Subject: computer/midi instruments.

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>
> From: Christopher Bailey <cb202@...>
>

hello Chrisopher!

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>
> Well, I suppose if the style is quasi-"classical", and the MIDI sound is
> sorta like a clarinet, then one would tend to hear it as a lame clarinet.
> Bjork gets away with it (I can't remember the name of the song I'm
> thinking of, which begins with these clarinet-like sounds that would
> sound lame if they were used in a "classical-music" context, but which
> sound perfectly fine in a "techno" context--it was on her "Homogenic"
> album) because we are used to hearing "cheaper" timbres used to "raw"
> effect on techno tracks. . . so we don't think "yuk, midi clarinet"
> immediately.

Quite often we will also find in much of you heavy electronic black pop music
they deal with this by constantly changing timbre or
using them in an array of short fragments put together to makke many layers

>
>
> So I suppose the solution is to "process" the sounds enough so that the
> ear can't immediately "slot" them into some familiar timbral category.
> It's kind of like a "timbral entropy" "One-Footed Bride" situation, but
> with timbre instead of pitch.
>
> .
>
> Actually, do you know Sal Martirano's electronic music? I like the way he
> uses MIDI, all of the "cheesiness" is there, but the music is very
> "Wacky" and so it all works nicely, I think. The music would lose an
> essential humourous aspect of its character if it were played on very
> "Smooth"-sounding computer-sounds: the "clunky"ness of MIDI is composed
> *into* the pieces, at least to my ear.

Much of your mideast/ mediteranean pop music is just as good of "using timbre
we would never use"
possibly it is the way we but things together, making a sound first then
putting it in a piece.
When ever i come off a binge of western classical music (and more modern
counterparts) and jump into some traditional African music (not necessarily
the drum stuff) I am struck by timbres that lie so outside our culture yet
work in a harmonious way with each other. Maybe not harmonious but blrending
in some alchemical fashion that still escapes us.
African music is especially interesting in the combining of "noise elements"
as apart of their instruments (rattlling metal objects on thumb pianos for
instance) that they would never do without.

>
> cb
>

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