You're 100% onto my point, and you said it much better. I should have been
less glib.
Knowing the intricacies of some Xenakis has taken the flash and bite out of
it. But with Xenakis especially, some works (yes, I generalize) are about
the realization of a process or complex system into music. Personally, I'm
fascinated about the imposition of non-musical systems into music (one of my
compositions uses chess games translated into sound): A meaningful structure
in one context translated into a musical one. Sometimes it works, sometimes
not. Xenakis does some of this, and I've been curious as to the
how/why/what. And knowing more about some of the pieces has dissapointed me
(Waarg, Eonta), some it has engaged me (Jonchaies, Persephassa).


> Why should teetering anywhere remove the kick from music? Who 
> cares where
> the sound waves come from, or how the composer corralled 
> them? At any rate,
> I don't. I'm interested in how good they sound.
> 
> It's true that knowing how they were made does affect my 
> perception of the
> music, but I regard this as noise - I'm curious about how 
> music is made so I
> want to know how it was made, but I'd almost rather not know 
> so that my
> hearing would be colored only by the music itself.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Grant Covell 
> To: Csound (E-mail) 
> Date: Wednesday, April 28, 1999 8:11 AM
> Subject: FW: Recommended Xenakis?
> 
> 
> >...discusses the UPIC software/tool he used for La Legende
> >d'Eer. And of course Formalized Music is a major requirement for
> >understanding just what makes Xenakis tick (though seeing 
> the line where
> >music teeters between a realization of complex systems and 
> pure music is
> >somewhat depressing as it takes the kick out of some of 
> Xenakis' music for
> >me).
>