Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Sweeney's Agony

Thanks for the listen and comment. I'm not familiar with Chris Squire's work
beyond Yes - so that is a very surprising comment.
My feeling is that, as usual after letting it out, the mix sounds too
cluttered until about half way through the song.
I need to *simplify* *simplify* for blues / rock music.

However, I was pleased I hit so few bad notes on the fretless. Unlike midi
its a pain to fix bum notes - and at times can't even be done. Since this is
in a non-12 equal tuning correction of audio presents a real challenge. I
only messed with the frequency of one vocal note. As I remember I reset that
back to the original anyway.

Chris

On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 9:17 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:

>
>
> Sounds like something off a Chris Squire album, including the
> vocals. And you even have the same first name.
>
> Great work!
>
> -Carl
>
>
> At 10:46 AM 12/20/2010, you wrote:
> >I set an unfinished (in 1935) poem of T. S. Elliot to a blues genre
> >piece using John O'Sullivan's Blue Just Intonation tuning.
> >
> >The instrument line up is:
> >
> >Vocal,fretless electric guitar, rhodes, tenor sax, and drums. All but
> >the drums are live performances.
> >
> >Details and online play is here http://chrisvaisvil.com/?p=376
> >
> >Direct download (13 megs)
> >
> >http://micro.soonlabel.com/blue-tuning/dimension-test-blue-ji-sweeney-
> >agonistes.mp3
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Chris
> >
>
>
>

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

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...>

someone once said the difference between a good artist and a great one is the great one knows when to stop

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 22/12/10 6:34 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 1:56 PM, genewardsmith
> <genewardsmith@... > <mailto:genewardsmith%40sbcglobal.net>> wrote:
> >
> > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com > <mailto:MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>, Chris Vaisvil > <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > As can happen when you listen to sometime a million times > over your mind and
> > > ears start accepting things that later you wish you had not.
> >
> > Aint that the truth. Add to that stubbornness in not wanting > to give up an idea which isn't working.
>
> And then there's when a sub-par idea sinks into your head and > ruins
> the composition, and you can't stop thinking about it at every new
> turn.
>
> -Mike
>
>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

If I were to take this all personally - I've been producing a lot of crap
here lately.
Fair enough.

However.....

My question about people commenting on works was attached to Carlo's piece
Gama Jingle Bells (or something)

While I'm used to no comments - Carlo I don't think can be accused of
producing crap.

And - seriously - at one point *anything* throw out by anybody got a
response of some type.

Now its fairly rare. In my case though it probably is just *too much crap*.
The bar has been raised a bit.
In my case I can't come up with "Excluded by Peers", "Perserverence" or
"Orwellian Cameras" everyday - even though everyday I'm exploring new
techniques and ways of doing things - fair enough though if you don't like
the experiments.

I think "someone once said the difference between a good artist and a
great one is the great one knows when to stop"

is really "the great one knows what to show the public and what not to show"

because I believe in Ives ""Every great inspiration is but an experiment."
- Charles Ives

Chris

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...>wrote:

> someone once said the difference between a good artist and a
> great one is the great one knows when to stop
>
>
> /^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
> Mesotonal Music from:
> _'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
> North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
>
> _'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
> Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
> <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>
>
> ',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',
>
> a momentary antenna as i turn to water
> this evaporates - an island once again
>
> On 22/12/10 6:34 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 1:56 PM, genewardsmith
> > <genewardsmith@...
> > <mailto:genewardsmith%40sbcglobal.net <genewardsmith%2540sbcglobal.net>>>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
> > <mailto:MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com<MakeMicroMusic%2540yahoogroups.com>>,
> Chris Vaisvil
> > <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > As can happen when you listen to sometime a million times
> > over your mind and
> > > > ears start accepting things that later you wish you had not.
> > >
> > > Aint that the truth. Add to that stubbornness in not wanting
> > to give up an idea which isn't working.
> >
> > And then there's when a sub-par idea sinks into your head and
> > ruins
> > the composition, and you can't stop thinking about it at every new
> > turn.
> >
> > -Mike
> >
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

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

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

Chris wrote:

>If I were to take this all personally - I've been producing a lot of crap
>here lately.
>Fair enough.

FWIW I didn't read Kraig's comment (or any others) that way.
Also FWIW, I preferred your latest to the jingle bells.

I say keep it up. It may be true that your overall quantity/
quality ratio is a bit higher than some others. But that is
not necessarily a bad thing. It is much preferable to my
crippling perfectionism. You are putting art out there and
that is not something I see a lot of people doing. Anyway,
comparisons don't matter. Every piece stands on its own.

Possible reasons why MMM has less comments lately:

* Prolonged recession means people have less time to listen
and comment.

* Facebook, YouTube, NOM, and other venues are diluting the
audience somewhat.

* People don't know whether to comment here or on Tuning.
I sometimes wonder if the crossposting doesn't discourage
membership here. People figure, 'I'll see it on Tuning, or
enough of it anyway'. And then there are other threads there
where things get lost. I would suggest we all get together
and agree to post music here only. On Tuning, we can advertise
this fact.

just some thoughts,

-Carl

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...>

Hello Chris~
i would never say anything against peoples work
this was not a reference to you at all and wasn't in reference to output, put to work on a particular work.
while i have difference in opinion with people of theory, i rarely say anything negative about someones work.
Being a composer i am quite aware of how hard it is and how one often has to do a bit of exploring to try things out.
I consider allot of what i have done not as good as later things. most of these i have buried.

no one on these list gets less comments than myself if you really want to bring forth the issue.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 22/12/10 9:50 AM, Chris Vaisvil wrote:
>
> If I were to take this all personally - I've been producing a > lot of crap
> here lately.
> Fair enough.
>
> However.....
>
> My question about people commenting on works was attached to > Carlo's piece
> Gama Jingle Bells (or something)
>
> While I'm used to no comments - Carlo I don't think can be > accused of
> producing crap.
>
> And - seriously - at one point *anything* throw out by anybody > got a
> response of some type.
>
> Now its fairly rare. In my case though it probably is just > *too much crap*.
> The bar has been raised a bit.
> In my case I can't come up with "Excluded by Peers", > "Perserverence" or
> "Orwellian Cameras" everyday - even though everyday I'm > exploring new
> techniques and ways of doing things - fair enough though if > you don't like
> the experiments.
>
> I think "someone once said the difference between a good > artist and a
> great one is the great one knows when to stop"
>
> is really "the great one knows what to show the public and > what not to show"
>
> because I believe in Ives ""Every great inspiration is but an > experiment."
> - Charles Ives
>
> Chris
>
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Kraig Grady > <kraiggrady@... > <mailto:kraiggrady%40anaphoria.com>>wrote:
>
> > someone once said the difference between a good artist and a
> > great one is the great one knows when to stop
> >
> >
> > /^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
> > Mesotonal Music from:
> > _'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
> > North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island > <http://anaphoria.com/>
> >
> > _'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
> > Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
> > <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>
> >
> > ',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',
> >
> > a momentary antenna as i turn to water
> > this evaporates - an island once again
> >
> > On 22/12/10 6:34 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 1:56 PM, genewardsmith
> > > <genewardsmith@... > <mailto:genewardsmith%40sbcglobal.net>
> > > <mailto:genewardsmith%40sbcglobal.net > <genewardsmith%2540sbcglobal.net>>>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com > <mailto:MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>
> > > > <mailto:MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com<MakeMicroMusic%2540yahoogroups.com>>,
> > Chris Vaisvil
> > > <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > As can happen when you listen to sometime a million times
> > > over your mind and
> > > > > ears start accepting things that later you wish you > had not.
> > > >
> > > > Aint that the truth. Add to that stubbornness in not wanting
> > > to give up an idea which isn't working.
> > >
> > > And then there's when a sub-par idea sinks into your head and
> > > ruins
> > > the composition, and you can't stop thinking about it at > every new
> > > turn.
> > >
> > > -Mike
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...>

Chris, speaking for myself, I've been literally robbed of my energy
working to complete this year's chores: 3 symposiums all about music,
preparing articles, composing, fixing loose ends, etc... Having also
been driven to the end of my tether psychologically with the affairs of
the world, particularly filthy bootlicking politics splitting Turkiye
and the miserable vandals polluting everywhere, I experience too much
downside in my mood swings to find the spirit to comment on music. But
please be reassured that I enjoy pretty much most of the things you
produce and admire you for your dedication to the pursuit of
microtonal/xenharmonic discovery!

Cordially,
Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

Chris Vaisvil wrote:
> If I were to take this all personally - I've been producing a lot of crap
> here lately.
> Fair enough.
>
> However.....
>
> My question about people commenting on works was attached to Carlo's piece
> Gama Jingle Bells (or something)
>
> While I'm used to no comments - Carlo I don't think can be accused of
> producing crap.
>
> And - seriously - at one point *anything* throw out by anybody got a
> response of some type.
>
> Now its fairly rare. In my case though it probably is just *too much crap*.
> The bar has been raised a bit.
> In my case I can't come up with "Excluded by Peers", "Perserverence" or
> "Orwellian Cameras" everyday - even though everyday I'm exploring new
> techniques and ways of doing things - fair enough though if you don't like
> the experiments.
>
> I think "someone once said the difference between a good artist and a
> great one is the great one knows when to stop"
>
> is really "the great one knows what to show the public and what not to show"
>
> because I believe in Ives ""Every great inspiration is but an experiment."
> - Charles Ives
>
> Chris
>
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...>wrote:
>
>> someone once said the difference between a good artist and a
>> great one is the great one knows when to stop
>>
>>
>> /^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
>> Mesotonal Music from:
>> _'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
>> North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island<http://anaphoria.com/>
>>
>> _'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
>> Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
>> <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>
>>
>> ',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',
>>
>> a momentary antenna as i turn to water
>> this evaporates - an island once again
>>
>> On 22/12/10 6:34 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>>> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 1:56 PM, genewardsmith
>>> <genewardsmith@sbcglobal.net
>>> <mailto:genewardsmith%40sbcglobal.net<genewardsmith%2540sbcglobal.net>>>
>> wrote:
>>>> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
>>> <mailto:MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com<MakeMicroMusic%2540yahoogroups.com>>,
>> Chris Vaisvil
>>> <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>>>>> As can happen when you listen to sometime a million times
>>> over your mind and
>>>>> ears start accepting things that later you wish you had not.
>>>> Aint that the truth. Add to that stubbornness in not wanting
>>> to give up an idea which isn't working.
>>>
>>> And then there's when a sub-par idea sinks into your head and
>>> ruins
>>> the composition, and you can't stop thinking about it at every new
>>> turn.
>>>
>>> -Mike
>>>
>>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

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

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

I think your idea about not cross-posting is probably a good one. I'm going
to give that a go and see.

All of your points are well taken. Perhaps - after all of the flame wars
people are worn out as well.

Chris

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 7:35 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:

>
>
> Chris wrote:
>
> >If I were to take this all personally - I've been producing a lot of crap
> >here lately.
> >Fair enough.
>
> FWIW I didn't read Kraig's comment (or any others) that way.
> Also FWIW, I preferred your latest to the jingle bells.
>
> I say keep it up. It may be true that your overall quantity/
> quality ratio is a bit higher than some others. But that is
> not necessarily a bad thing. It is much preferable to my
> crippling perfectionism. You are putting art out there and
> that is not something I see a lot of people doing. Anyway,
> comparisons don't matter. Every piece stands on its own.
>
> Possible reasons why MMM has less comments lately:
>
> * Prolonged recession means people have less time to listen
> and comment.
>
> * Facebook, YouTube, NOM, and other venues are diluting the
> audience somewhat.
>
> * People don't know whether to comment here or on Tuning.
> I sometimes wonder if the crossposting doesn't discourage
> membership here. People figure, 'I'll see it on Tuning, or
> enough of it anyway'. And then there are other threads there
> where things get lost. I would suggest we all get together
> and agree to post music here only. On Tuning, we can advertise
> this fact.
>
> just some thoughts,
>
> -Carl
>
>
>

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

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

Ok Kraig, I got you.

Even if you were being critical - its ok. We all should be able to
understand and deal with negative as well as positive comments.

Now, as far as your work not being commented on - that is not good at
all. You seem to have lots to offer everyone.

I have listened to a fair amount of your work - but I think that was
mostly from the tuning list and was years ago.

And Carl, I did finish Doty - thanks!!!

Chris

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 7:44 PM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> Hello Chris~
> i would never say anything against peoples work
> this was not a reference to you at all and wasn't in reference
> to output, put to work on a particular work.
> while i have difference in opinion with people of theory, i
> rarely say anything negative about someones work.
> Being a composer i am quite aware of how hard it is and how one
> often has to do a bit of exploring to try things out.
> I consider allot of what i have done not as good as later
> things. most of these i have buried.
>
> no one on these list gets less comments than myself if you
> really want to bring forth the issue.
>

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

Oz,

Surely you comment (or like) nearly everything I post on facebook. You are
indeed a busy guy.

However, I don't want this to be about me. I post so many places that
usually something is said about every thing I toss out there.

My point was, on a whole, the microtonal lists have been relatively quiet
compared to what I remember the past. I could be wrong though I guess.
Simply I was surprised to see Carlo's latest got a day without comment by
anyone else. His production is excellent - like your's Oz - and he's been
bending gamma to his will to a shockingly huge degree. Its just awesome,
IMHO, what he has been doing.

And as far as mood swings go - tell me about them :-)

Chris

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 8:18 PM, Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@ozanyarman.com>wrote:

>
>
> Chris, speaking for myself, I've been literally robbed of my energy
> working to complete this year's chores: 3 symposiums all about music,
> preparing articles, composing, fixing loose ends, etc... Having also
> been driven to the end of my tether psychologically with the affairs of
> the world, particularly filthy bootlicking politics splitting Turkiye
> and the miserable vandals polluting everywhere, I experience too much
> downside in my mood swings to find the spirit to comment on music. But
> please be reassured that I enjoy pretty much most of the things you
> produce and admire you for your dedication to the pursuit of
> microtonal/xenharmonic discovery!
>
> Cordially,
> Oz.
>
> --
>
> ✩ ✩ ✩
> www.ozanyarman.com
>
>
> Chris Vaisvil wrote:
> > If I were to take this all personally - I've been producing a lot of crap
> > here lately.
> > Fair enough.
> >
> > However.....
> >
> > My question about people commenting on works was attached to Carlo's
> piece
> > Gama Jingle Bells (or something)
> >
> > While I'm used to no comments - Carlo I don't think can be accused of
> > producing crap.
> >
> > And - seriously - at one point *anything* throw out by anybody got a
> > response of some type.
> >
> > Now its fairly rare. In my case though it probably is just *too much
> crap*.
> > The bar has been raised a bit.
> > In my case I can't come up with "Excluded by Peers", "Perserverence" or
> > "Orwellian Cameras" everyday - even though everyday I'm exploring new
> > techniques and ways of doing things - fair enough though if you don't
> like
> > the experiments.
> >
> > I think "someone once said the difference between a good artist and a
> > great one is the great one knows when to stop"
> >
> > is really "the great one knows what to show the public and what not to
> show"
> >
> > because I believe in Ives ""Every great inspiration is but an
> experiment."
> > - Charles Ives
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...<kraiggrady%40anaphoria.com>
> >wrote:
> >
> >> someone once said the difference between a good artist and a
> >> great one is the great one knows when to stop
> >>
> >>
> >> /^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
> >> Mesotonal Music from:
> >> _'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
> >> North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island<http://anaphoria.com/>
> >>
> >> _'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
> >> Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
> >> <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>
> >>
> >> ',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',
> >>
> >> a momentary antenna as i turn to water
> >> this evaporates - an island once again
> >>
> >> On 22/12/10 6:34 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> >>> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 1:56 PM, genewardsmith
> >>> <genewardsmith@... <genewardsmith%40sbcglobal.net>
> >>> <mailto:genewardsmith%40sbcglobal.net<genewardsmith%2540sbcglobal.net>
> <genewardsmith%2540sbcglobal.net>>>
>
> >> wrote:
> >>>> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com<MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>
> >>> <mailto:MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com<MakeMicroMusic%2540yahoogroups.com>
> <MakeMicroMusic%2540yahoogroups.com>>,
>
> >> Chris Vaisvil
> >>> <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> >>>>> As can happen when you listen to sometime a million times
> >>> over your mind and
> >>>>> ears start accepting things that later you wish you had not.
> >>>> Aint that the truth. Add to that stubbornness in not wanting
> >>> to give up an idea which isn't working.
> >>>
> >>> And then there's when a sub-par idea sinks into your head and
> >>> ruins
> >>> the composition, and you can't stop thinking about it at every new
> >>> turn.
> >>>
> >>> -Mike
> >>>
> >>>
> >> ------------------------------------
> >>
> >> Yahoo! Groups Links
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>

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

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...>

Again my facebook jabber finding its way to the microtonal lists? But
you know just as well as my chums there, Chris, that my blurts are often
contained in a 5-6 word ... umm how would someone put it... "vitriolic
missive". It's no criterion of how busy I REALLY am in my Istanbulite
lifestyle. :)

Not that I need to appeal to a xenharmonic court or anything for that...

Well, I like what Carlo does, and I liked what he's done with the
Christmas carol, but I expect some more originality from him when it
comes to the "overall sound", if you know what I mean. The Chameleon
synthesis is getting kind of boring for me. So too is the weekly
"not-so-throughly-scored or worked" musics that come and go - some of
which still interest me plenty, but not enough to draw a comment (for I
get tired of cheering up the same way).

Cordially,
Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

Chris Vaisvil wrote:
> Oz,
>
> Surely you comment (or like) nearly everything I post on facebook. You are
> indeed a busy guy.
>
> However, I don't want this to be about me. I post so many places that
> usually something is said about every thing I toss out there.
>
> My point was, on a whole, the microtonal lists have been relatively quiet
> compared to what I remember the past. I could be wrong though I guess.
> Simply I was surprised to see Carlo's latest got a day without comment by
> anyone else. His production is excellent - like your's Oz - and he's been
> bending gamma to his will to a shockingly huge degree. Its just awesome,
> IMHO, what he has been doing.
>
> And as far as mood swings go - tell me about them :-)
>
> Chris
>
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 8:18 PM, Ozan Yarman<ozanyarman@...>wrote:
>
>> Chris, speaking for myself, I've been literally robbed of my energy
>> working to complete this year's chores: 3 symposiums all about music,
>> preparing articles, composing, fixing loose ends, etc... Having also
>> been driven to the end of my tether psychologically with the affairs of
>> the world, particularly filthy bootlicking politics splitting Turkiye
>> and the miserable vandals polluting everywhere, I experience too much
>> downside in my mood swings to find the spirit to comment on music. But
>> please be reassured that I enjoy pretty much most of the things you
>> produce and admire you for your dedication to the pursuit of
>> microtonal/xenharmonic discovery!
>>
>> Cordially,
>> Oz.
>>
>> --
>>
>> ✩ ✩ ✩
>> www.ozanyarman.com
>>
>>
>> Chris Vaisvil wrote:
>>> If I were to take this all personally - I've been producing a lot of crap
>>> here lately.
>>> Fair enough.
>>>
>>> However.....
>>>
>>> My question about people commenting on works was attached to Carlo's
>> piece
>>> Gama Jingle Bells (or something)
>>>
>>> While I'm used to no comments - Carlo I don't think can be accused of
>>> producing crap.
>>>
>>> And - seriously - at one point *anything* throw out by anybody got a
>>> response of some type.
>>>
>>> Now its fairly rare. In my case though it probably is just *too much
>> crap*.
>>> The bar has been raised a bit.
>>> In my case I can't come up with "Excluded by Peers", "Perserverence" or
>>> "Orwellian Cameras" everyday - even though everyday I'm exploring new
>>> techniques and ways of doing things - fair enough though if you don't
>> like
>>> the experiments.
>>>
>>> I think "someone once said the difference between a good artist and a
>>> great one is the great one knows when to stop"
>>>
>>> is really "the great one knows what to show the public and what not to
>> show"
>>> because I believe in Ives ""Every great inspiration is but an
>> experiment."
>>> - Charles Ives
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...<kraiggrady%40anaphoria.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> someone once said the difference between a good artist and a
>>>> great one is the great one knows when to stop
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> /^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
>>>> Mesotonal Music from:
>>>> _'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
>>>> North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island<http://anaphoria.com/>
>>>>
>>>> _'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
>>>> Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
>>>> <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>
>>>>
>>>> ',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',
>>>>
>>>> a momentary antenna as i turn to water
>>>> this evaporates - an island once again
>>>>
>>>> On 22/12/10 6:34 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>>>>> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 1:56 PM, genewardsmith
>>>>> <genewardsmith@...<genewardsmith%40sbcglobal.net>
>>>>> <mailto:genewardsmith%40sbcglobal.net<genewardsmith%2540sbcglobal.net>
>> <genewardsmith%2540sbcglobal.net>>>
>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com<MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>
>>>>> <mailto:MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com<MakeMicroMusic%2540yahoogroups.com>
>> <MakeMicroMusic%2540yahoogroups.com>>,
>>
>>>> Chris Vaisvil
>>>>> <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>>>>>>> As can happen when you listen to sometime a million times
>>>>> over your mind and
>>>>>>> ears start accepting things that later you wish you had not.
>>>>>> Aint that the truth. Add to that stubbornness in not wanting
>>>>> to give up an idea which isn't working.
>>>>>
>>>>> And then there's when a sub-par idea sinks into your head and
>>>>> ruins
>>>>> the composition, and you can't stop thinking about it at every new
>>>>> turn.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Mike
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

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

🔗Graham Breed <gbreed@...>

> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>>
>> As can happen when you listen to sometime a million times over your mind and
>> ears start accepting things that later you wish you had not.

I saw this mentioned on Language Log. It's not a great reference, but
here it is anyway:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2833

The relevant message is from somebody called Kapitano:

"The 'satiation' effect - or something like it - also occurs with
loops of music, but the 'transformation' effect does not.

"Satiation is a big problem in music production, where you might hear
the same recording hundreds of times - it quickly gets to the point
where you can't tell whether an instrument is too loud, or even
off-key."

No link, or standard name to search for, but nice to know that it's a
known problem. And particularly so for microtonal music, of course,
because it leads to any scale sounding in tune. If we're going to
have short responses to music posted, I think saying if it sounded out
of tune, on first or repeated listenings, would be helpful.

On 21 December 2010 22:56, genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
>
> Aint that the truth. Add to that stubbornness in not wanting to give up an idea which isn't working.

Kill your darlings:

http://everything2.com/title/Kill+your+darlings

Graham

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

I was taking everything as a whole and I didn't feel attacked - I thought it
was a justified complaint on the part of everyone that I was tossing out too
much chaff.

Hmm - keeping the "feel" of an extended length piece is something I struggle
with as well. The best I've done this with recently is Orwellian Cameras -
the technique I used to develop the introduction was to take the notes of
the ending chord progression and half the rate of chord change and making
arpeggios out of the notes in the chords. The technique (I think) worked
really well in keeping the feel of the piece but still sounded new.

If you wish I can provide you a score to let you see the technique.

Chris

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 10:41 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 5:50 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...<chrisvaisvil%40gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> >
> > If I were to take this all personally - I've been producing a lot of crap
> > here lately.
> > Fair enough.
>
> I'm not sure if this is in response to Kraig specifically, or Kraig,
> me, and Gene, but my comment wasn't meant as an attack on you. My
> comment was simply meant as an expression of my own frustration with
> composing. I'll start composing something in a moment of inspiration,
> and then some sub-par idea will jump into my head and it'll screw up
> the initial vibe of the piece. Suddenly I'm imagining variations on my
> sub-par idea and the initial spirit of the piece is lost.
>
> I don't think anyone would ever mean to attack your work.
>
> -Mike
>
>

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

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

If you are talking about me - I would like people to comment when they feel
motivated to do so. I would like the interest to be genuine.

My observation was that the general amount of comments overall have been
less for every composer posting here.

Chris

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 7:46 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...>wrote:

>
>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com <MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>,
> Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...> wrote:
> So too is the weekly
> > "not-so-throughly-scored or worked" musics that come and go - some of
> > which still interest me plenty, but not enough to draw a comment (for I
> > get tired of cheering up the same way).
>
> I especially like it when he explores new tuning ideas; sometimes I had
> little idea and had given little consideration to what some tuning I've
> considered in theory might sound like, especially when it isn't close to the
> accuracy level I tend to prefer (within 2 or 3 cents of just.) On the other
> hand when he explores genres which don't interest me I don't comment. I
> don't know if he would prefer something anyway.
>
>
>

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

🔗Daniel Forró <dan.for@...>

Maybe we have more tools, but less space to invent something really new in music than Beethoven had. Those times there was still lot of undiscovered things in all music parameters - tones, metrics, rhythm, expression, timbre, articulation, style, form... All this came later and was explored so much that nowadays there are not so much possibilities to find something really new and revolutionary. There was in fact only one main style of music, not like now when music is divided into so many styles, and we can use also all previously invented elements and rules. So I think it was easier to be a man of genius 200 years ago... We only can select and combine elements of previously invented music as you point on. And to try new tunings, that's still not so exploited region.

When we compare different famous composers from the point of view what really and essentially new in structure they brought we can be surprised - changes were not so big from one composer to another one - especially in the main stream of composers of "synthetic" type (like Bach, Mozart, Liszt, Stravinski, Honegger, Ligeti...). Of course there were always composers innovators, like Scarlatti, Rejcha, Wagner, Debussy, Satie, Skriabin, Schonberg, Partch, Cage... doing things different way.

Daniel Forro

On 23 Dec 2010, at 10:15 AM, Chris Vaisvil wrote:

> He was a genius!
>
> On the other hand we all have so many more tools / options /
> combinations to use then he did. So many things to try and so little
> time!

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

I agree with Gene. There is such a huge universe of music out there.
Our time is the first time in history that it is easy to sort through the
myriad number of possible tunings thanks to the use of computerized musical
instruments. The biggest problem this musical discipline faces is favorable
recognition from the public at large - but I do think that it is possible to
gain a general public audience with appropriate compositional skill applied
by the microtonal composer.

Chris

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 9:25 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...>wrote:

>
>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com <MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>,
> Daniel Forr� <dan.for@...> wrote:
> >
> > Maybe we have more tools, but less space to invent something really
> > new in music than Beethoven had. Those times there was still lot of
> > undiscovered things in all music parameters - tones, metrics, rhythm,
> > expression, timbre, articulation, style, form... All this came later
> > and was explored so much that nowadays there are not so much
> > possibilities to find something really new and revolutionary. There
> > was in fact only one main style of music, not like now when music is
> > divided into so many styles, and we can use also all previously
> > invented elements and rules. So I think it was easier to be a man of
> > genius 200 years ago... We only can select and combine elements of
> > previously invented music as you point on. And to try new tunings,
> > that's still not so exploited region.
>
> When I was working with my UnTwelve submission, I was struck by the fact of
> how easy it was more me to be original, and how hard it is for people to do
> the same working in 12et. There's a lot of fruit hanging very low on the
> branches, and we've hardly begun to scope out the possibilities.
>
>
>

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

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

🔗chrisvaisvil@...

I think one can make a distinction between composing microtonally (Gene's point) and popularizing it (your point).

Its true I've invested a lot of money to make micromusic let alone just music period. I got on that path when to my great dismay a piano sonata was dismissed for the use of sound font technology. The same exact piece was praised by the very same people when I instead used Garritan personal orchestra piano.

I used to believe the notes were enough. They were for me. But they are not for an audience it seems.

Chris
*

-----Original Message-----
From: Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>
Sender: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 18:51:16
To: <MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [MMM] Sweeney's Agony

> And you don't need any special equipment. All you need is a cheap computer
> and some freeware. If you are not a one-finger keyboardist and need an
> actual generalized keyboard, the situation there has improved.

I must disagree here.
One of the things I see as essential for making music in this time is a good
monitoring setup.
These days making music is about sharing it and people playing it on their
own systems.
Almost all amateur music made today will only sound "good" on the audio
system of the person that made it.
A pro audio system (transport, dac, amp, speakers, room/setup) will cost
either a lot of money or when doing this on a budget requires a lot of
expertise/experience.
I consider such a system far more important than which synths etc you use.

-Marcel

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

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

> Disagree all you want, but I've been making music this way for years.

And I'm not hearing your music as having a very professional sound and also
not seeing it widely distributed.
No offense ment at all, but even if the music/notes itself were suitable for
a general public, the sound / mix isn't.
I'm hearing that without exception for all the music posted here by list
members. It just doesn't sound professional.

> And I don't notice you doing anything different with your retunings.

I'm not.
My retunings are not at all to be enjoyed soundwise.
I'm planning on making music for enjoyment soon. And aim for it to sound
professional and enjoyable by a large public.
I value my speakers (Klein + Hummel O96) and Lavry DAC much higher than any
particular synth or plugin etc to achieve this.

> I dislike the idea you need expensive special equipment to make "real"
> music.

I mentioned it only in the context of modern computer music aimed at the
general public.
But dislike the idea all you want, but a cheap computer and free synths /
plugins won't cut it.
Simply because you can't hear what you're really doing on the average home
hifi or computer speaker setup. (and headphones are crap fro mixing aswell)
95% chance that what you're doing on those won't translate to the majority
of speakers people have at home and what sounds great on you personal setup
will sound awfull and very obviously amateuristic on other systems.

If it produces a musical effect, it's music, and all the special equipment
> in the world will not give the most important elements, which are in your
> heart and mind. Lame ideas will not get up and run by the addition of
> expensive equipment, they will probably become even more boring and
> annoying.

The most important element in making music is your brain and then your ears.
To get from the computer to your ears you need a digital signal out of your
computer (preferably bit perfect and low jitter) to a quality digital audio
converter, to an amp, to you speakers that should be flat frequency wise and
not flatter you audio and hide flaws (in other words good studio speakers),
and the sound then travels through your room to reach you ears.
Cheap computer and free synths / plugins I'm fine with, but you'd better
treat your ears well if you wish to make professional music.

-Marcel

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

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

Marcel wrote:

>And I'm not hearing your music as having a very professional sound
>and also not seeing it widely distributed.

I'm not hearing yours having a professional sound either, unless
you'd care to link me to something I haven't heard.

>I'm hearing that without exception for all the music posted here by list
>members. It just doesn't sound professional.

More than a few folks here make "professional sounding" music.
Here is just one recent example off the top of my head:
http://www.seraph.it/dep/det/AutumnalModulations.mp3

Several are even music professionals.

>I mentioned it only in the context of modern computer music aimed at the
>general public.

Music history is full of lo-fi efforts that hit it big and even
inspired whole genres. Such as Bevis Frond.

>But dislike the idea all you want, but a cheap computer and free synths /
>plugins won't cut it.

Typical Marcel troll. Disproved by many artists who actually
are popular.

>Simply because you can't hear what you're really doing on the average home
>hifi or computer speaker setup. (and headphones are crap fro mixing aswell)
>95% chance that what you're doing on those won't translate to the majority
>of speakers people have at home and what sounds great on you personal setup
>will sound awfull and very obviously amateuristic on other systems.

Many, if not most professional producers keep lo-fidelity speakers
at hand to test their mixes. It's a very common practice, precisely
because what works on fine studio monitors doesn't always translate.
Anyway, $500 on a pair of powered Yamaha near-field monitors delivers
99% of the fidelity of any setup in the world and 120% of the fidelity
of any setup in the world from 30 years ago, when plenty of music
still bought by millions of people was made.

-Carl

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 4:52 PM, Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...> wrote:
>
> > Disagree all you want, but I've been making music this way for years.
>
> And I'm not hearing your music as having a very professional sound and also
> not seeing it widely distributed.
> No offense ment at all, but even if the music/notes itself were suitable for
> a general public, the sound / mix isn't.
> I'm hearing that without exception for all the music posted here by list
> members. It just doesn't sound professional.

Since all of Gene's works are available in MIDI, why don't you offer
to "professionalize" them a bit? You might have missed the fact that
Gene is one of the only people who is actually writing microtonal
music at all, much less exploring the nuances of 11-limit harmony. If
you can render his compositions with some glossy shiny happy synths,
the world would only benefit, right?

> > I dislike the idea you need expensive special equipment to make "real"
> > music.
>
> I mentioned it only in the context of modern computer music aimed at the
> general public.
> But dislike the idea all you want, but a cheap computer and free synths /
> plugins won't cut it.

Last I checked, a lot of Gene's stuff was orchestral or was generally
built around acoustic instruments. I don't see a lot of Deadmau5
influence here. Perhaps you can help us all figure out how to run
microtunings in EWQL then. You'd be doing us all a favor.

> If it produces a musical effect, it's music, and all the special equipment
> > in the world will not give the most important elements, which are in your
> > heart and mind. Lame ideas will not get up and run by the addition of
> > expensive equipment, they will probably become even more boring and
> > annoying.
>
> The most important element in making music is your brain and then your ears.

And then your liver and kidneys.

> To get from the computer to your ears you need a digital signal out of your
> computer (preferably bit perfect and low jitter)

Let's please not start throwing words like jitter around. Do we need
oxygen-free monster cables too? Last I heard you were talking about
jitter that was below the noise floor of 16-bit quantization error
being unacceptably audible.

> to a quality digital audio converter, to an amp, to you speakers that should be flat frequency wise and
> not flatter you audio and hide flaws (in other words good studio speakers),
> and the sound then travels through your room to reach you ears

and then you end up with a beautiful mix that only sounds good on your
Genelec 8040's. And then you sit in your car and put your Marcel-JI™
intonated mix of the year on, but it turns out that the mids are
destroying the lining of your cochlea and you need a defibrillator to
save your heart from the absurdly loud bass response. Now you haven't
got a top 40 single on your hands after all, because you've mastered
on flat response near-field monitors.

-Mike

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

> >And I'm not hearing your music as having a very professional sound
> >and also not seeing it widely distributed.
>
> I'm not hearing yours having a professional sound either, unless
> you'd care to link me to something I haven't heard.

You quote allmost my complete message yet leave out the part where I say
that I did not make such music yet and hope to do so in the near future...

>I'm hearing that without exception for all the music posted here by list
> >members. It just doesn't sound professional.
>
> More than a few folks here make "professional sounding" music.
> Here is just one recent example off the top of my head:
> http://www.seraph.it/dep/det/AutumnalModulations.mp3
>

Don't think it's great music personally, but I guess it indeed qualifies for
professional sound and will sound correct on a wide range of home setups
yes.
Had not heard it yet.
But I'm betting big time that whoever made it has half decent studio
speakers etc ;)

>
> Several are even music professionals.

Must not have heard their music yet then.

>I mentioned it only in the context of modern computer music aimed at the
> >general public.
>
> Music history is full of lo-fi efforts that hit it big and even
> inspired whole genres. Such as Bevis Frond.

I never said it's impossible.
I mentioned 95%
And I wasn't referring to lo-fi either. One can make great lo-fi music on a
great studio setup. One would have to be either very experienced and know
exactly what you're doing to make great lo-fi music on the average home
audio setup, or be both very talented and lucky (the reason I said 95% not
100%)

>But dislike the idea all you want, but a cheap computer and free synths /
> >plugins won't cut it.
>
> Typical Marcel troll. Disproved by many artists who actually
> are popular.

Typical Carl list agression!
I'm not trolling!
You're such a mean person.. where's this comming from?

> >Simply because you can't hear what you're really doing on the average home
> >hifi or computer speaker setup. (and headphones are crap fro mixing
> aswell)
> >95% chance that what you're doing on those won't translate to the majority
> >of speakers people have at home and what sounds great on you personal
> setup
> >will sound awfull and very obviously amateuristic on other systems.
>
> Many, if not most professional producers keep lo-fidelity speakers
> at hand to test their mixes. It's a very common practice, precisely
> because what works on fine studio monitors doesn't always translate.
>

Yes, midrange speakers like auratones or NS10 etc. I have a pair of Apple
powered speakers for this purpose.
It's an extra check for most studio people. (with exceptions as some work
90% of the time on them, though all pros use the big speakers too)
Though these speakers are less relevant today as they were one to 3 decades
ago I think.

Anyway, $500 on a pair of powered Yamaha near-field monitors delivers
> 99% of the fidelity of any setup in the world and 120% of the fidelity
> of any setup in the world from 30 years ago, when plenty of music
> still bought by millions of people was made.
>

Yeah right.. in your dreaaaams haha
My Klein + Hummel O96 are 32 years old :) They were one of THE best studio
monitors when they came out and are still amazing speakers.
http://www.neumann-kh-line.com/neumann-kh/home_en.nsf/root/prof-monitoring_discontinued-monitors_O96
You can't buy anything under $2000 - $3000 today that'll come close to the
O96.
The successor to the O96 is the O410 which costs about $5000 to $8000 per
speaker (and you need 2 ;)
My K+H is increbibly much better than anything Yamaha ever made (and they
used to make better speakers than they do now!)

-Marcel

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

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

> Since all of Gene's works are available in MIDI, why don't you offer
> to "professionalize" them a bit? You might have missed the fact that
> Gene is one of the only people who is actually writing microtonal
> music at all, much less exploring the nuances of 11-limit harmony. If
> you can render his compositions with some glossy shiny happy synths,
> the world would only benefit, right?
>

Woow, hold on.
I'm not trashing Gene's music or anything like that.

I was only responding that in the times we live in you only need a cheap
computer and free synths / plugins to make great music.
I was disagreeing with that in that in these times computer music is played
on a variety of home systems and the general public expects a professional
sound and in order to achieve this I think that one needs a professional
studio audio setup.
That's all I ment to say. I was ment as a thought that who knows could be
helpfull to someone.

>
> > > I dislike the idea you need expensive special equipment to make "real"
> > > music.
> >
> > I mentioned it only in the context of modern computer music aimed at the
> > general public.
> > But dislike the idea all you want, but a cheap computer and free synths /
> > plugins won't cut it.
>
> Last I checked, a lot of Gene's stuff was orchestral or was generally
> built around acoustic instruments. I don't see a lot of Deadmau5
> influence here. Perhaps you can help us all figure out how to run
> microtunings in EWQL then. You'd be doing us all a favor.
>

I wasn't commenting on sound quality of individual instruments or things
like that.
You'de still need a proper studio audio system to make professional sounding
music with EWQL in my opinion.

> If it produces a musical effect, it's music, and all the special equipment
> > > in the world will not give the most important elements, which are in
> your
> > > heart and mind. Lame ideas will not get up and run by the addition of
> > > expensive equipment, they will probably become even more boring and
> > > annoying.
> >
> > The most important element in making music is your brain and then your
> ears.
>
> And then your liver and kidneys.
>
> > To get from the computer to your ears you need a digital signal out of
> your
> > computer (preferably bit perfect and low jitter)
>
> Let's please not start throwing words like jitter around. Do we need
> oxygen-free monster cables too? Last I heard you were talking about
> jitter that was below the noise floor of 16-bit quantization error
> being unacceptably audible.
>

Uhh.. that's not how jitter works, it's a timing error it has nothing to do
with noise floor.
And I don't think I ever said anything about jitter on this list before
(though perhaps I forgot)

>
> > to a quality digital audio converter, to an amp, to you speakers that
> should be flat frequency wise and
> > not flatter you audio and hide flaws (in other words good studio
> speakers),
> > and the sound then travels through your room to reach you ears
>
> and then you end up with a beautiful mix that only sounds good on your
> Genelec 8040's.
>

I don't like Genelecs :)

> And then you sit in your car and put your Marcel-JI�
> intonated mix of the year on, but it turns out that the mids are
> destroying the lining of your cochlea and you need a defibrillator to
> save your heart from the absurdly loud bass response. Now you haven't
> got a top 40 single on your hands after all, because you've mastered
> on flat response near-field monitors.
>

Too bad you read negativity in my post (you respond as beeing personally
offended by what I wrote?), as there was none intended by me.

-Marcel

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

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

I feel the need to comment on this some more.
As this is such a rediculous statement.

Anyway, $500 on a pair of powered Yamaha near-field monitors delivers
>> 99% of the fidelity of any setup in the world and 120% of the fidelity
>> of any setup in the world from 30 years ago, when plenty of music
>> still bought by millions of people was made.
>
>
A $500 pair of Yamaha near-field monitors doesn't deliver 20% of the
fidelity of any setup in the world.
You apparentely have no idea how great audio can sound.
I mean, I'm sure you've sat in a concert hall sometimes with an real
orchestra playing.
Perhaps you've sat in a good seat once?
Do your Yamahas come anywhere close to that? No.
There are speaker setups that do.
You apperenlty have no idea how good audio can sound from speakers and how
great a speakers there are out there in the world today.

As for what was out there 30 years ago. My Klein + Hummel were great studio
near / midfields back then.
But there were offcourse many better speakers allready there. And to say
that the $500 Yamaha nearfields are 120% better than anything out there back
then is ignorant beyond stupid. The yamahas are such absolute crap compared
to so many 30 year old speakers it isn't even funny anymore.
And amazing recordings where made back then aswell that are still extremely
audiophile today.

-Marcel

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

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

> > I'm hearing that without exception for all the music posted here by list
> > members. It just doesn't sound professional.
> >
>
> I am disappointed you feel so strongly negative towards my work.

Chris I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to offend anybody.
And I don't feel strongly negative towards your work. The opposite is true,
I feel strongly positive about your work.
But I can hear it's home made.. That's all.
You could remedy this to some extend with a good speaker setup after which
you'll probably mix / produce you music a bit different.
Not that your music is mixed / produced terribly or something like that, but
it's not comparable to commercial productions as it is to my ears.
Also my comments were only about computer produced music as this was what I
was replying to.
I did not reference to any recorded music (which you've made aswell)

> Cheap computer and free synths / plugins I'm fine with, but you'd better
> > treat your ears well if you wish to make professional music.
> >
> > -Marcel
> >
>
> And I'm even more surprised you don't just cut to the bone and suggest
> we should get organizations like the Chicago or London Symphony
> Orchestra to perform our microtonal scores in a professional recording
> studio. Then you wouldn't need the computer or speakers or
> synthesizers at all. There would be *no* compromise then.
>
> Chris

I was only commenting on computer produced music.
It was a simple comment on Gene his statement that all one needs is a cheap
computer and free synths / plugins.
And all I wanted to say was that I personally think that one also needs a
good neutral audio setup so one can hear what you're really doing.

-Marcel

My comments were specifically about

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

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 5:48 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

>
> Since all of Gene's works are available in MIDI, why don't you offer
> to "professionalize" them a bit? You might have missed the fact that
> Gene is one of the only people who is actually writing microtonal
> music at all, much less exploring the nuances of 11-limit harmony.

> Last I checked, a lot of Gene's stuff was orchestral or was generally
> built around acoustic instruments. I don't see a lot of Deadmau5
> influence here. Perhaps you can help us all figure out how to run
> microtunings in EWQL then. You'd be doing us all a favor.
>

EWQL Play interface is crap especially for microwork. I bought
Hollywood strings ( [embarrassingly] expensive but *very* nice
sounding) but microtonality isn't even an after thought. (I was -
maybe still will - pursue a serious career change to making a living
with composition so I made this investment - just to get that out of
the way)

In any case - Gene - I have Kontakt, Garritan Personal Orchestra,
Garritan Jazz and Big Band, Garritan Marching Band, Kontakt with
Vienna Symphony Library (subset) and of course pianoteq.

I'm pretty sure if you give me a tuned by pitch bend per voice
microtonal string piece I can get that to work in Hollywood Strings.
In any of the other sample sets its a piece of cake (more or less).

I'd be more than happy to render a piece or two of yours. I'm still
working on some piano work for Jacob Barton but like everyone real
life gets in the way - and my "me time" just playing music instead of
working at it. Nonetheless - the offer is out there for you (and other
people as well - but I do have limited time.)

Chris

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

I was told by my guitar teacher that an excellent performer can make
practicing scales something beautiful to listen to.

However I imagine you are referring to the "factory top 40 music" -
and yep, I'd rather listen to a midi file too. But.... Lady Gaga
simply doesn't have the depth that composer like Stravinsky, Bartok or
Beethoven has. I wouldn't expect that actually. Pop music is popular
because, in part, its simple to grasp - nothing wrong with that per se
- and sometimes some pop artist *does* do something that has
surprising depth musically - though for most the goal is to play with
emotion or make a rhythmic connection.

Chris

On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 8:00 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> >
> > Gene - yes, one can hear the genius because you know its there - but
> > would you seriously prefer to introduce someone to Beethoven with a
> > general midi file played on a cheap computer sound card or with a
> > professionally recorded CD?
> >
> > I think there is a little bit of comparing apples and oranges here.
>
> I don't think so. Of course, I'd prefer Beethoven played on a real piano by a great pianist, but my point was I'd rather listen to Beethoven on a cheap soundcard than crap performed brilliantly.
>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Marcel>>"But dislike the idea all you want, but a cheap computer and free synths
/
plugins won't cut it."

Carl>"Typical Marcel troll. Disproved by many artists who actually are
popular."

Not always but usually...free synths fail. At least if you're talking
professional musicians who go Gold or higher.
Nearly every electronic musician I've seen popular enough to be interviewed
(esp. by major magazines like Electronic Musician Monthly) says they use both
paid synths/software and higher end computers.

BTW...I don't consider what Marcel is saying as being troll-like...more like
simply not agreeing with you/Carl. The standards you/Carl site may have been
true 30 years ago...but now are very rarely accepted (IE no one will buy
anything with Beatles-level crappy production quality...unless it is itself old
and classic IE an actual Beatles recording). Even something like Herbie
Hancock's old material rarely gets touched nowadays...it's like trying to
convince today's kids to enjoy Super Mario Bros. 3 without instantly turning it
down due to shoddy graphics.

>"More than a few folks here make "professional sounding" music.
Here is just one recent example off the top of my head:
http://www.seraph.it/dep/det/AutumnalModulations.mp3"

It's a beautifully produced song and very clear...but the instrument used
seem obviously not strong enough. IE I'm sure a few DJs I know (including those
who play some lounge music) would listen to this plenty on their own time...but
be embarrassed to play it live due to some of the Casio-like
sounds/instruments. Nowadays using tons of layered drum hits, songs with
instruments each programmed from scratch and then filtered and then multi-tap
delayed then compressed and much more...is considered standard. Production
quality standards nowadays requires every single instrument to sound
monsterous-ly strong and not just very clear...

>"Many, if not most professional producers keep lo-fidelity speakers at hand to
>test their mixes. It's a very common practice, precisely because what works on
>fine studio monitors doesn't always translate."

Believable...but if they don't do both (high and low fidelity speaker
testing)...they risk things like either getting strong low-bass (under 60hz)
with missing mid bass (90-200hz) for testing only on high fidelity speakers
(think a car stereo with sub woofers) or the other way around for low-fi
speakers (think a car stereo without sub woofers).
One way I've found to hack this, to an extent is to do a spectrum analysis on
the track (in Audacity/free software) and make sure the lows (90hz down to 40hz
or so), flatten between -5db and 3db. This is essential to hit both the low
bass areas of hi-fidelity live venue PA systems and mid-bass areas of typical
car stereos.
Then check of the highs between about 6khz and 18khz are steadily around
-30db on the analyzer. Many professional songs are able to hit these loudness
levels (or higher, some nail the highs at up to -20db!)...just drag any
professional electronic musician's CD release if you don't believe me.

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

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Daniel Forró <dan.for@...>

Gene is right.

Quality of the music work and quality of its recording are two different things not necessarily connected together. First one is esthetic and deep, the other one purely technical. Music will keep its structural and emotional impact even when listened in conditions far from perfect. In fact it keeps all this even without sound - to the people who can hear music just from reading the score (I'm such happy person).

I remember how big impact had on me listening Bach and Beethoven records in my chilhood, from old gramophone records, mono, on the amplifier and mid-range speaker of old tube radio. Nothing to say about listening lot of music from AM radio those times...

Really good music pieces have their own life independent on the audio quality of the record. Even independent on the quality of the performance, tempo, key, tuning (here I mean small distuning, not different temperament or number of steps in octave), style - they are just undestroyable.

And another interesting thing from my experience as arranger - they will keep their music quality in any arrangement. This year I have arranged intro fanfares from Janacek Sinfonietta (originally for brass and timpani) for piano, flute, two shamisen, biwa, 6 koto and Japanese drums. And to my surprise it worked quite well at concerts.

Daniel Forro

On 25 Dec 2010, at 10:00 AM, genewardsmith wrote:

>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil > <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>>
>> Gene - yes, one can hear the genius because you know its there - but
>> would you seriously prefer to introduce someone to Beethoven with a
>> general midi file played on a cheap computer sound card or with a
>> professionally recorded CD?
>>
>> I think there is a little bit of comparing apples and oranges here.
>
> I don't think so. Of course, I'd prefer Beethoven played on a real > piano by a great pianist, but my point was I'd rather listen to > Beethoven on a cheap soundcard than crap performed brilliantly.

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 6:13 PM, Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...> wrote:
>> Since all of Gene's works are available in MIDI, why don't you offer
>> to "professionalize" them a bit? You might have missed the fact that
>> Gene is one of the only people who is actually writing microtonal
>> music at all, much less exploring the nuances of 11-limit harmony. If
>> you can render his compositions with some glossy shiny happy synths,
>> the world would only benefit, right?
>>
>
> Woow, hold on.
> I'm not trashing Gene's music or anything like that.

It seemed that way. But even besides that, I'm serious: if you can do
high quality renders of some of Gene's work, I'd love to hear it.

> I was only responding that in the times we live in you only need a cheap
> computer and free synths / plugins to make great music.
> I was disagreeing with that in that in these times computer music is played
> on a variety of home systems and the general public expects a professional
> sound and in order to achieve this I think that one needs a professional
> studio audio setup.

OK, but I really think there's more to it. I think that the average
guy's home studio with his nice JBL nearfields or whatever isn't
really enough to make a final high quality track.

The first part of this is that we're often dealing with orchestral
music. If this is the case, then how are we supposed to make it
professional - hire an orchestra? Even if you're just recording a few
instruments, and your goal is to have a state-of-the-art, top of the
line studio recording, then I hope you have some TLM-103's and C-414's
and such. If you don't happen to have thousands of dollars worth of
high quality microphones, then good luck "fixing it in the mix."

So if you don't happen to have an orchestra to record with, then
you're limited to orchestral sample libraries. There simply aren't a
lot of orchestral sample libraries that sound that "professional" to
begin with. The only two that I think come decently close are EWQL and
VSL, which in my experience are a joke for microtuning. After those
two we have GPO, which is pretty good, but I personally prefer EWQL.
For microtuning it's the best thing we have. If you don't like the
sound of GPO, then you don't like what modern technology can offer
orchestral microtonal music.

It goes without saying that there may be no limit to the depths of
depravity that I will sink in order to obtain recordings of Chris
and/or Gene's music in EWQL.

>> Last I checked, a lot of Gene's stuff was orchestral or was generally
>> built around acoustic instruments. I don't see a lot of Deadmau5
>> influence here. Perhaps you can help us all figure out how to run
>> microtunings in EWQL then. You'd be doing us all a favor.
>
> I wasn't commenting on sound quality of individual instruments or things
> like that.
> You'de still need a proper studio audio system to make professional sounding
> music with EWQL in my opinion.

You'd also need more than a decent pair of near fields to make
professional sounding music with EWQL. I don't think people are
running to a mastering studio before posting their tracks here,
though.

>> Let's please not start throwing words like jitter around. Do we need
>> oxygen-free monster cables too? Last I heard you were talking about
>> jitter that was below the noise floor of 16-bit quantization error
>> being unacceptably audible.
>>
>
> Uhh.. that's not how jitter works, it's a timing error it has nothing to do
> with noise floor.
> And I don't think I ever said anything about jitter on this list before
> (though perhaps I forgot)

The "timing error" that jitter is can be thought of as an FM'd version
of the original signal. What FM does to a signal is generate sidebands
around each frequency in the frequency domain. Those sidebands have
amplitudes that can be calculated using Bessel functions and voodoo.
If those sidebands end up being low enough in amplitude, you
won't hear them. If they're below the noise floor of the signal, they
don't exist.

This popped up when we were talking about antialiasing sawtooth waves
for the Marcel-JI vs the world contest you put up a while ago.

-Mike

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

🔗jonszanto <jszanto@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> You and Marcel both seem to be to be promoting a one-size-fits-all concept of music. Everyone, it seems, is supposed to like slickly produced popular music and to value form over content in the sense that ideas don't count so much as how they are wrapped and presented. I respond more to the idea, and I reserve the right to like what I like. I'm reminded of the Beecham quote: "The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes." There's more to music than the noise it makes, and room in the world for different likes and dislikes.
>

This.

Quoted in full for truth.

I've produced music professionally in legitimate studios that is still played around the world in television and film, and I know this because I still get residuals. And I say that *ONLY* to lend credence to what Gene is saying: the quality of the music is a separate issue from the quality of the recording, or the packaging, etc. Most of what I produced in those projects sounds great, but is pretty damn far from high art. It is commerce.

FFS, you can tell the "quality" of a Brahms symphony, or a piece by Steve Reich (and etc) by looking at the *score*.

Don't get me wrong - I fuss and tweak til the cows come home on my home produced recordings, and I'm rarely satisfied, but in the end they do the trick. And, yeah, some high-end equipment can be a boon to improving your work, but is it drop-dead necessary?

Nope.

BTW, best of 'this time of year' to all of you on the lists. I hope to have more time to create and wander back here in 2011...

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Jon>"And I say that *ONLY* to lend credence to what Gene is saying: the quality
of the music is a separate issue from the quality of the recording, or the
packaging, etc."

Right, but if either of the two are low...the chance of it being taken
seriously on any sort of larger scale is often low. More often than not (in
electronic music)...someone has the melodic/song-writing skill...but can't
achieve clear enough production quality.

Case in point
http://www.traxinspace.com/song/36998 (song from a professional artist,
dance/electronica)
http://www.traxinspace.com/song/41286 (an artist IMVHO with much better
compositional skills who never got anywhere near going pro...note the difference
in production quality)
http://www.traxinspace.com/song/37377 (ditto here)

Now...it's somewhat different for rock, chamber music...where there are only a
few instruments and a limited number of drums.

Even for classical music (as film music) though (at least in the current
market)...production quality seems key
http://www.traxinspace.com/song/37454 (artist producing classical music,
also now pro)

...although, I'm guessing, those who can't acheive professional production
quality/clarity by themselves with a computer can hire an orchestra who can do
that for them. Similarly rock bands...almost always go to professional studios
to get recorded, even those with a few thousands of dollars in equipment
already: I know as I know a good few of them (my brother, a jazz guitarist who
plays live several times a week, but must teach to make ends meet, included).

Also what I'm defining as "pro" isn't "on a few occasions I've been paid to
produce music"...but rather selling thousands of albums on a continuous
basis...enough to make a living on composition without teaching or any other
related payments.

>"And, yeah, some high-end equipment can be a boon to improving your work, but is
>it drop-dead necessary?"

Depends on what genre(s) you produce and if you want to make a living off your
music, enough money to do so without "having" to teach to make ends meet.
If you (as many on this list) are going under the assumption of producing
classical music (which uses instruments with very little noisy instruments and
few drums)...sure you can get away with not-so-perfect production quality.

But make anything with several "noisy" instruments like drums, synths, and
anything more than extremely minimalistic layers...and no one is going to DJ or
otherwise play your tracks live if the production quality is not pro...end of
story.
The sad reality is...often I've found production quality counts more to the
people ultimately promoting the electronica scene (IE DJ's and
radio/internet-radio personalities) than anything else...they'd rather play a
two-chord wonder with timbre-qualities that "sounds like a Ferrari" then a 12
chord masterpiece that "sounds like a Yugo". No DJ wants to get caught "playing
a Casio"...even if it's playing a masterpiece "on a Casio".

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

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

>"Quality of the music work and quality of its recording are two different things
>not necessarily connected together."
For the record...I agree they ARE two different things and do NOT agree that
there is "one size that fits all", rather than "one size fits most". IE there
are many different ways to get a professional quality sound...but unless you can
figure out a way to mix so all instruments are heard quite clearly...most often
very few people, especially DJs and related promoters, will take it seriously.

Rather, I believe, one size fits an easy majority proportion (IE 80%+)...and
anyone who wants to "go pro" would be advised to pay caution to that standard.

>"Music will keep its structural and emotional impact even when listened in
>conditions
>
far from perfect."
Right, and I never said anything contrary to this. Sad thing is, it seems a
majority of people care about music's sounding confidently stated more than
anything else...and that comes down to production quality.

Even if that means bastardizing lyrics by auto-tuning them for radio play and
the like. Hip-hop with 2 chord progressions, but perfectly balanced layered
bass-kicks/bass-lines and auto-tuned vocals is a huge example of this

Show me some songs that have gone gold within the last 10 years with bad
production quality (that were not, say, remastered classics from the
Beatles)...not easy, is it?

>"And another interesting thing from my experience as arranger - they will keep
>their music quality in any arrangement. This year I have arranged intro
>fanfares from Janacek Sinfonietta (originally for
>
brass and timpani) for piano, flute, two shamisen, biwa, 6 koto and Japanese
drums. And to my surprise it worked quite well at concerts."

Of course...things like separating melodic lines and chords into several
octaves so they don't compete for frequency space helps a LOT. But, in
electronic music (not including classical) with non-acoustic instruments and
"jilted" harmonic structures and tons of noisy drums, one must do more to
maintain production clarity. And, again, no DJ wants to be caught "playing a
Casio" far as the production quality of music they play.

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

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

The basic NI player that comes with the old EWQL is not capable of
arbitrary microtuning.

But the full version of Kontakt is capable of arbitrary equal
divisions (I've done several 17 edo pieces this way) and most, if not
all, sample instruments can be set to use adaptive JI, pure major,
pure minor, Pythagorean, etc.... usual tunings - out of the box.

With the script you are referring to I can additionally apply scala
files and it seems to work very well.

This free version of Kontakt 4 *might* be capable of tuning EDOs and
using your EWQL samples - I don't know.
http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/kontakt-player/?page=781

The PLAY interface is weird - you don't even set pitch bends in cents
- you set pitch bends in % of an octave. I think someone who was
aggressively anti microtonal had a hand in developing it. Supposedly
the next very of Play will have some micro ability - but I doubt it
will be beyond well temperaments.

Chris

On Sat, Dec 25, 2010 at 3:55 AM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 7:48 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> >
> > EWQL Play interface is crap especially for microwork.
> >
> > In any case - Gene - I have Kontakt, Garritan Personal Orchestra,
> > Garritan Jazz and Big Band, Garritan Marching Band, Kontakt with
> > Vienna Symphony Library (subset) and of course pianoteq.
>
> How are you retuning Kontakt - the $15 microtuning script? Do you find
> it works well?
>
> Either way, I don't know what EWQL Play is, but the EWQL version that
> I have uses "NI Kompakt," which seems to be a dumbed-down version of
> Kontakt. My goal for a long time has been to get EWQL into Kontakt and
> then find a way to microtune Kontakt. Once I do that, I'll probably
> start writing lots and lots of music. Unfortunately, I'm in
> Philadelphia, and my hard drive with everything I own is in Miami, and
> so much for getting that done this break.
>
> -Mike

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Kalle Aho <kalleaho@...>

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

As far as I can see, slick pro-quality production is not a realistic goal for the average microtonalist, but its unfeasibility is not worth lamenting. It's perfectly possible to make excellent-sounding electronic music with bottom-of-the-line equipment, provided one is aesthetically conscious about how one's music interacts with and is shaped by one's equipment. Some of the best-sounding albums I've ever heard were recorded on cheap tape or digital 4- or 8-track recorders, with cheap samplers, drum machines, and SM-57's.

Music produced with the level of slickness and polish of the average top-40 tracks is, to me, alienating and uninspiring. It reeks of corporatism, of industry, of greed--it reminds me forcibly of how commercialism has infected and degraded art and subjugated the voice of the individual. Who cares if radio or club DJ's won't play your music--that's a great thing, something to be proud of! It means, for the time being, you are immune to being commodified.

Part of the microtonal movement has always seemed to me to be a resistance to monopolization, gentrification, uniformity/conformity. Microtonality is the province of the madly-passionate, the lone kooks, the men and women who cannot be content with the confines of musical norms--people who long to build something new just so they can call it "theirs". How can this attitude really be reconciled with the desire to pander slickly-polished pop nuggets to the radio or the dance-floor? It's absurd.

Wallow in your limitations, because as much as anything they define your aesthetic voice.

-Igs

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> Marcel>"
> No offense meant at all, but even if the music/notes itself were suitable for
> a general public, the sound / mix isn't.
> I'm hearing that without exception for all the music posted here by list
> members. It just doesn't sound professional."
>
> I'd say this as well. Carlo Serafini (Carl's example)'s songs have the
> compositional prowess and, yes, the clarity of a professional piece, but not
> strong enough sounding instruments.
>
> Case in point I've asked several DJs I know who play lounge-style music if
> they would ever play Carlo's music live and they said no but a couple of them
> "at least" wanted to know where to get it for personal listening (proving,
> IMVHO, they did like the basic emotional/compositional quality). Several even
> said it sounds "way too General Midi". Ozan Yarman's "Saba Storm" has similar
> "issues". Yet again, no DJ (even internet radio DJ's) wants to get caught
> "playing/promoting a masterpiece on a Casio"...
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...>

Talk about glorification of mediocrity. Let not my name be included in
such a low-profile agenda lest there be the slightest chance I ever be
pronounced famous and successful for my microtonal constructs in the
musicbiz.

Dr. Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

cityoftheasleep wrote:
> As far as I can see, slick pro-quality production is not a realistic goal for the average microtonalist, but its unfeasibility is not worth lamenting. It's perfectly possible to make excellent-sounding electronic music with bottom-of-the-line equipment, provided one is aesthetically conscious about how one's music interacts with and is shaped by one's equipment. Some of the best-sounding albums I've ever heard were recorded on cheap tape or digital 4- or 8-track recorders, with cheap samplers, drum machines, and SM-57's.
>
> Music produced with the level of slickness and polish of the average top-40 tracks is, to me, alienating and uninspiring. It reeks of corporatism, of industry, of greed--it reminds me forcibly of how commercialism has infected and degraded art and subjugated the voice of the individual. Who cares if radio or club DJ's won't play your music--that's a great thing, something to be proud of! It means, for the time being, you are immune to being commodified.
>
> Part of the microtonal movement has always seemed to me to be a resistance to monopolization, gentrification, uniformity/conformity. Microtonality is the province of the madly-passionate, the lone kooks, the men and women who cannot be content with the confines of musical norms--people who long to build something new just so they can call it "theirs". How can this attitude really be reconciled with the desire to pander slickly-polished pop nuggets to the radio or the dance-floor? It's absurd.
>
> Wallow in your limitations, because as much as anything they define your aesthetic voice.
>
> -Igs
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael<djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>> Marcel>"
>> No offense meant at all, but even if the music/notes itself were suitable for
>> a general public, the sound / mix isn't.
>> I'm hearing that without exception for all the music posted here by list
>> members. It just doesn't sound professional."
>>
>> I'd say this as well. Carlo Serafini (Carl's example)'s songs have the
>> compositional prowess and, yes, the clarity of a professional piece, but not
>> strong enough sounding instruments.
>>
>> Case in point I've asked several DJs I know who play lounge-style music if
>> they would ever play Carlo's music live and they said no but a couple of them
>> "at least" wanted to know where to get it for personal listening (proving,
>> IMVHO, they did like the basic emotional/compositional quality). Several even
>> said it sounds "way too General Midi". Ozan Yarman's "Saba Storm" has similar
>> "issues". Yet again, no DJ (even internet radio DJ's) wants to get caught
>> "playing/promoting a masterpiece on a Casio"...
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

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

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

Don't worry, Oz. I don't think you're in any danger of that.

-Igs

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...> wrote:
>
> Talk about glorification of mediocrity. Let not my name be included in
> such a low-profile agenda lest there be the slightest chance I ever be
> pronounced famous and successful for my microtonal constructs in the
> musicbiz.
>
> Dr. Oz.
>
> --
>
> â© â© â©
> www.ozanyarman.com
>
>
> cityoftheasleep wrote:
> > As far as I can see, slick pro-quality production is not a realistic goal for the average microtonalist, but its unfeasibility is not worth lamenting. It's perfectly possible to make excellent-sounding electronic music with bottom-of-the-line equipment, provided one is aesthetically conscious about how one's music interacts with and is shaped by one's equipment. Some of the best-sounding albums I've ever heard were recorded on cheap tape or digital 4- or 8-track recorders, with cheap samplers, drum machines, and SM-57's.
> >
> > Music produced with the level of slickness and polish of the average top-40 tracks is, to me, alienating and uninspiring. It reeks of corporatism, of industry, of greed--it reminds me forcibly of how commercialism has infected and degraded art and subjugated the voice of the individual. Who cares if radio or club DJ's won't play your music--that's a great thing, something to be proud of! It means, for the time being, you are immune to being commodified.
> >
> > Part of the microtonal movement has always seemed to me to be a resistance to monopolization, gentrification, uniformity/conformity. Microtonality is the province of the madly-passionate, the lone kooks, the men and women who cannot be content with the confines of musical norms--people who long to build something new just so they can call it "theirs". How can this attitude really be reconciled with the desire to pander slickly-polished pop nuggets to the radio or the dance-floor? It's absurd.
> >
> > Wallow in your limitations, because as much as anything they define your aesthetic voice.
> >
> > -Igs
> >
> > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael<djtrancendance@> wrote:
> >> Marcel>"
> >> No offense meant at all, but even if the music/notes itself were suitable for
> >> a general public, the sound / mix isn't.
> >> I'm hearing that without exception for all the music posted here by list
> >> members. It just doesn't sound professional."
> >>
> >> I'd say this as well. Carlo Serafini (Carl's example)'s songs have the
> >> compositional prowess and, yes, the clarity of a professional piece, but not
> >> strong enough sounding instruments.
> >>
> >> Case in point I've asked several DJs I know who play lounge-style music if
> >> they would ever play Carlo's music live and they said no but a couple of them
> >> "at least" wanted to know where to get it for personal listening (proving,
> >> IMVHO, they did like the basic emotional/compositional quality). Several even
> >> said it sounds "way too General Midi". Ozan Yarman's "Saba Storm" has similar
> >> "issues". Yet again, no DJ (even internet radio DJ's) wants to get caught
> >> "playing/promoting a masterpiece on a Casio"...
> >>
> >> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...>

Whatever you say my dear Igs. You just crank up that distortion that
rattles our speakers a bit more... lest we are reminded of - gasp -
commercial quality productions that threaten to monopolize our souls.

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

cityoftheasleep wrote:
> Don't worry, Oz. I don't think you're in any danger of that.
>
> -Igs
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Ozan Yarman<ozanyarman@...> wrote:
>> Talk about glorification of mediocrity. Let not my name be included in
>> such a low-profile agenda lest there be the slightest chance I ever be
>> pronounced famous and successful for my microtonal constructs in the
>> musicbiz.
>>
>> Dr. Oz.
>>
>> --
>>
>> âœ© âœ© âœ©
>> www.ozanyarman.com
>>
>>
>> cityoftheasleep wrote:
>>> As far as I can see, slick pro-quality production is not a realistic goal for the average microtonalist, but its unfeasibility is not worth lamenting. It's perfectly possible to make excellent-sounding electronic music with bottom-of-the-line equipment, provided one is aesthetically conscious about how one's music interacts with and is shaped by one's equipment. Some of the best-sounding albums I've ever heard were recorded on cheap tape or digital 4- or 8-track recorders, with cheap samplers, drum machines, and SM-57's.
>>>
>>> Music produced with the level of slickness and polish of the average top-40 tracks is, to me, alienating and uninspiring. It reeks of corporatism, of industry, of greed--it reminds me forcibly of how commercialism has infected and degraded art and subjugated the voice of the individual. Who cares if radio or club DJ's won't play your music--that's a great thing, something to be proud of! It means, for the time being, you are immune to being commodified.
>>>
>>> Part of the microtonal movement has always seemed to me to be a resistance to monopolization, gentrification, uniformity/conformity. Microtonality is the province of the madly-passionate, the lone kooks, the men and women who cannot be content with the confines of musical norms--people who long to build something new just so they can call it "theirs". How can this attitude really be reconciled with the desire to pander slickly-polished pop nuggets to the radio or the dance-floor? It's absurd.
>>>
>>> Wallow in your limitations, because as much as anything they define your aesthetic voice.
>>>
>>> -Igs
>>>
>>> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael<djtrancendance@> wrote:
>>>> Marcel>"
>>>> No offense meant at all, but even if the music/notes itself were suitable for
>>>> a general public, the sound / mix isn't.
>>>> I'm hearing that without exception for all the music posted here by list
>>>> members. It just doesn't sound professional."
>>>>
>>>> I'd say this as well. Carlo Serafini (Carl's example)'s songs have the
>>>> compositional prowess and, yes, the clarity of a professional piece, but not
>>>> strong enough sounding instruments.
>>>>
>>>> Case in point I've asked several DJs I know who play lounge-style music if
>>>> they would ever play Carlo's music live and they said no but a couple of them
>>>> "at least" wanted to know where to get it for personal listening (proving,
>>>> IMVHO, they did like the basic emotional/compositional quality). Several even
>>>> said it sounds "way too General Midi". Ozan Yarman's "Saba Storm" has similar
>>>> "issues". Yet again, no DJ (even internet radio DJ's) wants to get caught
>>>> "playing/promoting a masterpiece on a Casio"...
>>>>
>>>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

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

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Kalle Aho <kalleaho@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Kalle Aho" <kalleaho@> wrote:
>
> > I'm both sympathetic and skeptical about the distinction between form
> > and content. Now, I know you have a preference for hearing common
> > practice music tuned to more optimal meantones than 12-equal. If you
> > are making a clear-cut distinction between ideas and presentation,
> > doesn't your meantone retunings fall into the presentation side of
> > it? If you insist on using optimal tunings then why not optimal
> > sounds (in some sense)?
>
> There are two issues involved in tuning. One is the issue of a certain kind of quality of sound as such, which is what you are talking about. The other is an issue of intelligibility; a different tuning simply says something different, and it doesn't need to be taken as far as some people seem to think to start changing the meaning. If I tried to retune the kinds of things I write into 12 equal, all the meaning would be squeezed right out of them, and I never would have been able to write them that way in the first place in any case. I like retuning things precisely because I like to hear how the meaning of the music changes, and what about it stays the same.

One thing that is destroyed in 12-equal is the distinction between
diatonic and chromatic semitones which I find surprisingly
meaningful. I guess that is the sort of thing you are talking about.
But I think we can make similar comparisons with the choice of sounds
too, don't you think? Often a musical passage gets a different
meaning depending on the instrumentation, if it is played on an organ
or a piano for example. But the exact brand of the instrument is less
important. The performance can completely destroy the meaning though.
I have in mind certain fashionable playing styles where the player
lingers on the first beat of the bar and accelerates the tempo after
that. Sounds narcissistic and distracts from the music. Makes
me almost prefer sequenced MIDI files instead.

Kalle

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...>

Are you, perchance, addressing to me or to Igs?

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

Carl Lumma wrote:
> It looked to me like you were both saying the same thing,
> so I'm not sure why the disagreement. -Carl
>
>> Whatever you say my dear Igs. You just crank up that distortion that
>> rattles our speakers a bit more... lest we are reminded of - gasp -
>> commercial quality productions that threaten to monopolize our souls.
>>
>> Oz.
>>
>> cityoftheasleep wrote:
>>> Don't worry, Oz. I don't think you're in any danger of that.
>>>
>>> -Igs
>>>
>>> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Ozan Yarman<ozanyarman@...> wrote:
>>>> Talk about glorification of mediocrity. Let not my name be included in
>>>> such a low-profile agenda lest there be the slightest chance I ever be
>>>> pronounced famous and successful for my microtonal constructs in the
>>>> musicbiz.
>>>>
>>>> Dr. Oz.
>>>>
>>>> cityoftheasleep wrote:
>>>>> Music produced with the level of slickness and polish of the
>>>>> average top-40 tracks is, to me, alienating and uninspiring.
>>>>> It reeks of corporatism, of industry, of greed--it reminds
>>>>> me forcibly of how commercialism has infected and degraded
>>>>> art and subjugated the voice of the individual.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

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

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

It would be preferable to me that a Tuning list style argument did not
break out in MMM in a thread concerning a piece I wrote.

Carl, I don't see the benefit in following your advice to post music
only to MMM.

Chris

On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 9:12 AM, Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Are you, perchance, addressing to me or to Igs?
>
> Oz.
>
> --
>
> ✩ ✩ ✩
> www.ozanyarman.com
>
> Carl Lumma wrote:
> > It looked to me like you were both saying the same thing,
> > so I'm not sure why the disagreement. -Carl
> >
> >> Whatever you say my dear Igs. You just crank up that distortion that
> >> rattles our speakers a bit more... lest we are reminded of - gasp -
> >> commercial quality productions that threaten to monopolize our souls.
> >>
> >> Oz.
> >>
> >> cityoftheasleep wrote:
> >>> Don't worry, Oz. I don't think you're in any danger of that.
> >>>
> >>> -Igs
> >>>
> >>> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Ozan Yarman<ozanyarman@...> wrote:
> >>>> Talk about glorification of mediocrity. Let not my name be included in
> >>>> such a low-profile agenda lest there be the slightest chance I ever be
> >>>> pronounced famous and successful for my microtonal constructs in the
> >>>> musicbiz.
> >>>>
> >>>> Dr. Oz.
> >>>>
> >>>> cityoftheasleep wrote:
> >>>>> Music produced with the level of slickness and polish of the
> >>>>> average top-40 tracks is, to me, alienating and uninspiring.
> >>>>> It reeks of corporatism, of industry, of greed--it reminds
> >>>>> me forcibly of how commercialism has infected and degraded
> >>>>> art and subjugated the voice of the individual.
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗jonszanto <jszanto@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Igs>"Music produced with the level of slickness and polish of the average top-40
tracks is, to me, alienating and uninspiring. It reeks of corporatism, of
industry, of greed"
Indeed...and agreed. Unfortunately, professional, literally, means being
paid to do something...and such music is paid more and, as such, is more
professional in the literal sense of the word.

Now if we want music that is more interesting to a good few people, but are
willing to accept that we most often will not attract mass audiences and/or the
money that comes with them...we can indeed do away with music which is not
insanely (almost mechanically) well produced.

>"Part of the microtonal movement has always seemed to me to be a resistance to
>monopolization, gentrification, uniformity/conformity."
Indeed but, with this ethic, in full, comes an inevitable "resistance to
professionality". I'm not saying that's a bad thing but, instead, that saying
that instead of coming in with "suits and ties" pretending to be "more
sophisticated/academic... than the next guy"...we should perhaps be embracing
some good old punk rock ethics and admit straight up we aren't aimed at
professionality..

>"people who long to build something new just so they can call it "theirs"."
Indeed. Look at any of my scales and songs and you will see evidence I
believe in that. Especially in my quest for "tall chords" and 7+ tone scales
where almost the entire scale can form a chord.

I'd say my ultimate example is my entry to the Untwelve competition
song/entry though, alas, I can't show that until the competition judging is
over...
Firstly am I saying I'm not satisfied with 12TET in that song's tuning (by
more "just-ly" estimating dyads with a 1/4 meantone-style scale and second
Arab-style scale (featuring loads of diminished 5ths) within the tuning).
Furthermore, though, I say the Arab-style scale can be useful in consonant
polyphony and that dimished 5ths can, in context, substitute very well for
near-perfect fifths (things that considered 'heresy'...even among
microtonalists).

>"Wallow in your limitations, because as much as anything they define your
>aesthetic voice. "

Give me a break with your ignorance. I've mentioned the above song and my
mission countless times. I've also not just played in, but created several
scale systems (including the PHI and Silver Section scales which Margo confirmed
WERE original and not related to her PHI-Mediant scales).
But, Igs and perhaps Gene, you seem to be saying, despite these efforts, that
I embrace a one-fits-all, non-rebellious ethics...almost as if I want to
"develop" microtonallity into bubble-gum pop.
Look, I'm not going to sit here and argue any longer, and I can't say you're
wrong if you hate my style, but all I can say is if you've seen all this and
think I'm not a conscientious rebel...wow you are being ignorant. You may not
enjoy what I'm doing but that doesn't give you a right to go around re-defining
what I say as something it is most certainly not. Give other people who,
perhaps, are NOT like you at all a fair chance to enjoy my efforts.

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

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Daniel Forró <dan.for@...>

Your definition of professionality is rather strange. Look, I'm professional composer, concert and recording artist, arranger, music writer, teacher, expert, consultant, clinician, reviewer etc. etc. with highest possible music education, experience and pretty high level of knowledge, working in many music styles. Making music has been my main job since many years, and I do both "artistic" and "commercial" music. Only thanks to the fact I'm enough powerful as a musician I could survive, but it's far from comfortable life. And only because I divided my activities. Quite logically (thanks to the strange world where we all live) I have much more money from some easy commercial music (be it my works, arrangements, recordings or concert programs) which I use only fraction of my knowledge for than from artistic music (again be it my own works, or sophisticated concert programs of very old or very contemporary music or combining both which I like) which asks much more effort. Strange equation: easy consum music = more money, complex art music = less (or no!) money. Despite the fact that for example royalties are artificially balanced by Author's Association and I have much more money in royalties for orchestral symphony (which is performed only once) than for pop song or incidental music or even jazz work (with many performances).

This is what tortured Honegger 60 years ago as he described in his books about composing music. And the abyss between Music Art and Music Industry is deeper nowadays. Despite the fact sometimes it has similar tendencies, anyway it's all about money (playing the same popular classical pieces ad nauseam). Opposite - trying to put some art into consum music - is more rare.

Just few points. This can generate long discussion...

Daniel Forro

On 27 Dec 2010, at 6:05 AM, Michael wrote:

> Ozan>"Talk about glorification of mediocrity. Let not my name be > included in
> such a low-profile agenda lest there be the slightest chance I ever be
> pronounced famous and successful for my microtonal constructs in the
> musicbiz."
>
> Man, Igs and you both seem to be completely missing my point. > My point is
> that we are not "professional"..."professionalism" defined as how > much money we
> make on our music. And, in many ways, we should be glad we > aren't...but we
> certainly shouldn't walk around pretending we are...because if we > do we're no
> better than the major labels.
>
> Personally, to give an obvious example, 95% of my vinyls and > mp3s are from
> white labels and undiscovered artists.
>
> Personally I wish composition skill would reign king and all > this obsession
> with who has the best gear or the clearest sound would die. > Unfortunately, I
> don't control the music business world.

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Daniel>"Your definition of professionality is rather strange. Look, I'm (a)
professional composer, concert and recording artist, arranger, music writer,
teacher, expert, consultant, clinician, reviewer etc. etc."...and..."I do both
"artistic" and "commercial" music"

In that case I'm saying...when you wear your "commercial hat", most often
this requires putting down your "artistic hat" to a large extent. Is that true
or when/why is it not?

>"Strange equation: easy consum music = more money, complex art music = less
>(or no!) money"

Exactly! Often "professional" (my definition IE music designed primarily to
make money) music is the easier of the two to make, even from a pure
compositional standpoint.
The largest "barrier to entry" in making the music, IMVHO, is not even ability
to play well but, instead, having "studio access". Things like having an
orchestral and premium recording microphones, an electronic music studio with
premium software and a fortune in samples and good enough
sound-mastering/arranging expertise to keep overtones in different instrument
parts from competing for frequency space (and often to keep overall loudness on
par with major-label releases). I look at this aspect again in B) below...

Drawing from what Mike B and Igs were saying about microphone and instrument
quality being essential, though (something I agree with)...would it be fair to
say that people would qualify professional music (at least for classical and
electric):
A) It's in key and with perfect instrument timing
B) The instruments and mixing sound like they came out of a professional
studio with a "larger than life" sound
C) The overall feel is very confident, almost as if "the musician could play
it in his/her sleep"

>"Despite the fact that for example royalties are artificially balanced by
>Author's Association and I have much more money in royalties for orchestral
>symphony (which is performed only once) than for pop song or incidental music
>or even jazz work (with many performances)."

Admittedly I do not have the faintest clue how payments for orchestral
symphonies work...could you tell me why orchestral symphonies make more?

And indeed (you're right), I'd think jazz work would get paid a lot more
assuming much of the payment involves the aspect of the music being performed
many times to audiences (IE also the way cover bands make money).

My take so far is that, in general, live music has its success determined
much by to how many people it is played and how wealthy/involved the audience
is. Any evidence to the contrary? Side note/guess...perhaps orchestral
symphonies involve a much higher paying per-person audience?

>"Despite the fact sometimes it has similar tendencies, anyway it's all about
>money (playing the same
>
popular classical pieces ad nauseam). Opposite - trying to put some art into
consum music - is more rare."

It's great to know there are people like you around who have a foot on both
grounds. Often, it seems, once musicians realize they can make money on heavily
commercial music, they work on nothing else...and hence we have a popular music
scene that is evolving relatively little artistically.

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

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

>"You seem to see yourself in connection to the music business world and in some
>sense in competition with its best exemplars. Many of us do not; certainly not
>me."

Well put it this way...I think the way to "kill the beast" of commercial
music...is to, to an extent, beat it at it's own game and then give it an option
of leading elsewhere.

Example: one sure-fire way to get people to take something like
microtonallity more seriously, IMVHO, is to get someone who has done some
serious conquests in commercial music supporting it. Such a person could say "I
can 'play your game', I can do it at your level or better, now come check out my
'game' of microtonal music" and not look like a hypocrit or someone simply
unable to do the "top echelon" of 'normal' music looking for an excuse.

Just about the closest thing to this I have seen, off the top of my head, is
guitarist Neil Haverstick who had become a force in jazz and blues and had
people follow him from there into microtonallity. He's also (as we know) showed
up in Guitar World and a host of other places and gotten many guitarists
thinking "should my next axe be 19TET, 31TET, fretless, etc.?" Before him, I
couldn't convince my jazz guitarist brother to get a microtonal "axe"...now he's
looking into getting a fretless guitar... :-)

This kind of thing, I'm hoping, would open the gateway to things like
microtonal support for more softsynths, keyboards, MIDI controllers...more music
for us to choose from, more of a social scene around development of microtonal
music and theories...and much more.

An (ironically), none of the things I'm hoping such an occurrence would evolve
in to have anything to deal with myself (or anyone else) earning more money.
It has much more to do with making microtonal music, listening, and its creation
a much more easy, thesible, and enjoyable process.

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

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
> Exactly! Often "professional" (my definition IE music designed primarily to
> make money) music is the easier of the two to make, even from a pure
> compositional standpoint.

> Drawing from what Mike B and Igs were saying about microphone and instrument
> quality being essential
<snip>

Equipment has nothing to do with making good-sounding music, at least not in certain popular idioms here in America. I'm sure I'm one of very few musicians on this group who is at all affiliated with what has come to be referred to as "indie" culture, but let me tell you that within "indie" culture some of the most influential bands and musicians have produced their music using low-to-no-budget equipment. Daniel Johnston, for instance has garnered a humongous cult-following (to the point that a very professional and acclaimed documentary has been filmed about him) recording direct to hand-held cassette recorder or boom-box, just himself and a cheap guitar or chord-organ. The band Guided By Voices records all their albums to tape 4-track...and that's cassette 4-track, not reel-to-reel. The band The Shins, who have had music featured in a variety of major motion-picture soundtracks and even received a bit of commercial radio play, recorded their acclaimed debut album using a single SM-57 and Cool Edit Pro. There is an entire avant-garde hip-hop movement based around the Anticon label, with artists like Themselves and Why? that have cheap lo-fi sounds as an integral part of their overall aesthetic. There is also a huge subculture around 8-bit game music, especially .nsf compositions for Nintendo Entertainment System sound emulators--music based on two square waves, a triangle wave, a noise generator, and a rudimentary single-sample player (or something like that). That music is about as lo-fi as it gets, and a lot of it is AMAZING. What indie acts like these have proven is that there is no relationship between budget/fidelity and audience appeal (or aesthetic merit). In other words, it is definitively NOT what you use, and perhaps not even HOW you use it, but rather WHY you use it and WHAT you are trying to do with it.

What I am getting at with all this ranting is that the reason most microtonal music sounds weak or unprofessional is because there is a mismatch between the chosen musical idioms of the composers and the means and media available to realize the music. It's better advice to tell someone: "recognize your limitations and learn to turn them to your advantage" than it is to say "get better equipment/spend more money on your setup".

> though (something I agree with)...would it be fair to
> say that people would qualify professional music (at least for classical and
> electric):
> A) It's in key and with perfect instrument timing
> B) The instruments and mixing sound like they came out of a professional
> studio with a "larger than life" sound
> C) The overall feel is very confident, almost as if "the musician could play
> it in his/her sleep"

I disagree that any of these are universal criteria, and have musical examples to illustrate why:

A. Key and timing are irrelevant to many styles of electronic music--especially dub and dubstep (which are currently enjoying quite a bit of popularity). In these styles, rhythms are *supposed to be* wobbly and off-kilter, and harmonic elements are seldom very tuneful or tonal. To say nothing of noise music or ambient music, or...JAZZ.

B. "Larger than life" sounds are quite a detriment to most bands considered "indie". The band Modest Mouse, for instance, really went down-hill when they got major-label funding, and it is almost universally-agreed among their fans that their best work is their cheaply-produced early stuff. Same can be said of folk music--the more "larger than life" folk sounds, the more it betrays its own idiom. Not to mention that a lot of singers are done little favor by detailed high-fidelity recordings. People like Neil Young and Bob Dylan would sound abysmal if produced in a manner similar to, I dunno, Alicia Keys.

C. Confidence comes from exhaustive rehearsing, and often the eradication of spontaneity. There are too many musical styles to name wherein the most acclaimed performances are those where it sounds like the musician (or musicians) are at the absolute threshold of their ability, barely hanging on...or following their "soul" on some spontaneous whim and maybe screwing up a bit but letting their passion show through more clearly than if they nailed every note perfectly.

Really, Michael, it seems that both you and Marcel have a very myopic conception of what can pass for professional (and even commercial) music. Judging by his response to me, I'd want to include Ozan as well, but I constantly see him praising music that either you or Marcel would categorize as "poorly executed" and/or "unsellable"...so I think he really has nothing against low-production-quality music. He just likes contradicting me for the sake of it.

But to get back to a point relevant to this list: as Makers of Microtonal Music, we would all do the best "service" to the cause of microtonality NOT by writing pandering music for the masses with the slickest software tricks and the highest budget we can muster, but by writing HONEST music full of the same mad passion that drove each of us to abandon the comforting womb of common-practice equal temperament. Music which does not try to create an illusion of being more than it (usually) is: the labor of a lone person at a computer, perhaps with a mic or two and a couple of cheap physical instruments. Those of us with the means to access better equipment or orchestral ensembles or what-have-you should, of course, make use of those resources--but those of us who can't should forgo the envy and the self-delusion and find a way to make the best of what we've got. Demonstrating our passion and our freedom will surely earn our "movement" more followers than would the crafting of some slick pop music.

-Igs

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

>"The band The Shins, who have had music featured in a variety of major
>motion-picture soundtracks and even received a bit of commercial radio play,
>recorded their acclaimed debut album using a single SM-57 and Cool Edit Pro."
I admit, I have heard of them (The Shins), though not Daniel Johnston. Also,
admittedly, I know Fat Boy Slim made a point of using samples from unpopular
records to make popular songs...although he did, to an extent, add hi-fi
elements to those lo-fi recordings and mixed them in a way that boosted loudness
to professional quality levels.
I looked up Daniel Johnston...and it seems his career was token punk
rock-indie style. It's believable because, in punk and some Indie rock, low
quality recordings are acceptable. But even the leaders in that sort of thing
IE NO-FX (whose music I personally love) are not considered "gold" recording
artists by any standard.

>"There is also a huge subculture around 8-bit game music, especially .nsf
>compositions for Nintendo Entertainment System sound emulators"
Agreed...much of which is much more cleverly composed than a majority of major
label releases. In fact, the first music format I composed in was .mod, limited
to 4 channels! :-D Then again, it's not exactly "gold" level either...it's
about as "gold" and "normally accepted" as playing Dungeons and Dragons as a
high schooler.

>"A. Key and timing are irrelevant to many styles of electronic music--especially
>dub and dubstep (which are currently enjoying quite a bit of popularity)."
Dub may be "off beat" in a mechanical sense, but I'd re-interpret it as being
"on-beat with swing/quantization" in the same way much trance and breakbeat (not
to mention big-beat!) music is. It all goes back to C) the overall feel
(including the rhythm) sounds very confident.

>"B. "Larger than life" sounds are quite a detriment to most bands considered
>"indie". The band Modest Mouse, for instance, really went down-hill when they
>got major-label funding, and it is almost universally-agreed among their fans
>that their best work is their cheaply-produced early stuff."
Interesting...but can you prove it was the production quality that killed
them or the plausible fact the major labels were likely telling them what to do
compositionally?
This is, perhaps, the ONE thing/pattern/trend in commercial music I generally
support with few exceptions.
I have my doubts doing things like getting clearer and larger/"fatter"
sounding instruments (including adding effects and EQ to acoustic ones) can
actually make a piece of music worse.

Except (of course) for auto-tuning, which literally takes emotional note
fluctuations out of the mix and, to an extent, actually alters the composition
of a song.
Side note...I swear, if there is one master of larger than life sounds and
effects, IMVHO, it's BT...

>"C. Confidence comes from exhaustive rehearsing, and often the eradication of
>spontaneity. "

Again what to say...I love listening to music where I feel the musician is
"riding the edge"..but most of what I see making commercial success sounds, yes,
exhaustively rehearsed and, sadly, that seems to be what most people want to
hear. Just because I wish things were one way doesn't mean I do not realize
they are completely another way in reality...

>"Really, Michael, it seems that both you and Marcel have a very myopic
>conception of what can pass for professional (and even commercial) music."

I do. I limit myself to what I actually see going gold or better in record
sales. Much as I (like you and several others) wish it were broadened to
include more...I'm simply defining it by what I see most people reacting to.
And, minus perhaps Punk and Folk (neither of which have that substantial an
audience)...people seem to have little tolerance for 'non-sparkling' production
quality and/or music that doesn't sound effortlessly played/confident.

--------------back to microtonal music.............--------------

>"we would all do the best "service" to the cause of microtonality NOT by writing
>pandering music for the masses with the slickest software tricks and the highest
>budget we can muster, but by writing HONEST music"

Yes and no. :-D Yes, we'd do the best to stay with our roots ultimately but
(also yes) I believe it's rather egocentric not to try (well at least a few of
us) to let the rest of the world know we can play their game (commercial music)
well also and we aren't using microtonal music as a crutch IE "because it's all
we can do well". Again, I think we need at least a few good men to make a few
good "pro" songs and then say "btw, glad you like this, but my real passion is
microtonality"...and hope they follow.

Again, I'd give Neil Haverstick as an example...no he's not "gold" (yet?!)
but, yes, he's a prominent live guitarist in Denver's music scene, yes he has a
cult following in the blues and jazz scenes, yes he's been in Guitar World.
And, again, listening to my music and bunch of the musicians on this list wasn't
enough to "convert" my jazz guitarist brother...but after hearing Neil he's been
looking into getting a fretless guitar. :-D

>"Those of us with the means to access better equipment or orchestral ensembles
>or what-have-you should, of course, make use of those resources--but those of us
>who can't should forgo the envy and the self-delusion and find a way to make the
>best of what we've got."
Agreed! Hence in my Untwelve entry, I put in the bio section a snippet saying
the equivalent of "I this is good enough...that someone with better
compositional skill and equipment picks this up and sees potential to make
something much better that brings microtonal music in a stronger light to the
rest of the world."

>"Demonstrating our passion and our freedom will surely earn our "movement" more
>followers than would the crafting of some slick pop music."

I guess that's where I disagree. I think, yes, ultimately our strength lies in
our passion and freedom for this art...but also that, firstly, we are going to
need a couple of people to write some "slick pop music" to get others to see the
light and think of it as an opportunity, and NOT an excuse for people who don't
know how to play or understand "real" music correctly (which, sadly, is what
I've found most people think about microtonal music).

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

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

Igs wrote:

>Equipment has nothing to do with making good-sounding music, at least
>not in certain popular idioms here in America. I'm sure I'm one of
>very few musicians on this group who is at all affiliated with what
>has come to be referred to as "indie" culture, but let me tell you
>that within "indie" culture

I did mention lo-fi. And Bevis Frond, which is sort of the
genesis of it all. I didn't press because I assumed the retort
would be that most indie bands have gone big-budget these days.

I was gonna mention glitch, where the equipment consists of
things like a speak-and-spell and a cheap kitchen knife, but
I assumed the retort would be 'that's not popular'. Well, it
is very popular in a certain subculture, which is enough to
support many professional musicians.

>The band Modest Mouse, for instance, really went down-hill when
>they got major-label funding, and it is almost universally-agreed
>among their fans that their best work is their cheaply-produced
>early stuff.

Moon and Antarctica is typically considered their quintessential
album, no? At any rate, I personally think Good News is more
developed -- perhaps at the cost of some freshness -- but
better overall.

>Really, Michael, it seems that both you and Marcel have a very myopic
>conception of what can pass for professional (and even commercial)
>music.

Michael doesn't even seem to know what's going on in electronica,
which is presumably his thing. Almost all electronica artists
make extensive use of open source tools these days. The only
widely-used commercial software is Live (and Max/MSP if you count
that as commercial). And until recently it was all played off
old records through abysmal house sound systems over which the
DJ had no control. Consider the compressed, lifeless sound on
Tranceport, which I would guess is the best-selling electronica
album of all time.

-Carl

Sweeney's Agony

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