re: JP questions about Sand

>
>Well, finally I made it through Chris Bailey's entire dissertation,
>text, materials (what I could understand of them) and music.
>

thanks for going through it. . .hope you enjoyed. . .

>
>Although seemingly Chris never mentions why he calls the piece
>_Sand_... or at least I can't recall mention of it, for *me* it
>reminds me of walking on the beach and encountering various colorful
>objects by chance. Certain sections have a sense of continuity that
>seem almost like a horizon-like beach.
>

Yeah, I was thinking of "graininess" I suppose.

Also, all of the musique-concrete sounds are taken from this one little
fishing town in MA. It's near a great beach, and so. . . .you get the
idea. Plus certain of the textures I originally thought of denoting
beach-like vistas and so on, though I'm not sure they ended up sounding
like that.

>
> My wife and I both listened to this work (a bottle of wine can also
> add to the experience -- one is adequate)
>

ha!. . . OK, admit it, you were stoned as well. . . :)

> and enjoyed it
>tremendously. She mentioned what she considered the "random" nature
>of it, and not in a deprecating way...
>

Yes, it is in the sense described in Chapter II of the paper, in the sense
of "fragmentation of the familiar" -- cutting up and twisting around
familiar things into random sequences. I like that experience as a
listener.

>
>1) Is it true that Chris goes to elaborate lengths in order
>to "achieve" randomness? That seems a bit curious, although I am not
>opposed to it...
>

Well, in a way it is. And it actually IS hard to achieve randomness.

Or, I should say, it IS hard to make a sequence of events that will make
someone say "Wow, that's totally random!!" In this case I'm using
"random" as an aesthetic term, rather than a scientific one, and I think
I mean by it, let's say we have two objects in a sequence, A and B.
Aesthetic "randomness" as I'm discussing it would make an observer exclaim
(or feel): "Wow, object B, is the LAST thing I would think of
putting after that object A." --- and one feels a kind of "shock" of
aesthetic "power" coming from this juxtaposition.

It is, as you might imagine, hard to sustain this kind of power through a
long sequence of such juxtapositions. . . and in fact, when one does do
this (or try to do it), one ends up with the kind of "flat surface" I was
talking about in Chapter I.

>
>2) Certain sections *seemed* to have a compositional continuity. Is
>that intentional, or did it just work out that way?? Personally, I
>feel that adds to the piece, but since my *own* pieces tend to
>operate along those lines, it's not surprising I would feel that
>way... I, personally, like some of the *continuous* sections, maybe
>about in the *third* section...
>

You mean in Part III? I would hope the whole thing would be continuous,
once one accepts a sort of norm of discontinuity (in the sense of events
constantly "interrupting" one another.)

>
>Great job, and lots of fun. It's also interesting to think about how
>this thing was assembled, although I must admit I only understand a
>part of that...
>
>Nice the entire thing is up on a website, too for "easy access..."
>

Well, thanks for listening/reading!

cb

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Christopher Bailey

/makemicromusic/topicId_4200.html#4200

> >
> >2) Certain sections *seemed* to have a compositional continuity. Is
> >that intentional, or did it just work out that way?? Personally, I
> >feel that adds to the piece, but since my *own* pieces tend to
> >operate along those lines, it's not surprising I would feel that
> >way... I, personally, like some of the *continuous* sections, maybe
> >about in the *third* section...
> >
>
> You mean in Part III? I would hope the whole thing would be
continuous, once one accepts a sort of norm of discontinuity (in the
sense of events constantly "interrupting" one another.)
>

***Hi Chris!

Well, actually I meant more about the middle of the piece where there
are long SUSTAINED sections. Those are the parts that remind me of
the horizon on the beach. Maybe some of those are just one *very
long* sample, dunno. Anyway, they seemed to change and have
more "contextual propulsion," but perhaps that was an illusion due to
the length of the sample or some such.

>
> Well, thanks for listening/reading!
>

***Well, *I* certainly found it entertaining. I imagine others will
as well. I don't find it tedious at all... maybe if it went on
another *hour* it would be... :)

best,

JP