of course I was trolling, but the meat of my troll was heartfelt, in that I
think its an insult to even ask a classical musician to cover something as
simplistic as 4/4 16-step quantized techno. I produced electronic music for
almost 15 years, so I have less of a hate for techno than a respect for
people that can do true humanized composition across a myriad of "real"
instruments.
the point was to entertain my self while waking this list up. I could have
trolled in on a subject that never would have spawned a working thread.
----- Original Message -----
From: "kent williams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Dennis DeSantis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <313@hyperreal.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 11:06 AM
Subject: Re: (313) C2 at Carnegie Hall, well sort of
1. /0 as per usual, was trolling. Acquiring the Urine, as it were.
2. The Alarms WIll Sound CD had some awesome moments. It transmuted
the patience Richard James put into hours and hours of step
programming into real-time instrumental virtuosity. It isn't better
or worse than the original, it's different, in an interesting (and
very enjoyable) way.
3. I haven't heard the Blue Potential thing, except for snippets, and
the snippets didn't make me want to seek it out. As a former
orchestral musician, my feeling is that orchestras are really good at
playing notes, and playing music from the domain in which the players
are trained. If the conductor is decent, and the back half of every
section isn't there just to collect a paycheck, magic can happen.
Said magic rarely happens when the music on the stands comes from a
musical domain completely foreign to the musicians.
This isn't limited to things like Techno-Orchestral works. I've heard
performances of Webern and Alban Berg that were just awful, because
most of the orchestra -- and sometimes the conductor as well -- just
can't get into it. Nothing is worse than an orchestra playing a piece
most of the players hate. You feel the hate coming through.
On Jan 10, 2008 9:29 AM, Dennis DeSantis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Toby Frith wrote:
> there is something a bit daft in the idea that classical musicians
> interpreting
> techno music sort of "validates" it which I often feel is the hidden
> agenda behind
> these sorts of exercises, because ultimately classical music and
> orchestras are
> seen as the high end of the spectrum, whilst some guy pressing buttons
> on a drab grey box is seen as the opposite end.
I can't speak to the concept behind the Blue Potential project, nor to
the way audiences might feel about the notion of validation for these
projects in general.
But I worked on the Alarm Will Sound/Aphex Twin thing, and our only
motivation there was that we just loved the music and wanted to hear
what it would sound like played by acoustic instruments. There was
certainly no sinister marketing angle or highbrow/lowbrow thinking -
that's for cultural theorists and hipster bloggers, not musicians.
