"As Alien As" [Wrong Planet Jazz].

[jancivil]

in the first place the soundscape is primary; I create a layer and I COMMIT to a beginning, middle and end, a form. I might be forced to grow the middle but the end is the end, the death of it is not in question. Then the next layers decorate that, detail the rhythmic implications in the pulsing of the synths...

and I'm still working this way in 2018. Actually I abandoned that M.O. for a time and I'm about to try it without the Absynth bottom layer again for the same reasons.

[jancivil]

very cool, nice tense areas. has a classical something to it, actually pictured a symphony performing it. hmm, on the other hand it does sound like the soundtrack to older space cartoons.

Oh my but do I love that. It isn't my idea of it but fantastic. I was distracted by assholism, maybe and didn't note this remark.

[Jace-BeOS]

I just read this thread, as it got my attention on the "latest posts" area (I've not noticed you posting your music before and I was curious).

Halfway through page one, I was appalled by ghettosynth's utterly unnecessary passive-aggressive post. I went to listen to the music in question but found a dead link. Luckily I found you elsewhere online and found this piece and was able to listen to it.

It's not my kind of thing.

(That's not hard to say, is it?? Is it nasty? I have no intention of being nasty, overtly or surreptitiously)

I DID find the piece to be interesting in a way that normally is more academic than what I pursue for my own musical enjoyment. So I listened to the associated piece called "Stranger 'n'", which I felt even more interesting. As a result, I've chosen another to listen to. I don't feel I have any place to critique your work because it's not my kind of music. I recognize why it's referred to as "avant-garde" and I appreciate that this is an aesthetic some people deeply regard.

So there.

Thing is, I could just walk by without commenting. Only reason I commented is because it illustrates how one can actually say "that's not my thing" without being passive-aggressive.

Most music posted in KVR's Music Cafe is not my kind of music. Because of this, I do very little commenting and therefore seek feedback on my own music rather infrequently (I personally feel obligated to give back when given some attention).

I have no idea what ghettosynth's issue with you is, jancivil, but I now see why you may have an issue with him. Anything that transpired prior to this thread is unknown to me, but this thread demonstrated a passive-aggressive act by him. I wanted to state that I recognized his passive-aggressive and utterly unnecessary commentary for what it is.

That's not to take sides in some Internet war; it's just to make a clear statement against what I saw as him gaslighting you with his comments here, and now, as I can see after tonight, elsewhere (in the thread where you shared some personal details about your equipment loss).

For what it's worth, I understand the feeling of needing to respond to unworthy commentary, despite better judgment already in mind. In this case, my better judgment was to call out gaslighting, not to insert myself into someone else's dispute.

Gaslighting is unacceptable and I'm pushing back against it.

Anyway, I hope, jancivil, that you continue making music and enjoying the experiences and the results. I'm going to listen to a few more pieces of your work. It's definitely worth my time and consideration.

[jancivil]

I just read this thread, as it got my attention on the "latest posts" area (I've not noticed you posting your music before and I was curious).

I seem to have posted most of it, funnily enough. Not the latest one, #62 I think at the youtube which is the entirety of my digital oeuvre.

It's not my kind of thing.

(That's not hard to say, is it?? Is it nasty?)

No, it's normal, I opined that 99% of people will not like it. It's not hard for me to see it. If 99% of people are morons, it doesn't affect me. And no, there is no line to infer there.
affects us all when they vote, though

Gaslighting is unacceptable and I'm pushing back against it.

Gaslighting is a term I never saw before Kellyanne Conway got going as one of drumpf's early lackeys.
I suppose that's it. It's some amazing bullshit, isn't it; and such a ghastly failure of self-awareness to even witness.
There's no excuse for engaging with it, I have to own it, I'm mean like a mother is and this is my baby. And that guy is perhaps the single most intellectually dishonest individual I have yet to encounter, evidence herein. The very picture of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Anyway, I hope, jancivil, that you continue making music and enjoying the experiences and the results. I'm going to listen to a few more pieces of your work. It's definitely worth my time and consideration.

thanks. I'll do this until I die, however I'm more than ready to throw off this mortal coil.


edit: clarified statement on % of morons in population. and then realized a problem with 'doesn't affect me'


____________________________
Number nine?

And evidently the li'l dudebro who believes "ghetto" is a cool look on social media is still featuring his hurt.
I'ma get this off my chest since we were locked out of that thread following that flame job.

Beyond gaslighting, he straight lied about two things in the not latest but penultimate saucy jack debacle

One is to call me out in a I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I move as intellectually incurious regarding Yahama/Chowning FM because I disagreed with his contention that putting filters in it was the thing to do, to make it a better "instrument". It was a strongly different disposition. I know what a f**king filter is. My argument was centered 'so you know better than John Chowning what to have put in the DX7 circa 1981.' And let's look at his contention, it should do like NI Reaktor Kontour has done 30 yrs down the line. Except that design isn't so much about filters, it's about a way of dealing in modulator/carrier FM in feedback loops. If you rely on thinking about filters in Kontour you've missed the bus. Fatuous, fraudulent intellectually dishonest and vapid ghettosynth argumentation, as always. And I_mean_always.

I actually spent countless hours programming that instrument. So I expressed I didn't like the FM8 GUI, and that's based in knowing what the proper visual for Yamaha/Chowning FM is; when you have a modulating operator it's put above the carrier op. It's a preference like people have preferences for their workflow. Sure, that's me being intellectually incurious. No, here's you not knowing where this music is at and desperately trying to make 'a dated perspective on aliens' and promoting a personal beef into this extended diatribe and degraded discourse into a smart look.

The desperation of reaching for that as the comeback, is typical 'ghettosynth'. Just the signal illustration of the Dunning-Kruger Effect; then, now, and always. You're not educated in music and you have no interest in being: so why front?
Beyond bringing this thread in to see "where she's coming from". Yeah, here it is warts and all.
The abject absence of self-awareness should be astonishing but by now it's just expected.

THEN, calling me hypocrite and gaslighting me about what happened in a thread, after attacking me for something I was not even saying, acting like I didn't have a leg to stand on with my landlord WHOM I WAS NOT SUING, for either tossing my 9000 some dollar system out or, in all probability giving it to his son after telling me he would hold onto it in this storage shed (where it took up as much room as a tower tends to: not much). And I said lay off, if you can't treat me like you treat any human being, back the f**k off.

Yeah, while I stated empathy for SawCeeJack's condition, ghetto has that kind of shit to his credit.
I lost my left foot and ankle, the landlord had seen me about in the neighborhood numerous times in my wheelchair, I had asked about it more than once, and once I had the housing and the wherewithal to move it now it had supposedly been taken to the dumpster. SURE, a MacPro tower and an Apple Cinema display were simply taken to the dumpster.

I'm a hypocrite for answering Jack(off)'s taunts because I said "I'm a human being" once, and there's your context. Walk a mile in my shoes, big boy. Wait, my one shoe. Wait, wheel a mile and a half to the store and back with one foot (and nerve damage in both arms, a bum right shoulder from being nearly beaten to death in East Oakland, minding my own business, and a terrific back condition out of the hit and run in 1987 which sprained my neck and gave me the mother of all concussions and a nausea-making sick headache for a solid year.). Oh, hey, then we find you found your

brother

and kindred spirit, fellow traveler
In the Saucy Jack. Sociopaths rule, ok. Got it.

Yeah, buddy, you're such a strong signal for empathy here, aren't you. You're the perfect exemplar for practicing everything you preach, too, isn't it. You're an asshole here - flaming to even begin with but you think your disguise is made of impenetrable wool - and you continue on showing us the extent of your problem with basic impulse control.

Thought-free; or a seriously insubstantial intellect desperately flailing, grabbing at whatever shit is handy. I hate being unable to remain collegial but the respect is impossible. It started years ago, picking fights with me where I wasn't even addressing this ghettosynth.

Here it is, I'm happy for all to see this degraded exchange. My part in it as well. Yeah, apparently I'm not at my best here, including my typing.

But this:

Where I'm coming from.

Yeah, a musical education and musicianship. Intellectual curiosity, always. Rather than the opposite... So thanks for waving that neon sign about, "mate".

You dropped out of school, no?

Like Miles Davis I did.

Signaling so proudly in neon light: look at me in my desperation, on top of my having not the least experience in what I'm on about.

Oh yeah, my having been candid in the past I didn't finish school is weaponized like it's some kind of argument.
Sure, no one continued their education outside the halls of a brick and mortar school. Independent study is nothing, it's just a matter of completing someone else's curriculum.
As it happens, I got the powers-that-be at CCM to let me take a graduate course {Form and Analysis} as a sophomore. It wasn't a great paper, surely but it was a good move to make as I did get into the form of the Bach Suite, a substantial composition; which I performed for jury - for a living legend, Henry Meyers of the LaSalle String Quartet - for an A), sure.

Continuing on there I would have been leading the guitar ensemble, basically a job I was paying to do (I pushed for a scholarship but for a guitarist, well...); maybe I could have suffered through Species Counterpoint but I prefer not to. And I did a semester at San Fran working in the library for 4 bucks an hour and playing with tape in the Lab. Who was paying for it? I was borrowing money. You can kiss my ever-widening ass, pally.

[jancivil]

I would like to reiterate that, in terms of the real meaning of avant-garde, I do not consider myself as at the front of any 'guard' and except for the fusion of styles only revealed in the final section and for the Skanner synth and other sound design in terms of fact this piece will only have been particularly avant-garde long, long ago. It def does not eclipse Varèse's Deserts completed in 1954.

That being said, I do consider what I'm doing as 21st century music, and not 20th c.

[Jace-BeOS]

I would like to reiterate that, in terms of the real meaning of avant-garde, I do not consider myself as at the front of any 'guard' and except for the fusion of styles only revealed in the final section and for the Skanner synth and other sound design in terms of fact this piece will only have been particularly avant-garde long, long ago. It def does not eclipse Varèse's Deserts completed in 1954.

That being said, I do consider what I'm doing as 21st century music, and not 20th c.

Duly noted. I'm not a fan of strongly categorizing music but "avant-garde" was one of the few I grasped the concept of, and I saw someone else suggest that genre in reference to your piece here. I was just trying to run with it I take no other meaning behind it.

[Jace-BeOS]

Anyway, I hope, jancivil, that you continue making music and enjoying the experiences and the results. I'm going to listen to a few more pieces of your work. It's definitely worth my time and consideration.

thanks. I'll do this until I die, however I'm more than ready to throw off this mortal coil.

I hear you. I want to live a better life, not subsist in this one. So there's a part of me that says "oh hell, me too" when I read your above statement about the mortal coil. I'd like to say "I hope for you that..." but I don't believe in platitudes. Oh here comes one anyway: May you find the next thing that makes the next minute better than the last.

[Niklashe]

Very nice soundscapes and production! Now, when I found your YouTube page, I have something to listen to the rest of the day:)

If this is a solo project, may I ask what sample libraries you use for the orchestral sounds?

Anyway, very nicely done!

Best/Niklas

[ChamMusic]

Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this on a number of levels.

Can't argue with your Varèse comparison, especially with the strong emphasis on timbre and rhythm throughout the piece.

At times, the jazz-influenced elements took me back to moments in this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGsVqF-URXc

One of my all-time favourite Jazz albums.

[Frantz]

"As Alien As" is very accomplished. The visuals are excellent too. Watched+listened twice.

[jancivil]

Very nice soundscapes and production! Now, when I found your YouTube page, I have something to listen to the rest of the day:)

If this is a solo project, may I ask what sample libraries you use for the orchestral sounds?

Anyway, very nicely done!

Best/Niklas

Thanks muchly, Niklas.

Here... hmmm. Was 2012 apparently, let me reflect back.
Trombones (trombone, bass trombone) are WarpIV Music Legendary Trombone
Trumpet Harmon Mute is WarpIV Music Screaming Trumpet
Flutes: Warp IV Music Jazz Flute; VSL Alto Flute
Percussion: VSL except for kit drums in final section, BFD2 (I suppose largely Jazz 'n Funk expansion)
Bass guitar: Scarbee Pre Bass

[sjm]

I am the 1%!

[layzer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGsVqF-URXc

One of my all-time favourite Jazz albums.

hey! thanks for sharing that, Mark! i had been looking for some good
castanet sounds, i sampled them from the beginning of that video, im going to make a song with castanet rolls soon!

[jancivil]

duplication of post, all KVR and the idiotic 'there has been another post since... review post'

[jancivil]

Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this on a number of levels.

Can't argue with your Varèse comparison, especially with the strong emphasis on timbre and rhythm throughout the piece.

At times, the jazz-influenced elements took me back to moments in this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGsVqF-URXc

One of my all-time favourite Jazz albums.

Thank you. When I started, I was 'Varèse: I don't really have him but I notice hallmarks of his harmonic language enough to have a go. And the instruments I had were jazz-inflection so it became 'jazz group considering Varèse'; which is not aping Varèse. I just write lines and find out where they go. The 'personality' of an instrument informs me as to what to even do.
My favorite comment was at Soundcloud where the second 'sting' in the last section was 'this is the handshake between Varèse and Zappa' to someone. As that is a little bit Alien Orifice (a dated perspective itself on accessible holes of aliens one supposes. I remember being stoned while f**king once and it was like that.).