jamesg1213

BenMMusTech
  Because it is "sound" art or sonic art, which is the new term these days, we have to stop listening to this sort of stuff as "music", that's really hard.  I'm struggling with this concept. 

I can hear that you're struggling with it. To me, it's not experimental enough, and up to about 2:44, it was just dull really. I don't get the point of going to all the trouble of using 'found sounds' to recreate a church organ..who's going to know unless you explain that to them?
 
If you're trying to make 'non-music', using very simplistic 3 note musical phrases seems to be defeating the object - the ear naturally picks those out, and they quickly get very dull.
 
At 2:44 I thought, ''ah, this is getting interesting'', but then it just went back to hissing.

And I thought you were a Christian James? ;) um that's fine you have an opinion and I respect that. (I'm getting better, being ADHD combo with ASD or Asperger's I have a tendency to shoot from the hip and we need that in this world more than ever, sorry digressing)
 
Ok first of all, this is an experiment and an experiment in a long line of experiment's (I'm a scientific artist vs the artistic scientist and I hate artistic scientists), so don't judge a book by it's cover, James!  Everyone knows or should by now that I post all my experiments, I don't limit myself with this quaint notion of "music" anymore and I am getting better at expressing myself in this regard over 10 years in formal education will do that for you :) yep I am an trainee academic wanka, see I've even stoped giving myself titles I haven't earnt...yet!  
 
I don't think "music" really exists anymore not in the context that we use to understand it.  Sound is apart of a broader canvas that involves visuals and other forms these days.  And most of you will have to adapt to this new paradigm.  Now where is this wanka going with this tangent, as he always does, he does not stay on topic...I hear you.
 
The organ sound that you complained about James, and it's a valid criticism one that I have pondered and addressed within my exegesis as an epilogue, actually has harmonic content that you would not get with a VST or even a real one.  Because it's a sample and I have used this sample within a granular synthesizer, you get a highly unique sound that contains harmonies theoretically that compliment the found sounds, which have been used as the bed.  Well this is the theory I am working on.
 
As for your other criticism, I'm less inclined to agree because it's a form of minimalism and as an example Pink Floyd's Careful With That Axe Eugene uses two notes pretty much through the whole track, apart from the middle section, so we are looking at a binary form.  It's called avant garde or as George Harrison use to say avant garde a clue!!  The track is a ternary form, three main themes and each section is quite short.  All three sections form a sonic painting or an sonic impression of my walk through a national park on a particular day. 
 
One day I will get around to completing the vid for track, and this is where the tangent came from.  This sort of composition, which is "music as art" belongs in a gallery,  I'm designing the formula and context for this now, probably a form of DJ (audio/visual) cutup set with 5.1.  Music and sound is no longer new, exciting or really interesting that is live and reproduced.  Barry Truax, designer of acoustic ecology and propagator of the sound art movement has said this. 
 
Music is dead, popular neither exists or is relevant, so it's time to reinvent and revolutionise.  The venues where music once was played don't exist, this has a knock on effect.  Kids no longer have any interest in the old ways because they have not experienced the old way's.  We need to reengage kids with what they know i.e. music and video technology, guitars are dead esp acoustic ones.  Although there is a resurgence of folk type stuff, the troubadour is alive but if I have to hear another pretty boy singing songs of love, lost and found I will scream.  Go play for King Henry the 8th and have a drumstick thrown at your head lol.
 
Music needs innovation because it sustains technology and form.  Popular music which is closely aligned with western art music, which includes classical, jazz and modern, sustained over 500 years of music technology, which has had great knock on effects for society and culture in general.  Think Beethoven and the piano, without Beethoven wanting a different/better piano sound, the grand piano would not have come into existence.  We might still be playing the harpsichord.  This advance arguably lead to acoustic research and better concert halls and all the subsequent knock on effects.  And same with modern technology, the Nazis invented tape, the classical avant garde disseminated the technology, The Beatles propagated and popularized the technology to where it is ubiquitous across our society...knock on effects.
 
Today this symbiotic relationship is at a crossroads and possibly worse, almost extinct because we have stoped producing Beethoven's and The Beatles (ok I'm here, LOL ;) without innovators and pioneers things become stagnant.  So whilst your opinion of why? is valid James, it is born of ignorance, so unless your happy with troubadours and silly love songs, bands playing the same three chords and forms but nowhere to actually play and nobody listening, I shall go back to my work, which is designing the new from the old and the old from the new.  We are in a new age...the age of the digital composer and the digital artist because it is no longer viable to be a specialist, you need to be a multi-specialist.
 
Lecture over :)
 
Ben