On Thu, 7 Sep 1995, Michael Upton wrote:
quoted 1 line On 6 Sep 1995, Edward Pond wrote (on IDM, but I'm copying this to ambient):> On 6 Sep 1995, Edward Pond wrote (on IDM, but I'm copying this to ambient):quoted 4 lines groups at the mo', but I get the impression very little is going on in a> groups at the mo', but I get the impression very little is going on in a
> lot of their tracks.
> That last track just seems to get brighter and duller, in terms of
> timbre, and that's all.
Michael, that's the great thing about a techno, the new thing about it in
a musical sense is that there is a developing aesthetic for music that
has "timbral progression" instead of just melodic or harmonic or
narrative. Part of that timbral change is done through rhymthic changes
and part of it is done over actual mutation of the sounds ('brighter and
duller' as you said).
This is the thing we should embrace about techno as a truely new
proclamation in the world of music. The lack of melody-changes and
harmony-changes are intended to lock the repetitive elements of the music
so you notice the timbral changes. I don't think that many techno
programmers think of it this way, but that is basically what is
happenning; they are tripping out on the repetitiveness of the music and
(because of the instruments they use) are tweaking the timbral nature of
the music.
A lot of synths (old analog) have key-transposition buttons and tempo
knobs, which would allow the programmers to make key changes easily
enough, but there are often 10-50 other parameters (all timbrality) that
are much more fun.
Autechre tends to repeat patterns over 16 bars and make a series of basic
chord progressions across them, and often on the '1' of each bar (listen
to the pads), so there is 4/4 and 3-8 chords under there...
They use mixes of 4/4 and 3/4 in the same bars, too.
David Chandler - chandler@nethost.multnomah.lib.or.us (503)301-3011
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