FM choppy is the resident Medicine expertnumberthirty wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 7:37 pmSo, about that...
Nineties California band. Got lumped in with "Shoegaze...", but I always kinda felt like the band never exactly fit into that.
Anyway, anyone who leans toward "Noise..." might want to seriously consider taking some time to look into the band along with the bands that Brad Laner was in later(Electric Company, in particular...)
Re: Rock & roll thunderdome: Melody vs. Noise
32They both scratch different itches for me, most important for me is something unique or something that I can remember.
Re: Rock & roll thunderdome: Melody vs. Noise
33No? With humility, I wonder if I’m not being clear or if I’m coming at this from a weird place? It might be that “noise” is just not a term I like? I get that it’s expedient to throw around, but it could describe music that’s really dynamically dense, or harmonically complex, or have melody that’s hard to relate to, or have rhythm that’s deconstructed etc. I also get that folks who actively listen to music enjoy finding form in places where dynamics/harmony/melody/rhythm are subverted. Conversely, there are many times when I just can’t with deconstructed stuff and it’s like, fine I’ll just listen to Gordon Lightfoot or whatever. But I try and not judge the music as much as accept, “yeah my brain doesn’t wanna work that hard right now.”enframed wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:53 pmJesus. No.twelvepoint wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:14 pm I think noise is more a failure on the part of the listener than like a fixed quality of music.
Maybe that’s a better explanation? I mostly meant to echo what other folks said about melody being something they’re willing to hunt for.
Re: Rock & roll thunderdome: Melody vs. Noise
34Seems like you equated "dislike" with some sort of failure on the part of the listener. Unless you mean simply "fail to enjoy," which really just means "dislike." Perhaps I misunderstood.twelvepoint wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 3:48 amNo? With humility, I wonder if I’m not being clear or if I’m coming at this from a weird place? It might be that “noise” is just not a term I like? I get that it’s expedient to throw around, but it could describe music that’s really dynamically dense, or harmonically complex, or have melody that’s hard to relate to, or have rhythm that’s deconstructed etc. I also get that folks who actively listen to music enjoy finding form in places where dynamics/harmony/melody/rhythm are subverted. Conversely, there are many times when I just can’t with deconstructed stuff and it’s like, fine I’ll just listen to Gordon Lightfoot or whatever. But I try and not judge the music as much as accept, “yeah my brain doesn’t wanna work that hard right now.”enframed wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:53 pmJesus. No.twelvepoint wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:14 pm I think noise is more a failure on the part of the listener than like a fixed quality of music.
Maybe that’s a better explanation? I mostly meant to echo what other folks said about melody being something they’re willing to hunt for.
"I Pull Harmonies out of Brownian Noise" is the title of my next 5-sided (the 6th side being an etched image, of course), swirled vinyl noise LP.
Re: Rock & roll thunderdome: Melody vs. Noise
35I have very little use for music without some sort of melody.
Re: Rock & roll thunderdome: Melody vs. Noise
36Harmonic Counterpoint for the win.
Everything got to now vis-a-vis the need for composers and songwriters to create originality that stood in contrast (and perhaps greater genius) to their most admired predecessors. As common practice functional tonality was stretched to it's very limits by each subsequent generation (and their own desires for recognized originality), modal writing and chromaticism gave way to atonality, and from atonality to musique concrete, aleatory and truly formless experimentation. A long timeline of originality-seekers, seeking originality for its own sake, and the recognition that they owe artistic gratitude to no one but those they deem worthy of recognition.
Of course, none of this mattered to rock 'n roll until some of the artsier fartsier rockers took some better drugs, fell into the artsy fartsy crowd, listened to some Stockhausen, Robert Crumb and Sun Ra and realized they were playing nothing but jump blues and primitivist tin-pan-alley tunes to get teenage panties moist - a terribly un-artsy-fartsy pursuit for those whose minds have been so profoundly and recently expanded.
Since guitars and keyboards are pretty much stuck at giving you the same boring 12 notes and intervals as everything else, and learning species counterpoint is boring and very not rock 'n roll, the only steps left to renewed originality (the true parnassum) was to take advantage of the rich universe of overtones available through various signal processing and destroying accessories, and embrace an aesthetic of newfound liberty, where timbre, texture and rhythm would pound functional harmonic, melodic and complex formal structure into irrelevance. A perfect revolution for an age seeking liberation from study, discipline, mastery of subject, and deference to or accountability by any tradition or authority.
For the sake of "noise" in this argument, I'll assume that we're talking about, rather than true mathematical noise (and being limited to Whitehouse, EN, and percussion only works that even the most avant of us tire of pretty quickly), we're talking about layering gradually increasing odd order harmonics to our sound in a way that approaches square wave production. As useful as this has been for adding sustain, richness of tone, and hiding guitarist's poor technique to produce consistent tone and intonation, it's rather a dead end alone. We've been deluged with 40 years of music built around adding overtones that do little to define any type of harmonic or formal structural "journey" or narrative in music, but only serve to set a mood in a sort of stasis. A set of riffs or droning that sets us in a "groove" which may also referred to as a rut. Ruts where it is impossible to set our wheels free to take a journey from the well carved paths of the 20th century. A set of grooves that were once our collective promise of liberation, that have now become another form of entrenchment.
Melody is always a chance at taking a journey that provides surprises along the way. If 12 notes isn't enough to create interest, there's nothing stopping a person from creating a system of 16, 24 or 32 or more notes per octave, and then devising a system of relationships between that expanded compass to provide a larger language of emotional journey.
Since it became apparent in ancient times that a linear melody with a backing drone tone was perhaps not enough to set hearts aflutter and minds afire in tune to the greater glory of god, polyphony came into being and with it the harmonic relationships that define the basis of the development of harmonic counterpoint and the art that peaked in the 18th century. After exploring all the forms of rebellion, liberation and resulting cultural entrenchment that have occured since then, I find my greatest emotional and intellectual pleasure in:
Harmonic counterpoint - which finds its base in: Melody.
Everything got to now vis-a-vis the need for composers and songwriters to create originality that stood in contrast (and perhaps greater genius) to their most admired predecessors. As common practice functional tonality was stretched to it's very limits by each subsequent generation (and their own desires for recognized originality), modal writing and chromaticism gave way to atonality, and from atonality to musique concrete, aleatory and truly formless experimentation. A long timeline of originality-seekers, seeking originality for its own sake, and the recognition that they owe artistic gratitude to no one but those they deem worthy of recognition.
Of course, none of this mattered to rock 'n roll until some of the artsier fartsier rockers took some better drugs, fell into the artsy fartsy crowd, listened to some Stockhausen, Robert Crumb and Sun Ra and realized they were playing nothing but jump blues and primitivist tin-pan-alley tunes to get teenage panties moist - a terribly un-artsy-fartsy pursuit for those whose minds have been so profoundly and recently expanded.
Since guitars and keyboards are pretty much stuck at giving you the same boring 12 notes and intervals as everything else, and learning species counterpoint is boring and very not rock 'n roll, the only steps left to renewed originality (the true parnassum) was to take advantage of the rich universe of overtones available through various signal processing and destroying accessories, and embrace an aesthetic of newfound liberty, where timbre, texture and rhythm would pound functional harmonic, melodic and complex formal structure into irrelevance. A perfect revolution for an age seeking liberation from study, discipline, mastery of subject, and deference to or accountability by any tradition or authority.
For the sake of "noise" in this argument, I'll assume that we're talking about, rather than true mathematical noise (and being limited to Whitehouse, EN, and percussion only works that even the most avant of us tire of pretty quickly), we're talking about layering gradually increasing odd order harmonics to our sound in a way that approaches square wave production. As useful as this has been for adding sustain, richness of tone, and hiding guitarist's poor technique to produce consistent tone and intonation, it's rather a dead end alone. We've been deluged with 40 years of music built around adding overtones that do little to define any type of harmonic or formal structural "journey" or narrative in music, but only serve to set a mood in a sort of stasis. A set of riffs or droning that sets us in a "groove" which may also referred to as a rut. Ruts where it is impossible to set our wheels free to take a journey from the well carved paths of the 20th century. A set of grooves that were once our collective promise of liberation, that have now become another form of entrenchment.
Melody is always a chance at taking a journey that provides surprises along the way. If 12 notes isn't enough to create interest, there's nothing stopping a person from creating a system of 16, 24 or 32 or more notes per octave, and then devising a system of relationships between that expanded compass to provide a larger language of emotional journey.
Since it became apparent in ancient times that a linear melody with a backing drone tone was perhaps not enough to set hearts aflutter and minds afire in tune to the greater glory of god, polyphony came into being and with it the harmonic relationships that define the basis of the development of harmonic counterpoint and the art that peaked in the 18th century. After exploring all the forms of rebellion, liberation and resulting cultural entrenchment that have occured since then, I find my greatest emotional and intellectual pleasure in:
Harmonic counterpoint - which finds its base in: Melody.
Re: Rock & roll thunderdome: Melody vs. Noise
37Melody, 110%.
No deep reason behind, it's just the state I'm in.
No deep reason behind, it's just the state I'm in.
born to give