IDM Mailing Archive

quoted 3 lines why do some people seem to feel so threatened by the fact that

> why do some people seem to feel so threatened by the fact that > others can buy v/vm or lucky kitchen or diskono etc or even worse > just download mp3's of like minded efforts.

Though I cannot speak for everyone or even from experience because I don't know anything about producing music, I have heard the reason from musicians that the avant-garde / noise style is very easy to produce; it doesn't take much effort or skill. Perhaps it is like with graphic art, where someone can load up an image and apply 50 random Photoshop filters on it to achieve a nice-looking (or harsh/grating/confusing in the case of the music at hand) colorful picture that doesn't resemble the original very much, but is it any good since the computer basically made it? But I suppose in commercial graphic design this exact thing happens a lot too. :-) -Joshua Whitcomb _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com

quoted 4 lines Though I cannot speak for everyone or even from experience because I

> Though I cannot speak for everyone or even from experience because I > don't know anything about producing music, I have heard the reason > from musicians that the avant-garde / noise style is very easy to > produce; it doesn't take much effort or skill.

I am not convinced that good "noise" music is easy to produce: one must still define and select the process and parameters, and judge the end results as worthy or not, which requires at least a certain skill of aesthetic judgement. In terms of technique alone, yes, the results are probably easier to produce (unless on is building their own instruments or writing their own software!). 3

quoted 8 lines why do some people seem to feel so threatened by the fact that

> > why do some people seem to feel so threatened by the fact that > > others can buy v/vm or lucky kitchen or diskono etc or even worse > > just download mp3's of like minded efforts. > > Though I cannot speak for everyone or even from experience because I > don't know anything about producing music, I have heard the reason > from musicians that the avant-garde / noise style is very easy to > produce; it doesn't take much effort or skill.

sorry for contributing to my own thread, but i've heard this one before. it gets used all the time in the rock vs electronica debate. having all those computers and synths and particularly drum machines, makes it really easy to make music as opposed to having to learn to play drums or guitar like real musicians do. and of course punk rock was all shouting, which is really easy to do not like singing. and none of them could play their guitars properly unlike jimmy page and eric clapton who were very good at it indeed. rap is just talking and people playing records, and so on. i'm also pretty sure noise isn't synonymous with w/ cutting edge and i should think it is just as easy to make a reasonably generic noise record as it is to make an average idm track. worse it require just as much skill to make a good record out of distortion and noise as it is to create a bouncing space synth zapping idm gem. so what we are left w/ is that neither genre nor effort involved can tell us whether a record is good or bad, and skill is just hard to quantify. i mean, why does life have to be so chuffin difficult? -martin

Hi, I'm new to the list, but i'll add my $.02: At 12:28 PM 4/12/99 -0400, you wrote:

quoted 5 lines i'm also pretty sure noise isn't synonymous with w/ cutting edge and i

>i'm also pretty sure noise isn't synonymous with w/ cutting edge and i >should think it is just as easy to make a reasonably generic noise record as >it is to make an average idm track. worse it require just as much skill to >make a good record out of distortion and noise as it is to create a bouncing >space synth zapping idm gem.

I've tried my hand at using computer programs of all sorts of levels to create/modify sound, and i spent a lot of the time making avant-garde-sounding noise. It was pretty easy to do, and i had some cool sounds come out, pretty much on accident. Yet that's all it was, cool sounds, not songs. I've tried my ass off trying to arrange these great (IMO) sounds into anything like a cohesive whole and while it doesn't sound terrible, it doesn't sound that convincing either. So i agree with your point, as i'm stuck here with a hard drive nearly full of great noises that I can't bear to delete but haven't been able to use at all. Noise comes easy, but good arrangements of it are tough. _________________________________ Adam Roesch / roesch@augsburg.edu Augsburg College / Minneapolis / MN / USA http://dogbert.augsburg.edu/~roesch/ The world's most complete Pork Recordings/Fila Brazillia site: http://dogbert.augsburg.edu/~roesch/pork/ "The only disease we need in our blood is love" TRICKY

Hello -

quoted 5 lines sorry for contributing to my own thread, but i've heard this one before. it

> sorry for contributing to my own thread, but i've heard this one before. it > gets used all the time in the rock vs electronica debate. having all those > computers and synths and particularly drum machines, makes it really easy to > make music as opposed to having to learn to play drums or guitar like real > musicians do.

...or to pay for session musicians!

quoted 4 lines and of course punk rock was all shouting, which is really easy

> and of course punk rock was all shouting, which is really easy > to do not like singing. and none of them could play their guitars properly > unlike jimmy page and eric clapton who were very good at it indeed. rap is > just talking and people playing records, and so on.

There might be something to those criticisms - except that the initial adherents of punk and rap would not necessarily see those as criticisms per se. As I recall, the early punk aesthetic very much promoted the music as a forum in which technique and theory were irrelevant: anyone who had something to say was welcome. (Well, that lasted about one year). The content - often explicitly socio-political - was the key, not music technique. Of course, the story is not so simple. There is certainly musically sophisticated punk and post-punk (Gang of Four, anyone?) and rap (MC Solaar! Sorry). 3

On Sun, 11 Apr 1999, Joshua Whitcomb wrote:

quoted 2 lines Though I cannot speak for everyone or even from experience because I

> Though I cannot speak for everyone or even from experience because I > don't know anything about producing music,

Now there's a blanket disclaimer!

quoted 2 lines I have heard the reason from musicians that the avant-garde / noise

> I have heard the reason from musicians that the avant-garde / noise > style is very easy to produce; it doesn't take much effort or skill.

Any worthwhile music is hard to make. Any worthwhile art is hard to make. When you talk about avant-garde or experimental art part of the difficulty is that you're working in the dark -- you just hope that your decimated-to-4-bits-washing-machine-spin-cycle tracks mean something to someone else, but you have no idea whether they will or not. The whole idea of experimentation points back to how scientists work -- you find one good thing by eliminating a whole shitload of really bad things. That means some of the trial balloons you float will turn out to be lead, but you can't be sure which ones. You have to depend on the merciful amnesia of history to blot out your mistakes. Any musician who disses the work of others by minimizing their skill ought to check the mirror. You have to make an arduous climb through obstacles in order to get to the point where easy, natural gestures mean anything -- in other words, making the connection between the inner soul and vibrations in the air is a neat trick. If that connection is there where people can hear it, I don't give a fuck whether you're Jacqueline Du Pre or some stanky street person banging two rocks together. If you have the courage and character to expose yourself that completely, you deserve some respect even from people who don't appreciate what you're doing. To say that experimental music is 'easy' is like that skit in Monty Python where they show you how you play the flute -- you blow across that bit there and move your fingers over those other bits down there. It looks easy when your comprehension of what's involved is shallow.

martin burbridge wrote:

quoted 3 lines so what we are left w/ is that neither genre nor effort involved can tell us

> so what we are left w/ is that neither genre nor effort involved can tell us > whether a record is good or bad, and skill is just hard to quantify. i mean, > why does life have to be so chuffin difficult?

I like what the KLF had to say about this in their Timelords book on How to Get a UK Number One; they said that one day, a great techno musician was going to release a record that was just a 4/4 808 bass drum sample, and at the same time, some mediocre schmuck was going to do the same thing using exactly the same sample, and everybody would immediately be able to tell the difference because no matter what, the 'soul' would be there on the great musician's record and noticeably absent from that of the pretender. While it's a ridiculous concept, I find it rather worthy of consideration. As we approach the terminal point of postmodernism and irony in art and culture, we begin having to accept more and more things on faith and "soul" and other things we previously treated as wishy-washy subjective crap. But that's what life is: wishy-washy subjective crap. You do your best, and hopefully some others will agree. On a related note, right now I'm working on a track using nothing more than the built-in mic on my PowerBook, a pirated copy of SoundEdit 16 version 2, and Virtual Drummer 4.0 - and none of this is on purpose. The effort is in effect, by God. Tom

Speaking of things like Virtual Drummer, could people direct me in a direction to find sound-creating programs on the internet, specifically for free (shareware or whatever)? Thanks. Adam. At 12:49 AM 4/13/99 -0400, you wrote:

quoted 4 lines On a related note, right now I'm working on a track using nothing more than

>On a related note, right now I'm working on a track using nothing more than >the built-in mic on my PowerBook, a pirated copy of SoundEdit 16 version 2, >and Virtual Drummer 4.0 - and none of this is on purpose. The effort is in >effect, by God.

_________________________________ Adam Roesch / roesch@augsburg.edu Augsburg College / Minneapolis / MN / USA http://dogbert.augsburg.edu/~roesch/ The world's most complete Pork Recordings/Fila Brazillia site: http://dogbert.augsburg.edu/~roesch/pork/ "The only disease we need in our blood is love" TRICKY

martin burbridge wrote:

quoted 5 lines so what we are left w/ is that neither genre nor effort involved can tell us

> > so what we are left w/ is that neither genre nor effort involved can tell us > whether a record is good or bad, and skill is just hard to quantify. i mean, > why does life have to be so chuffin difficult? >

Um...I missed martin's original post, and had to bootleg this out of somebody else's. No it's not that difficult -- it's just not quantifiable. If it's chicken skin music, it's chicken skin music, and all the analysis don't mean shit. And try and be charitable with those for whom Mariah Carey or the Backstreet Boys is their chicken skin music. Most of them have never kicked a dog, been mean to a cripple, or ethnically cleansed a province -- they go to work, pay their taxes and hug their kids. And 'chicken skin' is like goosebumps, i.e. raising the hairs on your arms, in case you're not familiar with the term, or a finn, or something.