Ping Melody - net art music

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 3:27 pm Post subject: Ping Melody - net art music

Please take a look at new project of Pawel Janicki:

PING MELODY
http://ping.wrocenter.pl

From the website:

"PING MELODY is music-net-performance. Temporary and unique state of whole actions of Internet users has an influence on form of music composition. Musician (instrumentalist or singer) is playing on acoustic instrument/singing and sounds coming from instrument/voice are shared in packets of data information (granulated), then transmitted to Internet (as "ping" unix command).

The order of packet’s return, packet’s delays, transmission errors alerts are incorporated, and the information coming from this actions is controlling in the real time the transformation of played sound. Performance will be accompanying by visualisation, showing tracks of data and information of errors, etc.

Dedicated software is a kind of sampler (granular synthesizer) and pitch tracker, which is using Internet to transform and create sound construction. Musician is improvising, treating software, which is transforming sound coming from his instrument, as a partner – a kind of second musician."

Right.. this is probably best described as academic art music. What do you guys think?

mosc · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2003 2:53 pm Post subject:

Well, I appreciate anyone doing this sort of thing, but I'm afraid my perception is somewhat limited. I usually find composition systems that map one stimuli space (stock market, Earth's seismic activity, DNA chains, and now IP network responses for example) to music as "random" sounding. It seems to me that perceptually there isn't any difference between these controls derived from external systems and those produced by a random number generator.

I think that it might be interesting, though, that such a system which maps IP network performance to music might turn out to be a good way to experience the state of the network by people who are responsible for maintaining them. This is getting academic, but maybe a 360 degree music/sound field is good complement to conventional displays, in the control room that is.

elektro80 · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2003 3:37 pm Post subject:

The way Ping Melody is constructed it works as audio output of the measured behaviour of a defined system. Could have been an electrokardiogram.. hmm.. but that would probably have been more exciting. This might well be art, not sure about the music.. if it is experimental music I guess the experiment is about how we guys can handle listening to it.

seraph · Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2003 5:24 pm Post subject:

The world is already a very noisy environment. Do we really need to increase the noise level with stuff like that?
I do not find it neither amusing nor inspiring at all even if as an experiment can be interesting.
Between a "ping melody" and silence I much prefer the latter Very Happy

P.S.
Am I too conservative?

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2003 6:18 pm Post subject:

I guess academic art music has to judged by different standards thanwhat applies to what we guys label as music. The "Ping melody" project is as arty as it gets.
Of course, I will make a point out if it that I think a composer can use algorithmic data, measurement data, random data, seemingly random data... for a composition. No problem at all. The main problem with "ping melody" to me, as a piece of music, is that it does not reference music but concept art as its fundation. Music can of course have conceptual foundations, it often has, but it does reference and treat this within the scope of musical history and musical theory... which I will insist is a completely different thing altogether. A confusing factor here is that the thing we all have been so accustomed to.. the "modern" holostic concept of art.. ( a new concept . only a few hundred years old ) which unifies different "artistic" activities into a thing called "Art". Before this happened, music and painting and whatever you can think of used to be looked upon as different stuff. Now we can see how trends within "Art" have started to devour the thing we guys call music.

The current fascination within academic art music with noise and glitches seems to disregard how the same has been explored within music. By this I mean that noise and such perfectly well can be integrated into music and the obvious way to do this is by treating it as music. The current academic art music does instead treat it as noise and struggle in order to create even more noise out of the noise. Personally I find it interesting that it is so extremely important for the academic art music crowd to mess with music and not actually go for calling the output audio.

My comments does in no way judge the "Ping melody" project as bad or good as art goes these days. But it does amaze me that modern "electronic" art does lie 20 to 40 years behind the general development in technology and popular culture. I can elaborate on this if you guys want me to, but I warn you that I might have to spend some serious amounts of ASCII in order to do this. -But.. as a matter of principle I only use recycled photons when I post at this board... Cool

seraph · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 12:46 am Post subject:

seraph · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 3:18 am Post subject:

I elaborate further on this touchy subject:
Art is about communication, even if someone creates something for his own private enjoyment it's possible to talk about communication: at least with a part of himself that's deep inside and not easy to contact (subconscious?).
What kind of communication is this "ping melody" thing. Call it a scientific experiment, whatever, but Art is something else Laughing

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 4:16 am Post subject:

Art being about communication? Hmm. you might be right. But that is not how academically modern artists would define it.

Art is what art historians call art. A lot of modern art is conceptual and artists have to create a whole lot of documentation and theory papers in order to get grants. That said a lot of modern artists make great stuff anyway.

On the other hand, music as we know it might be far more infested with similar references. We have something called music theory and we have the complete catalogue of music ( well.. no complete.. but there is a lot out there available in some way or another ... ) which we can work on. Non-musicians think we basically steal bits and pieces of melodies and chord progressions. What we really do is deconstruct music and add in our own creativity and direction and end up with new stuff. When I am stuck somewhere with how to interpret my own ideas I might put on some Furtwangler recording ( rather than Eminem ) and for the hell of it try to imagine he difference between what the notation probably was as opposed to how it sounds. And for pur european funk Stabat Mater by Pergolesi is great one.

yaniki · Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 12

Hello all.
Thanks for all opinions. It's honour for me - you dedicate your time to discussion about my project.
The important thing in Ping Melody is use acoustic instrument and live-plaing instrumentalist. The software is sampling and performing instrument sounds by use parameters taken from net-scanning (technically: lost packets, delay time, TTL, etc. - like Unix "ping" command) and mixing with source sound. Grabbed parameters and their influence on sound may be look like random at first moment, but, in fact, their are a results of many various processes happened "inside" the net. Good instrumentalist and improvisator may - if listen carefully, and have open mind for sudden things - abstract the rules of processes (not as logical or mathematical schemes, but as intuitive senses) and use for build momentary and unique music. This human factor is the essence of my performance.
thanks again
Pawel Janicki (author of PING MELODY performance Wink

)

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 8:19 am Post subject:

I was wondering how long time it would take you to get here Very Happy

Well.. this might also be a good example that musicians and composers might not be the best listeners and that we have dismissed the project too fast. On the other hand.. your project raises several interesting questions we could take further. The way you describe this is that you partially have made an instrument out of the signal chain. Interesting idea. I have to ponder a bit on this. Very Happy

mosc · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 8:45 am Post subject:

Pawel, thanks for joining the forum and for your comments.

I didn't realize there was a live performer with an acoustic instrument involved. That makes a big difference in both the music and the listening experience.

yaniki · Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 12

It's funny, 'couse I don't feel, the discussion as dismissabe for my project. Critical posts are like various parts of my brain, when I'm thinking about projects, so I handle yours opinions like my own doubts. But it's very sourpised for me, so PING MELODY is treaty as "academic art music" - I'm independent artist, and in my environment percepted as an enemy of academic art. Hmmm... all my activities fo nothing. Terrible!

About other questions: in my opinion music may be work with various technologies and ideas. And is inappreciable: it's art or no, it's scientific experiment, or it's like random, etc. A lot of music experiments sounds noisy or disagreeable for many people, but for another can be a lever for imagination. And trying various ways of music creation is good manner to extend personal possibilities for composers and players (and hearing of results: for audience). It's bad practice if we are trying conform music to any aesthetic theory, 'couse really good music have power to destroy our theoretical categories. I think, so we are creating theories and rules - "what should be music" - and all that theories are only hypothesis for better understand of music, but we don't known: their are ontologycal facts, or our mistakes.

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 9:48 am Post subject:

As I said.. we might not always be as good as listeners that we might think. My point about academic art music actually is caused by me knowing privately a lot of guys doing that as their profession.. so I know some about the do´s and dont´s in that business. Your Ping Melody is similar to other projects in some ways. On the other hand, your own ideas about the project are just as valid as the stuff done by Cage is valid these days as music. The really great thing here is that you did find this forum and showed up. So please educate us. And please do not listen too much to criticism .. but do rather pursue your vision instead. Discussing theory here would be fine though.

seraph · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 9:49 am Post subject:

I did not know we had the author himself on this forum (how did you get here?) and, actually, the presence of live instrumentalists on this project, as Howard noted, had gone unnoticed. Maybe I dismissed the project too soon, maybe my attention span is very short, maybe after few seconds of listening I decided to label this thing as "boring academic pretentious stuff" and quit Evil or Very Mad

(I apologize if I sounded slightly not politically correct)
Pawel do you think that "Art is about communication"?
And in that case, what's the message?

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 10:02 am Post subject:

Well.. if music is communication... I will not expect music to always have a message. It is quite possible to use a musical piece to treat theoretical musical ideas... and .. such a piece does in no way have to experimental music.

One of the most important ways to consume music is to use music as a mood adjustment drug. In such a consumption model I do not really think we can talk about an intended message but rather an intended effect.

mosc · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 10:08 am Post subject:

Beautiful thoughts...

Of late, I'm finding that whenever I hear music and respond with a negative thought, it's an opportunity to listen differently; to BE different. We have a discussion on anther topic, http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-278.html where it occurred to me that we listen to and experience music just like we do all other aspects of our lives. With respect to that discussion, theories are just another kind of story that we make up and believe in order to make ourselves feel good by understanding music in a certain critical way. When music 1) doesn't match the theory or story about what music is, or 2) doesn't grab us emotionally, then we tend not to like it and dismiss it.

Are we talking music therapy here?

yaniki · Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 12

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 10:35 am Post subject:

Howard!

Excellent!

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 10:40 am Post subject:

yaniki · Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 12

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 10:58 am Post subject:

Well.. yeah. Good point. When it comes to music theory and music making I tend to call these languages rather methods and tools. Notation can of course serve different purposes. In a way.. notation is a recording of the piece.. on the other hand notation is also supposed to contain direction and intent and simmultanously allow interpretation.

Critics and fans also create languages and ideological frameworks in order to describe and relate to music. Howard had some opinions on this which are pretty much to the point.

mosc · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 11:05 am Post subject:

I knew this would be worthy of a good discussion. I'm so happy Pawel and joined us and that we are talking about things other than technology. (Not that I don't love technolgy too).

All this reminds me of John Cage, who I was lucky enough to have met and to have had several interesting conversations with. Anyhow, I used to love to read John Cage, but often had trouble with the actual musical performances, which I found boring. The concepts and philosophy were great, but boring music is hard for me to take. I have considered that my finding music boring is a personal limitation that I need to overcome. I have in fact purposely listend to boring music over and over hoping I to have a personal breakthrough to advance myself to the point of appreciation. (I've had to do this when people send me CDs to review that I didn't like). This rarely works, but once in a while it does!

yaniki · Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 12

[quote="elektro80"]

yaniki · Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 12

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 11:54 am Post subject:

A discussion is cool. I like that. We all walk around with out own ideas about stuff but rarely get around to tell others ( and ourselves ) what we really think and why we think these things. Delving into frameworks can be interesting too. very often a lot of opinions are crossconnected into ideological frameworks.

Boring... yeah.. A lot of music is boring .... and even having sex canm be boring if you are mentally absorbed with something more interesting.

I have tried to train myself to get back into that "here and now" mode I had like 25 years ago. When i hear some music which I think I realy should .. if not like.. but possibly find interesting.. and I start to get bored.. I try to mentally dive into the piece and let go of the analytical mode I am usually in. I did that with the Mr. Red Skull music.. and yes.. it found it to be just great.. A very powerful sound really.

Music is a mindfucker and it can be wortwhile to judge how much attention a piece needs in order to let it grow from boring into interesting.

But fact is of course that a lot music is being made as training excercises and then even very kool sounds and ideas can turn boring because an actual composition is missing. This makes places like MP3.com pretty hard to navigate.