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a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
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stray
stray
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Edited Aug 31, 2008, 02:07
Re: It's all in the machines
Aug 31, 2008, 01:36
I'm very familiar with Stockhausens music and his processes, he's an extremely important composer but I will always rate him below John Cage, Steve Reich, Angus Maclish, Delia Derbyshire, many people really.. Who did what first isnt actualy important, its where it goes and evolves afterwards that is, as many in this thread have already said. Also the comparison about wave-building isn't the same thing at all really to what I was trying badly to describe, although indeed a lot of processes we do quickly now do have long form (old school) analog processing comparisons.
Edit : Also, the fact that we can do things non-destructively and with a much smaller time overhead means that actually we are experimenting a lot more than Stockhausen could.

Its pretty much the same with Film and Digital Video comparisons, and much like the differences in the medium of sound/music, there are some things that cannot be done as easily or as quickly in the digital video medium as they can in the film enviroment, or at all frankly. Such as raycast film making, physically scratching on celluloid (Len Lyes 'Particles'), or anything Brakhage did tbh. There is absolutely no way we will ever be able to create a purely digital equivalent to those processes.

It's the same with some of Stockhausens methods compared to how we work digitally. The Wouter Van Veldhoven link I gave is a perfect example, "four simple songs for five dead bumblebees". Wouters starting point is pretty much identical to early Stockhausen work, he uses many reel to reel tape decks which he jams with live (in terms of speed changes, stop/start) and then processes the results digitally afterwards. To set up a similar method entirely digitally would be a bitch, and would lack the hands on feel and beautiful performance possibilities. Heh, and unlike the early Stockhausen work this guys stuff has a definite musicality. :p

I've never got on with Reason, I never found it to be flexible enough, and I've always had issues with it's timings and sound quality (yeah, yeah, everyone says they've fixed those issues, I know, I know). Also it looks fucking awful to my eyes and puts me off the actual work I'm doing. But then, I'm an anal, sad, pretentious sound junkie & snob, and also, as an ex software developer weird loking interfaces make me come out in hives.

Edit : Oh, and good god no Stockhausen has not taken the 'science of sound' as far as it can go. sure he's an important pioneer, but god no, he's not got it all pegged. Bloody hell no. Also, philosophically speaking 'music ?' is a damn sight more of an interesting question to study, and for a good starting point with that (essentially pointless I know) chestnut is the writings of John Cage. Also, the main thing, harkening back to your point about visual culture taking over --- Music, Sound, Video, film are all 'Time based media', thats the jumping off point for that discussion and thats a whole other thread, paper, reading list and most definitely does not belong in Unsung.
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