Joseph's new piece

Hi Joe,

Finally got around to checking out your new piece Blect. At first the
super dry, and not terribly gripping--dare I even say cheesy--timbres
(excluding the organ) were somewhat annoying me, but, as is the case
with all your pieces that I've heard, there's a very recognizable
voice at work, and that's nothing to sneeze at!

Your music often strikes me as equal parts playful and respectable,
but deliberate, that's always the first thing that comes to my mind
when I'm trying to describe it... deliberate. It's music about working
very finite materials into a piece, and it doesn't often seem to reach
for too much more than that. But, if it were only workmanship I
probably wouldn't be too terribly interested, fortunately there's an
x-factor.

I won't try to put too fine a point on it, but it's there, and it's
you... all those little droll and sometimes almost carnivalesque
chromatic bits, the measured pacing... the composerly development and
sudden dashes of vivacity and vigor that remind you that all that
stunted deliberateness wasn't the extent of what's to be said... it's
all stuff that could potentially describe a lot of people's music, but
I recognize you and yours straightaway... so, once I reached the end I
was no longer annoyed by the dry and cheesy patches, in fact, they
were now just what they should be and had acquired a certain charm...
in fact, they'd earned it!

Nice job, as always.

take care,

--Dan Stearns

--- In tuning@y..., "D.Stearns" <STEARNS@C...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_34315.html#34315

> Hi Joe,
>
> Finally got around to checking out your new piece Blect. At first
the super dry, and not terribly gripping--dare I even say cheesy--
timbres (excluding the organ) were somewhat annoying me, but, as is
the case with all your pieces that I've heard, there's a very
recognizable voice at work, and that's nothing to sneeze at!
>
> Your music often strikes me as equal parts playful and respectable,
> but deliberate, that's always the first thing that comes to my mind
> when I'm trying to describe it... deliberate. It's music about
working very finite materials into a piece, and it doesn't often seem
to reach for too much more than that. But, if it were only
workmanship I probably wouldn't be too terribly interested,
fortunately there's an x-factor.
>
> I won't try to put too fine a point on it, but it's there, and it's
> you... all those little droll and sometimes almost carnivalesque
> chromatic bits, the measured pacing... the composerly development
and sudden dashes of vivacity and vigor that remind you that all that
> stunted deliberateness wasn't the extent of what's to be said...
it's all stuff that could potentially describe a lot of people's
music, but I recognize you and yours straightaway... so, once I
reached the end I was no longer annoyed by the dry and cheesy
patches, in fact, they were now just what they should be and had
acquired a certain charm... in fact, they'd earned it!
>
> Nice job, as always.
>
>
> take care,
>
> --Dan Stearns

***Thanks, Dan! I appreciate your candid "take" on what I'm doing
and, in fact, especially appreciate the "critical" analysis... which
is valuable for me.

Well, composers should be able to take about *anything* they're given
and make something of it, if they know what they're doing and have
ability. Surely, I'm restricted by the TX81Z patches, but since it's
such a *tunable* synth it still has quite a bit of utility and
my "appetite" for acquiring debt through gear purchasing is limited
(unlike, I realize, many MIDI musicians... :) ).

Over on MakeMicroMusic where, incidentally, this discussion probably
should be taking place, since the "big" Tuning List has become more
of a forum for "tuning theory" of late, I've been working to
add "reverb" to my pieces. I was rather "shy" of it, since it seemed
to add an element that capriciously distorted the tuning, which I
wanted to emphasize.

However, I've been learning that perhaps just a *little* reverb,
applied in the right way, may do a lot for my pieces without doing
too much *damage* to the audible tuning. I'm also learning to add
more *dynamic* elements, something that I "messed up" just by
confusion as to how to properly "draw" dynamic curves in the
sequencer.

_Blect_, and all my Blackjack pieces are, I suppose, more
*deliberate* than some of my earlier xenharmonic pieces, since I was
working with lattices in front of me and knew what all the sonorities
were and what I was trying to do with them. In fact, it is true that
many of the concepts and sounds in the piece resulted from various
theoretical ideas and discussions we've had on this Tuning List so,
in a sense, it became a practical "working out" in sound of some of
the concepts that appeared only in *text* on this forum...

So, in a sense, it probably is as "calculated" as a "serial" piece
might be...although I hope doesn't sound like it! :) Again, I think
any decent composer should, and does, transcend whatever "working
methods" provide the basic materials for the composition.

In any case, thanks for your "angle" on all this...

JP