It's all about maximising your time!!!
This week’s technology forum was a bit of a mixed bag, but then again when is it not? David Harris presented us with some widely contrasting pieces, the first of which I found to be very interesting. Composed in 1989 by Iannis Xenakis, the piece is titled Voyage absolu des Unari vers Andromede, or Voyage to Andromeda. This composition was constructed through a series of graphs which then was interpreted electronically using a computer. The result is a smorgasbord of sweeping soundscapes, a sensory explosion if you will. I enjoyed it thoroughly, the piece certainly lived up to its name, for I found it somewhat reminiscent of 2001 A Space Odyssey.The second piece entitled "In Flagranti", was composed by Gabriele Manca and performed by Geoffrey Morris. David Harris described it as an experimental bottleneck guitar composition. I on the other hand would describe it as a steaming pile of unmentionables. That’s right, I pluralised unmentionable it was that bad. Apparently the piece was supposed to demonstrate the performer's ability to play varying degrees of “micro rhythms”. I’m pretty sure that it was called micro rhythms, you see, I’m not certain what happened after it was played, must be some kind of psychological repression. It sounded like a two year old mashing his face into the strings. My opinion was shared amongst my peers, although when David was asked his opinion on the piece, he claimed he found it enjoyable.
I can definitely see the point of giving us a broad background in music technology, exposing us to a variety of pieces and genres, however there has been some questionable material that we have been subjected to. In this case, there was no technology involved at all, let alone music. Maybe David was trying to demonstrate the amount of patience required to be a sound engineer involved in recording self indulgent artists palming off complete rubbish as intellectual art. Your guess is as good as mine, probably better if you never heard this piece.
Obviously this is my only my opinion, and is not reflective of all the materials presented. Many of the pieces we are exposed to I find engaging and thought provoking. Some of them I do not. As a general rule I try remain open minded to new ideas and different ways of thinking. However it really grinds my gears when I am continually subjected to long repetitive compositions that do not have anything to do with music technology. Surely a piece such as In Flagranti would be better suited in a composition forum? Seeing as there is no use of technology, save the recording process (which wasn’t examined at all), the piece has no place in a music technology forum. I believe we should be examining pieces that are relevant to our field of study. I have creative computing and audio arts, I am not studying slide guitar. I may sound narrow minded, but there is a limited amount of time in a class, and when we spend much of it looking only at music that is dated, and quite often with no relevance to music technology, I wonder what is the point? So far we haven’t looked at anything that has been written in the last ten years, and yet so many advances have been made in the field of music technology in that time. I would be very interested in examining more music from successful modern artists. Trent Reznor, for example is accomplished in the genre of music technology, and has produced a plethora of compositions employing all kinds of unorthodox methods to achieve his sounds. Examining an artist like that would be relevant, interesting, and would allow us more time for discussion as his music doesn’t go for 20 minutes a piece. I mean, come on, if you're going to only demonstrate one particular technique is it really necessary to repeat the same thing over and over again. I believe I am not alone in my views, maybe someone out there will listen. Don't Do Drugs.
Here is a max patch I casually whipped up. It converts MIDI note values to their corresponding note frequency.
max v2;
#N vpatcher 811 186 1411 586;
#P window setfont "Sans Serif" 9.;
#P flonum 35 205 35 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P newex 35 176 41 196617 mtof;
#P number 35 150 35 9 0 0 4096 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P user kslider 35 83 35 1 0 120 19 7 0 128 128 128 128 128 128 255 255 255 0 0 0 0 0 0;
#P connect 0 0 1 0;
#P connect 1 0 2 0;
#P connect 2 0 3 0;
#P pop;
posted by Daniel Murtagh @ 20:12
Comments: 0
