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An Oenyaw project open for discussion
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Wayne Higgins



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PostPosted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 2:47 pm    Post subject: An Oenyaw project open for discussion Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I've had an idea for a composition that's to the point of bugging me. What did Holst say? "Don't compose anything until you can't stop from composing it" (Or something like that).

Anyway, a friend on another board introduced me to a concept of rhythm less music. No beat. One would think it's easy, but when you're accustomed to rhythm as a natural state of mind, rhythmless is unimaginable. Also, toying with the idea of a combination of Schoenberg's 12 note scale and Indian scales that are different ascending and descending. The trick is making something like this listenable. I'm not thinking in terms of "has this been done." If I did, I'd never do anything.

I'm looking for ideas of theme and approachment. There's the Eno "Music for Airports" approach of loops that are arranged. Then there's the good old improv approach, but something of this magnitude will take planning to execute.

I'm actually thinking sine waves intermingling creating other sine waves. Something slow. (and for me, probably long.)

Any suggestions will be read, maybe used, but never ignored.
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modulator_esp
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Some techniques I like for non-rhythmic music:
Sounds with long attack/decay release
Drones with slow timbral changes
Long loops of different lengths

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EdisonRex
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:45 pm    Post subject:
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I don't think you can make rhythmless music. I had this debate on the sound sculptures group list a while back, what's the difference between sound sculpture and music, and we started to say it was rhythmic content but that got shot down.

Think about it, beating sine waves will have a rhythm. Juxtaposing loops will create a complex, maybe unpredictable rhythm, but a rhythm nonetheless, and one that will repeat the pattern. Rhythm being a repeating pattern, it fits.

Either way, it is not algorithms. Algorithmic music is composition of music by complex or arbitrary formulae. An example of an algorithmic music package, which I used a lot, would be Dr T's Tunesmith, which ran on the Atari ST and I don't know if he's ever ported it anywhere else. In fact I think someone else helped write it, I read it someplace, he might even be on these forums.

Anyway, another algorithmic composing tool is M. You can still get that.

Algorithmic composing tends to have tools associated with it, because in order to get consistent rules you need mechanical help. Ironically, I think.

So I am curious since I've been listening to your music, I wonder if you are thinking you want to try sound sculpture.

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Low Note



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PostPosted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 8:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I don't want to open a can of worms, but it is possible to lose a sense of rhythm in music, if it slowed down enough. Those composers that are working in extreme long form composition (pieces that take years and years to execute).

I feel that rhythm has to have some underlying repetitive regular space that is perceivable. That's really wordy. The point is that if music ideas change so slowly that they can't be glued together in ones mind, a sense of rhythm is simply replaced with a foggy concept of the passing of time.

Rhythm perception is pretty specific. For example, if a pattern takes more than 4 (maybe 5) to repeat, the brain has a hard time grouping it together. For example, rhythm schemes larger than 5 are often 'felt' or perceived as sets of 2 or 3. That's why I would differentiate the concepts of time and rhythm. The brain can't really put things together.

At the same time, all music comes down to rhythm. A jazz trombone player once made a point with me to compare really fast bop tempos to say... the bottom of a tuba's register. Scary as it is, you get pretty close to the speed at which charlie parker played and pedal tones from a tuba. At its very core, every sound has its own 'tempo' content that we perceive as frequency.

I find this really fascinating, actually, but before I dive hard into psychoacoustics, I feel like I need to know a lot more about the physics of sound.
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elektro80
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:23 am    Post subject:
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EdisonRex wrote:
I don't think you can make rhythmless music. I had this debate on the sound sculptures group list a while back, what's the difference between sound sculpture and music, and we started to say it was rhythmic content but that got shot down.


I agree, but I guess it depends on how we define rythm. It seems that any piece of music recognized as such, will have some kind of structuring of events that makes it stand out as music and not as a stream of sound. So, music is what we hear as music and not as "sounds". This must be seen in a wider cultural context since obviously the perception of music is not a constant.

As for rythm, are we talking TR 808s and sample CD loops here? Or are we talking a kind of music that structurally and event wise systemically defies traditional western perceptions of metricity? If the latter, then obviously a systemic approach will create a need for objects. relations and structures that will tend to build gestures that still would conform to most sensible and modern definitions of rythm.

Eno´s ambient music is a problem here because his definition of ambient must be taken seriously. According to himself, he basically composes music ( when he is doing his ambient stuff ) that is supposed to be a background, a soundscape and thus unobtrusive. That said, some of his working methods are interesting because in some of his ambient works he has managed to add a feel of randomness with structure.

A substantial part of my musical output has been "floating/ambient music" but frankly that isn´t quite how I think of this music myself and I´ve never made a point out of making music that is unobtrusive, rythmless or whatever. I rather tend to think of this music as some sort of modern take on orchestral concepts rather than ambient music. This music is as much written as my rythmic stuff.

Re soundsculpture, defining this wouldn´t be easy, but an academic way of looking at this would possible suggest that a soundsculpture will not apply musicial concepts or musical gestures. Still a soundscape/soundsculpture can clearly contain music clips, but the work as such and the context won´t treat these sound clips as music, but rather as snippets of sound. This is hard to explain, but easy to get when you study modern sound art.

A point to make is that even though music psychology as a field will clearly have releveance to sound art, traditional music theory will not.
Still, things might seem different by 2030.

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Wayne Higgins



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PostPosted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 7:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Thanks for all the construtive thoughts.

EdisonRex is right. If music is defined as organized sound, how can it not have a rhythm. I think what I may be considering as influential are Eno's "Neroli" and the backgound music of sticks in the scene in "Full Metal Jacket" where Lawrence murders the drill sargent. More like an unreconizable rhythm.

While walking one of my dogs recently, I stopped and listened to a bird. It was chirping a slow 1-2-3 then a fast 1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4,1-2-3. I used it on my latest finished piece as a background (about an hour and 55 minutes into it) during a fade out where the low note on the guitar was descending slowly in pitch(slow wang bar).

As far as sound sculpture, I've been "accused" of it before. I'm not really sure if that is ever the intention, because I have a hard time distinguishing such an event. On the album "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)", each song sounds to me as if Eno constructed a machine to play the music. Like some 19th century mechanical device. Most of what I hear as ambient/electronic to me is sound sculpture, but then again, I was the only one in an art class long ago that agreed that placing a urinal in a gallery was a work of art. I try not to second guess a composer or musician as to what their intentions are. I may send y'all a few attachments of full pieces, and get your opinions on what I've done.

I'm begining to think that what I really want to attempt is something very natural. I live in a forest, and alot of my ideas come from birds, insects and just the sounds I hear when it is quiet. (?) Rolling Eyes

And thanks loads elektro80 for "utmostsavagery_698". Very Legiti. I've listened to it three times already this morning.
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jkn



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PostPosted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 7:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Rehashing a bit of what's already been said... it's very hard to remove rhythm from the equation since as you've noticed in your forest, rhythm is everywhere around you and inside you.

I write a lot of "drumless" songs and some very drifty long form stuff... but I would find it very hard to remove rhythm entirely.

Writing something that is listenable... isn't that a trick question... Smile Many of the things I write for myself that I dearly love, don't excite many other people (although thankfully my wife loves to hear me play piano...) - and then the ironic bit of the things I toss out that I'm just noodling and people think that's so cool (yes, yes, I know everyone has that little delimma - the piece you spend countless hours on falls on deaf ears and the noodle you spent 5 minutes on impresses the heck out of everyone that listens... oh well...)

I don't know how excited I'd be about a piece of music that takes years to complete. A great novelty perhaps, interesting trivia bit... Isn't there a Stockhausen song (or is it a Cage song) that is being performed that will take a century to complete?

I love long form music - drifty ambient soundscape stuff - where one track is easily 60 minutes... the rhythm in those tracks is slow and subtle and more in the beating of the sounds, overtones, etc...

Oh well... I'm rambling. Back to work for me.



p.s. Oh - speaking of birds - we've got one heck of an interesting one hanging out around us right now... sounds a bit like a screaming baby. Took us by suprise first couple times we heard it.

And - we had the 17 year cicada symphony earlier this summer... wow.

And... I love the rythym of the gas pump at the station near our house. I think it's in 7/8 time... Smile
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Wayne Higgins



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PostPosted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 7:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

jkn!!!!!!!!!! I didn't know you were here, too!

Quote:
Writing something that is listenable... isn't that a trick question... Many of the things I write for myself that I dearly love, don't excite many other people (although thankfully my wife loves to hear me play piano...) - and then the ironic bit of the things I toss out that I'm just noodling and people think that's so cool (yes, yes, I know everyone has that little delimma - the piece you spend countless hours on falls on deaf ears and the noodle you spent 5 minutes on impresses the heck out of everyone that listens... oh well...)


That may be why my music goes on for countless hours. Laughing

Cage: 635 years I think. That's with repeats. I recently read that he performed a Satie piece that took 18 hours.

I lived in a house once that had these purple berries. When they were ripe, the tree was full of birds eating them. Funny thing was all the birds got drunk, made alot of incredible noise and sh*t all over everything! Purple bird poop everywhere! I wish I would have recorded that one.

The cicadas are always out down here, not as many this year as previous years. Hence "Cicadas Lullaby" on my first disc, "Leave That World Behind". This disc can be listened to in its entirety at http://www.isound.com/oenyaw/ in cas anyone's interested. 5 hours though. Bring a pillow.
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jkn



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PostPosted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

The Satie piece I remember came up on an old game show we were watching on the Game Show Network... either What's My Line or one of the other early 60's black and white shows. They had one of the piano players that was part of the long performance.

I know I posted this over on Hypnos when I saw it, I'll see if I can find the post... nope - I think that might be one of the ones that got lost over the years.

Anyway - it was neat hearing the guy play and explain what they were doing.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Oenyaw wrote:
Cage: 635 years I think. That's with repeats. I recently read that he performed a Satie piece that took 18 hours.


The Satie piece wouldn't be Vexations, would it?

Some grad students at Duke staged an all-night, overnight performance with tagteam pianists, not long after I graduated. The resident eccentric on the keyboard faculty showed up in a stereotypical poet's smock with beret. Great theater.

James

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Wayne Higgins



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PostPosted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That's the one. Wish I could have seen that performance.
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EdisonRex
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 10:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

dewdrop_world wrote:
Oenyaw wrote:
Cage: 635 years I think. That's with repeats. I recently read that he performed a Satie piece that took 18 hours.


The Satie piece wouldn't be Vexations, would it?

Some grad students at Duke staged an all-night, overnight performance with tagteam pianists, not long after I graduated. The resident eccentric on the keyboard faculty showed up in a stereotypical poet's smock with beret. Great theater.

James


I love the visuals for that.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Oenyaw wrote:

Cage: 635 years I think.


http://www.john-cage.halberstadt.de/

/Stefan

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Low Note



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PostPosted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

One of my composition professors was involved in the guinness world record performance of vexations back in the 60s? 70s? for the longest performance of it ever. They just dropped the tempo down a click.

The same group was involved in the shortest production of the ring cycle ever.
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Paradoxically (or so it would seem), running a rhythmic audio stream through a lot of different closely spaced delays that scatter around and smear attacks into the middle of decays, sustains and releases erodes a sense of rhythm. I've got a banjo tune that's like standing out in a heavy rain, being pelted by the pointillistic drops. Very little sense of rhythm.
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