-avant-garde. In this respect, minimalism in part exists only because electroacoustic music existed before it (e.g. Steve Reich phase music). Personal tastes aside, electroacoustic music is alive and well. Check out just about any modern movie soundtrack and suddenly you will realize just how persistent its influence is. Best wishes, Ico

Good point! :-) Ico

Please note that insults do not magically elevate the value of your argument. Realizing that this matter has now departed the realm of intellectual discourse and has moved on into a bashfest, why don't we simply agree to disagree and end this seemingly futile discussion? FYI, top-posting is generally considered bad manners (and yes, I have been guilty of this too). Ico

Chuckk Hubbard wrote: What's the name of that program? I want to listen to my /home folder! ;-) -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Paul Davis wrote: Cat to what? -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Paul Davis wrote: Hmmm, that plays nothing for me. When I ls /dev/snd, I see: controlC0 controlC2 midiC2D1 midiC2D3 pcmC0D0p pcmC0D2c pcmC0D4p pcmC1D0p timer controlC1 midiC2D0 midiC2D2 pcmC0D0c pcmC0D1c pcmC0D3c pcmC1D0c seq How to figure out which device is connected to my sound card? -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Ken Restivo wrote: Cute, lots of high-pitched chirps and static sounds, some bouncing around between stereo sides. No discernible difference between dd and cat. Catting a zip file into an MP3 produced what appears to be white noise. Catting a JPG file into an MP3 produced a higher-pitched white noise, with faint traces of something like raindrops toward the end. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

david escribe: Me too I want to listen to YOUR /home folder. ;)

Ismael Valladolid Torres wrote: Nah, I'm boring. I'd rather listen to the /home folders of real musicians. ;-) -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Again, depends upon the context. John Cage wrote a famous piece 4'33" which is four minutes and 33 seconds of silence in three movements. How about buying a CD of that one? Yet, its impact on the contemporary music scene is monumental and it is practically impossible to find a book which discusses 20th century music without mentioning this work. That being said, no one is preventing you from making such a CD and claiming it is a work of art. Will I buy it? Most likely not, but that is my choice, just like yours is to make such a work of art. Either way, none of this precludes the author from claiming that such creation is a work of art... Ico

Actually, no. The points are (more or less in the order of importance) recontextualization of silence, exploration of indeterminacy, and relinquishing the control over the creative process (which is to some extent an outgrowth of the second point). Best wishes, Ico

On 4/5/07, david &lt;gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com&gt; wrote: I think you haven't heard a good performance of it. -- daneasley(a)gmail.com dan(a)towndowner.com dan(a)burntpossum.com http://towndowner.com http://burntpossum.com

On 4/5/07, david &lt;gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com&gt; wrote: I'd maybe call this a little too harsh, but I agree on the significance. Is it art? Is it music? Who cares: if it is stimulating, I want to know about it, if not, to hell with it. If the only purpose is "to force people to think about what is art" or "to force people to question their assumptions" I have little need for it. I have asked those questions all my life. What I expect from an artist or musician is that they know and love their craft, not that they question it. I'd rather read an extremely well-written sonnet than an entirely new form with no content that only "challenges" me to forget what I know about sonnets. The question has been asked, and people are thinking about it, and don't need another person to ask it. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

On Fri, Apr 06, 2007 at 12:10:06AM +0200, Ismael Valladolid Torres wrote: Where? This footnote has no referent.

friends.... the point of that piece was neither the silence, nor the duration, but rather the fact that it brings to conscious contemplation the web of sounds which exists around us all the time; it's about looking/listening outward, and appreciating the potential for beauty in the entire context of our lives, quite apart from those little corners in which we so earnestly control things. as cage said, sitting in a room while someone is operating a typewriter may be quite annoying, but also has the potential to be quite interesting, if one simply decides to listen actively to the sounds of the machine. the same goes for unmodulated white noise, or anything else. whether or not we call it music is of little concern to me. -- .pltk.

Quoting Joe Hartley &lt;jh(a)brainiac.com&gt;om>: In this day and age, just about nothing can surprise me anymore. That being said, please note that my comments are not meant to be used as a salad bar. If you pick and choose words, you can make anyone sound as if they said just about anything. In the above post, my first part referred to John Cage, but my latter statement referred to the hypothetical 60 minutes of white noise... If everything else fails, please read the actual post ;-) Best wishes, Ico

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 07:46:33PM -0400, Vince Werber wrote: Yes it has. Brian Eno, in his 1995 diary ("A Year with Swollen Appendices") goes on at length on the topic of this thread-- basically, "What is Art?". One of his essays includes the story of a test pressing of an early-1970's Yoko Ono album which was sent to a music critic, and which contained an entire 20-minute side of simply a sine wave that was put on there by the mastering engineer who didn't know the acetate was going to be sent to the press instead of to the factory or some such place. The critic listened to the entire record, including 20 minutes of a sine wave, liked it, and wrote a glowing review of it. Eno has a chuckle at the critic's expense, then goes on to make some interesting musings about the nature of art. I enjoyed the whole book. - -ken

Vince Werber wrote: IMHO, it failed in commercial circles for a couple of reasons: * No one singing (that seems to be a near-unanimous requirement for commercial success) * Outside of The Minotaur, the songs are nice but not particularly standing out. Yes, I have that album here. It's called Moog. He didn't use many unusual scales in it, although I recall one piece in which the notes in the scale were a fifth apart. Also, he finishes the album with three short pieces grouped under the title of "Duets in Odd Meters," where he was doing things with uncommon meters. Keith Emerson played "The Minotaur" as part of his extended solo on ELP's live album, "Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends." He never gave credit to Hyman, rude fellow. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Vince Werber wrote: Sort of the nature of the beast. You're never old as long as you're this side of the grave. That's my statement and I'm sticking to it. ;-) -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Hector Centeno wrote: And Neo said: "There is no mind." ;-) -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 07:58:18PM -0400, Joe Hartley wrote: In all fairness, I think Ico's second paragraph was slightly ambiguous. The phrase "such a CD" in that paragraph could have easily been referring to either the CD in the previous paragraph or the CD in the quoted material above it. I took it the same way you did when I first read it. Chuck

Marcos Guglielmetti escribe: It depends on your capacity of sounding in a musical way using just white noise. Schoenberg resulted amazingly musical using no harmony. Or what about John Cage using a detuned piano, or Ligeti using a hundred metronomes. Cordially, Ismael -- Ismael Valladolid Torres m. +34679156321 La media hostia j. ivalladt(a)gmail.com http://lamediahostia.blogspot.com/

Chuckk Hubbard wrote: Even if the composer composed 60 minutes of white noise, all he or she is doing is recording a sound, a natural phenomenon. If nothing else is done to it, it's a simple recording, not music. If something IS done to it - filter applied, etc, etc, then it is no longer purely natural and could be perhaps considered music. Or so it seems to me. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Ismael Valladolid Torres wrote: Well, my opinion of her music is perfectly summed up in the phrase, "Spear Britney" - but her music is music. Not very good music, but it's music. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

On 4/6/07, Ismael Valladolid Torres &lt;ivalladt(a)punkass.com&gt; wrote: We looked at a Schoenberg piece in freshman theory where he used a three-note tone row over and over again in both melodic and harmonic forms. None of the harmonies violated it. I believe it was 0, 1, 4. I don't recall the piece, but it was pretty strict. The tone row was not merely a melodic rule. The harmonic rules of his system may not have been tonal, but they existed. -Chuckk -- http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

Which part of agree to disagree you are not getting? I shouldn't bite but man, there are so many wrong statements here it simply hurts to ignore... Can't you realize that now you are equating a sound (machine gun) with a *composition* which is built as a *collection of sounds*. If I really wanted to bite into this argument, I would tell you that you could stretch the sound of a machine gun until attacks become gentle rolling hills and compare that to the swell of a single voice. This in and of itself will not change harmonic composition of a sound (and therefore its identity) yet it will certainly provide you with what you refer to as more "soothing" sound... You could also do something a lot more benign which is lowering its amplitude. A machine gun half a mile away can sound no different than a small rhythmic riff in a slow soothing dance piece. The other aspect that clouds your argument is the enveloping or rhythmic implication of two sounds that are presented in this example. And before you go off on a tangent to pursue this as your next argument, consider the percussion of a slow soothing dance piece which has attacks (i.e. snare drum) similar to a machine gun, yet within that context such noise seems perfectly soothing. Consider the following: you are flying in an airplane. The noise level from the air passing by the outer shell of the fuselage when you actually consciously observe it inside the airplane is actually quite deafening. Despite this fact, you don't see anyone distressing about it--we simply accept it as a background noise and do not fret about it. Heck, some people even find it calming (just like they find sound of seashore waves soothing even though they are rather close in composition to that of a white noise). Yet, if I were to play the same sound levels in my house, I wouldn't be surprised if I had my neighbors call police to pay me a visit. How can this be? It is quite simple, the psychoacoustics is playing tricks on us. This noise does belong in an airplane but it doesn't in a house, hence the distress. Oh dear... Actually there are plenty of scholars (colleagues no less) who argue that ode to joy is one of crappiest Bethoven's melodies and if isolated from the rest of the piece it might as well sound like a dirge. But I digress, since this is yet another bad example which focuses on *music* as a *collection of sounds* not on a *sound* itself which was our original discussion. Both of these are *compositions* or collections of sounds not a *sound*. Can't you figure out the difference yet? Funny you mention that since I did not mind a baby cry before I had my own kids. Now it tears me inside out to hear a baby cry, even if it is distant and not my kid either. Coincidence? I think not... Because as a scholar you read about it, analyze and assess. As a scholar you take nothing for granted. What about Rite of Spring? You said it above--it is disturbing to a tonally trained ear, yet it is a portrayal of celebration. So how can something so celebratory be so not celebratory to our Western ears? Could it be that it does not describe a custom/style from a Western culture and hence the dichotomy? Yet again, I fall into the trap of discussing *music* rather than musical potential of a *sound*... So now you do agree that familiarity, conditioning, and therefore psychoacoustics is the key? I am not arguing, I am stating. And no, I am not "all over the place" or whatever that means. This is simply a statement that suggests there is something innate to our gravitation towards triadic structures as well as octave relationships. Yet, this in and of itself does not suggest that because we gravitate to these sounds/sonorities that we automagically interpret them as more soothing. Wrong. It is between 3rd, 4th, and 5th (or actually 2nd 3rd and 4th if you regard the first frequency as it is commonly referred to as the fundamental frequency while its harmonic overtones are then counted from 1 and upwards). But I guess you know that... That is if you assume that the ear cochlea did not evolve. Once I had a discussion with my colleague who happens to work for NASA. He hypothesized that different species may have differently wired cochlea which would explain some of the musical oddities of humpback whale songs. This hypothesis could also rationalize dichotomy between various cultures as well as time periods (pentatonic vs. diatonic vs. old modes, tunings, etc.). Please note that I am not claiming this is a fact, but rather a hypothesis which I haven't looked into in quite some time, so it may have been debunked since... A part of that conditioning is a dull daily bombardment of triadic trash on radio waves, elevator muzak, TVs, movies, etc. So, yes, it is conditioning. Yet, the few groundbreaking contributions of the 20th century have made much greater dent than all the pop crap of the last 20 years combined. So, *despite* the fact that they are not played nearly as much, their legacy lives in the way how they have shaped our overall perception of music. Now, in due time if we continue the current unfortunate trend, our collective memory may bury all the progress that has been made (for better or for worse), and then these gems will be forgotten in time. This, however will not be due to their lack of merit but because of the cultural dilution through commerce driven society. Answer this, what would you find to be so groundbreaking in the last century? Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, etc. or someone like Schoenberg, John Cage, and Karlheinz Stockhausen? Now tell me how much are these composer/performer groups being performed? Sounds or compositions? Above, you've been arguing between a sound and composition, then between a composition and composition, and now you are talking about sounds again? Please make up your mind... You obviously have no understanding of how the commercial industry works. Until very recently the word Blockbuster and similar laughable concepts of commerce have been the norm. Now that we live in the "long tail" era (look it up on the Wired magazine, there's even a book about it--an instructional read), you will learn why 1000 flies do pick a turd and that one doesn't. Let me give you a hint: access to information. Now, please feel free to go back to your regularly scheduled program as I will not waste any more time on this... Ico

Chuckk Hubbard wrote: I think, though, that there is some input from the sheer basic physics of vibrations. For example, the traditional American police siren vs the common French one. The American siren gets my attention more from sheer volume. The French one gets it because it is jumping between two notes separated by a disharmonious interval. Of course, continuity effects this, too - replace the jump with a smooth glide up or down, I think it would be less jarring. In fact, it would be replaced by a ramp of continuous, small intervals. Our experience of audio in general, and music in particular, is very much tied to time. Reminds of me of the ending of Keith Emerson's synthesizer solo in Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Karn Evil 9, third movement. He plays a fairly short melody on the Moog, which he then feeds into a time base divider (could be wrong about the precise equipment, just know that it was very expensive and unusual at the time) that begins looping the melody. Each loop through the melody, it speeds the tempo up while cutting the duration of each note, without altering the pitch. It starts very slow but keeps speeding up until the phrases in the melody are starting to be perceived as single, almost fuzzy sounds. The simple change in time radically changes how the music is perceived. I think the ear itself has reactions to clashing vibrations, reactions that come through to us (perhaps unconsciously) and color our perceptions of the sound. If it's unconsciously perceived, then it may be similarly altered by what we've learned of our culture. When I took cultural anthropology many years ago, it was defined as "unconscious behavior learned from others." Or something like that. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Marcos Guglielmetti wrote: Then you probably don't like Symphony for Dot Matrix Printers #2 by [The User]: http://www.theuser.org/dotmatrix/downloads/en/frame_index.html (from their site: [The User] takes its name from a term employed by our technocratic society, especially in design-related fields such as engineering, architecture and software development. The term 'user' objectifies and reduces individuality to an abstract and generic ideal. This reduction is employed wherever abstract rational methodology is applied to situations involving real people. Once this reduction is made, it becomes much easier to treat the faceless, formless 'user' in an inhuman fashion. In our society we employ the impersonal term 'user' to justify the infliction of neon lighting, plastic cutlery and Muzak on a huge majority of our population.) If this is old stuff to people on the list, sorry. I enjoy the *music* & the *idea* behind it. Neither prevent me from enjoying a frog's croak or birdsong, ambient city sounds, or for that matter, a snippet of pron audio of a female's orgasm :) On the path, what does capitalism choking itself sound like anyway? Regardless of the ethics involved, I dislike the sound of exploding humans in meat space. (Forgive me for making fun of ESL slips, but these days exploding humans are the norm.) so I dont like the sounds of the

Robin Gareus wrote: Glad you like it. If you haven't listened to the whole symphony (using headphones is great), please do. For my ears/mind, the emotional range conveyed by the audio drawn from 12 obsolete printers is extraordinary & nicely matched by the piece's concept & installation. [End User] has been around for about ten years. Interesting music. One of their early pieces was, IIR, named Paper Jam :) I agree with you there. But then perhaps the subject line is really no longer concerned with music, but beauty? & that will need to be parsed & defined to everyones agreement first (good luck :), prior to defining music's relationship it. [End User] has done concerts, using 12 dot matrix printers for Symphony #2. I haven't seen a live show, but definitely be a groove I'd imagine. This link has a little more info & link to part of Symphony #1 video, if interested: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=172 - not the way data centers sounded 20 years ago, but this dot Yeah, I love the sound of this piece & still listen to it. They use a specific bunch of old Epsons, Panasonics, Fujitsus, etc. models- & already it's becoming harder to find the original "instruments." The time is nearly at hand to scour the landscape for long-lost stacks of 100lb 90's better-resonating typewriter paper :)) Not to console those among us who have a tiny & dead idea of what music is, but it hurts my spirit to always & only hear "machine" music. The human voice, traditional musical instruments & compositions, etc are magik too. Personally, I need it all. Even farther OT (though, I'm not alone :): ATM, I''m listening to Eo Sinh & Namh Hao's VC Love Song off of *Ho! #1 Roady Music from Vietnam*. It's a great piece & has an accompaniment of random passing motorcycles among other background street sounds :) I don't know what to say - I don't even know what she's singing, but I love this forlorn song, too. The motorcycle engines really set the right mood here. It just works! The whole album is streetworthy Americanized VietPop compliments the Vietnam War. (For the one in this thread who mentioned jackhammers: this compilation doesn't offer any, but there is someone doing a bang up job of hammering concrete on one song :) best, sevol The kind of silence that follows the playing of the radio is never the same as the silence that precedes it. -Don Delillo

Marcos Guglielmetti wrote: You haven't heard one of Rasputina's cellos going through guitar-type processing equipment. When I was playing professionally, I used to run the output of my Hammond organ through a guitar volume control pedal, then into an old-style wahwah pedal, then out to the amp. Combined with the flexibility of tone adjustment that the Hammond drawbars gave me, I had tones that were indistinguishable from an electric guitar. And in terms of dynamic sound, a full pipe organ is far louder than any other instrument. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community