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Stanley Pain
Joined: Sep 02, 2004
Posts: 782
Location: Reading, UK
Audio files: 10
G2 patch files: 35
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 Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 1:05 pm Post subject:
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| mosc wrote: |
When I hear a constant drum machine pattern go on more than 4 measures without modification, I get frustrated.  |
to flog a dead horse, i remembered i was going to whack a john cage quote here. 
"if you find something boring repeat it for 2 minutes. if it is still boring repeat it for 4, then 8, 16 and then 32. eventually you discover it isn't boring at all".
there's an amazing section in the Helen DeWitt novel "the last samurai" about a chinese concert pianist who fucks up his career (i seem to recall) because he gets stuck on certain sections of music, and keeps playing them over and over again. the female protagonist becomes obsessed by his playing and keeps going to see him.
music and repetition do funny things to you. oh my... i practised 6 hours straight on saturday and 4 hours straight on sunday for a concert sunday evening... i think i'm still recovering. feels good though, like that hazy glow after a gym workout. |
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bachus
Joined: Feb 29, 2004
Posts: 2922
Location: Up in that tree over there.
Audio files: 5
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| Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 6:15 am Post subject:
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| Stanley Pain wrote: | | exercise 1. say the word "must" 342 times or there abouts. then ask yourself "what does it mean?" |
I tried that and by the time I got to 342 it meant an irate bull elephant. 
_________________
The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer. -- Jeremy Bentham |
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jksuperstar
Joined: Aug 20, 2004
Posts: 2503
Location: Denver
Audio files: 1
G2 patch files: 18
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| Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:44 am Post subject:
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To paraphrase Ross Bencina, a developer of portAudio and AudioMulch softwares, who advocates computer music as simply another instrument:
"the only difference between sound and music is intent".
That's about the best I've heard it. And maybe this belongs in the "What is Music" thread, but it seems appropriate here in regards to the original post. |
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Afro88
Joined: Jun 20, 2004
Posts: 701
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Audio files: 12
G2 patch files: 79
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| Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 2:06 am Post subject:
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| elektro80 wrote: | | That buffer idea is interesting. I have seen similar takes on the concept. |
The buffer is apparently your short term memory. It can hold 6 or 7 "units" at once to think about every 2-3 seconds. So while you're reading a book, thinking about what you want for dinner and your girlfriend is trying to get your attention, the girlfriend may be one of these "units" occupying your short term memory, while the rest is taken by reading and thinking about dinner. When she finally gets your attention, you can recall what she said in the last 2-3 seconds easily because it's still there in your short term memory, you just weren't focussed on it.
| Quote: | | 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. |
This is true also. When we hear something completely new, we can't process it because there is too much to try and understand at once. Each note, harmony, rhythm, instrument timbre, structure etc. needs to occupy one "perceptual unit". Once we start to figure out the patterns behind the notes, harmonies etc., one perceptual unit becomes a certain note pattern, or one harmony followed by another, instead of one single note/harmony, which frees up our short term perceptual units to focus on other things, or larger unifying things we haven't understood/found patterns for. When we put things into patterns, they go into our long term memory and we can recall them again when we next hear the piece.
Of course, all of this is paraphrased from an article I'm obsessing over at the moment which I posted here.
Sorry for the slight off topic  |
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Stanley Pain
Joined: Sep 02, 2004
Posts: 782
Location: Reading, UK
Audio files: 10
G2 patch files: 35
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| Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 1:40 am Post subject:
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| Afro88 wrote: | When we hear something completely new, we can't process it because there is too much to try and understand at once. Each note, harmony, rhythm, instrument timbre, structure etc. needs to occupy one "perceptual unit". Once we start to figure out the patterns behind the notes, harmonies etc., one perceptual unit becomes a certain note pattern, or one harmony followed by another, instead of one single note/harmony, which frees up our short term perceptual units to focus on other things, or larger unifying things we haven't understood/found patterns for. When we put things into patterns, they go into our long term memory and we can recall them again when we next hear the piece.
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i wrote a piece of music based on this concept (albeit on fruityloops... simply because it enables you to put ideas down at speed).
it's a genre piece, but i tried to make it as repetitive as possible, altering one element of music every 8 bars, but changing which element is changed each time. the result is you approach the music "tactically", a process that i'm now trying to adopt when writing G2 patches for use in SX. anyway, i'll post it when i hve the time. |
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