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Bowie, genius or not...
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Edited Jul 28, 2010, 11:45
Re: Bowie, genius or not...
Jul 28, 2010, 11:42
Squid Tempest wrote:
Is your point that most experimental music forms/styles and compositions created digitally could have been done similarly by analogue means? Or am I misunderstanding?


Yeah. However, I'm acknowledging the fact that technology (and more importantly, its interfaces in terms of their design and structure) have resulted in there now being an awful lot more people writing music, and a lot more people experimenting with composition, than before we had the current technology.

Those on the cutting edge of experimental electronica, interestingly, are turning towards building their own interfaces, and new types of instruments. Um.. this is a massive subject, and eventually you have to talk about how early digital tools tried to match analog sounds, and production methods, not only to make adoption easier for the composers but also to feed the familiarity of the ears of the listener. We don't need that anymore, and easily its in the field of digital music that people are running from those approaches and mindsets the most. However, compositionally, yep, you can listen to even the most out there digital works and trace a line back to the jazz and classical experimentation of the early 20th century.

Digital has no theoretical constraints, but we have to impose constraints in order to abstract enough to create an understandable movement within ourselves that will allow us to produce work. But we aren't setting those limits/constraints, our interfaces are. Plus the 'common sense' accepted rules of music still apply, and therefore influence the interfaces built, even through free jazz and noise (though many ears would disagree with that). Change your tools, change your sound, but you also change the way you compose yeah ? It's always reactive, it's never purely..er... 'us'.
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