Experiment

Does anybody think it is worth filling in a poll?

  • Yes

    Votes: 7 36.8%

  • No

    Votes: 12 63.2%
  • Total voters
    19
R

raindrops

New member
Ok I'll warn you now, this track is only for those who enjoy listening to experiment music. It took me about twenty minutes to create. It contains various interesting sounds. It is was created in free time. The whole track is formed from my frustration at writing tuneful, melodic (well relatively!) tracks. Sounds for sounds sake kind of thing.

Download it if that is the type of track you like. If you don't like that type of style, I really wouldn't bother downloading it. Spend your time downloading someone elses tune. They deserve it more!

An odd post here, the track is finished and isn't looking for comments on how to enhance it.

Cheers
Nick
http://www.mp3.com/nicksellen
"dead anger"

ps
It is very exciting being able to add attachments to our messages now I'll have to find some pretty pictures to add at some point! I added the poll because I was just wondering how it all worked for future reference, so nothing important really.
 
Actually that's excellent. What were you using? I like to stay up late at night and find those far reaching complexities of sonic abandon also. (using a Yamaha EX5)
There's some interesting things to find in the spaces between.
 
I'm amazed!

I am glad you like it. I'm using a Yamaha CS1x synth, a bongo drum, cheap mic and Boss VF-1 effects unit.

I think when I do a track like this it is pure emotion. When one has to think about harmonies, chord progression, no time keeping to worry about and such as well as "Why the bloody hell isn't this recording?". All these factors tend to add up and colour the pure emotional inspiration for the track.

I pose the question...
Is music like this less musically valid that more traditional music?

I'll be interested to see what people think.
Cheers for the download.
Nick
 
Like you said, it's about what is the difinition of music? The traditional difinition (IMO) is a grouping of sounds that follows a preplanned and generally agreed upon timing and modal structure that is pleasing to the majority of ears. My definition however, is much broader than that. To me it's about placement of sound or silence in space that facilitates some sort of movement in the listener. be it physical, pyschological, emotional or spiritual. Some say that becuase it takes such discipline to achieve the traditional method that it is more valid or the only valid music. I thinks it's like many things, if you stay within the box you have a better chance at producing something that can be easily defined by contemporary standards but, also has a good chance at being average.Exploring outside of the box can be hard to define most the time but, has a better chance at opening up new and original areas.

I don't want to give the impression that traditional music is unimportant. I spend the majority of my playing time trying to hash out theory. If for no other reason than it makes producing music with other people a whole lot more fun. There are many other reason of course.

Finally the proof for me is the fact that I have been more moved by what is considered non-traditional music or even noise, than most traditional music. And I'm quite certain these guys spent time doing what you achieved with your recording. Most likely it's being a good alchemist, and combining different elements together to get the final product.
 
Hmm interesting.
I agree with what you are saying. Although i would be wary about trying to create music out of a box. When someone creates some truely original music that falls outside this box that is excellent, but then someone else comes along and copys the style. Nothing wrong with copying a style but it is then not original and has been pulled back into the box. With that track I have created I think that it is not original and does not deviate from standard music. Experimental/noise/minimalist has been done therefore it is no longer new. It is part of music now, it still won't be traditional for a long long time. I don't this detracts from it other than the lack of originalness of it, lots of great music is not original.

To create a truely original track it needn't be some wierd noise. It could incorporate tradition music elements into it but creating a new blend of sounds that hasn't been done before. Being original is hard especially as time goes on because as more and more music is created there is less and less options open to be original because they have been done. For example when somebody came up with a twelve bar blues that was original. Now looking at it, it is based on simple music principles of sounding nice (chords one, four and five) but was original at the time. There is a finite number of chords sequences, melodies. Using odd noises widens the range but there is still a finite number.

What do all you other people think about this?

Nick

Hmmmm did I start to babble there, i have a feeling i tend to repeat my self lots and I cannot read back through what i have just written it drives me mad.

Is this art? (two kilobytes)
 

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Actually there are NOT a finite number of melodies or rhythms that can be played. Yes you have a finite number of "standard" notes, but neither time nor the lengh of your melody is fixed. If you were to say "there are only so many songs that can be written using the standard scale using only quarter, half, and whole notes at 100bpm" then you would be correct because time and length have been fixed.

It is interesting to think about there only being a finite number of say, guitar riffs...it would suck because every time you'd pick up a guitar some dufus would say something like, "hey, isn't that guns & roses?"

I liked this a lot. Just enough noise and just enough variation to be quite listenable.

Good spooky industrial wasteland feel to it.

We went through a kind of "period" here not too long ago where some "weird" stuff was posted. Maybe we should do a special comp cd :)

Slackmaster 2000
 
raindrops,

I'm taking your intention was the blank pallete? And with that in mind, I would say that is art because it made a statement, and quite a good one at that.

Yeah maybe what you did isn't exactly 100% original, but it draws from a source that is fertile for something original to happen. Even if it's just a little peep of a Idea. Plus when playing in a more tradition sense you can feel more free to create. Like diving into a pool, it's much more conforting to know how deep it is. so you know how far you can dive. Some of the musician I love know how to take it to the farthest point of the edge without falling off. That's the stuff that really rocks my world.
Man I'm sick!
Anyways these guys aren't very popular because they force the ear to pay attention. Many people have been brainwashed into thinking music is just for background noise while doing something else, and music that needs to be given full attention becomes bothersome. That's a real pet pieve of mine.
Anyway
I think I'm rambling now
 
Slackmaster2K

I stand bt my finiste numbers of melodies, rhythms and even whole songs comment. I base it upon the science that there are only so many REPRODUCABLE notes. You could argue that a perfect pitch bend from say a C to a C# would be a continuous bend and therefore take an infinate set of values, in that case then, yes there is infinate. But it is not possible to produce infinate different pitches between two notes, technology does not allow this. Ok call me penickerty! Lets assume for a moment that a computer exhists that can create every single combination of sample values for say a track at X length at say, 44.1khz. That is the finite point. That all gets a tad theoretical, for example there would be a track on this computer consisting of you singing purple haze badly out of tune because that recording COULD exhist it would. In practise that point will never be reached, or no where near that point even so effectively there is infinate melodies/riffs/songs.

This is me reaching into deep theoretical thought, sort of like the damned philosphy thing I here far too often about whether a tree makes a sound when it falls if there is no one to hear it. Little everyday use.

Thanks for the comments, if could get this reaction from everybody for each 20 minute track I created then I'd be famous! For a while it gives me the oppotunity to abandon all I have learnt about music theory etc.

A CD sounds excellent. I like the idea of my music on CD, discounting when it a CD I have burned obviously.



Chris N

Yes that was my intention. That is an interesting point i hadn't thought about "it is art if it makes a statement". I think that might just rubbish some artists work, I don't think every artist intends a statement, maybe???

I would say that music can have many different purposes. Yes some music is suitable for background listening obviously not all music though. I like to pay one hundred per cent attention to the music I listen to if I can find the time. I like to sit in a pitch black room eyes shut music loud. That is the only way i believe you can pick up what the composer/created/artist intended for you to hear, pure undiluted music.

There is a strong tendency to ramble also

Nick
 
You miss my point. I did not argue that there are a finite number of notes, I only argued that time is continuous.

I can play the notes G-C-D an infinte number of ways by changing the length of each note and the order and number of notes. To say that there are a finite number of melodies because there are a finite number of notes is incorrect because you are only taking into consideration the discrete variable.

There are a finite number of words in the english dictionary. Does this mean that there are a finite number of books that can be written? If you were to limit the word count, yes. If you don't limit the word count, no.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I believe i did miss your point.
I would be amazing if you could plat the notes G-C-D in an infinate number of ways. Yes I agree with your point about time being infinate...but how can you play a note for infinity, ignoring practical factors such as you would die! you would never actually get to the end of the note. Can you have written a book if it is unfinished? A song song which is only 1 divided by infinity per cent complete(it is only this per cent complete because if the song is infinate in length, as it would have to be for there to be a infinate number of them, then the song is any number (except infinity)divided by infinity per cent complete, whatever the numerator or the fraction is the outcome will always be the same)? This is the dividing question, is a song a song if it is no where near finished?

Next.
Yes time is continous and therefore by definition has a reolution of infinity and thus there would be infinate number of songs/tracks if it were possible to create equipment with a time resolution of infinity. clearly absolutely impossible. The outcome:
Time when related to a musical composition is a discrete variable. It is not possible to use a resolution of infinity OR a length of infinity (on account of it being unfinished).

So to summerise what I am saying:

You can't write a track that hasn't even finished playing yet.

All quantifiable variables used in writing a track are discrete.

The only way that an infinate number of tracks/songs exist is theoretical tracks/songs!

On a practical level all of this means absolutely fuck all, but I enjoy a good theoretical debate. Anybody else to voice their opinoins?

Nick
 
Slackmaster is dead-on. You don't have to have allow an infinite time between notes to have an infinite number of possible subdivisions of time. Just like you can always take a fixed distance ans subdivide it infinitely. And you're not even considering things like non-Western scales. Not to mention how different the same notes with the same tempo sound when played with all downstrokes as opposed to alternate picking as opposed to with hammer-ons or sweep picking or trilling or adding vibrato, to use my own instrument for an example.

Besides, even it wasn't truly infinite, it might as well be for all practical purposes. Even if all the finite possibilities had been done, who could ever hear them all, much less keep track of them all...
 
And let us not forget the life we breathe into these infinite possibilities. Even if there were a finite number of possible melodies/rythms it wouldn't matter as long as human thought and emotion were behind them.

That'll be 2 cents.
 
mymy theres life still in this thread.

>you can always take a fixed distance ans subdivide it infinitely

no! "the quantum of time", the resolution if you like. called the planck time after max planck.

10^-43 seconds.
 
Whoa pretty frickin' deep guys.

I don't think the point is whether or not you can play something like G C D in an infinite number of ways or not. I think the point is generally a lot of songs sound the same. Many musicians stick to conventional sounds, such as the G C D and end up sounding like many of the other marching clones out there.

-Sal
 
Ohh and raindrops, I really liked the piece. It's stuff like that I consider very artlike. To me it feels more art than most songs (I could be shot for saying this!!!). This is a good thing.

I could also imagine it being in a cool crazy movie.

-Sal
 
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