searching for experimental music forums

[Soniccat]

Well, having looked at some of the forums that people linked there are some interesting ones but I think if maybe Ben is not interested in creating a speacial forum for experimental music, maybe someone should contact these people about getting a forum started at Oddmusic http://www.oddmusic.com/ the site is certainly dedicated to all sorts of things pertaining to exprimental music.

[intel]

In short I am all for it as an experimentalist; perhaps NTNS-radio (not the normal shit-radio) could provide a corner stone here

eh. there's already something of a forum there, but not much talk about anything relevant. dunno how the regulars would take legitimate discussion about anything topical.

The clannishness is a bit offputting, as is the mutual-appreciation-society aura that hangs over the proceedings, but it is about the best info source on this sort of thing out there.

yeah. the Gear forum doesn't grate my nerves so much (except when some self-proclaimed Master of Noise wants to dictate to others what "real noise artists" would or would not do). sometimes I get the feeling that its the board where you go when you first discover noise. before you realize that its really not quite the insular little clique you thought it might be.

anyway, I can't bitch too much. I check in at least once a day...

[allofdrab]

ZeD ?

[rachmiel]

is anyone else bothered by what seems to be the trend for "experimental" sections of music web sites to be storage places for unfinished pieces, poorly produced genre songs, mere goofiness and rebellion? i've run into it several times now ... especially at soundclick type sites where people upload their songs for public consumption ... experimental wings as receptacles for half-baked music.

for me, and i'm sure for you, experimental music should be just as beautifully produced and composed as any other genre ... perhaps more, because its oddness is already a strike against it (in terms of listener acceptance).

maybe the term "experimental" does more harm than good these days? are there better terms? avant garde doesn't really work, reeks of self-conscious 20th century-ism. ;-)

rachMiel

[mystahr]

Outside the box is what I'd more call it

[shamann]

The problem with the concept of the experimental in music is that the term merely denotes a process and not an outcome. So that many people will write something as an experiment - for example, using 909 samples instead of 808 samples - and view the outcome as experimental. But merely testing out some ideas is very different from writing to test the boundaries of the musical form. Trying to fit a kind of music into a category, when the music by its very nature doesn't fit, is very difficult. To a degree, the process of defining music has been mooted anyway, in that some folk would have it that there are no limits nor definitions to music. So the big challenge might now be to redefine music, reign in the "all sound/things are music" angle. The heat pipes are creaking in my office; it is a lovely sound, but not music.

I wonder, though, is it radical to be conservative?

Is there a label that could encapsulate the works of both John Oswald and Merzbow? As an experiment, try this: describe in very plain, straightforward language exactly the music you have in mind. Not an easy task, but I'm sure it can be done. It would have to be free of touchy-feely artiste-inflected uncertainties, so that an impartial reader would know that you are talking about your kind of music and not some new category of trance (Oh look, I used a Yamaha synth for this sound instead of one by Roland. How experimental!) Once you have a concise summary, encapsulate it in one or two words.

[rachmiel]

> I wonder, though, is it radical to be conservative?

! :-) a great question ... (and chilling too).

i'm discovering in my own music that taking my own advice (to constantly challenge one's boundaries and zones of comfort) is opening me to composing more conventional, genre-close music ... because my normal comfortable realm is the periphery (and beyond). 4/4 beats are what truly frighten me.

rachMiel

[freeztar]

The problem with the concept of the experimental in music is that the term merely denotes a process and not an outcome. So that many people will write something as an experiment - for example, using 909 samples instead of 808 samples - and view the outcome as experimental. But merely testing out some ideas is very different from writing to test the boundaries of the musical form. Trying to fit a kind of music into a category, when the music by its very nature doesn't fit, is very difficult. To a degree, the process of defining music has been mooted anyway, in that some folk would have it that there are no limits nor definitions to music. So the big challenge might now be to redefine music, reign in the "all sound/things are music" angle. The heat pipes are creaking in my office; it is a lovely sound, but not music.

Brilliant prose, well said!

[rachmiel]

> The heat pipes are creaking in my office; it is a lovely sound, but not music.

why not? (i'm really interested in your response.)

rachMiel

[mystahr]

Escaping the boundaries of conventionalism I'm oft thinking how I can use that which I have to my control in different ways in order to create an new breeding ground to tell of nature's complex rhythmics.

hmmmmmmmm, dang Steve; trying to explain my own drive in experimentalism is hard enough, let alone find a definition for it in general.

[rachmiel]

i knows it when i hears it ...

music that surprises me and makes my brain cells go: "aha!"

rachMiel

[shamann]

i'm discovering in my own music that taking my own advice (to constantly challenge one's boundaries and zones of comfort) is opening me to composing more conventional, genre-close music ... because my normal comfortable realm is the periphery (and beyond). 4/4 beats are what truly frighten me.

I understand where you're coming from. Making something within a popular or traditional idiom that is both fresh-sounding and challenging to the listener without being revivalist or falling back on kitsch is the kind of musical antagonism that is very difficult to do well. As a result, those of us who are inclined to push listeners often turn to more obvious and traditionally successful forms of antagonism: noise; dissonance; physical aggression; structural ambiguity; rejection of establishment, repertory, progression and virtuosity.

And some paths are so narrow and well-worn that they offer very little return. For instance, could one write a fugue today that didn't hearken back to the beforetime? Maybe once, but not as a routine task.

I listened to a Derek Bailey album called Ballads the other day, beautiful stuff. Felt a bit like Bailey saying "You haven't understood all this time, so now I have to prove it," which I don't think he had anything to prove, but the work is so good, modifies his technique and the standards to make something really open and new. It's a useful template for the rest of us, pushing the known far enough so that it will still aggravate the placid blue-hairs but not so far that it can be disputed.

[gravehill]

is anyone else bothered by what seems to be the trend for "experimental" sections of music web sites to be storage places for unfinished pieces, poorly produced genre songs, mere goofiness and rebellion? i've run into it several times now ... especially at soundclick type sites where people upload their songs for public consumption ... experimental wings as receptacles for half-baked music.

for me, and i'm sure for you, experimental music should be just as beautifully produced and composed as any other genre ... perhaps more, because its oddness is already a strike against it (in terms of listener acceptance).

I couldn't agree more! Somehow many people seem to desperately want to get their stuff "out there", not caring about quality enough. And if it's crap, the usual train of thoughts seems to be something along the lines of "I'll call it experimental and get famous - after all some weirdos listen to even noise!"

[shamann]

> The heat pipes are creaking in my office; it is a lovely sound, but not music.

why not? (i'm really interested in your response.)

Well, music is a deliberate act and a human invention, for better or worse. I think a lot of what Cage was on about was wrong. When he listens he hears music, but why must sound be classified as music to be appreciated? That was very Adam-named-the-animals of him, wasn't it? When I listen, I hear sound. Beautiful in the same way I find a tree beautiful. But, the tree just is its own thing, it exists without consciously being beautiful (or at least there's no evidence that suggests otherwise).

Sound happens whether we like it or not, it is arrogant to think that sound is invalidated unless it carries our imprimatur. That's just humans forcing our will on the rest of nature.

Music is a distillation of sound, to suit our inclinations, and the description of a process, not a label of quality or aesthetic beauty. Music is something we do with sound, in the same way bunnies dig holes in the ground. But sound exists without music.

[dystonia_ek]

> The heat pipes are creaking in my office; it is a lovely sound, but not music.

why not? (i'm really interested in your response.)

rachMiel

Because the creaking is incidental, not intentional.
There's a crucial difference.

Doesn't make creaking heat pipes any less enjoyable, though! Maybe the complete and total lack of artistic pretentions on the part of the pipes gives them an advantage over musicians.