Week 6 - Forum - Definitions of Music Technology

WORKSHOP

I was hoping that I would like all of Edgard Varese and Milton Babbit. It is amusing how I listen to these types of composers and just don't really get 'it'.

Am I meant to get anything? Or should I just experience these new sounds as if I were a baby, still unable to give sounds a name and form.

I guess the other thing to consider is weight of cultural expectations. I keep comparing these composers and their works to other standards and traditions of music. Is this tolerable?

I wonder, though, with the weight the past ejected from my value set, whether I would still be in a position to criticise or congratulate?

I didn't mind Barry Truax - Wings of Nike I - 1

I seem to like lower frequencies. Once sounds start to get random and high pitched, it just seems to mess with my wiring. Truax's piece was a welcome relief from the apparent chaos of the former composers.

Check out these link on Truax info:

http://www.sfu.ca/~truax/nework.html 2

http://www.sfu.ca/~truax/gsample.html 3

http://www.sfu.ca/~truax/nike.html 4


Download 'Wings of Nike' from here:

http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/excerpts/Nike.mov 5

I'd like to know why we are spending so much time on modernist composers. I figure that if I am going to listen to music I want it to be enjoyable. I find it hard to comprehend that there are composers out there, getting paid, to come up with a bunch of sounds that could have been generated in my duodenum. I don't care much for liberalism or modernism. But yet I am a product and conduit of these schools of thought.


CREATIVE COMMUNICATION

Spear http://klingbeil.com/papers/spearfinal05.pdf 6

Peak http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/reviews/peakproxt5/index.php 7

SoundHack http://www.soundhack.com/ 8


I think Spear is a very powerful tool that is still in a developmental phase.

I am keen to get more intimate with it. Time is the only factor.

Once again I find myself in a position where I am not that familiar with these specific programmes. They all seem pretty good and I am eager to learn and apply them.

AUDIO ARTS

What to say, apart from we hooked up a radio into a room. Not exactly rocket science.


FORUM

I didn't really get much from the forum. I spent most of the time sitting there wondering about how little I care what anyone thinks MT is or should be. I just want to do it.
It seemed that the same points kept looping into the dialogue. From my point of view it's irrelevant what anyone wants to lable it. Maybe it's the anarchist in me? Yet how do I reconcile that with my obsessive desire to have everything in its place?

I feel inclined to point out that there is room for two MT streams - Science majors and Arts majors.

I wonder with all this study, that after 3 years, how much more or less I would know if I had just gone straight out into the industry and started as a volunteer. I think in terms of applying knowledge gained through experience rather than sitting in a room 'wondering' about what it all means, there is something to be said for vocational and practical focus in the course. Do universities have to be so academic?

Here's a link to some articles on aesthetics.

http://www.questia.com/library/music-and-performing-arts/music/music-aesthetics.jsp?CRID=music_aesthetics&OFFID=se1&KEY=music_aesthetics 9

http://web.apu.ac.uk/music/rhoadley/links/links_concom.html 10

1 Barry Truax, 1991, Pacific Rim (CSR-CD 9101)

2 www.sfu.ca (Date accessed 10/04/06)

3 ibid

4 ibid

5 ibid

6 Klingbeil.com (Date accessed 10/04/06)

7 Macworld.com (Date accessed 10/04/06)

8 Soundhack.com (Date accessed 10/04/2006)

9 Questia.com (Date accessed 10/04/2006)

10 web.apu.ac.uk (Date accessed 10/04/2006)