Pop micro etc

A few random comments...all I know is, there's less gigs here in Denver than I've seen in 25 years, and I mean all over the board, stylistically. The Symph has taken a pay cut (and indeed, many Symphs around the country are having problems...Cleveland played without a contract for a while recently); the Denver Center, which is a superb regional theatre with 5 venues, has just dropped it's highly regarded conservatory program, and that means a bunch of artistic jobs are going; directors, vocal coaches, pianists, the plays they did every year (including a number of musicals); also, friends of mine have just had clubs cut their gigs this last week; and weddings, private parties, new years gigs...all are way down. There was a pic in the paper of a dude here who has sold out several venues lately...he's a DJ. Downtown Denver used to have a bunch of live venues; now most are clubs with sound systems/DJs...not so good here, and I'm betting it's similar in a lot of cities. Indeed, live music, I believe, IS in trouble these days...many younger people have grown up with an astonishing array of ways to entertain/titillate themselves; not sure how a blues band can compete with something like Avatar, for many millions of folks (trying to make a point...you can dig both, of course). And, indeed, our current culture seems to be heading more and more towards mindless poo...the predominance of "reality" shows, and their simplistic content, should be proof enough of that.

Chris used the word (s) religious conversion (I think I'm close?) to refer to an attitude about getting more folks into non 12 tunings. That's not the way I feel about it...I think the field of tuning theory (and practice) is vast and profoundly beautiful, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be much more integrated into general musical practice. Why isn't the subject of tuning a part of every school music curriculum in the world? It should be, because how we structure our intervals has a profound effect on how music sounds...that's pretty obvious. Yet, it's virtually ignored, especially in Western oriented schools...and that should change, because we are overlooking a field which informs everything we do as musicians. I understand music on a much deeper level these days because of my understanding of such concepts as the Harmonic Series and Spiral of 5ths...again, these basic structures ARE where music itself originates...to not even know about this stuff means we are much less, as artists, then we could be. The dominance of the 12 eq system is way old and dated...getting harder and harder to hear much of interest in it these days, everything sounds sort of recycled (except for guys like Jeff Beck)....so the obvious answer to me is other systems. It's interesting....even overlooking the pop scene, I'm somewhat amazed at the number of great jazz and classical folks I know (and many I don't) who think the concept of other systems is cool/hip, but they don't go the next step and compose/play in any of them. It's obvious (to me) that getting into other tunings would have a vast beneficial effect on the music of this planet, but it hasn't exactly caught fire yet...but, no reason why it can't, either. After the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan, music changed in an astonishing fashion almost overnight, and I, being a bit of a dreamer, still think something like that can happen again...why not? And, maybe tunings can be a part of that...why not? And I don't mean pop vs. classical, or anything like that...I mean MUSIC, overall.

And, a real important point...I study/play in the field of tunings cause I personally LOVE doing it...whether or not anybody else does...that's the bottom line. And, I put out CD's of this love of mine cause I like to hear the music that can be created in this field..again, real simple. Sure, it's a hoot to know others who love it too, nice to share (and yes, this list is a real good thing), and hoping more artists will get into this...and I still believe they will. Again, why not? Best from a snowy Denver...Hstick

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The religious conversion is the insistence that pop music become microtonal.
And in my view its starting already.

And for what its worth my daughter strongly disagrees about live music
dying. It isn't dead for her. But then pop music always has appealed
strongly to teenagers.

However, don't lose sight of the fact that live music and commercial music
AND classical music often has priced themselves out of a market. And the
record companies did the same with CDs. People I think still love music - it
is playing almost everywhere you go and is expected to be there - the
grocery store - car radio - even commercials. In fact its hard to escape
anywhere indoors in a good sized city. Maybe what is really dead is people
actually *listening* to the music they hear.

Music is a commodity like coal, oil, and corn.

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 7:22 PM, Neil Haverstick <microstick@...> wrote:

>
>
>
> A few random comments...all I know is, there's less gigs here in Denver
> than I've seen in 25 years, and I mean all over the board, stylistically.
> The Symph has taken a pay cut (and indeed, many Symphs around the country
> are having problems...Cleveland played without a contract for a while
> recently); the Denver Center, which is a superb regional theatre
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Pop music has always been microtonal if by microtonal one means subtle
pitch deviations from 12-tET. Surely, vocals by pop idols have never
conformed to 12-EDO even when accompanied by equal tempered guitars
and keyboards.

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Mar 20, 2010, at 1:41 AM, Chris Vaisvil wrote:

> The religious conversion is the insistence that pop music become
> microtonal.
> And in my view its starting already.
>
> And for what its worth my daughter strongly disagrees about live music
> dying. It isn't dead for her. But then pop music always has appealed
> strongly to teenagers.
>
> However, don't lose sight of the fact that live music and commercial
> music
> AND classical music often has priced themselves out of a market. And
> the
> record companies did the same with CDs. People I think still love
> music - it
> is playing almost everywhere you go and is expected to be there - the
> grocery store - car radio - even commercials. In fact its hard to
> escape
> anywhere indoors in a good sized city. Maybe what is really dead is
> people
> actually *listening* to the music they hear.
>
> Music is a commodity like coal, oil, and corn.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 7:22 PM, Neil Haverstick
> <microstick@...> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> A few random comments...all I know is, there's less gigs here in
>> Denver
>> than I've seen in 25 years, and I mean all over the board,
>> stylistically.
>> The Symph has taken a pay cut (and indeed, many Symphs around the
>> country
>> are having problems...Cleveland played without a contract for a while
>> recently); the Denver Center, which is a superb regional theatre
>>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Chris wrote:
>People I think still love music - it
>is playing almost everywhere you go and is expected to be there - the
>grocery store

If music does vanish, musak will be what's left.

-Carl

One can argue that the inflections are one of the striking differences from
classical music to a listener.
Another being the advent of microphones allowing for more expression by
singers.

(this is, with all due respect, in a western context - your culture never
had such problems :-) )

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 8:07 PM, Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...>wrote:

>
>
> Pop music has always been microtonal if by microtonal one means subtle
> pitch deviations from 12-tET. Surely, vocals by pop idols have never
> conformed to 12-EDO even when accompanied by equal tempered guitars
> and keyboards.
>
> Oz.
>
> ✩ ✩ ✩
> www.ozanyarman.com
>
>
> On Mar 20, 2010, at 1:41 AM, Chris Vaisvil wrote:
>
> > The religious conversion is the insistence that pop music become
> > microtonal.
> > And in my view its starting already.
> >
> > And for what its worth my daughter strongly disagrees about live music
> > dying. It isn't dead for her. But then pop music always has appealed
> > strongly to teenagers.
> >
> > However, don't lose sight of the fact that live music and commercial
> > music
> > AND classical music often has priced themselves out of a market. And
> > the
> > record companies did the same with CDs. People I think still love
> > music - it
> > is playing almost everywhere you go and is expected to be there - the
> > grocery store - car radio - even commercials. In fact its hard to
> > escape
> > anywhere indoors in a good sized city. Maybe what is really dead is
> > people
> > actually *listening* to the music they hear.
> >
> > Music is a commodity like coal, oil, and corn.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 7:22 PM, Neil Haverstick
> > <microstick@... <microstick%40msn.com>> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> A few random comments...all I know is, there's less gigs here in
> >> Denver
> >> than I've seen in 25 years, and I mean all over the board,
> >> stylistically.
> >> The Symph has taken a pay cut (and indeed, many Symphs around the
> >> country
> >> are having problems...Cleveland played without a contract for a while
> >> recently); the Denver Center, which is a superb regional theatre
> >>
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

That would be the listeners choice. But my daughter gives me hope - so do
the myriad self-releases on the internet.

There ARE artists out there...

http://m.thequietrevolution.net/mmd/free-mp3s/3-smargaid-maerd/

And I never thought it was right for pop singers or athletes to make
mega-millions. What they do isn't that important.

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 8:11 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:

>
>
> Chris wrote:
> >People I think still love music - it
> >is playing almost everywhere you go and is expected to be there - the
> >grocery store
>
> If music does vanish, musak will be what's left.
>
> -Carl
>
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Neil>"many younger people have grown up with an astonishing array of ways to entertain/titillate themselves; not sure how a blues band can compete with something like Avatar"

While it's true to an extent...it's also true IMVHO that the above attitude comes across as an excuse in much the same way the major music label's inability to embrace fan's changing preferences for how to obtain and rate music has changed.
Can blues compete? I believe so...but certainly not if it (like the major music labels) prides itself on resting on it's laurels. Truth is most people and "kids" don't care about the rich history of blues in the same way someone who owns a Playstation Portable gains little by knowing the history of the Gameboy.
For example, Neil, out of what I've heard of your work, the only thing I think I could convince most kids is cool is your "African Stick" song because the rhythm sounds so organized and the mood so confident and energetic with so many free-spirited melodic hooks that it avoids feeling "academic". The rest I find often much more jittery feeling in mood, often more interesting to listen to but not "decodable" enough that I'd be able to, say, explain my like for it to a friend and have them "get me" in most cases. I call that "litmus test" the "DJ test" IE would you feel weird playing X song in front of a group of people...for an artist to truly have widespread influence among non-niche musicians, IMVHO, he has to consistently be able to pass the "DJ test".
Then again I could say the same sort of things about artists like
Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, both of who I think are fantastic. Vai in particular, I believe, falls into the trap of being too hard to follow for too many people and, in fact, my favorite songs of his would get me frighteningly embarrassed to "spin"/play in public or spread word of mouth about.

Perhaps the only artist I've heard who consistently makes song-after-song with such qualities is Marcus Satellite...and it's not because he makes dance music (most micro-tonal dance I've heard is actually pretty bad, sadly) but that he makes micro-tonal with the same sort of confidence and resolve in his songs you'd expect from 12TET...and often better.

>"Why isn't the subject of tuning a part of every school music curriculum in the world"
IMVHO, for the same reason I couldn't get credit for studying Dutch at an American school in Holland (pretty odd, right?)...there supposedly aren't enough places who use it (Dutch or Micro-tonal music) to make it worth teaching as applicable to the working world.

Now so far as actually being able to quickly show even the low-attention span public how micro-tonal compares to 12TET...
...I wonder what you all think would happen if someone made a program that would re-tune any mp3 to a fairly nearby (IE most notes within 25 cents) micro-tonal tuning?

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I don't think it would be bad if nobody in the world could make money from music.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> That would be the listeners choice. But my daughter gives me hope - so do
> the myriad self-releases on the internet.
>
> There ARE artists out there...
>
> http://m.thequietrevolution.net/mmd/free-mp3s/3-smargaid-maerd/
>
> And I never thought it was right for pop singers or athletes to make
> mega-millions. What they do isn't that important.

I agree. But I do think it would be bad if nobody in the world
could make music. Or bothered to. Or if it was only made by a small
percentage of the population, sitting alone in front of a computer.

-Carl

Sean wrote:
>I don't think it would be bad if nobody in the world could make money
>from music.

Chris wrote:
>> That would be the listeners choice. But my daughter gives me hope - so do
>> the myriad self-releases on the internet.
>>
>> There ARE artists out there...
>>
>> http://m.thequietrevolution.net/mmd/free-mp3s/3-smargaid-maerd/
>>
>> And I never thought it was right for pop singers or athletes to make
>> mega-millions. What they do isn't that important.

Carl,

I'm on page 146 of this list of *free* VST instruments and effects.

I don't think there is a problem

http://freemusicsoftware.org/page/146

There is no one I know that isn't interested in music. Its being interested
in music that is interesting is the hard part.

To take extremes

A composer sell out and write music that is sure fire to appeal but isn't
new.
Or a composer can write ground breaking music and most likely be obscure.
The best can do something new that brings new listeners to new music.

Debussy didn't copy old music - he innovated - and had an audience. I'd buy
his music off of his theoretical website - or Stravinsky (I guess he'd be
like a shock rocker :-) - - and I paid Radiohead for In Rainbows.

I agree in general the Majors have really polluted music - the music sold in
Walmart.

What needs to change is the "business model". Popular music will be much
better in my mind when one a record company can't buy radio time for crappy
music.

Chris

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 8:13 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:

>
>
> I agree. But I do think it would be bad if nobody in the world
> could make music. Or bothered to. Or if it was only made by a small
> percentage of the population, sitting alone in front of a computer.
>
> -Carl
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "sevishmusic" <sevish@...> wrote:
>
> I don't think it would be bad if nobody in the world could make money from music.

I do. I think art is important, and I have no problem supporting those who have chosen to make it their life that positively affect mine. Please don't read into this statement anything more than what I've actually said.

Neil wrote:

> A few random comments...all I know is, there's less gigs here in
>Denver than I've seen in 25 years, and I mean all over the board,
>stylistically. [snip]

Thanks for weighing in, Neil. Times are hard in all industries,
but my sense is that music is being hit harder than most.

[snip]
> But, it's like the folks who want "smaller government;" good luck,
>guys, ain't gonna happen too soon, it's way the hell too far gone to
>change it now. I realize that the 12 tone system is incredibly huge
>and integrated into the way folks all over the world play music; the
>idealistic part of me still believes it can change, and in my personal
>life, I am trying to help that change along. And who knows...could
>happen. I would love it if many systems were in use, if people used
>tunings like they use modes (which, to me, they are...modes of the
>Harmonic Series). But, changing 12 eq would be kind of like getting
>the Pentagon budget down..certainly a worthy goal, but...gonna be
>hard, and take some time...best...Hstick

Very simple and well-written post on the prospects of microtonality.
Thanks.

>There's a great article in the Sunday NY Times, Texts without
>Context, which relates to what we've been discussing here about pop
>music, creativity, and the content of art...check it out...Hstick

Heh- a newspaper talking about books that talk about the internet!
Still, a good review. I don't think Clay Shirky's work was mentioned,
so I'll plug it:
http://www.amazon.com/Here-Comes-Everybody-ebook/dp/B002RI9XJW/

A pretty good one-page version of his thesis can be had here:
http://www.shirky.com/herecomeseverybody/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html

-Carl

Carl,

> Times are hard in all industries,
> but my sense is that music is being hit harder than most.

I've never seen it this bad.

> Very simple and well-written post on the prospects of microtonality.

Totally agree.

> Heh- a newspaper talking about books that talk about the internet!
> Still, a good review. I don't think Clay Shirky's work was mentioned,
> so I'll plug it:
> http://www.amazon.com/Here-Comes-Everybody-ebook/dp/B002RI9XJW/

More good stuff. What I've read of Shirky I haven't agreed with as much, but I'll go through this as well. Thanks.

Cheers,
Jon