[idm] chords, melody, coherence, concepts, etc. etc.
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This is in response to the Re: London: Mike Ladd, Squarepusher, Tortoise / The Future of IDM ??? thread (can't reply to the actual message seeing as I have the digest version).
Someone in this thread stated that Squarepusher's live set could "hardly be called music" because "there were no chords, no melody lines, and no coherence whatsoever." I think this is just such a narrow definition of "music," and it obviously doesn't apply to a lot of the music that gets discussed on this list. Honestly, where would we be if everyone making "music" felt like they had to restrict themselves to these three commandments? Things would stagnate (and stagnation really is sickening).
And what is "melody," anyway? Is it a harmonic sequence of notes? Can't anything be "melody," really? I think when this person says "melody" and "coherence," he/she means that for a piece to be "music," it must conform to his/her current understanding of these concepts (it must sound like something he/she has heard before).
The person also laments, "so what is IDM all about these days, hectic programming and weird noises?!" Isn't what a lot of people said about Aphex Twin when he first surfaced, or Autechre, or any of the now firmly established IDM gods? They were going where no one had gone before, using sound in ways that no one had used it before. Trying different things is the only way to avoid the dreaded stagnation I mentioned earlier.
And then he/she goes on to discredit the "lame excuse of the 'conceptual approach.'" Well, the "lame excuses" propogated by the producers who are "making rubbish and calling it art" (Vladislav Delay, Oval, SND, Kid 606, etc., in this person's opinion) make a whole lot of sense to me. I find their "rubbish" (V. Delay especially) to be more "coherent" and resonant with how I see the world than the machine fantasies of Autechre (for the record, I *do* like Autechre, so no death threats, please) or the various soundscapes of any number of IDM artists. I appreciate Kid 606 just as much for his attitude as I do for the technical profeciency of his music (and it's impossible to separate the two).
I also don't understand how concepts are "lame." What does the word "concept" mean? It's a way we see the world, our perception of the objects with which we interact. Our mental "conception" is the ideas we produce (give birth to, conceive) with regard to our circumstances. Everyone who is making music is integrating "concepts" in one way or another, aren't they? I just think that labels and easy categorizations like this lose their validity when you really think about them.
Anyway, I don't mean to stick it to any one person (I don't even know who wrote the thread), and it's possible that I sound amatuerish and have made no sense whatsoever (I guess you could say this post could hardly be called "writing"), but the person's comments just got me thinking about this sort of unnecessary limitation we tend to impose upon ourselves and why I think it's counter-productive to limit one's self with regard to what is "coherent" or acceptable as "music." Let me also say that I am glad to have been prodded into thinking about these things, so keep posting your ideas, everyone, you're doing me a great service.
Andy