Nerby Bear wrote:Modern electronic music is not complex music, by and large. It is not generally musically complex, and it is not generally emotionally complex.

By and large neither is most modern rock music. If a person spent as much time listening to and appreciating "modern electronic music" as most of us have 'indie-rock', I think they could likely have an opposing but no less valid perspective.

By and large, different styles of music place a greater emphasis on different aspects of music. 'R&B' for example places a strong emphasis on harmony, 'pop' music on melody, and many forms of 'electronic' music and 'hip hop' places a strong focus on rhythm. On the surface, to the 'outsider', many genres all 'sound the same.'

tmidgett wrote:More important to me, however, than complexity is nuance. Most classical music is highly nuanced. It seems to me that most modern electronic music is not nuanced. It functions primarily as mood music, and narrowly focused mood music at that.

Modern electronic music is not complex music, by and large. It is not generally musically complex, and it is not generally emotionally complex.

More important to me, however, than complexity is nuance. Most classical music is highly nuanced. It seems to me that most modern electronic music is not nuanced. It functions primarily as mood music, and narrowly focused mood music at that.

This is totally the wrong thread in my opinion for this discussion as the artist in question deserves little defense, but to generalize and judge a wide spectrum of electronic music based on what is in TV commercials, co-opted popular culture and other lowest common denominator manifestations would be like someone judging the Chicago music 'scene' based on the Smashing Pumpkins without knowing Touch & Go, Thrill Jockey, Drag City et al even exist.

"Rock music is boring, its all the same shit, root, third, fifth, one, four five. Every singer sounds like the runner up in an Eddie Vedder karaoke contest. Guitar, bass, drums, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus. Predictable and redundant."

With 7 notes in a standard scale, melodies are a bit like snowflakes in which theoretically there are almost endless combinations, but that is only true for complex snowflakes and complex compositions. Nano-snowflakes can be exactly alike, and often are. Similarly the majority of 'rock songs' are quite simple and there are a finite number of progressions that are considered musically 'pleasing' to most people's tastes.

When 'rock music' was new and fresh the majority of great melodies were up for grabs on a first come first serve basis. To be perfectly honest, bands like the Beatles etc. certainly gobbled up their share. Good luck writing a catchy punk song with a chord progression that hasn't been used 50 times already...

Nerbly bear wrote:Can't really judge, since I'm not sure what this music's aims are in the first place.

The aims are the same as any music, to facilitate experience and to evoke thought and emotion. While much electronic music can be quite simple and repetitive, in the correct context it is exactly this simplicity and repetitiveness which gives it its power.

The earliest music of mankind shares many similarities, because it relies on the concept of entrainment. The human brain has a tendency to change it's dominant EEG frequency towards the frequency of the dominant external stimuli applied to it. This is known as the frequency following response and is ubiquitous throughout human culture, from ancient tribal rhythms in Africa, shamans throughout the world etc. it is everywhere often in conjunction with mind altering substances.

The same concept is used in Tibetan singing bells where the resonant frequency of the two bells is slightly off and when struck together, they create a third modulating tone (the difference) well below the normal range of human perception which the brain can entrain or synchronise to. Anyone who has tuned a guitar is familiar with this phenomenon.

Usually the entrained rhythm is somewhere in the theta range. This is the brainwave range associated with REM sleep, visionary experiences, deep meditation and is also the range where most of childhood is spent.

Get out your pencil and do some trusty BPM to LFO (hertz) calculations...
Music tempo is quite often synced to natural rhythms. Many musicians naturally gravitate to these tempos unconsciously.

In the tempo of 120 BPM used very often in electronic and other styles an 1/8 note is exactly 4Hz, the start of the theta brainwave range which is 4-8Hz. A 16th note is 8Hz, the crossover point between the theta range (associated with the subconscious mind) and the alpha range (the bridge between the subconscious mind and the everyday alert, beta state).

In a practical example of these concepts, a very common EEG biofeedback treatment for depression and substance abuse known as the Peniston Protocol (http://www.enhancementinstitute.com/neuropublished.html) aims to increase the ratios of alpha and theta brainwaves and then achieve "crossover" where the theta amplitude surpasses the alpha amplitude. It is believed that state dependent memories and trauma from early life (spent in the theta) can be be brought to the conscious mind through the alpha "bridge" and resolved. All the shit that constantly eats at a person unconsciously can be released...

What about 60 BPM, the good old ballad/love song tempo? The same idea. Although 59 BPM (117 BPM for faster songs) would be more precise. At 59 or 117 BPM the 1/16th and 1/32 note respectively are 7.8Hz (the exact frequency of the Schuman cavity resonance).

Hmmm... is it a coincidence that (h)our clocks are synchronized (60 beats/seconds per minute) to the 'heartbeat' of the Earth which wasn't discovered until the 1960's? I think not!

This is the frequency following response in action. Its no different than if you randomly put a bunch of grandfather clocks in a single room, in time their pendulums will synchronize, stick a bunch of women in a house together and there menstrual cycles will synchronize, put a bunch of people on a dance floor (or around a fire) for hours which rhythmic music and eventually they will 'synchronize' as well.

'Rave music' and culture is about the boundary dissolving experience of unity and ego 'trance n' dance'. This goes back to the origins of humanity and is every persons birthright. Unfortunately though, like every genuine expression of human emotion (like the psychedelic movement of the 19060's, the punk movement of the 1970's, the underground rock movement of the 1980's), the 'rave' culture of the 1990's was co-opted by Madison Avenue and commercial interests, diluting it of its soul and meaning.

While no more musically 'nuanced' or 'complex' than the the punk music decades before, there are many similarities. It was about a new sound and form of expression, fully removed from he culture that spawned it. Just like any kid with an attitude, passion and a DIY aesthetic could pick up a guitar, play three chords really fast, scream his/her lungs out and by doing so steal, subvert and more importantly reclaim culture for themself, a different generation found its mode of expression in drum machines, synthesizers, sequencers and samplers.

For me the best explanation of this culture that I was never a part of, came from those who were. The 1999 documentary "Better Living Through Circuitry" was a real eye opener. I highly recommend it. There's probably a torrent somewhere you can "sample"

This same leveling of the playing field is happening again. Music labels, A&R men and big budget recording studios are obsolete. YouTube is the new MTV, Cubase/Logic is the new Hit Factory and the internet is the new record store.

Its a bad day for rock stars, but a great time for people who love making/playing music not as a means to an ends but as the ends itself. There's never been a better time for music (of any genre) and personally I'm eternally grateful for those that helped blaze the trail for the rest of us. Suddenly the trench isn't so deep.

Nina wrote:

tocharian wrote:Oh Steve, go roll around some more in the dusty catacombs of your punk rock dust.

Just out of curiosity, what the hell would inspire you to make such a comment?

tocharian wrote:Not as good as Justice.

Oh yeah, never mind.

And just cuz it needs to be said: Nina, I am so tired of your assclown pronouncements that never, EVER have any argument. Do you have some form of aphasia that prevents you from stringing together more than three sentences at a time?

You suck, Nina, oh self-inflated queen of the spendspace thread. The world will never grasp your significance. *sigh*

Rick Reuben wrote:

tocharian wrote:And just cuz it needs to be said: Nina, I am so tired of your assclown pronouncements that never, EVER have any argument.

This, from the person who quoted an entire eight paragraph post to add a single line of assclownism:

Dude you ended up physically threatening people in that thread. You needed, need something.

And Jesus, is there any thread that you can not turn into a Rick Reuben Flame Thread?

Ayait. Here we go.

Rick Reuben wrote:Argyreia Nervosa, that was a tight post, that last one. I learned from it. You should submit it to some publications.

Gotta agree with Rick, that was an amazing post.

What's your story, Argyreia?

Alberto the Frog wrote:

simmo wrote:The only coherent point at which one could say that the music has been created is when the creator is done with it

I'm talking about the naissance of sound. The electronic artist seems rarely to be present at this point and almost never directly responsible for the sound.

A rock band's transition from silence to sound requires their presence. The electronic musician is dealing with sound that already exists. The electronic musician retrospectively manages/compiles sounds that would largely exist whether or not the electronic artist existed.

Part of the rock musician's art is to create sound where there was none, this doesn't appear to be a significant part of what it is to be an electronic musician.

I think that's a pretty fundamental difference in terms of what rock and electronic music is, relatively speaking.

Is plucking a guitar string that is fed through an amplifier any different from shaping and selecting a sample on a computer?

What about an electronic keyboard, which essentially is the same thing as a sequencer and a sample patch on a laptop?

Also, what if the sample has been recorded by the artist, does that make the music more valid somehow?

steve wrote:Someone mentioned writing a Burial algorithm earlier. Would probably take about five lines and one database call. Doesn't even need a tempo variable.

I agree. A few years ago, I delved pretty heavily into Reason, Logic, ProTools and Cycling74 software (not for tracking, but modifying real sounds that I had recorded- drones, pliers, pots, a broken refrigerator, slide guitar, bass drum, snare drum, etc.).

This Burial stuff is NOT GOOD because it doesn't even pretend to not use samples and tricks from said software's Sound Libraries. It's Reason™ 101, really- and not even using anything noticeably original or interesting. If it is, it's masked with the most overdone filter/effect imaginable, rendering it familiar and nostalgic-in-a-not-good-way.

I also think the Burial stuff has this predefined audience that seems pretty evident to me- like the music was created entirely for that audience only. For that reason, it is like an asexual, bloodless art form: advertising and brand marketing itself. If you listen to this music, you'll want to smoke a blunt and sit on the couch. If you smoke a blunt, you'll want to listen to this music and sit on the couch. It seems like a commercial for something besides the music. There's zero thinking involved. For this reason, I think the music is bankrupt. It's certainly not creative.

I think why it can be listened to and "enjoyed" by some is because it doesn't quite sound like techno music that might be played at the Gap, and it isn't pretending to be ironic or hip (at least not to my ears) and it is somewhat relaxing and loungey. That's the only thing it's got going for it though.

I can equate to another "Electronic artist" that several of my friends love: Ulrich Schnauss. His music is perfectly safe, fine, easy to listen to, not confrontational, nice major key melodies, post-MBV electronica etc. However, it's SHIT. It's the boringest of electro-indiepop translated with a mouse click and a Reason™ software library. It's music for Saturday morning shopping at H&M or the Gap. Nothing new, just more tasteful, easy shit rendered to disk.

That said, there's great electronic music made "predominantly-with-software" out there, Burial just ain't it.

chairman_hall wrote:
Is plucking a guitar string that is fed through an amplifier any different from shaping and selecting a sample on a computer?

I think my criticism with this music we are talking about here is that the origins of the sounds are so obvious- not really treated, not really processed in a way that makes them something that different than what they were when they came with the Reason™ software disks, and certainly not emanating from a "real amp" or even recorded with a 57 and manipulated.

How hard is it to really come up with your own samples?

It's like baking a cake with Betty Crocker™ cake mix as opposed to getting real cake flour, baking powder, milk, fresh eggs, sugar and chocolate and making it yourself.

The box mix shit is weak and the end product will taste exactly as expected. Even if you put M&M's on top and sprinkle some pixie dust on it.

chairman_hall wrote:Is plucking a guitar string that is fed through an amplifier any different from shaping and selecting a sample on a computer?

Yes, plucking a guitar string is creating sound where there was no sound. Shaping and selecting sounds are (self-evidently) acts that can only be performed on audio that already exists.

No value judgement here, just suggesting that these acts are not similar enough to make comparison worthwhile.

What about an electronic keyboard, which essentially is the same thing as a sequencer and a sample patch on a laptop?

Depends on context I reckon. Is the keyboard is merely a sound-source for 'music' that is designed to be appreciated on the basis of texture/tonality to the almost complete exclusion of melody (as in this case)?

Also, what if the sample has been recorded by the artist, does that make the music more valid somehow?

It's not (for me) a question of validity. For me it's simply a question of whether making electronic music (of this sort) is analogous to making rock music. I think it is not. I think that the way electronic music fans insist that the two creative processes are analogous makes them look disingenuous and foolish.

I would suggest that the people who say 'if you think it's easy to create an atonal mess of manipulated sound, you clearly don't know anything about the process' could equally be accused of not knowing how much effort goes into making a really great piece of rock music. Not that I've made any really great rock music, but making even bad rock music requires years of effort.

Earlier EC suggested that 'Burial' could knock out 100 of these records a year, and this was taken (and intended?) as an insult. Why? Most people would consider both photographs and paintings to be legitimate forms of visual art...

mr.arrison wrote:
This Burial stuff is NOT GOOD because it doesn't even pretend to not use samples and tricks from said software's Sound Libraries. It's Reason™ 101, really- and not even using anything noticeably original or interesting. If it is, it's masked with the most overdone filter/effect imaginable, rendering it familiar and nostalgic-in-a-not-good-way.

I've never understood why using a stock sound from a sound library or a straight preset on a synthesizer on a record causes such umbrage in musicians who wouldn't hesitate to say 'this needs a Fender Rhodes' or 'this needs a Mellotron' or 'this needs a Hammond organ'.

I quite like the digital cleanliness of the Burial record, because I don't normally listen to that sort of thing. It isn't fit to lick Blue Lines' boots, but not many things are.

Just to clarify, we are denying the validity of Stockhausen and Kraftwerk's creative endeavours here?