IDM Mailing Archive

(A little while ago) Dave Walker wrote:

quoted 6 lines The day I ever start to even remotely care about anything like that

> The day I ever start to even remotely care about anything like that > someone please kindly take me out back and kindly put a big-assed slug > in the back of my head. > > pretty damned glad to have never > taken courses in music theory,

As has been pointed out already, it's got nothing to do with music theory - I studied music at school and have played classical music all my life, and there are others who have studied with me who have absolutely shocking aural skills and remain tone deaf. If you're tone deaf, lucky you (maybe... I'd argue the point) but for those of us who aren't, samples that are out of tune (that's out of tune, not in a different key or something - Stravinsky among many others wrote brilliant bi-tonal music at the start of this century) do indeed have a physical effect - on me, as well as Che and I believe Irene McC, along with many others I'm sure. When there are out of tune elements in a song I can sometimes almost filter it out if it's not too much, but at other times it can make me feel slightly sick (queasy perhaps) and usually ruins a track for me - it ends up getting skipped when I'm listening to an album. Not bothering to make one's samples in tune is as sloppy as badly cutting up samples so that there's clicking, or not aligning samples so that the rhythms don't match (which, unfortunately, is something that marrs a couple of the tracks on Neotropic's otherwise excellent new album). It seriously reduces the effect of a piece of music. It's got nothing to do with musical snobbishness, although I do think that to be proud of one's ignorance is perplexing to say the least. Mostly when a pop musician proudly states that because they have no musical knowledge they can make more innovative music or something, they are nowhere near as interesting and innovative as they think - it's just that they don't know what they're doing, and don't know the historical perpective... By the way Dave - I don't mean to be flaming you at all, this is more about the people who seem to come up with this quite regularly in my experience. ;) Peter. np: Multiphonic Ensemble - King of May (on Sub Rosa). Very Biskesque, and very good - don't know why it hasn't been mentioned pretty much at all; it seems to be copyright 1997. -- Peter Hollo raven@fourplay.com.au http://www.fourplay.com.au/me.html FourPlay - Eclectic Electric String Quartet http://www.fourplay.com.au "Of course, dance music can be a music where you lie on your back and your brain cells dance" -Michael Karoli of Can, quoted in Wire mag.

On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Peter Hollo wrote: | Not bothering to make one's samples in tune is as sloppy as badly | cutting up samples so that there's clicking, or not aligning samples so | that the rhythms don't match (which, unfortunately, is something that | marrs a couple of the tracks on Neotropic's otherwise excellent new | album). It seriously reduces the effect of a piece of music. Probably being a complete pedant here, but upon agreeing really whole heartedly with most of what Peter wrote, I feel an urge to say "It _can_ seriously reduce the effect of a piece of music", and, sure, it probably does most of the time. Granted, we're probably talking in the context of a track all in a well-tempered scale, suddenly having something going decidedly flat in the midst of it. (I can also think of plenty of tracks with cool clicking samples, and loose timing... :) I've found this whole thing quite interesting, because there're a lot of things I do musically, common to a lot of IDM, that leave me having a lot of trouble finding the resultant tuning. I just hope I get it right, but now I'm slightly paranoid there're legions of people out there who will be whincing at my tunings. I'm thinking of stuff like cutting off a lot of frequencies, and band pass filters at high resonance; and time-stretched percussion sounds which can take on conflicting pitches... Michael np. 'Inflatable Rasta Wig (Deflated)' - Mono TM ____________________________________________ "Also, he has automatic evasion devices" http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~michael/jj.html

"That music is worthless. It means nothing. There is no form, no content, and it barely swings. The soloists are playing a half tone above and a half tone below so it'll sound modern, but there's nothing to build on or anything logical -- nothing." -- Stan Getz talks about one of my favorite LPs of all time, "On the Corner" by Miles Davis... .John.

John Bush wrote:

quoted 9 lines "That music is worthless. It means nothing. There is no form, no content,

> "That music is worthless. It means nothing. There is no form, no content, > and it barely swings. The soloists are playing a half tone above and a > half tone below so it'll sound modern, but there's nothing to build on or > anything logical -- nothing." > > -- Stan Getz talks about one of my favorite LPs of all time, "On the > Corner" by Miles Davis... > > .John.

just got this last week, and i have to concur that it is awesome. the insert ishilarious as it contains the reviews of the day which just ripped it to shreds. it makes all those who are trying to put 70's funk in their music today look like amateurs. cl