On Fri, 6 Jul 2001, EggyToast wrote:
quoted 5 lines Most of the connections exist via association, not via influence.
> Most of the connections exist via association, not via influence.
>
> The majority of "complex electronic music" that is discussed on this list
> has little-to-no influence derived from anything in the classical world,
> barring, perhaps, a scale or the circle fifths or something.
If I understand you correctly, I nearly completely disagree with you.
Perhaps, and I emphasize, *perhaps* no composers mentioned on this list
have listened to any serialist or minimalist composers (the recent Steve
Reich remix album already disputes your claim) and have stealthfully
avoided Schoenberg, Schaeffer, Cage, Stockhausen, Xenakis and Boulez (just
the big ones). I'd already have to stretch pretty far to believe that
such an umbrella has been ducked under, but okay, I'll try it. However,
there is no doubt in my mind that their contributions to the study of
sound and the body of knowledge they created put us squarely where we are
today. The statistical analysis of sound leads to the idea of sampling,
modular synthesis (from IRCAM and elsewhere), stochastic composition, I
can't think of one area that the academic forefathers didn't touch. The
only difference and distance between "us" and them is that the tools are
now readily available and widespread, and every other home has a machine
powerful enough to harness those tools. The tools came pretty directly
from the academic camps, though. Try to name one that didn't. The only
one I can think of was FM synthesis (a commercial venture and patent, I
believe).
Or try asking yourself, what kind of music would Autechre be playing right
now without Max/MSP (via IRCAM) and the Nord Modular? It's actually quite
amazing that we have such the variety we have in the IDM "genre",
considering how the tools are nearly exactly the same. Kind of like
painting, I guess.
Well, I'm not exactly sure what tangent I've gotten on to at this
point...there isn't anything wrong with recognizing influence, as long as
you can move past it. Perhaps saying "it isn't them" helps certain people
move along and create without anxiety. Then again, how important is the
creator(s) of the guitar, or the piano or computer to the creation of the
music? Sure you can make a solid arguement for the aformentioned for
their contributions to the technology of music as well as their
compositions, but we usually don't praise that nearly as much. How
important are the tools? Would we even have IDM without them?
_________________________
Christopher Sorg
Multimedia Artist/Teacher
http://csorg.cjb.net
csorg@enteract.com
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