>>Striking that perfect balance between change and continuity, the proper
>relationship between
>>time and materials, etc.  Coaxing these out of a machine is damn hard
>work, and computational methods are
>>severely handicapped in this area.
>
>But the work is worthwhile, yes? Or do you feel that it's just an

>unsatisfying substitute for unavailable musicians or instruments?


Sure it's worthwhile! My point is that in general, people tend to spend too
much time worrying about timbre, to the detriment of musical "quality". I
thought the person who posted the original message was getting discouraged
about not being able to get the kinds of timbres he was looking for, and I
was trying to encourage him to focus on the musical structure rather than
worrying so much about timbre.

But hey - I'm not here to define what musical "quality" is. I happen to be a
huge fan of real-time performance as opposed to "studio" music; I guess I
just get bored listening to the same CD over and over, no matter how good it
is. That's not to say that there hasn't been a lot of great studio music
created, some of it even with tools as clunky as Csound!

>>Tools like CSound offer so much signal processing power that one is
>tempted to focus on timbre to the
>>exclusion of all else.
>
>I disagree. I consider it an advantage of csound, cmix, etc. that there
>are possibilities for timbral control beyond anything that exists with
>acoustic instruments. The possibility of writing music focused on
>structures of timbre rather than of pitch greatly enriches the world, at
>least for me.


There is a difference between "richness of possibility" and expressive
power. To be expressive you need some kind of paradigmatic structure, which
I find lacking in timbre but present in pitch.

BTW, I *have* composed several "non-pitch-oriented" pieces, and found this
in general to be a less satisfying experience than working with pitched
materials. Of course, one possibility computers offer (one that is greatly
underexplored IMO) is microtonality, that is, pitch systems OTHER than 12
equal-tempered notes per octave.

>>The problem with CSound, and with most electronic music, is that it
>lacks
>>the dynamic interaction between composer, performer, instrument, and
>audience that gives traditional music
>>its expressive power.
>
>"It's not a bug, it's a feature." [ chop]


Yes, there is an element of "instant gratification" that is intensely
satisfying. I am quite familiar with this phenomenon. However, the end
result tends not to hold up to repeated listening, because the deep
structure of the music is either non-existent or incomprehensible.

>>IMO, the really hard, truly interesting problems of computer music are
>not in
>>how to produce beautiful sounds, but how to imbue the computer with the
>musical "common sense" that
>>made the careers of Mozart, Beethoven and Stravinsky possible.
>
>?? What is this "common sense"? You're talking about some pretty
>uncommon composers there. If you mean that you want your electronic
>music to sound intuitively similar to familiar acoustic music, well,
>that's one way to do it... though I've never seen the point myself. If
>I've misunderstood you... well then I've misunderstood you!
>
>--PW


Well, common sense is pretty uncommon in life and in music. What I mean by
it is the elusive quality of "musicality" that many people are able to
recognize when they hear but is so difficult to articulate, just as the
rules of "common sense" in everyday life can be. I think the electronic
music pieces that succeed do so by being *musical* - a concept which for me
at least transcends "style".

- mps