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Hi,
Apologies for the delay, I've been away for a couple of days.
Yes in a sense you are right. On the other hand, for me it is a question of the tools' malleability versus aesthetic intent. Instrumentally created music can go beyond the conventional note-based idiom in the same way that computer-based music can be strictly note-orientated. However, this does not necessarily imply that both approaches create equally rich musical results. In the first case one is utilizing the extremely complex nature of instrumental timbres and designs, whereas in the latter one is working more or less with a simplified approximation of an essentially instrumental idiom. To my ears, purely note-orientated computer-music sounds sterile and sonically over-simplified (at least more often than not).
Of course I realise that this is a generalization (usually not a good idea!) and is highly rooted in my personal aesthetic preferences. Again, one is reminded that tool-based discussions (such as this) are in way meaningless away from aesthetic considerations.
Best Peiman
On 6 Aug 2008, at 16:38, Michael Bechard wrote: > No composer is limited to a set of parameters. > My point was that 'computer music' is pointless unless one's compositional thought > process dictates the liberation from the traditional limited set of parameters. If no composer is limited by a set of parameters, then the second statement is moot, no? ----- Original Message ---- From: peiman khosravi < peimankhosravi@gmail.com> To: csound@lists.bath.ac.ukSent: Wednesday, August 6, 2008 5:58:45 AM Subject: [Csnd] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Paul Lansky throws in the towel Yes but any piano can be retuned. There is always the option of using an electric piano or synthesizer for micro-tonal stuff. A violinist can also learn to play micro-tones. Of course computer is a cheaper option and perfectly valid.
No composer is limited to a set of parameters. That is defined by your attitude to sound/music and imagination rather than the tools you use. Although I agree with a computer this freedom is more readily available it is not there by default. My point was that 'computer music' is pointless unless one's compositional thought process dictates the liberation from the traditional limited set of parameters.
Best Peiman On 6 Aug 2008, at 01:44, Brian Redfern wrote: Well, I think Miles Davis had a more valid point back in the 1980s, about the problem of keyboards being locked into standard western tuning, while back in the 1970s he had Pete Cosey playing all sorts of sick alternate tunings on his guitars, when he got into synth sounds in the 1980s, he found that he couldn't use alternate tunings or microtones, the music became more "generic" or less mysterious than the sound of the Miles Davis group in the early 70s when they were using microtonality. Now with csound you have an amazingly open ended system, I'm not stuck thinking in ordinary musical terms and I'm not stuck with a limited tonal pallate, I can specify notes arbitrarily and am not limited to a keyboard range or limited set of parameters. On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 5:25 PM, peiman khosravi <peimankhosravi@gmail.com> wrote: If I may add a few rusty old coppers to the discussion hat.
One's attitude to music dictates one's attitude to sound, which in turn dictates the tools needed to create the music. I don't see the point of talking about the tools or technology per se, away from the compositional thought processes that guide the technological usage in the first place. What does computer music even mean? Music made with computers? It could be a bad Mozart arrangement that uses the most sophisticated physical modeling program...
If one is concerned with the conventional musical syntax ONLY, then using a computer seems pointless to me as it is not born out of musical necessity (there may be economic justifications). So it seems more relevant to me to ask what is it that Paul Lansky is looking to create, what is his attitude to music as it where? If he is happy with dots on a page, that's probably because his attitude to music dictates dots on a page, in fact his computer music is so concerned with the conventional note-based approach that I never felt his use of computer had any more than novelty value or that it was compositionally justified - masterful as it may be though. Again one goes back to the old-age argument that the computer is not an instrument but a tool (although an instrument is a tool!!). Computer can be made into an instrument but I don't see the point unless this instrument somehow expands and enriches (from a blind listener's point of view) the sound-world of conventional instruments. Or why not get away from the concept of instruments and work directly with sounds now that we can? Either way, there needs to be a reason for using computers as opposed to an orchestra that is perceptually and directly relevant to the listening experience.
Another issue raised in the article was about the social interactivity aspect of instrumental performance. What about CDs? I think of Glen Gould, for what we know his recordings could all have been synthesized (later dubbed for maximum effect, with him humming the bass-line!). If that was the case would it be any less of a performance? In fact we know that Gould's final masters were the result of endless edits of many different takes, so in a way NOT 'real' performances.
Best
P
On 5 Aug 2008, at 19:33, <apalomba@austin.rr.com> <apalomba@austin.rr.com> wrote:
If I may add my humble thoughts, one of the wonderful things
about computer music is that it opens another dimension of creative
possibilities. While that is a great thing, it is also a curse because
you then not only have to worry about the notes you write
but also how to utilize some computer process in some aesthetically
pleasing. I often times think of it as composing a piano piece then
building your own piano and then playing your piece on that piano.
It can be a lot of extra work. Perhaps he is tired of having to worry
about such things. I can totally understand the way he feels.
Anthony
---- Christopher Watts <cwatts@stlawu.edu> wrote:
It's interesting to see what Lansky had to say about this almost 20
years ago:
http://silvertone.princeton.edu/~paul/view.html
The 7th paragraph speaks more or less to this specific point.
Best,
Chris
On Aug 5, 2008, at 1:26 PM, Michael Gogins wrote:
And, anybody can take a pencil and staff paper and put marks on it,
and pay a fiddler to play them. Anybody can write, anybody can
paint, anybody can compose, and anybody can think.
I agree that education, training, and professional experience are
helpful in becoming good, if that's what you mean. But I don't see
what this has to do with the question of computer music.
Regards,
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Bechard < gothmagog@yahoo.com> Sent: Aug 5, 2008 12:55 PM To: csound@lists.bath.ac.ukSubject: [Csnd] Re: Re: Paul Lansky throws in the towel Well, any Mac user CAN compose, and has a wide range of tools with which to do so in the electronic realm. Whether or not those compositions will be good, however, is another matter entirely. I think the author was simply trying to allude to the democratization of the music making process to the masses.
----- Original Message ----
From: luis jure <ljc@internet.com.uy>
To: csound list <csound@lists.bath.ac.uk>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2008 8:45:56 AM
Subject: [Csnd] Re: Paul Lansky throws in the towel
on 2008-08-05 at 15:58 DavidW wrote:
it is referencing this article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/06/arts/emusic.php
the article is worth reading for this gem:
"Any Mac user can compose,"
this is the art of journalism at its highest: the most complete
idiocy
summed up in five words. and fairly short words at that.
BTW, paul lanksy composed one of my favorite computer pieces of all
time, the six fantasies. i can't honestly say i like much some of his
other pieces, though. but i admire and respect him very much. for the
rest, i think a big fuzz is being made out of this, any composer
should
be free to follow their [*] artistic inclinations at any particular
moment. and free also from idiotic journalists.
best,
lj
[*] please note the politically correct use of the possessive
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