Experimental music defined

[ouroboros]

on experimental music???

is that even a real course?

which is a bit like asking if a dissertation on Jane Austen is 'a real course'.

No, it's like asking if James Joyce is a real course.

Which, of course, it isn't.

Joyce just sat in front of a typewriter with his eyes closed and banged away on it to make Finnegan's Wake. Everyone knows that.

paring his nails, I believe.

[justin3am]

Experimental music, even as a topic, is rather difficult to define. If you disagree with me on this, that's fine, but I'm not altering my approach to this. My ambivalence regarding it is just what it seems, and may remain.

See I don't think musical/audio experiments or "experimental music" need to be defined. In fact I think it's a concept best left nebulous. The best way, IMO, to get an understanding of the concepts behind these experiments is to participate. It's like that famous mis-quote says.

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." Who the hell actually said that anyway?

[vespers75]

See I don't think musical/audio experiments or "experimental music" need to be defined. In fact I think it's a concept best left nebulous. The best way, IMO, to get an understanding of the concepts behind these experiments is to participate.

Well said.

[whyterabbyt]

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." Who the hell actually said that anyway?

Emma Goldman?

[jopy]

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." Who the hell actually said that anyway?

It was probably Frank Zappa, although I've seen it attributed to Elvis Costello. The irony is that both Frank Zappa and Elvis Costello have contributed a fair amount of very good, interesting writing regarding music (or at least they have through interviews).

I like the idea of dancing about architecture every now and again, but I do certainly agree that there's no point in defining experimental music. Genre labels are tombstones describing a style of music that has passed from being vital and creative to being a series of people imitating one another to stay in "style."

I've known people who "experimented" with different chord progressions and melodic shapes for hours, and produced music that few people would identify with the avant garde in any way. All composition that isn't straight from a textbook or copying someone else note for note is experimental in some way.

[ouroboros]

is writing about experimental music then experimental writing about music?


I apologize.

[whyterabbyt]

is writing about experimental music then experimental writing about music?


I apologize.

depends. are you dancing at the same time?

[ouroboros]

poorly!

[giancarlos]

He explained his credentials in another thread

this is the internet...credentials are just something you tell people you have...its not always true

(tho im sure he has no reason to lie, but just so you know for future reference)

So who are you really giancarlos?

who are you really vespers75?

...A sock puppet for whom?

for no-one

Or are you a former member unsuccessfully attempting a fresh start?

never been an ex member, and im certainly not attempting a fresh start.

[vurt]

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." Who the hell actually said that anyway?

It was probably Frank Zappa, although I've seen it attributed to Elvis Costello. The irony is that both Frank Zappa and Elvis Costello have contributed a fair amount of very good, interesting writing regarding music (or at least they have through interviews).

a. kaufman is also credited with saying it, as is laurie anderson and many others.
i said it once too.

[vespers75]

He explained his credentials in another thread

this is the internet...credentials are just something you tell people you have...its not always true

(tho im sure he has no reason to lie, but just so you know for future reference)

No, he has no reason to lie, nor hide things for that matter...unlike yourself (just so you know that for future reference)

So who are you really giancarlos?

who are you really vespers75?

Who I am is no secret, you likely know this yourself. Simply another avoidance of discussing your identity...

...A sock puppet for whom?

for no-one

Or are you a former member unsuccessfully attempting a fresh start?

never been an ex member, and im certainly not attempting a fresh start.

...just like these responses from you. Can't you be just a little more clever?

[giancarlos]

No, he has no reason to lie, nor hide things for that matter...unlike yourself

i have no reason to lie or hide, but as it is, i cannot post under my other name (which is a fake name anyway..so...)so im posting under this one...

Who I am is no secret, you likely know this yourself

nope, no idea who you are

Simply another avoidance of discussing your identity...

i didnt realise you wanted to discuss it, but feel free, i have no objections

...just like these responses from you. Can't you be just a little more clever?

you lost me there, what are you refering to?

[zerocrossing]

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." Who the hell actually said that anyway?

It was probably Frank Zappa, although I've seen it attributed to Elvis Costello. The irony is that both Frank Zappa and Elvis Costello have contributed a fair amount of very good, interesting writing regarding music (or at least they have through interviews).

a. kaufman is also credited with saying it, as is laurie anderson and many others.
i said it once too.

You're all wrong. It was Steve Martin.

http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/1553

[zerocrossing]

Do all you guys have me on mute? I quite clearly answered this question definitively a few times already.

[SODDI]

There was a very recent thread in which the term experimental music was introduced, and some said their music was most definitely not experimental. So I decided to find a definition that might give me some insight regarding this term, and here's what I found on Wikipedia:

The term was first introduced by composer John Cage in 1955. According to Cage's definition, "an experimental action is one the outcome of which is not foreseen", and he was specifically interested in completed works that performed an unpredictable action.

This was not what I expected. To me, it would be "music" that 99 out of 100 people would say, "That's not music!" That is, melody would be marginal or non-existent relative to what we sing or hum along to in our cars and showers. But "unexpected outcomes" was, to me, unexpected. I assume he means unexpected by the listener, and the reaction could be expected to be negative for the vast majority of those hearing it.

So, do those who believe they are creating experimental music adhere to the John Cage definition, or is it more about music that simply doesn't conform to what 99 percent of listeners want to hear? In other words, is experimental music outside of any of the recognized genres of music now in existence?

Have at it. I'll be back later to see how it's going. :)

It is interesting how what is considered experimental European music has entered the "pop" music mainstream.

Futurist Luigi Russolo (http://www.windworld.com/feature_pages/ ... ussolo.jpg) called for an "art of noise", using the sounds of everyday life in the early years of the 20th Century, Pierre Henry laboriously cut up fragments of tape to reassemble them into musical pieces. The Beatles used Henry's techniques in a number of pieces (I Am The Walrus, Revolution 9) and Spooky Tooth recorded an album with Henry (Ceremony). In the '90s bands were dropping in fragments of beats from other music and whole lines of dialogue from movies like Evil Dead 2. And The Art of Noise based their entire ouevre in sampling - the name was no accident.

Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Louise and Bebe Barron (Forbidden Planet sountrack) built sound generating equipment that were rudimentary FM synthesis modules and ring modulators. Versions were incorporated into the early Moog and Buchla modular synths, John Chowning patented a digital version of FM which led to the inescapable DX7, and now FM and RM synthesis are in a lot of software synths.

It is important to note that the early Moogs and Buchlas were originally designed for use in "avant-garde" music. Only Buchla remained relentlessly avant-garde.

Echoes of Steve Reich's and Philip Glass' minimalist pieces are in Brian Eno's ambient albums and Eno's collaboration with Laraji Day of Radiance could almost be a Reich piece. Glen Branca's Guitar Symphonies have been superceded by NIN's (Adrian Belew's)guitar skronk on The Downward Spiral. Robert Fripp has worked for decades with a variation of the avant-garde tape technique, the Ussachevsky loop. Zappa worshipped at the altar of Edgar Varese.

And tell me exactly where you're gonna place Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.

I think that there is a good case to be made that "avant-garde" and "experimental" music has found their true home and have flourished and received a wide audience in the rock canon. In its former place within the DWEM "classical" canon, it is for the most part unlistenable, inaccessable and IT IS MEANT TO BE THAT WAY.

There's also the fact that a lot of "rock" musicians have MAD SKILLZ compared to their "classical" counterparts.

It's the conflict between "high" and "low" art. And "high" art lost because the 20th Century DWEM canon was a useless bourgeois conceit.

Watchmen (the graphic novel) is a better novel than anything John Updike ever did and better art than anything you'd see at the Whitney Biennial.

You can have your Segovias - I got John Fahey.