zarmattathustra

Well.. you could record your improv session... Indeed, if you were playing some sort of midi instrument.. It could even generate a score for you. On the other hand.. I think of Buddhist's with there sand paintings.. Where.. once it's done they just blow them all a way.. as a kind of meditation on the temporal.

def is both net slang.. and um.. sorta like hip hop slang.... you know, like "most def" as in Most Def Comedy Jam..

It's def fun.. I love the crashing.. If Bart Simpson was a composer... It def sounds like it has something to do with brother sister fighting... And I really like that part of it...

For whatever it's worth... I like it.. I'm not really used to listening to "this kind of thing" that is.. Well like a midi thing that plays, on my computer anyway.. the quicktime music synth... or when I played the MP3 version of it.. It was still played by "that kind of instrument." I feel like.. Well I want to see it realized.. Another words.. I want to hear good quality instruments performing it.. with all the bells and whistles.. and the production.. and everything.. I think that way it could be really incredible.. As is.. Well you know.. there's a lot of performance dynamics stuff that sort of introduces certain types of complexities.. like.. The way a string section could be expressive in the way it uses pitch.. or the way a piano could be expressive in the dynamics of how hard the keys are hit and where they fit in time.. And absent all that kind of thing.. In a higher end realization.. It's hard to know exactly what you have.. On the other hand.. if you're someone who's interesting in scoring video and computer games.. I think then it's a slightly different matter.. Because then I want to see how you optimize it.. Another words.. Well I've never done any of this sort of thing so I don't really know about it.. But your typical modern game system.. can obviously have a certain amount of built in synths and samplers and effects.. And and.. well look what they did with the ancient Atari 2600.. Where it's abilities where limited but every ounce of it's expressive possibilities where realized.. At any rate. .from what I gather it's all about how you optimize stuff and blah blah blah... I suspect the prevailing thing.. is to sort of offer feed back on composition and not really worry so much about the realization.. But I think there is the issue of how the composition relates to realization.. Another words.. There's a certain amount of repetition.. Not Philip Glass amounts.. but certain amounts.. And if you had other variables breathing life into the performance.. that would / could effect how we interpret the repetition.. Some of this I say as a microtonalist.. Where in my microtonalism I deal with creating something like 'an interpretation of my composition' at least with respect to pitch expressiveness... There by introducing more levels of complexity... So that maybe it's a repetition.. but on very subtle levels nothing repeats exactly.. As I listen to it a few more times I realize some of what bothers me.. There's a guitar sound that reminds me of an 8 bit Mirage sound.. which was like this old sampler.. that I used when in College.. and I have some negative association with the sampler as a result.. and that sound.. In part just because I used it soo much that my ears have grown tired to the sound.. So this has nothing to do with you or your composition.. But it does have to do with things like the way the sounds relate to one another.. And sometimes it doesn't all completely jell together for me. . I guess maybe the drums.. There's a certain part when it first comes up.. I'm betting that if the whole mix went through a little bit of reverb that would have the effect of unifying everything a little more.. So I guess.... for my taste.. I'd like to see performance dynamics pushed a little more.. I mean go John Coultrain on it's donkey, you know? And.. if you can do a certain amount of mixing stuff as a part of game music.. definitely put in some transient effects.. revebs, delays.. etc.. Doesn't have to be a lot.. Because I think I generally like the composition.. I just feel the need to push on it a little.

See.. I regard improvising as composing.. it's composing in real time.. it's it's a hell of a lot more efficient.. with regard to how much time you put into it versus who long the composition is.. it being real time and all.. accept that all the time you spend preparing should probably be added to how much time and energy you regard it taking..

I like it.. But then I'm a bit of a metal head.. I suppose my comment is.. and this may be more a matter of personal taste.. The tones remind me of that kind of Satrioni / Via sound.. and I never really went for that.. I went more for the Zakk Wylde.. So I suppose I like the dirty-er heavier kind of more frenzied sorta thing.. And you know.. What your doing is.. well not really that far from progressive thrash / speed metal.. except that your a little more ethereal... and um.. lol, less frenzied.. etc etc.. I suppose what would interest me is.. I feel like each turn / change the music makes.. takes us into a different world.. or maybe a different area of the same world.. And in some way I might like to see the details of those worlds more aggressively stated.. But a lot of that kind of thing might come down more to production techniques then composition.. Like maybe we should be shift what sort of acoustic spaces the instruments are performing in.. depending on the contents of the section.. and sorta playing around with that.. And more on taste.. Things are so clean and.. here's your drums and here's your other stuff.. I think there's a way where they're.. almost like clean clarity.. in that Via, Satrioni kind of way.. play against the metal ethos.. And I might like to see that relationship played with more... I mean.. on the one sense the pleasure of what you're doing, at least from my perception sitting in the audience, has something to do the technical virtuosity of the musicians.. So of course you want the mix to highlight that.. which it does.. Metal isn't always real technical.. And I often feel like Metal is limited as form because it's almost like if you don't grimace it's not metal.. Do you know what I mean? Like if you don't play the roll it's not metal.. but underlying that.. Is that metal plays to a kind of dyonesian instinct.. a kind of orgiastic experience of banging your head and making signs to the devil.. and all that good stuff.. And if you juxtapose that to someone like Via who's like.. doing his various meditation exercises.. and has an almost monastic aura.. well maybe what I'm speaking to is the tensions between progressive-ism and metal-sm.. That progressive metal must somehow stratal.. I tend to think of old Metalica.. or like Hanger 18 era Megadeth.. as exemplar's of how I like my progressive metal.. Well.. you know.. modernize it up a bit.. and there you are.. Of course how much of this is just my own personal taste and how much of it might be helpful to you is a whole other question.. But um.. I dig what your doing anyway.. Idk.. I'm not much good at criticism I don't think...

I mainly improvise on the guitar.. Which I've probably been doing since I started.. so that's probably around.. 17 years or so? I like to improvise better then play pre composed material.. I just like playing with sound, I guess.. And I have no problem improvising on instruments that I "don't know how to play." I feel as if 'composing' exists for me on the level of muscle memory.. Like my finger's seem to know how to compose without my conscious mind even having to bother with it.. I built a video podcast that sorta demonstrates this.. When I "compose for electric guitar" the compositions come from noodling around on my guitar searching for stuff... Often my guitar solos will just be improvised takes.. Sometimes an improvised performance can become the center of a composition.. Where after I perform and record my solo.. I write the rest of the music around the solo... The results of which I find pretty interesting.. I should say that most of my compositions are the results of programing out stuff inside of a sequencer.. But I try to approach composition from as many different angles as possible.. just to keep the results interesting... And I like the feel of improvising.. There's usually a different energy to it... I guess just because your coming at it from a different place.. Like thinking on an instrument.. how you conceptualize stuff is very different then if your stairing at a staff.

Ok.. so this is my first time posting work for critique.. and.. well it's been a while since I've subjected myself to criticism.. and um.. I may be terribly unorthodox with respect to where I'm coming from.. But um.. if you can stomach me.. hopefully you can dig it... Well first of you can view / hear the piece here, though you will need the latest version of quicktime and or a video iPod. So on the purpose and inspiration and what not. Once upon a time there where sound artists who thought the future of the music industry might be in "Music Videos." This was largely a byproduct of the introduction of laser disks.. Anyway.. eventually MTV came around and subverted the music video art form.. turning it into a kind of expensive commercial.. And you probably know how this story turns out since then.. Well it appears the information revolution is changing things a little bit.. And Apple recently introduced a "Video iPod," and I thought "Hmm.. maybe I should make a Music video as Art form" type project.. So that's the basic idea... For influences I watched a documentary on Verdi.. I watched the recent film Dig!. I took a look at a Frank Zappa thing.. titled something like "In the dub room," and of course there's stuff like Sun Ra's "Space is the place".. At some point in college some of my peers were making videos where the video was composed uses some of the system's of John Cage... On the film side of it I'd also mention some of Andy Warhol's stuff.. where you watch a guy sleeping for 10 minutes.. Or I might talk about David Lynch who.. I think more then most film makers has made sound play an important roll in his films... My feeling was that I could probably make a radicle new form.. or go in such a direction.. In the sense that various things like.. film, and TV.. are all sort of formed by certain market factors.. And so I was seeking "a new existential relationship to the market place." And clearly video podcasting is a very different matter... Which would have a different "systemic effect" on whatever I might attempt. From a business point of view I'm hoping to use video podcasting as a means to find an audience.. that I can then sell my music to.. And so this first video podcast is an attempt to introduce myself, and my larger project, to an audience.. And there is a section of it where I nearly recite a press release... Another influence was some stuff I read in The Wire a while back.. On the microphone as a kind of substitute for Sigmund Freud.. The idea being, in part, that we now often listen to music with the sense that we are listening to something "constructed" as a pose to listening to a "recording" of an event. Deeper in this was the idea that you could sort of peer deep into the psyche of the performers.. In fact "the score" of my video is, in part, conceptualized as "the commentary of the film makers unconscious," on what's going on in the video.. Which runs along with the idea that the film maker is, in some way, providing you with "an unreliable narration of events." The idea of "microphone as substitute for Dr. Freud" worked something likes this: I've collected around 40 hours worth of video, most of which has been shot over the past 5 or so years.. So in the process of making the video podcast, of which this is the first episode, I would be creating a kind of autobiography.. Where in I would enter into a kind of dialectic with the recording of the unfolding of certain events of my life.. This is sorta like my post postmodern approach for dealing with issues of identity, I suppose you could say.. And while we are at it I should like to suggest that I am probably more of a Jungian then Freudian. On a not to distant note I was thinking of the literary idea found in the work of Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson of "New Journalism." I'm trying to document the kind of culture that spontaneously comes into being when two or more people come together and hang out and stuff.. And the adventures that in sew.. Which I think is particularly fun when the people involved are of the an anti establishment subversive artist variety.. Other film maker influenced would include Godard's stuff.. Richard Linklater's stuff.. particularly Slacker and Waking Life... Certain qualities from Terry Gilliam.. and the list probably goes on infinitely.... David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch comes to mind... Also there is a Zappa thing where he talks about thinking about "none sonic events" from a musical / compositional stand point... He's, in many ways, following Varese in this.. Anyway.. so on with the specifics... 1 Techniques: Well there's, sorta like, 3 main sections.. each of which is created a little differently then the other 2. In the first section I set up a video camera in my room with 2 studio condenser microphones via which I try to create a binaural recording (to no great effect.) The audio went directly to Cubase.. I give a little presentation.. of what is basically a press release sort of version of what the podcast will be about and who I am.. And then I put on these head phones and pick up my guitar... In the head phones is a click track.. programed drum section / metronome.. Which I then improvise a guitar part up against... (the guitar is going through NI Guitar Rig). Latter I go in, using Cubase and NI Komplete... to score the whole thing.. including the guitar solo part.. and mix the whole thing, and blah blah.. Then I export the project.. and bring it into the video authoring environment. The next section.. is a kind of Vertigo Fresh Meat Project Tittle sequence.. The video for this section is achieved by compositing / animating video / graphics around the screen for a while.. Some of the audio is audio taken from video clips.. Other elements of the score.. Well I basically import portions of various music projects.. of varying levels of completion / polish.. And I basically just mix / edit them together using the limited abilities of Final Cut Express. The 3rd section.. We see me asking "New Ape V" what he thinks of the project we are about to engage on.. This video sequence was edited.. and then exported... and scored in Cubase.. using Reason as well.. I went in and tried to score the actual camera movements.. and approach it in a way that would reinforce certain "formal aesthetic issues." To all this I should say that for 90% of the score I program in each individual note into a sequencer.. And program all the mixing automation.. The exception are a few sections.. Where I used these.. real time sequencer / beat boxes.. where you basically hit the play button.. and tweak the knobs.. and record the results.. These became individual parts / sections that I would then mix into the larger production... Also there's a certain amount of microtonalism to the project.. Which is mostly achieved by putting pitch bend information on many of the individually programed notes.. The various instruments' pitch are, hopefully expressively.. and certainly on the edge of the subliminal, coming in and out of phase with one another... With respect to there relationship to 0 pitch bend... 2. How long did it take to compose the piece: I have a lot of work hanging around my hard drives that date back years.. with which I can draw from.. the video and graphics generally fall into this category and do some of the sounds.. But for the most part this piece took me about a month to finish.. And I feel as though it could have used a good deal more time.. But I wanted to kind of rush to get it out.. because I saw there being a kind of opening in the market, so to speak.. 3. Structure: I think I've sort of covered this a little. The first part is the copyright part.. Where you would normally get the threat about federal agents going after you should you brake the copyright... to this I suggest "sharing is caring" and so for this reason you should "share me." And I do this in such a way so as to make a little dig at the RIAA. The Next section is me introducing this podcast, and myself.. Then I go about trying to prove that I am "a real musician." Then I remember that I forgot to tell you about Fresh Meat.. and so I sort of introduce this.. while playing the guitar.. I call this my "Jimi Hendrix circus section" in the sense that Jimi Hendrix did a lot of pyrotechnical playing.. where he'd play with his teeth / behind his head, and all the rest.. in order to convince you that he was really something special... I try and "talk and play the guitar at the same time" which I think is equally impressive.. although very strange.. in terms of the tone in strikes.. The next section is the "Fresh Meat Project Vertigo" that is to sort of disorientate you.. it's sorta like my "Star Gate Sequence" which is to echo the sequence in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space Odessy where they sorta like go into a whole other dimension.. The next part is the "New Ape V on The Fresh Meat Project" section.. which is then followed by end credits where we learn that I did everything.. and that some of the names have been changed to protect the guilty... And that's it. 4. Obstacles when composing: Well there where a lot of technical problems I encountered... One of the big ones had to do with moving files between my Macintosh and my PC lap top... And the feeling that I desperately need to find funds to upgrade.. One of the challenges I set out to do was to learn a little bit about the craft of "The Mix Engineer." For me the mix is a part of the composition.. But here I was trying to learn more about "the traditional ways these things are dealt with," and particularly I wanted to make the dialog tracks as audible as possible.. so that you would hear those.. so I tried to carve out there own frequency space for those elements.. All though where I didn't feel that you needed to hear what was being said so much.. I allowed things to degrade a little. Another issue was just learning about video and learning final cut express.. I'm rather new to this.. Also the performance art elements provided a challenge.. There are many different types of elements going in.. each of which need "a different compositional process" in order to realize results.. and a part of what I was interested in was the dynamic tension between disparate parts.. Along with this is the sense that you never know what's going to happen next... Which I think really gets to the central compositional challenge.. Of how do you create a situation where you don't know what's going to come at you next.. Where there is a good deal of tension over the question of what will come next. For me, as the author, the tension was always "will it end up sucking." And the challenge is to go as far out on the edge as possible.. To not let that fear get in the way of being, I guess, and be "violently creative." 5 Summery of the over all piece: I've probably done this already.. But basically I suppose it's an ad for my work and future video podcasts. Well I guess that's it... If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to field them.. I don't have much of a score I could give you.. I suppose I could export stuff from my sequencers.. but then I don't think you would get representation's of stuff like pitch bend.. or mixer stuff.. so.. Well any who.. I'm interested to get some feed back.. LOL, and thanks for tolerating me... Um.. I should maybe add, to, that I've been writting more about this subject on my myspace blog..

I have a tendancy to serialize my tonal centers... In a strange way I'm actually doing this inorder to get to "the monochord" which is like what you would do with dronal music.. justintonation and all that.. La Monte Young.. etc.. Which is actually rather close to what's up with the Indian music in the first place.. For me the rational of all this madness and mayham has something to do with my take on serial music.. Which has something to do with "Aesthetic experiance as cognative event." Beauty having something to do with pattern recognition.. but also the idea that what we notice is "how something is different from the norm" which, perhaps, could be defined statistically.. So by shifting my key centers... I'm sort of like point the following:.. we often hear the difference / relationship between stuff.. rather then the thing in it's self.. This gets us pretty close to issues of Kantian metaphsysics.. as well as what John Cage was after we he would talk about being interested in "auditioning sounds." So I'm seeking some place somewhere between music and sound.. a place of figure ground ambiguity.. The other reason I sorta serialize my tonal centers is cause I just don't know any better.

Here's a few thought... Lately I've been inclined to try and build networks.. to network with other artists... The general idea is that there are certain virtues to collective action.. But also I've been thinking about cyber collaberations... where I could, as a for instance.. send a violin part off to a friend living in Vegas.. He's got some recording technology, I could email him an mp3 to use as a click track.. I could then have him send me a high rez recording on CDR, wich I could throw into my multi-track production enviroment.. and construct a performance that way.. There are pro's and cons to this kind of thing.. But I keep thinking about how we might be able to leverage the power of the internet for the purposed of the gurrilla.. Another things is.. Well I look at various Jazz artists.. Where the composer is the band leader.. and he's constantly specializing his stuff for the strengths and weakness of the artists he or she's working with.. Maybe another thing to do is to get together with musician friends.. where you peform stuff... so that you then have them as a resource... I think what one should do is to try and explore the various aprouches one could use.. and in so doing... try and look beyond the well trotted world of the known.... and then evaluate those options in relationship to whatever you're creative vision might be... As I'm sure they probably all have pros and cons... I have a book by Theodor Adorno lying in in my book case, that I haven't yet read.. But I have thought a bit about his subjects.. About the roll of power, and various systemic effects of how our society is organized.. on culture.. As a fan of Frank Zappa, I grew up listening to him talking about the problems he encountered in trying to realize his scores and classical ambitions.. which is what origonally brought my to explore electronic music... At anyrate.. the problems of getting our scores performed.. the amount of rehersal it might take for more challenging parts.. The lack of demand for new music.. all these forces that conspire against us and against inovation.. It's a sad thing if you have dreams of complicated musical structres that are difficult, or even impossible, to be realized given your situation.. and because of this how many great dreams were never borned.. or perhaps never even dreamed... I'm reminded of the story of Charles Ives... Who wasn't able to get his major workes performed till late in his life when fashion finally turned in his favor... Well.. I don't know if that's helpfull for anyone.. Hope it might be..

well.... here's a link to some stuff on surround sound: SOS series on Surround Sound and here's another thing on DVD audio: another sound thing on DVD audio and on last thing.. there's some more stuff on this.. and more links... on a blog entry I did on my blog... Who Care's About Quality.. my responce to a pretty kewl issue of Mix Magazine Without bothering to read through it myself... let me try breaking things down a little... first of all.. there's a difference between surround sound and DVD audio.. DVD audio can be stereo if you like.. When you mix music.. if you have 2 instruments that take up the same, or overlaping frequency range.. and your mixing in stereo.. you will normally put them on opposit ends of the ends of the stereo fild.. that is on opposit sides of your virtual sound stage... This way you are able to hear more of the details of each instrument... When you start working with 5.1 surround sound.. you suddenly realize that things are REALLY different... Having more more speakers.. does have psyco acoustic implications.. and it really is a whole other ball game... because now if you have stuff taking up the same frequency range.. you have a lot more space to spread them around.. depending on what your aprouch to building a 5.1 sound stage is... I believe that conventional DVD's audio set up is 'somewhat sucky.' By which I mean.. you have to make a choice between bit depth depth and sample rate... that is that there's a kind of maximum data through-put to the way conventional DVDs are set up... But alas there are also SACDs.. DVD+A and a variety of other formats that don't have this sort of limitations... here's a thing on SACD on SOS But all this sorta gets more into issues of high def audio... which is.. not really nessisary... I personally think.. if you're a composer, or someone who works with sound.. It's important to have a good system for listening to music on.. Never mind if you're actually producing music with that same sound system as your monitoring system... If you are just using your computer as a compositional tool.. developing a score... If what you hear played back from your computer plays a roll in the desision making process in your composing.. you might want to invest in a good system... Although this is sorta complicated... If you are doing this kind of thing.. it's also important that you invest in something like the Garritan Personal Orchestra sample library.. (read an sos review here), along with whatever notation or sequencer program you might be using.. and the monitor system.. because other wise.. your dission making process will be made on the basis of faulty data.... As if all this weren't bad enough... there is also the issue of the acoustic properties of the room you're listen to while working... as sounds bounce of the walls.. different types of surface will refflect different parts of the frequency spectrum in different ways.. which will effect what you hear... So on top of all these issues.. there's the issue of trying to make a 'nutral sounding room' for critical listening...

lol, thanks Stefan I just happened to come upon this link.. that I thought was interesting: microtonal reviews about the division of labor / compartmentalism thing: I've been reading a fair bit of progressive political stuff.. One of the more interesting folks in this are would be Foucualt.. a French philosopher.. died in the 80s of AIDS.. Anyway.. he was very interested in making a study of power relaitonships.. He did this in historical analsis of things like.. the history of mental health.. stuff like how we define what is healthy / what is sickness... He also did this with the legal system... and you see how this relates to the issue of compartmentalisation.. how power in society / the world.. effect how we think... I think of music making as.. or music listening to... as a kind of search for transendence.. to have an experiance that transends the confines brought to us by the power systems.. there intrests / etc.. I try to get, in my music, to deeper needs of the human.. I mean.. take psychoanalisis... this idea of the super ego.. which is like the intigration of the taboo system / social vales / etc.. into the indavidual.. the trouble is that no society is really intersted in developing the potential of it's in habitents as it's greatest good.. thus the tabboo system tells us not to develop certain parts of our potential... because they might threatent the social order, or whatever... Now.. basically the super ego.. at least in a healthy society.. would be tied to the actual needs and issues of that society.. but.. there is a way where they sort of lag... like.. the moral system teaches you how to move through the known universe, but not the unknown universe... So.. in order to meet the demans of the unknown universe.. we must go about rediscovering those parts of our potential that we have forgetten.... An example of this kind of thing is... well there's this thing where some people are saying we are moving out of the information age and into the conceptual age.. were suddenly creativity ends up being more values.. so maybe now we'll, as a society, grow more artists... Well.. I'm going on a long tangent.. and I have to run.. but.. Basically.. when we make art... when we beging to intigrate / resynthasize ideas from normally segrigated areas.. and subvert the moral order in a way that is in servase of higher goods... Well then I think our music gives this as a kind of gift to the listener... and um.. well that's the sort of contribution I'm trying to make anyway... That would be the logic behind my hunter thompson quote.. and also a reason why I hink microtonalism is just the Bees Knees... Ok.. time for matt to shut up

err idk how to quote but um... Not entirely. If I want to hear an interval of 11/8 in a within-the-12-system piece, I'm not going to get it by leaving it to the performer, and if I do get it, everyone including the performer will regard it as an error. Yes, just about all music performed by humans on string and wind instruments is slightly microtonal, interestingly. I draw a distinction as Crumb has between expressive and *structural* microtones. well.. i didn't mean to suggest that there wasn't a qualitative difference between a traditional 12 tone music with pitch fluxing ornamentation and what happens when you compose stuff out microtonally... only that I think.. when you first aprouch the issues of microtonalism.. it probably makes sense to thinking of the microtonal aspects of traditional music.. and think about it in relationship to, like.. issues of psycho-acoustics. On the other hand I'm all into.. well like issues of the division of labor and how we compartmentalize stuff.. that is.. we no that there's this western intelectual tradition that's all about how we compartmentalize informations, ideas, and whatever... But.. there are certain ways that the act of compartmentalization changes what your looking at.. this would be like a Buddhist idea... anyway.. often times the really great new innovations happen just by taking information from different compartments that where never combined before.. which is part of why I think it's interesting to look at psycho acoustics and the microtonalism of traditional music.. and the issue of the microtonal composer getting involved with issues that.. in some sense are normally the domaine of the performer.. and your point sorta speaks to that.. If I'm making myself clear....

Some folks say speakers are the most important thing for you to invest in.. If you do music production.. they are your windows into what your making.. so obiviously.. if your window distorts your view of what your working on... that's a problem.. and as it turns out most consumer speakers have this problem... in fact.. you have to spend lots and lots and lots of money.. try in hte $1000+ range to get speakers that.. well minumally distort what your hearing.. That said.. a lot of people 'in the bizz' talk about 'knowing your spakers' another words.. play music that you know how it sounds on one system.. play it on other systems.. play your creations on lots of systems.. this way you can get a feel for whats up on your system.. and you kind of compensate for that while working.. And of course for critical listening situations.. its nice to have really nice speakers.. so that you find that you start to hear stuff you didn't even know was in the mix.. But I think in practice.. pricey speakers are expensive.. and you really need to figure out what makes sense in terms of your own budget... but.. speakers are one of the most important things to invest in.. if your working creatively with music production / recording / composing where you do a lot of critical listening...