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Electronic folk music
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Kassen
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 9:07 am    Post subject: Electronic folk music Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

http://www.nabble.com/article-td18032034.html

Very interesting discussion with good links over on the SC list¹. Touches on the usage of electronics in folk and dance music. Particularly the notes on African and South American music might be interesting to some here who -in the past- talked about electronic music being such a exclusively white/western affair (which it of course isn't).


¹Yeah, James, I occasionally lurk there to see what you guys are up to ;¬)

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 9:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Maybe a side path, but does traditional folk music also use electronic instruments? In The Hague most Turkish music groups use Korg keyboards, loaded with sampled sounds...

At the other hand, in India, in traditional classic music, the tambura is the instrument which provides that typical drone, see
http://chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/tanpura.html
These instruments can be replaced by a 'shruti box', see
http://raganet.com/RagaNet/Issues/3/srutibox.html
but also by the electronic version, see
http://www.jas-musicals.com/sectrad/Electronics-Instruments.asp

BTW in The Netherlands electronic and sometimes electric instruments are not done in the folk scene: just the right instrument, as original as possible. If a flute is made out of plastic (electricity pipe) it has to be home build by yourself.

Wout
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Wout Blommers wrote:
Maybe a side path, but does traditional folk music also use electronic instruments? In The Hague most Turkish music groups use Korg keyboards, loaded with sampled sounds...


To go even further, it's not at all unusual to have renditions of traditional North African songs/structures with modern dance music elements where the whole things is stuffed straight into a computer.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Here's what Steve Reich had to say in a 1993 interview (ch. 46 of his Writings on Music 1965-2000).
Quote:
We're living in a culture where music videos are a kind of urban folk art. People make them not only in professional studios but on home home desktop computers. You can get a good hit on what folk music is today by simply looking in the window of any music store. What do you see? Samplers, amplifiers, electric guitars, and keyboards -- all kinds of electronics. These are street instruments . . .

Historically, composers have always been interested in folk music and the popular music of their day as well . . . It seems to me when composers look down on all the popular music around them, they are generally suffering from some sort of emotional disorder.

I especially like that last bit Laughing

Over the last year or so, my intention in processing audio from finger-picked banjo and guitar has become the attempt to extend the natural range of my fingers and the instrument, much as I might do in procuring yet another banjo. Initially this was a matter of highlighting specific acoustic elements such as a tone ring, resonator or head of a particular banjo, but I soon discovered that I could use delays that are multiples of my finger picking speed to roll accents around, and generally to multiply perceived fingers, sort of like playing rounds at the eighth or quarter note temporal resolution. I am working on newer technqiues for capturing and processing audio feedback from the instrument and room. These are natural extensions of several generations of the development of finger-picked banjo, and as such are part of the folk process. It is a natural, evolutionary step in a folk tradition.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kassen wrote:
To go even further, it's not at all unusual to have renditions of traditional North African songs/structures with modern dance music elements where the whole things is stuffed straight into a computer.
Which also could indicate 'lack of inspiration', 'the will of making good selling music' or 'mis-interpretation from our side: just want to hear something in it'.

So which structures and which elements?

I'm still sceptical towards idea's of romantism in the African music.

Wout
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 2:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I have a great DJ Dolores (http://www.myspace.com/djdoloresaparelhagem) record called "Arapelhagem" that I pick out every now and then and listen to. It's a mixture of some kind of beat-driven electronica and various very Brazilian-soundingstuff. I think I recognise the rapping "nord"(?)-style from a documentary I've seen about the kind of naughty dueling that people do over a tambourine beat. Great stuff.

Maybe the use of electronics can help to channel stuff like this to the outside world, like an entry point? I would probably love some of that vanilla Brazilian folk music, but I don't find it on the shelves and I don't understand portugese on the web sites.

/Stefan

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well, is this electronic folk music or not...

(It's made for the NM Classic Smile

http://nm-archives.electro-music.com/010_NordModular/014_Interesting_Threads/Folder/PolyRhithm/PolyRithm01.htm

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Wout Blommers wrote:
Which also could indicate 'lack of inspiration',


Erm, how so? I would find it easier to argue that playing traditional music on traditional instruments would count as "a lack of inspiration", if I were son inclined, which I'm not.


Quote:
'the will of making good selling music'


If "stuff it all into the computer" means "good selling" I'd like some of the money by now. Please.

Quote:

or 'mis-interpretation from our side: just want to hear something in it'.


I don't. I find a lot of it quite unlistenable and formulaic if highly culturally interesting.

Quote:

So which structures and which elements?


Tuning, timbre (at least to a degree), melodic patterns, rhythmical patterns, vocal style, lyrical subjects, that kind of thing.

Quote:

I'm still sceptical towards idea's of romantism in the African music.


I have no idea what you are talking about here. What is "romantism" in this context? Are you talking about love songs, references to romantic-era music or something else entirely?

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Wout Blommers wrote:
Well, is this electronic folk music or not...


No, I wouldn't say so. I find it quite hard to call anything that's not listened to and played by large groups of people "folk music". I'd call that a "folk music inspired experiment".... Which is perfectly fine as well, of course.

This is of course unless there is some group of people somewhere holding large NM-based street-festivals to dance to rhythmical noodles. In that case it might be "folk music", I suppose.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I think "romanticization" here is the idea of the noble savage who lives at a level of authenticity that Westerners (i.e., Europeans and their culturally bastard offspring in the US) talked themselves out of some centuries ago.

It could be tempting to regard street music as more "real" somehow than what goes on in academic music departments (never mind that the use of computers to make that street music would be impossible without decades of academic research!).

For myself, I don't think there is any such thing as authenticity anymore. Maybe there never was. Composers have always been manipulators of cultural signifiers for various emotional states -- is Beethoven's 9th triumphant, or "triumphant"? Is there a reliable way to tell the two apart?

And of course, today's pop music is even more craven and cynical in that practice of manipulation.

James

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

The term "folk music" seems to mean different things to different people.

As a simple example, when I learned to play the guitar as a teenager, one of the first songs I learned was "Blowin' in the Wind." I am quite confident that most people at the time, as many people today, would mentally classify that song in the category of "folk music." But it was written by Bob Dylan as part of a commercial effort. So how can we categorize it as folk music? Doesn't folk music have to be music of unknown or obscure authorship that is part of the "aural tradition"? (pun intended)

Another definition I've heard is that folk music is mostly anonymous music that expresses the life of a community. If that's the definition, can't we say that electronic music the folk music of the computer-geek community?
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 7:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I would say 'folk music' is played by musicians as the early Bob Dylan, Simon&Garfunkel, Woody Guthrie and even The Birds by calling it 'folk rock'. The chanting of buddhist monks I would call 'ethnic music'.

Music is always for the people, so this can't be an argument.
Dance music is a typical 'popular' style in music, so in the western world electronic music is very popular!

How the music is produced, by drums, strings, computer, radio, mp3, etc is only a matter of the media.

Sound doesn't need air to be heard, anyway.

Wout
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 7:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I suppose... or "romantism in the African music" might be referring to The influence of the Roman empire on North Africa during the prime of that empire? :¬) Nobody has mentioned any "noble savages" at all. I'm still lost as to what Wout might mean.

Anyway, in a way academic computer music is gaining many traits of folk music. It's sound, instruments and structure are becoming traditionalised, the gatherings ritualised. At the first familiar sounds of pulse-trains and grains coming from the speakers placed around the audience we get the comforting certainty that this is "experimental music" and it's "new and modern", we know we are ahead of our times listening to it; certainly more modern the new-fangled R&B one hears on the street. We know this because this exact kind of music has "new", "modern" and "experimental" for a long time; it's a proud tradition, dating back decades. That's not to say there haven't been developments; the "flight-sim joystick" is a relatively recent addition that hasn't been used a lot for more then a decade, a decade and a half at most. The usage of such a modern instrument might seem strange in such a traditional style but interestingly it's tolerated and frequently indeed applauded because it's exact effect on the music can rarely be determined and so the distraction it causes is deemed minimal.

While it's not sufficiently popular to be called "folk", IMHO, I do think academic computer music is extremely tribal in nature, which might be even more interesting.

[edit; I wrote this before seeing Ark and Wout's last posts in reply to James.]

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 7:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Wout Blommers wrote:
I would say 'folk music' is played by musicians as the early Bob Dylan, Simon&Garfunkel, Woody Guthrie and even The Birds by calling it 'folk rock'. The chanting of buddhist monks I would call 'ethnic music'.


Hmmmmm. To me Buddhist chanting is very clearly religious music, I don't see what ethnicity has to do with it, particularly not if we are talking about Buddhism which is practised all over the world. Amusingly, Leonard Cohen (who is presumably "folk" to you as well?) became a Buddhist monk later.

We have a linguistic problem here though;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_music
You are referring to what WiKipedia calls the "American culture" meaning while I'm talking about "traditional music" and "popular music based on traditional music".

If we are going to call everything that's not based on European traditions "Ethnic music" we might as well quit the whole discussion.

Quote:

Music is always for the people, so this can't be an argument.


..and it wasn't. The way in which different people use different styles of music is relevant though. In many cultures there is a separation between religious/ceremonial music and popular music for celebrations, dances, etc.


Quote:
Dance music is a typical 'popular' style in music, so in the western world
electronic music is very popular!


How the music is produced, by drums, strings, computer, radio, mp3, etc is only a matter of the media.


You should beware at this point, Wout, you are veering dangerously close to grasping the topic of the discussion, you may want to take a step or two back ;¬).

The whole point of linking to the above discussion was that some people on this forum (most notably Mosc) had expressed the idea that electronic music was primarily (if not exclusively) a Western affair. This is why I linked to that discussion with it's interesting links on the usage of computers in popular and tradition-based dance music in South America and Africa and why I talked about modern, computer based, Raï above. Raï is a really good example as it's so clearly traditional folk music and nearly entirely electronic these days and conveniently we have The Hague artists in that field as well as the style being hard to avoid at all in many neighbourhoods.

Quote:

Sound doesn't need air to be heard, anyway.


That would be another example of a remark where you lost me entirely, I fear.

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 9:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I've always considered myself a folkie, although that doesn't give me any particular credibility Shocked

To me folk music is partly a populist notion that anybody can make music, in their living room or back porch or at parties or even front porch, without engaging professionals or formal studies. This is music as a natural human form of expression, communication and interaction, and at least among some subsets of Western culture it has been supplanted by strictly passive consumption of popular product. (Frank Zappa used to annoy some listeners by making statements to the effect that, "I like to tailor my product to the tastes and demands of the local markets when on tour." Laughing ) I meet a lot of musicians, though, many of them amateurs or modest professionals, so I guess this mode of expression is still alive.

Another important aspect of folk music is its linkage to a tradition, but that does not necessarily entail slavish repetition or imitation of the tradition. Bluegrass is a recent genre of music that grew out of Appalachian Mountain music, itself with roots in both British Isle "folk music" (I'd say "traditional music" but I suspect that some of the traditions had already morphed by the time this music got here) and West African music. The 5-string banjo is a modestly morphed West African instrument (the 5th string and later frets were added here) used in bluegrass; the syncopation in bluegrass has African roots, and the instrumental breaks were inspired by jazz performance. I don't know that many people on this list would consider bluegrass art music; it was born largely as commercial music, but it has been absorbed into a great deal of amateur expression and communication in this country. So, I think it is a fair example of a discrete evolutionary step (as opposed to a gradual, continuous one) in a folk tradition, but the fact that is is reabsorbed back into a folk context makes it folk.

When my daughter used to dance to old Michael Jackson songs about 10 years ago, and I'd jump in with banjo riffs from the back porch -- she was initially surprised that I could do that -- it was folk music.

A couple years ago, when I heard my son's electric bass putting the heating ducts into resonance from the basement, and I quickly set up a guitar synth to send counter-phrases back down the heating ducts, starting at his first rest, that was folk music.

Both formalization and commercialization of music help to give rise to the cultural distinctions that make terms like "folk music" and "ethnic music" meaningful at all. I think part of the folk process is just unifying over these seemingly disparate categories and making some music for the fun of it, just as people making music.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kassen wrote:
Wout Blommers wrote:
Quote:
Sound doesn't need air to be heard, anyway.
That would be another example of a remark where you lost me entirely, I fear.
Sound can be conveyed by metals and liquids too. You hear things under water, sir Smile It could well be 'In space no one can hear you scream..., because nobody is screaming in space...?' BTW I wrote that statement to undermine the typical optimistic phrase: as long there are air molecules vibrating you can call it music...
It's all in the perception and the point of view. Ethnical music, not non-western music, because the 'Vleegerd' and the 'IJswals' are as European as can be and above all: typical Dutch! Still I don't want to call it 'folk music', all be it to avoid Acoustic Interloper to jump in with his five string banjo: that's Pete Seeger songs are for Wink

It's not that ethnical music just a simple form of music. I want you to play a Macedonian 11/8 measure, not that simple at all. Anyway, these strange measurements are related to the steps in the dance. With ethnical I mean music embedded in a certain culture and a certain region. Lets face it, although very popular, Michel Jackson's songs could never have been Dutch music. Even the Golden Earring makes American based music, but in a typical Dutch way...

Until here...

Wout
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 11:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

So Bob Dylan, who's work is very much linked to a culture and region made "Ethnical music" as well?
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 12:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kassen wrote:
So Bob Dylan, who's work is very much linked to a culture and region made "Ethnical music" as well?
Don't ask this question to a Dylan freak Smile Yep, Bob Dylan is by all means North-American music. Listen to 'Planet Waves', which he made together with another North-American music icon: The Band. To the bone real North-American music Smile It couldn't come from Russia or Mozambique...

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 1:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Ok, I will but right now I have to listen to a lot of The Who first (now there's some "ethnical music"!).

If Dylan is "ethnical music" to you as well then all is fine. To me the word "ethnical" always seemed to co-notate some form of judgement, like "foreigner" also means "uncultured" in some languages.

Anyway, what I find interesting here is that computers have gotten/are getting so cheap and so omni-present that they are coming within reach of extremely large groups of people. As "folk music" is characterised, at least partially, by cheaply and generally available instruments it stands to reason that the computer becomes a part of folk music. Right now is a very interesting time in that for many people a warezed copy of FruityLoops to run on a computer that's around anyway is cheaper then a banjo and that group is getting ever larger.

To me it's extremely interesting that the first popular musical style I'm aware of that was typically based just on a single computer as a instrument was Gabber; a very Dutch style that almost immediately incorporated many more traditional elements of folk music; themes from traditional children's songs and actually more then a few references to clog-dances. It's of course not bon-ton to look at it that way but I think it's true. I think Gabber will later be seen as the first stage of a very interesting transition of what we see as "folk" music. Admittedly it's a rather untraditional perspective on "tradition" but you simply can't argue with what the youth of a culture will dance to.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 11:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kassen wrote:
Ok, I will but right now I have to listen to a lot of The Who first (now there's some "ethnical music"!). If Dylan is "ethnical music" to you as well then all is fine. To me the word "ethnical" always seemed to co-notate some form of judgement, like "foreigner" also means "uncultured" in some languages.
No, it means 'watch out!' Those villains will eat your wife behind your back Wink An idea like that is already left ages ago. Now-a-days most ethnic studies take place in the researcher's own country. Although written to get a degree in Geography, the paper and movie 'When I sold my soul to the machine' is an ethnical study about electronic music in the west coast of The Netherlands. I don't recall all of it now, but I thought there were no conclusions drawn about the question 'Why there?', which is IMHO a key question in geography. Anyway it is a start of a description why The Hague became the 'centre' of the Dutch electro, and not other cities (like Amsterdam and Rotterdam). BTW I believe the rather large group of Italo fans in The Hague is also due to this all) But to be short, you too, Kassen, can be the subject of an ethnic study and I won't call you 'uncultured' Laughing
Quote:
Anyway, what I find interesting here is that computers have gotten/are getting so cheap and so omni-present that they are coming within reach of extremely large groups of people. As "folk music" is characterised, at least partially, by cheaply and generally available instruments it stands to reason that the computer becomes a part of folk music. Right now is a very interesting time in that for many people a warezed copy of FruityLoops to run on a computer that's around anyway is cheaper then a banjo and that group is getting ever larger.
Is there any reason why this shouldn't happen? Of course everybody will use those instruments which are available to express one selves. When when it has a short learning curve, the better. But are you suggesting a composer, who uses a computer, is making just 'folk music'? Referring to the American folk, I would like the to know what Pete Seeger would have done when Bob shuffled on stage, opened up his laptop and threw some beats in the Newport Folk Festival audience... He would really used that axe Very Happy
Quote:
To me it's extremely interesting that the first popular musical style I'm aware of that was typically based just on a single computer as a instrument was Gabber; a very Dutch style that almost immediately incorporated many more traditional elements of folk music; themes from traditional children's songs and actually more then a few references to clog-dances. It's of course not bon-ton to look at it that way but I think it's true. I think Gabber will later be seen as the first stage of a very interesting transition of what we see as "folk" music. Admittedly it's a rather untraditional perspective on "tradition" but you simply can't argue with what the youth of a culture will dance to.
This is a nice discussion point. One of the elements of in ethnic music is the influence of the past, the tradition, it had to be played that way, using those instruments... Also 'teaching by practise' is an important element. In pop music this is always the way musicians are learning their stuff. But again, knowing the cultural knowledge of the average Gabbertje, I believe those themes are the only ones they know, besides the famous 'Ole-ole-o-le-o-leee' (which means 'Allah', but don't tell a Gabber) Very Happy Anyway, I'm still searching for any melodic element in Gabber music...

Wout
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 3:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Wout Blommers wrote:
No, it means 'watch out!' Those villains will eat your wife behind your back Wink


Well, if she enjoys it, what's the harm? Laughing Embarassed

Talking about computers as cheap instruments makes me think about the theory that the rise of hip hop was connected to riots in New York (I think it was there), where shops were looted and lots of turntables were stolen and ended up under the hands of wannabe DJs, scratching and rapping. Now that's folk!

/Stefan

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kassen wrote:
If Dylan is "ethnical music" to you as well then all is fine. To me the word "ethnical" always seemed to co-notate some form of judgement, like "foreigner" also means "uncultured" in some languages.


Interesting, I don't have that connotation at all for "ethnic" this or that.

Speaking of ethnic studies:

Georgina Born: Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde - basically an anthropological study of IRCAM.

James

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Wout Blommers wrote:
Although written to get a degree in Geography, the paper and movie 'When I sold my soul to the machine' is an ethnical study about electronic music in the west coast of The Netherlands.


Sorry, that documentary has nothing to do at all with the geography paper aside from dealing with the same subject. I can't react on that movie because I've never seen it and wasn't really involved at all, it but I know for sure that the paper has nothing to do with ethnicity at all. Ethnicity refers to a perceived common history, typically with regard to culture and genes, and the people in this scene have nothing like that and if anybody perceives them to have this I'm not aware of it. What you might arguably have is a sub-culture but I think even that is pushing it because it's just a few people. I'd concede to having a "perceived subculture". To me it's just a group of friends and acquaintances.

Look it up; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group

Quote:
But to be short, you too, Kassen, can be the subject of an ethnic study and I won't call you 'uncultured' Laughing


Really? I think that would be quite hard because I don't "identify with others based on a common history or genealogy" at all. In fact I don't even use my own last name; actively try to obfuscate my genealogy. You might of course arbitrarily imagine me to be a part of some ethnic group, like the people I run into who are sure I must be of partial African or Jewish decent but by that time I think you might as well assume I'm a dolphin and write a paper on how remarkable it is that I can type English texts, most other dolphins don't, this wouldn't be any more or less arbitary.

Quote:
Is there any reason why this shouldn't happen? Of course everybody will use those instruments which are available to express one selves.


I think it's a matter of perception, mainly. Using the computer in that way demands a change of perceiving it as a long-distance communication device, toy or office machine towards perceiving it as a instrument. You could make that same jump with many other things as well... and such jumps could have any number of effects on the music that results from them. No; there's no reason why it shouldn't happen but many other things might've happened as well and it's interesting that this one did.

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When when it has a short learning curve, the better.


That's a very different subject but I don't think the computer as a instrument has "a short learning curve", some people dedicate most of their lives to it and I'm not aware of anybody ever having come close to mastery.


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But are you suggesting a composer, who uses a computer, is making just 'folk music'?


No, of course not you seem to be missing the entire point of why I started the topic.


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Referring to the American folk, I would like the to know what Pete Seeger would have done when Bob shuffled on stage, opened up his laptop and threw some beats in the Newport Folk Festival audience...


I would like the to know what Pete Seeger would have done when Bob shuffled on stage, opened up his laptop and threw some synthesised plucked strings in the Newport Folk Festival audience, then proceeded to sing his own backing backing vocals using live recording and looping techniques while using FFT analysis to have the strings automatically tune to his voice...

But I suppose "some beats" would've been cool as well.



Quote:

This is a nice discussion point. One of the elements of in ethnic music is the influence of the past, the tradition, it had to be played that way, using those instruments... Also 'teaching by practise' is an important element. In pop music this is always the way musicians are learning their stuff.


Not per-se, you are talking about "folk music", you could easily have a ethnic group that worked in a decidedly non-folk way. For example, the Budhist chants that you described as "ethnic" (and me as religious) do have a -at least partially- a written tradition, as far as I know, which would make them very clearly non-folk.

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But again, knowing the cultural knowledge of the average Gabbertje, I believe those themes are the only ones they know, besides the famous 'Ole-ole-o-le-o-leee' (which means 'Allah', but don't tell a Gabber) Very Happy Anyway, I'm still searching for any melodic element in Gabber music...


I think you are mixing up "ethnic music" and "folk music" here, as well as "soccer supporters" and "gabbers", I have never heard any gabbers sing "ole". Furthermore, you are mixing up your perception of the average post-hype consumer of Gabber music with the gabber musicians.... but I'm not really going to argue that point as I find "cultural knowledge" too vague and I don't think you can demand that "folk musicians" know more themes then the ones that they use... In fact; doing anything else then simply using the themes you grew up with and know in your music to me seems decidedly un-folk-like.

At least in the early days Gabber absolutely *was* a oral culture where the only way of learning to make it was finding somebody who already knew and getting them to teach you to use a tracker; a non-trivial skill; very typical for folk music. Anyway, I dare you; get a Amiga, run OctaMED and try to transcribe a traditional song to it, backing this with a 4/4 beat. Once you're done you can come back and tell me again how uncultured those people were and how much harder strumming a guitar is.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

dewdrop_world wrote:

Speaking of ethnic studies:


Anthropological, yes, but ethnic? How is that a ethnic study?

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kassen wrote:
Anthropological, yes, but ethnic? How is that a ethnic study?
Both words are almost the same. Concerning music 'ethnic' is mostly used. Anthropology, okay by me, as long it won't be anthroposophy or anthropophagy Wink

Anyway, it's about culture and that's a rather large field to study.

Wout
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