Another Comment

Here's another quick comment on Carl L's comment on my contribution to
the forum CD.

Carl suggested that I need to move on from 88CET in time. I'll have to
confess that I haven't done much work in 88CET or any other unusual tuning
in the past two years. I've been learning the saxophone so that I can use
my WX-11 MIDI wind controller (which plays kinda like a saxophone) more
effectively in future microtonal work. Hopefully with a less stiff
performance, along with the vastly better sampling material I've been
recording recently, the ASR-10 won't sound so "bad".

But I need to also move on to work less oriented toward simulation of
"real" instruments. I've come to realize that electronic simulation of
acoustic instruments is almost musical suicide. The more accurate the
instrument simulation is without being exactly perfect, the more it annoys
people! I guess it's kinda like drawing human figures; people enjoy
cartoons as obviously-inaccurate representations of humans, but if we give
people the impression that we claim that a drawing is photographically
accurate, people get very very picky about it.

But anyway, although I started exploring 88CET five years ago, I've
really only explored it for about three years. So I'll keep at it a few
more years, but definitely move on in time.

Thanks again, Carl, for reviewing the CD. By the way, tell us more
about your concern that "Snake Dance" sounded "interesting but
unconvincing".

On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Gary Morrison wrote:

> But I need to also move on to work less oriented toward simulation of
> "real" instruments. I've come to realize that electronic simulation of
> acoustic instruments is almost musical suicide. The more accurate the
> instrument simulation is without being exactly perfect, the more it annoys
> people!

I find the practice of trying to make electronic instruments sound like
'real' things somewhat puzzling. To my ear, electronic instruments are
generally much nicer-sounding and versatile than acoustic ones. (Granted,
I'm young enough that I wasn't subjected to years of cheap tinny sounding
electronic synths.)

It is true that it's very difficult to make *exact* reproductions of
many acoustic instruments using electronic means, but if one is to play
this argument in reverse, and try to make electronic-sounding effects
using acoustic instrumentation, the comparison is just silly. Even more
puzzling to me is how people seem fond of the *exact* details of the
original instrument, criticizing the electronic duplicate for not having
some artifacts of the original which are of dubious value musically.

My own rather ears, which have been informally trained on large amounts of
techno, and can pick out electronic timbres very well, find many
traditional instruments to be of dubious quality to begin with. For
example, while I love the rich sound of a grand piano, smaller pianos
sound very cheap to me. Likewise, 'classical' guitars sound very good to
my ear, but regular 'acoustic' ones just sound like cheap knockoffs of
their very pure-sounding and versatile electric cousins.

-Bram

bram wrote:

> From: bram <bram@gawth.com>
>
>
> I find the practice of trying to make electronic instruments sound like
> 'real' things somewhat puzzling. To my ear, electronic instruments are
> generally much nicer-sounding and versatile than acoustic ones.

Recently I heard an interview of Les Baxter, who also expressed the notion
of electronic instruments being superior. Still I have never found ANY
electronic timbre I can take longer than 20 max. The constant change of timbre
is a necessity with such objects. Also the Yamaha standard is deplorable with
not being able to play a 3 limit just pentatonic without a noticeable
difference. There is for the most part no more acoustic music anyway. We hear
them on records or CDs which are electronic mediums, or live we hear them
"amplified" which completely changes the character. It seems ridiculous to be
in a small space of a 100 seat and people feel like they won't be heard without
artificially cranking it up. Myself and Rod Poole now play almost exclusively
without any electronic support with better results.... and response. In the
late 70's I wrote extensively for bassoon for a person who now plays in the SF
Ballet and Opera but recently started working with another Bassoonist and on
the first rehearsal I was overwhelmed by the SOUND of the instrument that live
greatly outdid its electronic reproductions. I had forgotten what it actually
did.
No Techno can match a good group of PowWow drummers for inducing trance.
Also despite its shortcomings, I find that when I go and hear a good symphonic
orchestra (live w/o support) I actually notice pleasant body sensations for
days.
Go stand 4 feet away from a good clarinetist!
Take your $10,000 of consumerist hardware I'll throw a shachuhachi player
on stage and lets see who wins!

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
www.anaphoria.com

On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Kraig Grady wrote:

> No Techno can match a good group of PowWow drummers for inducing trance.
> Also despite its shortcomings, I find that when I go and hear a good symphonic
> orchestra (live w/o support) I actually notice pleasant body sensations for
> days.

To be fair, such performances are *expensive*, and normal speaker systems
simply don't have those kinds of resources thrown into them. If one were
to make a 16-track recording of powwow drummers, arrange speakers
specifically for that performance, and arrange one's living room to have
the appropriate acoustics, I'm sure the effect would be amazing. As it is,
I can't really even afford to blow $2000 on a halfway decent subwoofer
(not to mention that my downstairs neigbors might not appreciate it very
much.) The relative economy of pre-recorded music is the primary (and, in
my opinion, entirely reasonable,) cause of the ongoing decline in live
performances.

With regards to a single electronic timbre getting boring quickly, almost
none of the heavily electonic music I really like sticks to a single
timbre throughout an entire song. In fact, it's rare for it to stick to a
single timbre through an entire measure. I wouldn't recommend trying to
sort through random instrumental electronic things trying to find examples
though - the accessibility of electronic music has produced a lot of
schlock, although by the same token it's also allowed a few people with
true talent to produce some very good things with very little resources.

-Bram

I've stood a little too close to shak players a got a headful of neo-zen spittle
all over me.
Listen to glass,reich or Lamonte Young and then tell me about Trance. They all use
electronics to induce some of the best trance I've heard not to mention Barbara
Hero.

Kraig Grady wrote:

> From: Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>
>
> bram wrote:
>
> > From: bram <bram@gawth.com>
> >
> >
> > I find the practice of trying to make electronic instruments sound like
> > 'real' things somewhat puzzling. To my ear, electronic instruments are
> > generally much nicer-sounding and versatile than acoustic ones.
>
> Recently I heard an interview of Les Baxter, who also expressed the notion
> of electronic instruments being superior. Still I have never found ANY
> electronic timbre I can take longer than 20 max. The constant change of timbre
> is a necessity with such objects. Also the Yamaha standard is deplorable with
> not being able to play a 3 limit just pentatonic without a noticeable
> difference. There is for the most part no more acoustic music anyway. We hear
> them on records or CDs which are electronic mediums, or live we hear them
> "amplified" which completely changes the character. It seems ridiculous to be
> in a small space of a 100 seat and people feel like they won't be heard without
> artificially cranking it up. Myself and Rod Poole now play almost exclusively
> without any electronic support with better results.... and response. In the
> late 70's I wrote extensively for bassoon for a person who now plays in the SF
> Ballet and Opera but recently started working with another Bassoonist and on
> the first rehearsal I was overwhelmed by the SOUND of the instrument that live
> greatly outdid its electronic reproductions. I had forgotten what it actually
> did.
> No Techno can match a good group of PowWow drummers for inducing trance.
> Also despite its shortcomings, I find that when I go and hear a good symphonic
> orchestra (live w/o support) I actually notice pleasant body sensations for
> days.
> Go stand 4 feet away from a good clarinetist!
> Take your $10,000 of consumerist hardware I'll throw a shachuhachi player
> on stage and lets see who wins!
>
> -- Kraig Grady
> North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
> www.anaphoria.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription
> to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and
> select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> You do not need web access to participate. You may subscribe through
> email. Send an empty email to one of these addresses:
> tuning-subscribe@onelist.com - subscribe to the tuning list.
> tuning-unsubscribe@onelist.com - unsubscribe from the tuning list.
> tuning-digest@onelist.com - switch your subscription to digest mode.
> tuning-normal@onelist.com - switch your subscription to normal mode.

Patrick Pagano wrote:

> From: Patrick Pagano <ppagano@bellsouth.net>
>
> I've stood a little too close to shak players a got a headful of neo-zen spittle
> all over me.
> Listen to glass,reich or Lamonte Young and then tell me about Trance. They all use
> electronics to induce some of the best trance I've heard not to mention Barbara
> Hero.
>

Point well taken! Still as someone who has actually experienced a complete loss of
conscious identity by solely musical means, I have never found to have gotten there
by electronic means. As for the above much minimalism tends to induce much of its
effect initially with its "novelty' fading with repeated listening. On the other
hand, certain musics seem in my experience to build up an accumulated experience. Out
of the above, (replace RILEY instead of glass please!) and their best works are done
on acoustical instruments. The exception with Lamonte Young is his works in EXACT
TUNINGS (where the intervals are pure to the point of creating standing waves). Erv
and co. have done such experiments out here. Frankly it makes me not want to move.
Maybe in the future they'll use it for riot control!
Descending Moonshine Dervishes will always be my favorite Riley piece. I was only
mildly impressed at first but find it more and more enjoyable with years. Great.

> .

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
www.anaphoria.com