From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V4 #99 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Monday, April 2 2001 Volume 04 : Number 099 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [idealcopy] RE: A Punk Blur ["giluz" ] RE: [idealcopy] Re:Punk Was Dead (Again) ["giluz" ] RE: [idealcopy] Posteverything advice wanted... ["giluz" ] [idealcopy] Week's picks ["giluz" ] Re: [idealcopy] progressive math ["david mack" ] RE: [idealcopy] progressive math ["giluz" ] Re: [idealcopy] Big Black ["ian jackson" ] Re: [idealcopy] Ballet Sham Killed Punky Oatey ["Ian B" ] Re: [idealcopy] Early Cabaret Voltaire (OT mostly) ["ian jackson" ] [idealcopy] Why are the buildings collapsing? [=?iso-8859-1?q?Graeme=20Ro] [idealcopy] OffTopic: Edgar Reitz - Interview ["giluz" ] [idealcopy] Re: barbra streisand [Eardrumbuz@aol.com] [idealcopy] Punks disobey rules [=?iso-8859-1?q?Graeme=20Rowland?= ] [idealcopy] OT - Questions and trivia about different threads... [Rick Hi] Re: [idealcopy] OT progressive math [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [idealcopy] RE: A Punk Blur > Giluz: > >>>>>There's no such thing - punk wouldn't have been > so good if it hadn't offered a new set of rules > instead of the old ones. > > What were these rules? A minimal set of no more than 2-3 chords per song; no solos (especially not guitar solos - if you insist on doing solos, make them as simple and easy as possible); no key changes (we can only play A, D, C &/or E anyway); musicians should have no previous musical experience, especially not classical or jazz background; 2-4 minutes long songs; (rhythm)guitar based music; redefinition of rock's greatest albums (throw away all the prog rock crap and put in some VU and stooges); a completely unrational and blind hatred of Pink Floyd (they were wankers, but ELP & Yes were even worse), etc... All of these are actually defined relating to prog-rock, but echoes of rockabilly are quite apparent. Lots of things are left out, like concentrating more on the sound of the instrument than the no. of notes you play per minute, making even more noise than was previously acceptable, etc. > What I'm referring to is freedom of expression. > > Yamatsuka Eye (Boredoms) said he thought of Boredoms > as a punk band and that that implied they could do > whatever they want (within their capability, > obviously). I completely accept the theory that punk is not music but an ideology (punk1). But there was also a musical aspect (punk2), and that was what eventually turned to mainstream middle-of-the-road rock music. > > Jim O'Rourke and Christian Fennesz (Mego / Touch) make > guitar based music. It is also laptop / sample based. > Distinctions such as 'guitar based' are becoming > increasingly meaningless. I guess you mean the > singer/guitar/bass/drums live set up of the usual rock > band. > > How do Silo figure in this distinction? And that's why most of these people are referred to as post-rock/math rock, because they don't do that Beatles-based rock group thing anymore. Even when they don't use electronics alongside more traditional rock instruments their music is rhythm based and repetitive in a very post-electronic way. I think Silo's one of the best examples for this definition as a post-rock band. > Is 'Twelve Times You' guitar based or sample based? Sample based and guitar based at the same time, which is the whole point about it, I think. Colin took a classic punk song, split it into samples and rearranged them. That's also post-rock: Manipulating audio electronically without losing that 'live' feeling of a rock band. > I question the entire orthodox 'punk history' as > defined by the likes of Savage's England's Dreaming > (nevertheless an informative book) It's on my book shelf, waiting patiently in the queue till I get to it. cheers, giluz ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 13:18:39 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: RE: [idealcopy] Re:Punk Was Dead (Again) > > I meant punk in the broader sense of the word, i.e. the punk > attitude and > > most of the things it's led to - there certainly is a straight > line going > > from punk to new wave and the alternative/indie scene of the 1980's. And > > when I said it died I meant that the music industry has finally > managed to > > sink its sharp teeth in it and turn it into an integral part of its > > money-making machine. > but capitalism was there from the start Capitalism is always there - if you take capitalism out you won't have any revolutionary art in the 20th century. Just as a few hundred years ago you couldn't seperate art from religion, you can't seperate art from capitalism since the 20th century (and even before that). Punk/New wave ideology did not ignore capitalism - it wanted to use it for its own purposes. cheers, giluz ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 13:34:26 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: RE: [idealcopy] Prunk > >>>>Henry Cow > I'd also highly recommend exCow drummist Chris > Cutler's live recording with electronic drone wizz > Thomas Dimuzio, 'Quake' - Neubauten-esque improvised > freedom on Recommended. > > All this stuff is way more 'punk' or 'alternative' to > me than stadium snoozers Radiohead, Green Day, etc... Rightly so, cause it's an ideological punk and not musical punk. > > But I think that comment would make Mr Cutler gag! > He wrote a book on pop which had a rather interesting > take on punk... setting it in the context of Sun Ra, > the Residents, Henry Cow, early Pink Floyd. I think > some on the list might see more sense in fitting Wire > in here than with any recognised punk lot. Cutler's book, File Under Popular, is a must for all music fans. Cutler uses marxist theory, social analysis and musicology very intelligently, he presents alternative ways of thinking about the whole history and progression of popular music. Cutler's musical collaborations are always worth it (if they're not always good, they're always interesting). > Punk is still with us. Its just that lots of people > swallowed the corporate media line that it died and > defined it as a genre rather than an idea. The thing is, it did exist as a genre as well (still does, unfortunately). Corporations had to ignore the ideological aspect of punk because it was so threatening, and accept the genristic aspect of it 'cause it sold so well. > How old are the stars really? According to Judaism, not more than 5000 years old, but Jews would believe anything, if it had God stamped on it. cheers, giluz ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 13:35:39 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: RE: [idealcopy] Posteverything advice wanted... > I have recently been in contact with the > Swim/Posteverything folks about trying to buy copies > of "...Brochure" and "..Third Day". And am having some > trouble with how to do it. > > The snag is living in the US without credit cards. > Have any of the US Copyists been able to buy CD's from > pinkflag.com with checks or MO's? If so, what is the > best approach to this sort of transaction? My first order for swim was before they accepted credit cards, and I just sent them cash, with the change being kept as credit for my next order. giluz ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 13:37:58 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: RE: [idealcopy] progressive math Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey: > How exactly are common chord progressions "mathematical"? I suppose you > could start arguing from the physical properties of sound, with octaves > being created by doubling the frequency and a fifth being 1.5 times the > frequency - but it's doubtful whether those physical facts were an > influence on what made chord progressions work (except, perhaps, in the > sense that concord might bear some relation to neat mathematical > equations, while discord leads to more complex...but I doubt it). I'd be > curious what your instructors were referring to. dMc: > music is all about numbers > and times - which are all about > numbers > making music without math is like writing poetry without letters (ora > characters in the east) > Math being a sort of universal logical language, this kinda contradicts the fact that despite music's so called dependance on math, musical conventions and rules change from culture to culture: The math of a half-note gap between each note is totally different to the math of quarter-notes existing in eastern music (and indian quarter-notes math is different to the Egyptian quarter-note math). Math is just the best way to capture, describe and analyse music quite accurately - it's not what it's made of. Computer programmes are also about times and numbers, but you won't get a coherent musical output if you've used computer code as the input. cheers giluz ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 14:05:20 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: [idealcopy] Week's picks frigg - brecht faust - faust box / rien fall - a world bewitched / psykick dancehall / unutterable / light user syndrome iggy pop - the idiot eno - here come the warm jets / another green world neu! - neu! leftfield - leftism specials - stereotypical pil - plastic box turing machine - a new machine for living echoboy - vol. 2 various - dugga dugga dugga kevin ayers - joy of a toy new soul - reverberation remixes by muslimgauze malka spigel - hide wire - 3rd day giluz ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 08:00:56 -0500 From: "david mack" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] progressive math G said: > Computer programmes are also about times and numbers, but you won't get a coherent > musical output if you've used computer code as the input. The analogy is appropriate. But I take another view. One of my personal heros is John Cage who made a career of inappropriate musical input. Coherency in in the ear of the behearer. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 15:22:55 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: RE: [idealcopy] progressive math > G said: > > Computer programmes are also about times and numbers, but you > won't get a > coherent > > musical output if you've used computer code as the input. > > The analogy is appropriate. > But I take another view. > > One of my personal heros is John Cage who made a career of inappropriate > musical input. > > Coherency in in the ear of the behearer. I'm not talking about coherency here. Cage didn't invent his own math. By the time Cage started composing maths was already being used in classical music (or so I heard). Cage's work was a continuation of an already existing musical trend, which probably had its own rules of applying maths. I always found Cage's pieces to be more interesting theoretically and intellectually than musically. But this doesn't prove anything (besides being just a personal opinion, but Cage is one of my personal heroes as well, despite all that): cage might've been mathematically inclined, but that's not why he was a genius. Nor does it make any composer who uses maths a genius. It's not the maths - it's the way you use the numbers and what you do with them that counts - numbers are just the instruments. giluz ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 14:47:49 +0100 From: "ian jackson" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Big Black seconded, 'songs about f#%!king' & 'atomiser' are the crucial lp's, also the single 'il duce'. ian.s.j. >From: Graeme Rowland >To: idealcopy@smoe.org >CC: timrobinson@cwcom.net >Subject: [idealcopy] Big Black >Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 16:07:39 +0100 (BST) > >Tim asked > >>>>Anyone care to recommend a great albini/BB record >for starters? > >Go for either 'Songs About Fnuging' or 'Atomizer'. >The CD version of 'Atomizer' replaces the album's >weakest track with the entire Headache/Heartbeat >12"+7" EP so if you must have CD then 'The Rich Man's >8 Track' is a good place to start. The 'Pigpile' live >album is a bit of top notch home entertainment too. > >The best Shellac records are the 'Action Park' album >and the second 7" 'Uranus'. > >Just in case you missed it, allow me to shamelessly >plug the Shellac interview on Cracked Machine! > >Here's a useful site on Big Black: > >http://www.olywa.net/pasha90/bigblack.htm > >Kill the cow! >Graeme > >===== >Cracked Machine irregular cyberzine >http://www.webinfo.co.uk/crackedmachine > >"What one thinks of as extremes seldom are" :: BC Gilbert >Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk >or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 21:20:33 +0100 From: "Ian B" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Ballet Sham Killed Punky Oatey - ----- Original Message ----- From: Graeme Rowland > Punk was dead when Sham 'singer' Jimmy Pursey did the > most inept ballet ever seen on TV. > It laughed itself to death. > Would that be the one to The Stranglers' Meninblack? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 14:55:28 +0100 From: "Ian B" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] MA's IC - ----- Original Message ----- From: they.wait Ian > > And is that a deliberate Wire reference > > in Massive Attack's Inertia Creeps? > They.wait > what reference? please explain Ian Maybe I've misheard, but "12xU" in the lyric. Not that it's important. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 15:09:56 +0100 From: "ian jackson" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Early Cabaret Voltaire (OT mostly) personally, i'd go for '2 x 45', still sounds amazing after all this time. ian.s.j. >From: Tim Robinson >To: idealcopy@smoe.org >Subject: [idealcopy] Early Cabaret Voltaire (OT mostly) >Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 01:31:59 +0100 > >I'm trying to get my head around early Cabs stuff. > >I got into them through an excellent LP they did in the 90s called The >Conversation (no vocals although Mal is credited....mind you Give Peace a >Chance had Lennon/McCartney credit too!) and Richard H Kirks excellent >solo Lps on Warp (would suit any Autechre fans especially the first one) >but of their early early stuff I've only really heard 'The Living >Legends' which is intruiging enough to want to hear more. Radical >departures seem to be their thing! >Some of it is very like Dome...in fact Burnt to the Ground is a dead >ringer for 'To Walk to Run' off Dome4. Wonder if there was any mutual >appreciation? > >Can anyone recommend a route around their early back-catalogue when they >were on Rough Trade. Theres lots of it and I'm not sure where to >begin....or should I just not go there? > >p.s. re: Fall Kareoke: I've heard Graemes Mark.E.Smith impression which >makes a mockery of my own feeble attempts! He even effects that >close-miked vocal distortion with cupped hands! _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 09:26:53 -0500 From: "david mack" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] progressive math > I'm not talking about coherency here. Cage didn't invent his own math. no , he challenged the primacy of math in music and suggested that there were other forces at work on the other hand, i just went for a run, listening to npr (national public radio for those overseas - national pinko radio to those to the right in this country) and the first thing i hear is a short piece on a california organization , Note Floaters of America, founded by an improbable sounding Philmore T Hobbs. NFA rejects the notion of a mere 12 tones as the result of years of conditioning. after hearing evidence of that organization's members' liberation i have lost all enthusiasm for my position in the preceeding agrument john cage was a charletan bruce gilbert makes an unlistenable din which is in no way music electricity is the tool of the devil in fact wire also takes sound too far i retreat to my barbara streisand collection, but i am getting rid of the one with the household appliances babs - how could you?! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 15:25:52 +0100 (BST) From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Graeme=20Rowland?= Subject: [idealcopy] Why are the buildings collapsing? Eardrum Buzz listened to: >>>>einsturzende neubauten-tabula rasa, silence is sexy Every Wire fan should have a Neubauten disc or seven. Tabula Rasa might be a good starting place... FM Einheit was for many years the percussionist in Neubauten, but quit due to impatience with singer Blixa Bargeld's lyrical writer's block during the recording of 'Ende Neu'. Einheit recorded 'Merry Christmas' with guitarist Caspar Brotzmann. This thunderous onslaught was released by Blast First and later used by Bruce Gilbert as an important element in 'Swarm 1'. Neubauten are one of those bands that really deserve to be listened to at wall shaking volume, especially 'Headcleaner' from 'Tabula Rasa'. They are a massive inspiration to me! I met my wife at a Neubauten gig. Check their site: http://www.icf.de/EN Neubauten, Bargeld in particular, have given some of the best rock press over the years. There's a massive archive of interviews and reviews and suchlike here: http://www.freespeech.org/neubauten/contents-neubauten.htm There is nothing you can do But forget how to play the game! Graeme ===== Cracked Machine irregular cyberzine http://www.webinfo.co.uk/crackedmachine "What one thinks of as extremes seldom are" :: BC Gilbert Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 17:21:57 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: [idealcopy] OffTopic: Edgar Reitz - Interview Anyone who's interested in Edgar Reitz, director of German masterpiece TV serieses 'Heimat' and 'Zwei Heimat', goto http://www.xs4all.nl/~rrr/heimat/interview.html giluz [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/octet-stream which had a name of About Edgar Reitz - Interview.url] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 13:42:53 EDT From: PaulRabjohn@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Ballet Sham Killed Punky Oatey In a message dated 01/04/01 14:58:14 GMT Daylight Time, ian@ibarrett.fsnet.co.uk writes: > > Punk was dead when Sham 'singer' Jimmy Pursey did the > > most inept ballet ever seen on TV. > > It laughed itself to death. > > > Would that be the one to The Stranglers' Meninblack? > > > //////// sadly , yes. it got shown again recently on one of these endless > "top 10" shows they use to fill up saturday night tv cheaply. exceedingly > poor , even by jimy p's standards. his 2 solo albums used to fill every > dump bin in the british isles for about 25p a go. but no , i never was > quite that curious.p ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 11:28:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Wireviews Subject: [idealcopy] Wireviews update Wireviews has been updated for April (amazingly on time for once!) This month's edition is quite slim, but still includes the second part of the Eden interview and a new Wire buyer's guide. Craig. ===== - ------- Craig Grannell / Wireviews --- http://welcome.to/wireviews News, reviews and dugga. Snub.Comms: http://welcome.to/snub Veer Audio: http://listen.to/veer - -------------- wireviews@yahoo.com --- Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/?.refer=text ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 14:42:08 EDT From: Eardrumbuz@aol.com Subject: [idealcopy] Re: barbra streisand now there's a topic for us ideal copyists! In a message dated 4/1/01 10:37:17 AM, dmack2002@yahoo.com writes: >the > >one with the household appliances who does this refer to? cage or streisand? - -paul c.d. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 21:34:08 +0100 (BST) From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Graeme=20Rowland?= Subject: [idealcopy] Punks disobey rules >>>>A minimal set of no more than 2-3 chords per song; 'Ex Lion Tamer' was not punk. Find one punk band who actually stuck to that rule! >>>>no solos (especially not guitar solos - if you insist on doing solos, make them as simple and easy as possible); Buzzcocks - What Do I Get? has one of my favourite 'tricky guitar solos'. 'Shot By Both Sides'/'Lipstick' wins my personal award for 'best guitar solo'. No solos, but if you insist on doing them... if you insist on breaking the rules... 'Failures' by Warsaw is aptly titled in this respect! Sumner instantly failed his punk rock exam by spewing notes all over! >>>>no key changes (we can only play A, D, C &/or E anyway); Odd that - minor chords are the easiest barre chords to do! E is the easiest major chord in standard tuning. >>>>musicians should have no previous musical experience, especially not classical or jazz background; Jaz Coleman's classical training didn't stop Killing Joke. Steve Jones and Paul Cook failing to get far in glam rock didn't count? Jones was an archetypal rock star! Pete Shelley and Bruce Gilbert's early electronic experiments didn't count either? Joe Strummer didn't play the pub rock circuit in the 101ers? >>>>2-4 minutes long songs; Velvet Underground - Sister Ray Stooges - We Will Fall Sex Pistols - No Fun PiL - Theme Patti Smith - Radio Ethiopia Television - Marquee Moon The Damned - Curtain Call Wire - Crazy About Love, A Touching Display Buzzcocks - Moving away from the Pulsebeat, I Believe, Late For The Train The Clash - Police & Thieves The Fall - Music Scene, Spectre Vs. Rector ...I've heard the phrase 'exceptions that prove the rule' but its a bit tenuous! >>>>(rhythm)guitar based music; Or noise as some would have it! >>>>redefinition of rock's greatest albums (throw away all the prog rock crap and put in some VU and stooges); And reggae/dub, Can (PiL), Beefheart, MC5, Mott the Hoople (Mick Jones), delta blues, skiffle, rockabilly (Joe Strummer), Peter Hammill (John Lydon), Rimbaud and Bob Dylan (Patti Smith, Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine), Brian Eno (Wire, Talking Heads, Magazine), The Seeds (Mark E Smith), D. Bowie (Pete Shelley), William Burroughs (Joy Division, Patti Smith), etc... a very long list... >>>>a completely unrational and blind hatred of Pink Floyd (they were wankers, but ELP & Yes were even worse), What's wrong with wanking? I guess it becomes socially unacceptable upon a stage in front of thousands. That is unless your name is Iggy Pop, Captain Sensible, GG Allin, David Yow... >>>>All of these are actually defined relating to prog-rock I don't think The Damned, for example, sat down and defined themselves in relation to anything. They just did it! Stooges covers included... Punk was not entirely reactionary. Certainly more punk bands (Buzzcocks, Banshees, Warsaw, Slits, etc.) were inspired by hearing other punk bands (most often the Pistols) than as a reaction against anything. Boredom was well documented as a motivator! Defining what they were against came later. Lydon's 'I Hate Pink Floyd T-shirt' has taken on an iconic significance, but it was the raw energy of the Pistols that inspired! >>>>But there was also a musical aspect (punk2), and that was what eventually turned to mainstream middle-of-the-road rock music. To me, this stuff isn't punk. I guess this is our fundamental disagreement. Style over content was always a bore! >>>>Corporations had to ignore the ideological aspect of punk because it was so threatening, and accept the genristic aspect of it 'cause it sold so well. I don't think those in slow dinosaur corporations think so deeply about punk that they'd even realise there was an idea! Hence the Pistols getting EMI and A&M so confused they paid them to go away! Harvest didn't seem interested in Wire's artistic ideas - here come the weirdos, give 'em some money and they'll go away. Wire sold so well they got dropped! Harvest no longer exists, A&M no longer exists and Wire are still here stronger than ever. Obviously, its ideas that count. Ultimately it's the broader notion of musical genres that is problematic. Once the punk idea is reduced to a musical genre it is no longer punk, but a flickering shadow puppet theatre ghost of punk. This is why Green Day gobbing in a stadium is such a joke, and why I think the mainstream acceptance of Nirvana has little or no effect in mutating the punk virus. Ideas simply can't be contained by capitalism! Just one of its many limitations... I agree that Cutler's 'File Under Popular' presented an interesting perspective, but it was also highly personal and too reductionist (after all, no one can listen to everything). One always has to remember that Cutler abhors repetition in music, which rather limits the appeal of anything sticking to the 'punk rock musical genre' rules. Cutler saw punk as a glitch with little relevance to progression in music and I think this is partly because he failed to entertain it as an idea as opposed to a genre. But the music which Cutler views as important (eg. Sun Ra, Residents, Phil Ochs) was so far outside mainstream recognition that punk kids would be very unlikely to have heard it. Also there is an anti-intellectual element in the chaotic destructive punk character which Cutler would probably see as retrogressive. It's a long time since I read the book so I'm relying on memory here. Punk espoused the DIY aesthetic, but quite clearly when it comes to the music of, for example, Romanian electro-acoustic composer Iancu Dumitrescu, not anyone can do it. I think that has a lot to do with Cutler's perception of punk. However 'File Under Popular' really ought to be read by anyone who'd like to get a radically different perspective on 'rock history' to the line espoused by the media in general. These days Albert Ayler's Village Concerts and Faust's Ravvivando and Ground Zero's Last Concert are recordings that to me have punk spirit... uncontained... reach for the sky! And the most punk rock gig I ever attended was Faust at the Garage in 99. Zappi filled the place with green gas and fire engines were called out. Lydon can stand on a stage and blather on about anarchy and the money rolls right in. Faust still create anarchic situations. Moving away from the pulsebeat... Graeme ===== Cracked Machine irregular cyberzine http://www.webinfo.co.uk/crackedmachine "What one thinks of as extremes seldom are" :: BC Gilbert Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 16:57:52 EDT From: PaulRabjohn@aol.com Subject: [idealcopy] mark prindle this months wireviews has a link to a page-worth of wire reviews from this guy. as a coda to the debate on "manscape" in recent weeks , he describes it as "phil collins on heroin". meanwhile 154 is a goth album and "the ideal copy" is likened to INXS. er , what can you say? p ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 14:37:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Rick Hindman Subject: Re: [idealcopy] OT progressive math I see that this thread has moved along since I last followed it, but here is a recap of where my initial post came from. This is going back to 1984/85, so forgive me if I'm a bit rusty on the details. The music we were composing in class was based on alot of the Bach-era, chorale-type music. They were about 95% made up of 4 voice, tonal chord progressions based on 1-4-5 sequences and their varieties. The mathematical part (I degreed in math, BTW, so I was always attuned to math-type things) came when we broke the chords into individual notes and would create melodic lines out of them. Based on which voice we were writing (bass/tenor/alto/soprano) there were different options to how many notes a voice could "jump" between chords and they were consistent with the key and mode that the song was written in. Since the root chord was made up of a major 3rd and a minor 3rd (C-E-G, for example) the notes available for a particular voice tended to be part of a different chord in the same mode. So we ended up having the chord progressions sort of "fall out" of how we wrote the individual voices. I made an observation to the teacher that a program could be written to give you different songs based on a key and progression. He responded that there was a program for the Mac available, but was very limited and clumsy and tended to spit out the same songs every time. As a footnote, these rules tended to only apply to Baroque-era music and by the Romantic period were being pushed, twisted, and otherwise ignored. Anyway, I hope that wasn't too boring. I did have alot of fun in that class and think that anyone with a serious appreciation of music would probably find such a class quite interesting. Stay Ideal!!! RJH Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/?.refer=text ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 14:55:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Rick Hindman Subject: [idealcopy] OT - Questions and trivia about different threads... Hey all- I have been kind of off list for a while and am catching up on all of the different bits from the list and: - -Thanks for all of the "Posteverything advice" - -I am really enjoying hearing about everyone's different musical favorites! Alot of the english bands that have been mentioned never really made it across the US and have made music shopping fun again! - -Since I know about 2 people who have actually heard of Joy Division, I don't have much to go on, but were they actually considered a punk band??? They seemed way too moody and atmospheric to fit that genre. Kind of like lumping JG Ballard writing with sword and sorcery SF. - -Since my employers seem to be falling apart under my feet, I've not been posting much on playlists, but am glad to see that others are! - -My personal opinion is that King Crimson stopped being a "progressive/Prog" band when they reformed in the early 80's. At that point they were producing more powerful energy (live, at least) than alot of punk/metal bands will ever muster. I will probably always rate them as one of my favorite bands, but I also enjoy the fact that some ICers don't like them. It's what makes this list worth being part of. - -Looking forward to meeting at least one ICer before the Soft Boys show next week! - -Next live show to see is John Hiatt, who is playing a solo show here tomorrow night! Probably the closest I come to C&W music! - -I'm hosting a Resident's party at my house tonight and several attendees and I are working to get them booked to play here in Santa Cruz! Hasta luego todos!!! RJH Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/?.refer=text ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 00:05:43 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [idealcopy] OT progressive math On Sun, 1 Apr 2001, Rick Hindman wrote: > The music we were composing in class was based on alot > of the Bach-era, chorale-type music. They were about > 95% made up of 4 voice, tonal chord progressions based > on 1-4-5 sequences and their varieties. The > mathematical part (I degreed in math, BTW, so I was > always attuned to math-type things) came when we broke > the chords into individual notes and would create > melodic lines out of them. > > Based on which voice we were writing > (bass/tenor/alto/soprano) there were different options > to how many notes a voice could "jump" between chords > and they were consistent with the key and mode that > the song was written in. Since the root chord was made > up of a major 3rd and a minor 3rd (C-E-G, for example) > the notes available for a particular voice tended to > be part of a different chord in the same mode. So we > ended up having the chord progressions sort of "fall > out" of how we wrote the individual voices. > As a footnote, these rules tended to only apply to > Baroque-era music and by the Romantic period were > being pushed, twisted, and otherwise ignored. Okay - this makes sense. But, as you say, this is very limited to a particular period and style of music. Correct me if I'm wrong...but at the time of Bach, wasn't it still the case that "chord progressions" arose primarily as a matter of voice leading rather than being composed as such? That is, rather than saying, "okay, I'm going to move from B-flat, a I chord in the key of B-flat, to E-flat, the IV chord in that key, and then..." it was more a matter of the different voices, following rules of voice leading which you mention above, leading to more or less harmonious sequences which, because of those rules, tended to fall into a relatively limited set of progressions? (More than just I-IV-V, surely) I know this was true earlier in the history of polyphonic music - but I'm not sure if it was still the case for Bach. Certainly, it wasn't for very long thereafter. As to David Mack's comment-- "music is all about numbers and times - which are all about numbers making music without math is like writing poetry without letters (ora characters in the east)" - --math can *describe* music, yes - but it can also describe damned near anything, given enough cleverness. This post is entirely mathematical, in that what makes the gestures of my fingers on the keys end up as a series of legible characters on your terminal is a complex code made up ultimately of impulses that can be represented in binary numbers...but that doesn't mean these words *are* math. And it can describe how people react to music pretty much not at all - which is the important part. You could analyze the frequencies, amplitude, duration, and other characteristics of a recording (that's what CDs do, in a sense) and reduce it to a series of equations, I suppose - but that will do nothing to tell you, say, why one set of bits is something like _154_ and another is Limp Bizkit. Music is not all about "numbers and times": its raw materials are, on the one hand, sound (that is to say, air - movable air sculpture, more like), and on the other, a series of conventions to which any given musician goes along with or resists to varying degrees. And it *means* to listeners based more on that latter, social quality than on any set of numbers or formulae. Someone mentioned John Cage - and he's relevant to this question: what's the difference between noise and music? One extreme answer, drawn from Cage, is simply: how one chooses to hear and categorize it (this is the lesson of his (in)famous "4'33" - in which a performer sits down at an instrument and does *nothing* for the duration implied in the title). Another has to do with the sense of that raw medium, noise, being sculpted or directed in some way (by someone in addition to the listener). Another infamous test case is Lou Reed's _Metal Machine Music_. Whether or not you think it's music has a lot to do with how you believe it was created (or whether you subscribe to Cage's view above). If you think Reed actually took time to organize *particular* hunks of feedback to make the record, you might acquiesce to its being music, if you think that sculpting or directing is essential to music. If you believe that, then you probably think it't *not* music if you think Reed just set up a bunch of guitars and amps, turned them all all the way up, and pressed "record." On the other hand, from the Cagean perspective, what Reed did or didn't do doesn't matter: what matters is what you, as listener, choose to categorize the results as. If you want to hear it as music, then it is, regardless of what Reed did. Does any of this have much to do with math? I don't think so. - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::As long as I don't sleep, he decided, I won't shave. ::That must mean...as soon as I fall asleep, I'll start shaving! __Thomas Pynchon, VINELAND__ ps: I was listening to _The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall_ yesterday - anyone else ever noticed the one part in "Lay of the Land" that fits perfectly with the opening lick of the "Green Acres" theme? (probably this is meaningless to non-Americans here...) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 03:14:15 -0500 (CDT) From: voyteck@webtv.net Subject: [idealcopy] OT: Music Gone Sci-Fi Musical math? Numbers changed to music (codes) or music changed to number (codes) may be a way to describe how a CD or digital recorder / player works. A musician who -digitally- records his work may find this an asset if able to reconstruct or alter the output, as such a sampler could change the sound, for example, to a german shepard barking, skidding tires, a waterfall, a mosquito flying, or whatever sound 'sampled' and applied. Interestingly, I heard of someone a few years ago who went into the jungles with a sound sampler to record animal (& insect?) sounds for a record project. Did, whoever this person was / is, simply overdub in recording the jungle sounds, or was it digitally precise intro-outro editing / mixing, as to which he could insert / excerpt samples (juxtapositioning) at will as to what sounded best? If anyone knows about this "jungle sampler", please post info (he may also have done a similar "city sounds" sampler). Reading recent posts (including the mention of Middle Eastern music styles and perhaps true of Asia as well) these came to mind: Kraftwerk - 'Computer Games' (computer codes), The Five Americans - 'Western Union' (Morse code), Tomita - 'The Planets' (sci-fi "communications"), and John William's score to 'Close encounters of the third kind' (alien communications). Here's 2 '3rd kind' links w/wav.samples & light text to review for topical consideration: http://www.sciflicks.com/close_encounters/sounds.html http://www.aristarec.com/aristaweb/Soundtracks/close_encounters/artist_index.html (anyone else hear a distant resemblance to "Ahead"?) Sci-fied out, DavO ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V4 #99 ******************************