Re: [rumori] curve of sound innovation


From: matt davignon (mattdavignonAThotmail.com)
Date: Wed Mar 14 2001 - 09:08:09 PST


>From: Don Joyce <djATwebbnet.com>
>
>Prove this statement dude.
>
>I can't prove a negative. Simply give me a "brand new" sonic element in
>music, or a procedure to make it, and I will tell you where and when it has
>occured in music BEFORE now as a precedent in the history of music.

I'll bite:

By "sonic element" are you referring to sound generation? Or compositional
technique?

Daxophone - a specifically shaped piece of wood played off the edge of a
table with a bow. It sounds remarkably like altered vocal samples. It's one
of Hans Reichel's main instruments.

Circuit-bent instruments

Thai Elephant Orchestra http://www.mulatta.org/Thaielephantorch.html

Personal home computer recording & CD production - I believe this really has
an effect on how music is made today. For example, the visual interface, and
the ability to click and drag sounds into a linear pattern that can be
played. Sure, there was already tape splicing and digital samplers, but the
popularity of programs like ACID are changing the way people think about
music production.

The digital effects that have appeared recently (within the last 10 years)
within digital composition programs. Bit Decimation and Granular Synthesis,
for example.

I've heard lots of people say that "everything that can be done has been
done," and I simply don't buy it. It's like saying, "Every scientific fact
to be discovered about the Earth has already been discovered," when we're
still in the midst of learning all sorts of new stuff!

You can say that all frequencies of sound within the human range of hearing
have been reached, and I'll believe you. You can even say that all musical
combinations of notes in the harmonic series have been played before, and
I'll buy that. There is so much more to music than raw notes though.
Compositional technique (how we come to that pattern of notes),
instrumentation/sound generation, technology (including sampling), intent,
and dynamic range all play a large part in how we hear music, and I can't
believe that all those avenues have been previously exploited.

If they have, then we might as well all stop right now.

I would argue that you, Don Joyce, have added a new element to the world of
music with both Over the Edge and Negativland, and that several people on
this list who have been inspired by you have gone on to create their own
unique forms in the world of sampled music.

Matt Davignon

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