Re: [crazy_music] Digest Number 8

Hi Mary,

> > I seem to be trancing so easily with it I can't hear any sound at
> > all:-) YOur other pieces play fine so I think the problem is
> > specific to this piece.
>
> Never mind. Rebooted and the problem disappeared. Ah the sweet
> mysteries of Windows 98.

Could be some other clip had set expression to 0.

I wonder, usually my midi clips set the expression to max for
all the channels in case a previous midi clip faded them to 0
at the end, or varied them for some other reason.

However, realised the record to Midi as one plays along in beta preview
doesn't do that, and in fact, not sure if it ever did reset the expression
for the record play along to Midi, and I've fixed it ready for next beta
preview upload - I'll prob. upload it later today.

> About three minutes into the 17 TET piece I did find myself nodding
> into alpha, although there was one dissonant chord that brought me
> right back. Perhaps there is something to harmonic entropy where
> trancing is falling into those dips in the curve :-)

I wonder, the one a friend went into a trance with was in 12-tet
but had plenty of dissonances. I think even things like playing
all 12 notes simultaneously - I used to do a lot of playing
with motion from diatonic to chromatic by playing on the white
notes and gradually introducing more and more of the black ones,
then going back to the white ones, which gives a very static kind
of music, not going anywhere, just more and less chromatic, which
I like.

Could be she just meant she dipped in and out of that kind of a state.
Or are we perhaps more familiar with 12-tet dissonances.

I wonder if someone who trances easily needs to be careful about the
type of music you listen to when driving, if listening to any music
at all? I suppose that is what I had in mind about kind of warning about it.

I suppose when one listens to music intently, say, something like a
string quartet, one gets so absorbed in the music, one is less aware
of everything else - I don't know if that is related to the trance
idea. Do you know the Hoffnung short cartoon about a string quartet
playing away while their stage is dismantled and placed on a lorry,
and so forth, not aware of anything around them, so absorbed in the
music?

That certainly happens to me to some extent, and I think it is prob.
fairly common. One is still aware of the music, but one kind of feels
it as much as one hears it. I expect many musicians who think they
never go into a trance can relate to that experience, but I don't know
if it is the same thing. After all one can also get completely absorbed and
lost in a book one is reading, then look up and be almost surprised to see
the familiar world around one, and no dragons or wizards, or whatever one
was reading about.

I expect the matter of dissonances waking one up may be largely
a matter of familiarity. 17-tet dissonances would be particularly
unfamiliar, and a new dissonance would wake one up. Also of course
it is a lively temperament and not likely to be part. conducive
to trance, and that it is at all perhaps shows there is another
side to 17-tet.

Anyway, I'm not trying to make trance music, and don't imagine it
is particularly desirable in itself, except in a context where there
is a point to it, e.g. to heal.

As a holistic thing, part of a healing context, I can see it may well
be of value, just as sleep and dreaming are healing things too. Or,
to go the other way, I feel your music is beneficial and healing,
so if it sends some people into a trance, I think one can assume
that it will be a beneficial trance.

However, truth is, I prefer my listeners to hear my music rather
than to go into a trance and miss it all, but may be not quite
getting what a trance is all about when I say that.

Robert

--- In crazy_music@y..., "Robert Walker" <robertwalker@n...> wrote:
>
> I wonder if someone who trances easily needs to be careful about the
> type of music you listen to when driving, if listening to any music
> at all? I suppose that is what I had in mind about kind of warning
about it.
>
Yes. Ahem. I am not the world's most attentive driver. My husband
refuses to be in a car when I am driving for that is worth :-), but
I've never had an accident.
> I suppose when one listens to music intently, say, something like a
> string quartet, one gets so absorbed in the music, one is less aware
> of everything else - I don't know if that is related to the trance
> idea. Do you know the Hoffnung short cartoon about a string quartet
> playing away while their stage is dismantled and placed on a lorry,
> and so forth, not aware of anything around them, so absorbed in the
> music?
>
> That certainly happens to me to some extent, and I think it is prob.
> fairly common. One is still aware of the music, but one kind of
feels
> it as much as one hears it. I expect many musicians who think they
> never go into a trance can relate to that experience, but I don't
know
> if it is the same thing. I think it is the same thing, and I think
the capacity to become totally absorbed, or completely focused, is a
trance. >
> I expect the matter of dissonances waking one up may be largely
> a matter of familiarity. 17-tet dissonances would be particularly
> unfamiliar, and a new dissonance would wake one up. Also of course
> it is a lively temperament and not likely to be part. conducive
> to trance, and that it is at all perhaps shows there is another
> side to 17-tet.
>
, just as sleep and dreaming are healing things too.

Exactly. the most healing states are not full beta consciousness.
For myself, if I can't spend some time each day daydreaming, or what
I call exploring other realms and dimensions, I get very cranky and
don't feel terribly creative. Again getting fully absorbed in
something also works for me in the same way. My suspicion is there
is a chemistry generated in these states that is beneficial for the
body.
>
> However, truth is, I prefer my listeners to hear my music rather
> than to go into a trance and miss it all, but may be not quite
> getting what a trance is all about when I say that.

For myself I tend to hear everything much more clearly in an altered
state of consciousness - almost like I can stretch time and have
enough space to hear every little nuance. I don't however remember,
or choose to remember, every detail when I'm back in full waking
consciousness, in part I think because the feeling is most precious
to me. Actually as I read over these words I realize my own personal
goal with music is to be able to express more and more of the beauty
and sacredness I can feel in these states, using my voice in
particular.

Its fun talking about this stuff with you Robert.

Mary

--- In crazy_music@y..., "Robert Walker" <robertwalker@n...> wrote:

> I wonder if someone who trances easily needs to be careful about the
> type of music you listen to when driving, if listening to any music
> at all?

My only car accident in 24 years of driving was while listening - for
the first time - to the Tuning List Tape Swap tape that several of us
collaborated on in 1997. There was a beautiful sythesized choral
piece playing, sounded like angels or something, and I went right out
of my head. Someone stopped to make a left turn in front of me and by
the time I came to it was too late to do anything. Rear ended her
big pickup truck with my little Hyundai at about 35 mph, her sitting
dead still. My tool box was in the back seat on the passenger side,
and smashed almost through the windshield. If it had been on my side,
I'd have been killed.

The tape stuck in the player and wouldn't come out. Sold the car to a
junk yard and never got to hear the rest of it.

So, yes, be vvveeeerrryy careful what kinds of music you listen to
while driving, esp. microtonal music. I always listen to some kind of
music while driving, except mid day when talk radio heats up. Never
had any problems with Western classical, rock, jazz, bluegrass,
whatever. Maybe get a little sleepy sometimes during Echoes, or
Hearts of Space, which are two public radio shows featuring "New Age"
music of various kinds. But microtonal stuff can get very powerful
on the psyche, esp. on first listen.

David