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Constants across all music?
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Stanley Pain



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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2005 5:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

i wish i could remember the guy whose research i was reading about...

he was looking for "constants" in music across the world, or one parameter that was equal in all genres across the world.

the closest thing he had found was the rate at which we accelerate and decelerate musical tempo.

i don't know if that includes that autechre song that slows down all the way through on a loop (on lp5) because that's a linear rit.

however, gamelan, indian classical music, western classical music, rock, kodo drumming, metallica, tahitian drumming, aboriginal didjeridoo loops, they all speed up and slow down at the same rate. unsurprisingly, he linked it to our heartrates and recovery speed.

anyway, there sure as hell isn't any universal constant when it comes to dissonance and consonance. i reckon most genres world wide use the principal of stress and release either rhythmically or harmonically. i'm not sure about timbre, if that is indeed what most of you mean by "noise" (as in, literally, white noise/pink noise etc).

sorry... we really should let this thread die.
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2005 6:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I split this off of the What Is Music topic because it seems like a new topic.

This is an interesting discovery. Do you know what exactly the rate is?

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PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2005 1:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Hmm.. this is an interesting idea.
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Stanley Pain



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PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2005 3:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:
I split this off of the What Is Music topic because it seems like a new topic.

This is an interesting discovery. Do you know what exactly the rate is?


i know it wasn't linear... slightly logarhthmic... i seem to remember logarhythmic for some reason.

now that i think about it, he found the same deal with birdsong, which is why, i guess, humans have always called their tweetings "song".
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chuck



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PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2005 6:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Perhaps the real constant is our need to produce music. What music we make and how we produce music may be more of a statement of the tools we have and the environment we live in.

It is interesting to think of heartbeat and other functions of life being the source of musical elements. My wife had a very difficult time with rhythm and tempo when she was in music, and she has a heart arhythmia. I have no problems with tempo and I wake up at the same time every day with no alarm clock.

Technology now allows us to make music that contain sounds that are not necessarily connected with nature in ways we are (were) used to. Is that why some people have difficulty connecting with electronic music (sounds)?

Do you think humans have a need to exercise their senses when not using them for work or survival? Is that why we draw pictures, make sounds, try different foods, and like stories that evoke different emotions?

If we are surrounded with sounds that are not connected with nature, will we come to accept them as part of our lives? If we find our true love while someone is modulating a sawtooth wave with a LFO sine wave, will we use that for our wedding march?

In the end, sound is vibration, and vibration is life.

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PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2005 3:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

chuck wrote:
My wife had a very difficult time with rhythm and tempo when she was in music, and she has a heart arhythmia. I have no problems with tempo and I wake up at the same time every day with no alarm clock.

I have a regular heartbeat and I can get up at any time I choose if I look at the clock before I go to sleep, but I have a difficult time with rhythm and tempo. When I hear a constant drum machine pattern go on more than 4 measures without modification, I get frustrated. Twisted Evil

BTW, Chuck, you write beautifully. Your post tacitly answers the questions it poses.

BTW, I wrote electronic music for my wedding back in 1970. It worked - we're still married! Very Happy

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paul e.



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PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2005 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

i don't beleive there is such a thing as a universal constant in music compositon...it's really anything and everything..
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PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2005 7:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

paul e. wrote:
i don't beleive there is such a thing as a universal constant in music compositon...it's really anything and everything..


no one's claiming that there is. people are looking but are yet to find it. i'm merely posting on a few musical forums to see if anyone else is aware of this research.

music is something that looks (or should i say sounds...) like it should have patterns.

is Kodo drumming music? is a Minuett written by Haydn music?
most non-musicians will, quite po-faced, say "yes" without a second thought.

to a musician, we could list an almost endless set of differences, and as musicians we can be quite pleased with ourselves for showing just how different Kodo and Minuett's can be.

so why then do we define them as music? and quite happily so? what is it that they share in common? duration? well... the existence of a star is a duration.

and so on.
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PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2005 8:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:
When I hear a constant drum machine pattern go on more than 4 measures without modification, I get frustrated. Twisted Evil


Realy? I´m very interested in monotonous loops and how without them actually changing your perception of them changes. Off the shelf drum machines aren´t too good for this, but there are some minimal techno pieces that hardly change at all yet keep me excited for a full 33rpm side, even sitting down, listening.

Last week I got a record with 200 or so locked grooves by experimental artists; mostly dutch but also including people like Pauline Oliveros and John Duncan. They present a very interesting perspective on "the loop"; you can see physically before your very eyes that the actual material stays the same, there is no room for tricks, but your ear tells you diferently.
There are also some drum machine loops in there, mainly by my friend Rude66 and I think the drummachine holds itself quite well in this context, but then again; he´s a expert on them.


It´s called "lockERS" if you´d like to llok it up, sadly it´s quite rare, I think.

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PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2005 9:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:
When I hear a constant drum machine pattern go on more than 4 measures without modification, I get frustrated.

as Prince used to say: "there is joy in repetition" Shocked I don't get frustrated Rolling Eyes

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PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2005 3:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kassen wrote:
mosc wrote:
When I hear a constant drum machine pattern go on more than 4 measures without modification, I get frustrated. Twisted Evil


Realy? I´m very interested in monotonous loops and how without them actually changing your perception of them changes.


yeah baby, repetition and fucking with your psycho-acoustic perception is the bomb.

exercise 1. say the word "must" 342 times or there abouts. then ask yourself "what does it mean?"

exercise 2. chew some wrigley's spearmint chewing gum (or any generic chewing gum) until it loses it's flavour. take out the chewing gum and place it on a sterilised surface. now drink a glass of orange juice. now put the chewing gum back into your mouth and chew it. WOW! the taste of mint has somehow magically re-appeared in the chewing gum! now that you know this, your packs of gum will last you twice as long, but cost you a small fortune in orange juice. ah... life is a fine balance, n'est pas?
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2005 11:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kassen wrote:
mosc wrote:
When I hear a constant drum machine pattern go on more than 4 measures without modification, I get frustrated. Twisted Evil


Realy? I´m very interested in monotonous loops and how without them actually changing your perception of them changes. Off the shelf drum machines aren´t too good for this, but there are some minimal techno pieces that hardly change at all yet keep me excited for a full 33rpm side, even sitting down, listening.


I guess we all know what Howard means, but repetition can also be used with great effect in music. Few elements in music crave for as much attention as a fixed tempo and that seductive repetition. But.. then what.? You could go KS and go soloing on top, and then release albums or you could figure why .-.. and then use these components in way that actually has a musical intent/impact/whatever.

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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2005 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I like listening to the sounds of idleing engines, washing machines and the like.

Variation is useful for interest. Too much variation is does not increase interest and draw in the listener. Too little has a similar effect.

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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2005 4:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:

Variation is useful for interest.


I usually call this the "strawberry principle", no good ones without bad ones.

Or with music, perfect structure is no music, perfect random neither. When you stop the beat it becomes audible, melody in pepper sauce, things like that.

I like the hart beat idea that appeared earlier in this thread, especially within the context sanwiched above and below.

Research has shown that a hart beating healthy shows fractal like beat patterns. In fact perfect regularity is a predictor for hart failure.

Jan.
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PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2005 12:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Blue Hell wrote:
perfect structure is no music

J.S.Bach (the first name that comes to my mind) is just perfect and very musical Very Happy

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PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2005 3:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

seraph wrote:
Blue Hell wrote:
perfect structure is no music

J.S.Bach (the first name that comes to my mind) is just perfect and very musical :D


When you say JS Bach I think variation, somehow. Not perfect structure, but I might have used wrong words.

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PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2005 9:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

when i think of Bach , i think of 'symmetry'
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PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2005 9:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I agree with Jan. Bach and Mozart were masters at making subtile changes - little twists and unexpected surprises. Not abrupt guffaws, but clever and interesting variations. If Bach's music had "perfect" structure, it would be possible to synthesize it by some method of analysis and resynthesis. People have tried that since the earliest days - even before computers - but have never succeeded IMHO.
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 4:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Bach and Mozart were both excellent joke tellers. They understood the conventions of their day to such an extent that they epitomised them.

Both were capable of leading you down a corridor and slamming a door in your face, just to let you know there is an alternative to the convention.

As an aside, has anyone heard that Mozart song http://www.tourettes-disorder.com/mozart.html"lick out my arsehole"?
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 7:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Never heard the song. That is a great article. Shocked
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 12:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

True constants of all music would have to come from constants amongst people; constants of how people relate to sound.

For example, the ear has a buffer. Did you ever have a friend say something to you you didn´t get, ask "pardon?", then get it before he repeated it? That´s that buffer, it´s roughly 4 seconds. I would imagine that this buffer would influence how we relate to music. If we asume it´s exactly 4 seconds then 120Bpm 4/4 music wouldn´t "phase" with the buffer length, unlike other tempos. I´m not aware of any reserach done on this, sadly.

I suppose this buffer may have a length comparable to "how much does a grown adult eat?"; you can say something general about it but there are always the exceptions, it probably varies. This quite possibly influences tempo, I would imagine a large difference between two notes further apart then the length of this buffer to two identical notes both within the buffer time.

Perhaps more objective is the frequency of the nerveous system. Frequencies between roughly 5 and 10 Hz get picked up by the nervous system which will attempt to sync; different frequencies relate to different moods (abuse this at your own risk). THis may well influence how modulation rates are used or how we preceive beatings in chords.

Being a bit of a deciple of the The Hague acid scene where traditionally many psychoacoustic phenomena were used to create a more intence experience (synth lines were made to emulate the sound of fleeing birds or hint of crying babies, forcing the release of adrenaline) I used to use quite a few tricks like this but grew tirered of them after I figured the moods sumoned didn´t realy fit with my sound. (Start with Unit Moebius if you want to hear some The Hague acid, Acidplanet6 may be the best one)

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 12:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

there are some nice ideas there Kassen. i like the idea of a buffer, although i wish mine had a higher frontline buss when dealing with an irate girlfriend...

this theory could start to provide explanations for various cultural phenomena, such as rhyming words at the end of lines in poetry etc. would be lovely to have links to research or depts dealing with this kind of theory. Smile although i appreciate that with the wealth of information out there we rarely log something that isn't strictly necessary to our interests.
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Stanley Pain wrote:
this theory could start to provide explanations for various cultural phenomena, such as rhyming words at the end of lines in poetry etc.


Most interesting thought I encountered in a long time. Thanks.

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 2:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I saw a documentary where neurosurgeons operated on someone’s brain using just local anaesthetic so they could talk to him during the operation. They conducted some tests, directly stimulating parts of his brain that resulted in various sensations he could identify. They found there was a consistent 2 second delay between the stimulus and the sensation. The documentary proposed that everyone’s conscious perception of reality is delayed by 2 seconds. Muscle memory therefore becomes an important part of our survival as it allows real time response, bypassing the delay of our consciousness. This explains the strange sensation when you first successfully juggle 3 balls. Your hands work independently of your consciousness, you are aware of the overall strategy but no way are you controlling each movement. Perhaps the language section of the brain has a similar 2 second delay resulting in the 4 second buffer effect.
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 2:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That buffer idea is interesting. I have seen similar takes on the concept.

Generally such a mechanism would not be located to the ear but rather to the brain somewhere. A similar buffer delay can also be argued also to be the brains capability to recognize patterns and process these. A delay or buffer dump is known to happen when we hear someting we simply do not understand. As such, related to music, this might of course happen when we hear music we don´t recognize as music. With words, this will happen when a series of words don´t make any sense or the meaning defies reason and you are left with the feeling "I did get this at all." As with music, this does of course just as well point back to out discussion of culture and context.

As for the buffer, one might imagine that if the brain doesn´t get it within a certain period of time, there will be a buffer dump.. and we are left with only incomplete perceptions of what was rejected.

The fact that we are able to listen to rythms, and being musicians, also play along in time to rythmic events should indicate that a delay probably isn´t the right way to understand this effect.

Anyway, this is interesting.

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