On 11/1/07, still want to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Perhaps .. maybe we should still be living in grass huts.
it would be better for the environment! > I agree with your comments of quality. I don't think we have heard an artist > who is able to work with true finesse in surround. There are lots of people > doing interesting work and lots of swirly dross .. sure. However I think we > are still waiting to hear an artist who understand the medium intrinsically. > > Just because this hasn't happened does not mean in can't. i feel like doing something in that kind of space ends up becoming a technological challenge moreso than a musical/artistic challenge, which is why we havent seen an artist who really works well in it. thats why i think it will be highly unlikely to find someone who works in a manner in which surround is *the* way to experience their work. > For me there is something deeply curious about removing the Dj, the band, > the performer and making the audience a self reference. Moving the social > reliance away from the need to have someone responsible for the situation. > > Its the removal of the centre, the ego, the singular control mechanism. It's > about creating new types of social structures, new types of dynamic, new > music ?! a good deejay has little ego, the music flows through them. bands and live performers in general are largely outside of my preferred method of consuming music strictly because of the presentation. but a good deejay has a selection of records to choose from and they can manipulate and/or follow the mood in the room with them. how can that possibly be improved? why reinvent the wheel? > > isnt that what an ipod is for? mixtapes? > > Yes .. but these devices are isolating people from one another to a degree. > > My (fanciful) suggestion for music as environment is again towards an idea > of music as the interactive medium. Something that is shared or reflective > of the surroundings that it exists in. > > Do we always have to think of music as a personal product? a club is not a personal product. music that follows your personal mood IS. there are different kinds of music consumption for different places and spaces! > We are trying to imagine new music. > > In our current situation of music the artist has become the iconic figure > at the centre of the music. Often positioned as more important than the > music or the sole reason for the music to exist. music is not new. it was the same thing at the dawn of humanity as it is now. there is no new music. there is artistic expression, and there is sound. > We are having this discussion on 313 aren't we? Techno music is full of > artist who have removed themselves from the music. Leaving the music > to exist on its own. yeah, those people make all the bad records! people might try to take their face out of the music, but they cant take their soul out! > Have you been given this understanding or is this the way music "IS" without the artistic expression, it is sound. sound is not music. > In more some cultures the songs existed in themselves and the musician > was just a performer a artisan who studied the ways to convey the music. the songs were written by someone. and then performed by someone. personality, soul, whatever you call it is what makes those processes more than just random sound. > Currently we are in a culture of celebrity .. isn't this partly of what the > complaints are all about. That the music is not about the music anymore? celebrity has nothing to do with it. > I don't think great music needs a central figure to make it good. The artist > is entirely able to remain transparent. Plus I am not suggesting that the > type of music I imagine is not created by an artist. but if it is created by an artist who is not a joke, their imprint is in there. it is NOT transparent. > For sure. So are you suggesting then that we are running out of artist not > music? i would say that is an accurate assessment. people are too lazy and complacent to truly be artists, to do the things that make music worth listening to. everyone just wants to make something that sounds like producer or band X so they can get girls, drugs, paid, recognition, whatever. > In response to the question .. I am proposing that we treat music and > the environments for music in completely new ways. I don't think this > dismisses the Artist, but it might place the artist in a different position > than they currently exist. i just dont see it. some things are necessary, an artist is necessary for music. if you leave it up to sensors taking readings of a crowd or whatever, you may as well just automate a computer program to write melodies and rhythms: it will all be soulless nonsense. im sure there is a crowd for that, though! tom
