experimental music

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Rock Star 87

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i have been making music 4 awhile, and it's been pretty traditional, sheet music and all that. but im curious now about experimental music. i figured there's no better place to come than here to get some background. i heard a little about it in theory class, but i wanna learn more. and what kind of software is out there for making experimental music. i know i'm an amateur, but i think this could turn out pretty fuckin' awesome.
 
software?
Experimental music is just that. Experimental.
Taking different approches to evoke sounds that haven't been heard and stuff like that.
Just experiment, that's all.
 
Just get something that supports live audio tracks and midi and go for it....
 
i've seen experimental music written with different symbols, in circles, something that could sync my synthesizer to any clef or way of writing notes that i want to use. i know some bands are experimental, but using different methods of writing it.
 
Don't know if this helps, but when you said "experimental music" I thought of Brian Eno...I remember reading how, when he started out making music (like 20 years ago), he tried to approach music in a new and different way. I think one of his albums is called "Music for Airports"...although his sound was innovative at the time some of it would probably just sound like "new age" music today.
 
i heard of a pice one time "climbing down a mountain high" i thinks it was. Gongs being smashed underwater. as to this i am curious.
 
Rock Star 87 said:
i heard of a pice one time "climbing down a mountain high" i thinks it was. Gongs being smashed underwater. as to this i am curious.
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It was probably done with effects in the studio. The right amount of reverb, delay and chorus can get that. I'd be curious to see someone trying to record the real thing..... :eek:
 
Propellerhead's "Reason" is a great place to learn when you want to branch out into 'experimental'
 
Rock Star 87 said:
im curious now about experimental music. i figured there's no better place to come than here to get some background.
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don't be too sure of that
 
Check out Csound. If you want to make real experimental music, like the kind only college profs listen to. I had to take a semester on it way back when I was in college studying music technology and 20th century music.

I think Sloan hit it on the head, though. It's experimental. Back before there was software, people cut up tape to make new music. Read up some on John Cage, Morton Subotnik, Pierre Schaeffer, Stockhausen, IRCAM... gosh, I could go on all day.

or just start recording weird noises and fiddling around with sounds and have fun.
 
Experimental music dont even need new sounds. Look at approaching everything untraditional; from the foundation to any melody. Tweak the knobs on your sounds/instruments - hardware or software.
If there was a user guide and how-to book on this it wouldnt be called experimental or new any more.
Just sit down and let your creativity flow.
 
Actually, Brian Eno started recording over thirty years ago. His most innovative music was made with tape loop delay machines that he built himself, from reel-to-reel tape decks. That was what he had to work with back then. Today, he uses software.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind, when doing experimental music, is not try copying others, like Eno, but, to find your own voice and your own methods. This is easier said than done because just about everything under the sun has been tried already, from synthesizers to tape loops to generative and fractal composition software, etc. This means it's going to call for some true innovation if you're going to make process or method your vehicle of experimentation. As for experiments with composition, here again, just about everything imaginable has already been done, from atonality to alternate tunings to new notational systems to microtonality, etc. So, it may be that, the best you can hope to accomplish is to put a new spin on something that's been tried before. Good luck.

While I'm on this topic, I'd recommend listening to the music of the late Harry Partch, who invented a whole orchestra of acoustic instruments, as well as his own notational system.

http://www.corporeal.com/

http://www.harrypartch.com/

Gary
 
some of pink floyds live alblum from ummagumma has some good exp. stuff.
I don't believe thats what they were going for.
 
i agree with topolino and lykwydchykyn.

you've got to be really careful bantering a word like 'experimental' around. some people think radiohead is experimental. some people think squarepusher is experimental. hell, someone once told me he thought jeff buckley was experimental. is john fahey experimental? And then, on the other hand, I'll bet that people like Arnold Schoenberg and Karlheinz Stockhausen would flat out deny that anything they wrote was 'experimental'. Certainly, it was NEW.

I'd have to say that there's a difference in music that is intuitively original, and music that is a result of a considered and planned experiment. And, probably, the stuff that becomes popular is a great combination of the two, i.e. intuitive experiments.

But to answer your original question: No. There is no software for making experimental music. That would sort of defeat the purpose, wouldn't it? The experiment occurs to you in your head and you need to actualise it in some way. I play around with midi systems (mostly in Logic Audio), and I play around with audio manipulation (mostly with Cool Edit Pro 2/Adobe Audition), and I play around with writing for real instruments. I'm probably going to write some (simple) software this year that will do things for me. I play around with compositional principles. And I combine all of the above. There's simply no software that does this.

Though, check out a piece of software call MAX/MSP. Graphic interface stuff, pretty cool and a lot of people use it for making electronica.

(BTW, I'm one of those university kids, so, actually, all of this might be coming from the wrong angle for you. You haven't specified what YOU mean by experimental music. If you give us some examples of artists you're thinking of, perhaps we can give more feedback?)
 
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alright, there is an orchestral song that is called "Going down an uphill" or something like that. It used weird shit, like hitting a gong underwater. i forget the exact title, and the artist. but he wrote it in like a circle, i think. not with clefs and traditional notes. that's what i was thinking of.
 
the song i was looking at is called "A Mountain Rising Out Of Nowhere". i'm not sure who the composer is, but that's it.
 
You might want to find out about two peices - "Lions are Growing" and "I am sitting in a Room". These are experimental and use the human voice as a starting point. Still, it might be a good way for you to find out more about the vanguard of experimental music
 
Well, I really don't know that piece, and Google has no returns on the title. But it seems that the "circle" you're talking about could be a graphical score. These can get really complicated, and were originally used by composers like Feldman, Ligeti, Bussotti and Stockhausen. Look them up if you want.

But if you want to get into this sort of music, it will be very difficult if you don't go somewhere and study it. Or, find someone who has and can give you private lessons. To be frank, this is very specific music, and it isn't music that you simply pick up and adopt. Composing using graphics is not a new thing at all, and can produce any sort of sound; even very 'normal' sounding music.

I suggest you pick up a book about 20th century composition. paul griffiths wrote one called Modern Music. it's a good introduction.
 
listen to some avante garde music or some minimalism, its certainly different. sci-fi film scores are also linked with this.

i have played a few experimental pieces, one called "the brine boilers" that was actually commissioned for the orchestra i was playing in at the time, and that involved playing a gong in a tank of water. when we recorded it we used midi for that, as live to be honest it sounded crap. in the same piece the trombones took their slides off and put the ends into water and blew bubbles, and the trumpets blew their instruments but didn't make a note, and just moved the valves to make a airey sort of sound. i really didn't like it, but i saw some people really getting into it when we played it live.
 
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