On Wed, 15 Nov 2000, atomly wrote:
quoted 5 lines Most fucking IDM producers don't even know how to make a key change,>
> Most fucking IDM producers don't even know how to make a key change,
> much less write music that requires me to sit down because it's so
> fucking complex i can't listen to it and stand up at the same time.
>
You know that's a quote worthy of your tombstone -- I about bust a gut
laughing.
Though it might be more accurate to say, "most IDM producers aren't
aware of it WHEN they make a key change." People modulate all the time,
without really knowing what that means. And it becomes a pretty blurry
concept in the folk/pop tradition of the last 50 years, which is based
around changing guitar chords in sometimes arbitrary ways.
I actually was, as they say "classically trained" -- my mum is a composer
and my dad a symphony conductor. Dance music is as different from
traditional pop and 'serious' western music as gamelan or indian classical
music.
To the extent that dance music has harmonic content, it's usually pretty
simple stuff -- it's going to be more based on standard folk music motifs
than anything else. You might not hear the connection between Woody Guthrie
and Boards of Canada, but it's there.
There are people doing stuff that's 'Jazzy' but I doubt many of them have
any deep theoretical grasp of how Jazz changes and scales work. Hell I don't
get most of that shit. It's 'Jazzy' rather than Jazz in my book because
Jazz is about live improvisation. Jazzy Electronic music is about mouse
clicks -- you can ape the harmonies of jazz (or sample it wholesale), but
there is no spontenaeity to what you're doing.
And my point -- and I do have one -- is that IDM in particular and dance
music in general IS complex rhythmically and texturally, even when it's
simple harmonically and structurally. Very few tracks get beyond switching
up one or two four bar loops with different variations. Many don't ever
stray from a monotonic tonal center.
Perhaps people need to try and drag some other tools out of the shed. Hell
Squarepusher's reputation for innovation rests entirely on two fairly simple
things -- he throws triplets into his breaks, and he can play an actual
instrument.
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