thoughts on electronic music\sound

one tired evening as i layed before getting to dream nightmare beauties, i was listening to some electronic ambient music and what i though went something like this:

electronic sound(including sound source, operations and techniques) has its place in arts as a musical thought, generally and most powerfully having its 'space' character, being occupied with space (and place as a local situation of space). now it is usually asumed that music is an art of time. but for electronic music space is the primordial element. sort of original point, except that this origin has not any historical roots. its origin is of ontological order. a (musical) thought that finds its place in the realm of musical art. now that i think - why electronic music has become so ordinary among composers and for some, even more primordial than acoustic music in general sense of the word, i come to conclude that is because of its (electronic music) 'spatial' character. i think no other music is so apt to paint sounscapes, translate the spatial infinity of the universe (ambient) or even the local point (sort of place) of a sound (granulized music, glithes). this interest in the space of sound might be due to the fact that time cannot and is not suposed to sustain the being, but, on the contrary, erases it, traverses, makes it dissapear, while space is of somewhat infinite (eternal) for the particular being. it contrapuncts the flow of time.

on the phenomenal (situational) level, all (most) acoustic instruments and techniques have been filled with human codes - that of emotions, mainly. while electronic sound offers somewhat fresher approach to sound in general, a myth of a new begining, clean from the human emotions, clean from the sign of times, codeless.

(though, in general, i think it could be pinpoined to the fact that acoustics came first than electro sound, and that space\place is the mighty condition of musical thought, as well as time- and not because time is in space and space is in time. the difference must be stated to understand the specifics of space in music, as well as time.)

effexor, definitely effexor.

pharmakon, rather, i thinks

I'd say electonic music is representative of our culture. It is false, there is no real or original electronic music. A sine wave is a sine wave is a sine wave whereas each violin is inherently nuanced and different, but our culture gives the false meaning. Likewise, samples, they are just re-hashed ideas, re-packaged and yet we create meaning with them.

A sine wave is a sine wave is a sine wave whereas each violin is inherently nuanced and different, but our culture gives the false meaning.

never had too much patience with empiricism.

it is not constitutive of thing\being.

being not constitutive of thing\being, it doen't amount too much to what COULD be thought. of what could come (and is coming) into the world (just one segment of a plurality of worlds).

let's say it (the empiricist argument and what consequents it) is just a matter of particular time and facade, but not of musical thought as it can be. it's just logic of one world, while the logic of another one (possibly existing) doesn't state things as that.

so, it's not a strong argument (almost non-argument) against electronic music.

I have no idea what a thing\being (the backslash presumably means something) is, and I like empiricism (this forum wouldn't exist without it, and many or most of us would be significantly less healthy), but I agree that it's a non-argument. Even the most beautiful violin is essentially a bunch of organic polymers, as soulless as a sine wave. The meaning comes when we turn them into a violin, and then use the violin to vibrate the air around it (also essentially soulless). Explain to me again how this is different.

By the way, flawed logic is not empiricism. If anything, it's kind of like the opposite.

It's the difference between live and recorded music. Everyone knows a live concert is better than a CD, a CD is not original and I'd argue that a sine wave does not differ from sine wave to sine wave whereas a violin does. If you listen to a pure sine wave live and a pure recorded sine wave there is no difference. Of course you could argue that there is at a microscopic level but I would like to think that's inaudible. In essence there is no original sine wave, everything is a replica of a replica, almost like a circle of falseness.

I suppose a better example instead of sine wave and violin would be violin and violin sample.

To pliorious: Musical thought is defined by times and facade as we try and find out exactly what it could be...

Regarding recordings, I might agree with you if we're talking about music that was designed, so to speak, for live performance. But that aside the two are just two different media, and there is a lot you can do with recordings that you just can't in real life. Some of it awesome, no doubt. The point is that you need to approach each medium differently, and with intent to use its merits and avoid its flaws as much as possible. Because they both have merits and flaws.

Also... I could be wrong, but it seems to be that you completely missed the crucial point of my post. To summarize: A sine wave is to a piece of electronic music as an organic polymer is to a violin. I agreed and will continue to agree that a sine wave on its own is rather boring (as are the fundamental building blocks of a violin), but very little electronic music (I won't say none :/) consists of just a sine wave.

I'm sure I could agree with your general criticism with regards to some music (as I said, I wouldn't be surprised if someone recorded one sine wave and called it music), but I wouldn't apply it to all electronic music. Electronic music makes it easier than before to make something truly boring, sure, but you certainly don't have to.

there is a lot you can do with recordings that you just can't in real life.

I think that's my point, I love electronic music, I use sample libraries and synths all the time. My point is they aren;t real, and yet they still have meaning, I suppose rather than a critique of music I'm critiquing society through music.

We live in a society devoid of the real as you stated and therefore are forced to give the false, meaning. It happens, I just think it's interestingly absurd.

What is real, really?

I agree to the difference of live vs recorded and I'm working on something for my PhD, but still the exxageration seems a bit absurd to me...

Electronic sound, any sound, recorded or not, musique concrete or not, live insturments or not, are all tools in the disposal of the composer. Pop music is, thankfully away from such issues and production matter. Probably this is why society acts so positively to such music... Who cares if the masterpiece for solo piano get's performed in... Syndey. Everything else is missing the point. Whereas a recording can be anywhere, everywhere, at the same time. ;)

There's nothing wrong with society! And especially there's no way to give too much credit to art that it guides society, it's 95% the other way around! Sociery drives art to where it goes!

Either way, society is based on principals, images, and fake papers (Dow Jones, FTES, etc... or money even. what is 1 $ worth to someone who is hungry in a jungle? The "value" of 1$ or 1euro is an accomodated comodity for western civilasation (and China, ok... :P)

I have no idea what a thing\being (the backslash presumably means something) is, and I like empiricism (this forum wouldn't exist without it, and many or most of us would be significantly less healthy).

By the way, flawed logic is not empiricism. If anything, it's kind of like the opposite.

by 'thing\being' i wanted to grasp the ontological side of being AND its anti-metaphysical character (that is - being as a domain of multiple). i agree, it's not the best term i could come up with.

i argued against empiricism, which, to me, is making up theories from experience - they, of course, hold up in SOME cases and SOME worlds, but not in every of them. and, moreover, they can't account for possibilities and virtual, which is more actual than the 'real' of empiricism. this is the logic of empiricism, which is flawed (when applied to some things) and not logic in the general.the domain of virtual i suppose to be mathematics. as that, it is the science of anything that may be possible in as many as infinity worlds, and - consequently - logics.

definitely this forum wouldn't exist without the empirical (it's too much obvious to state), but, and that is the other (more important side of it), it wouldn't even been thought off without ontology ( and being in general.)

To pliorious: Musical thought is defined by times and facade as we try and find out exactly what it could be...

it is borne in times and facade, but it is not necessarily caused by it. let's say that beyond times and facade there are some other things :)

We live in a society devoid of the real as you stated and therefore are forced to give the false, meaning. It happens, I just think it's interestingly absurd.

it depends on what you define as 'real'. if by 'real' you mean nature or physics in general, then i think, you could not be more wrong, because any society is a product of the virtual. nowhere else you can find so many syntagms of possible and virtual than in a society (in general).

now, if by 'real' you mean truth or true, than it is almost essential that societies tend to do away with it. they need no points of the true to exist, it even scares them (revoliutions, for example). but this 'real' is no more natural or physical.

I'd say electonic music is representative of our culture. It is false, there is no real or original electronic music. A sine wave is a sine wave is a sine wave whereas each violin is inherently nuanced and different, but our culture gives the false meaning. Likewise, samples, they are just re-hashed ideas, re-packaged and yet we create meaning with them.

I can understand to some degree. There really is nothing like seeing and hearing humans play music in the flesh, and I don't think a recording can really come close. However, electronic music itself has spawned some very interesting results...

it depends on what you define as 'real'. if by 'real' you mean nature or physics in general, then i think, you could not be more wrong, because any society is a product of the virtual. nowhere else you can find so many syntagms of possible and virtual than in a society (in general).

Sorry but I don't understand that argument firstly you say if physics and nature are real then I'm wrong because a society is full of the virtual?

Surely for me to be wrong society should be filled with nature and physics and originality.

I'd agree with you that our society is filled with syntagms of meaning but to me this consequently destroys meaning, similar to your ideas of abstract thought not defined by empiricism. In this society, the postmodern society, we grant meaning to everything; we live in a constant bombardment of information, codes and ideas, we live in a world dictated by ideas and ideas don't need to be real. Likewise the sheer wealth of ideas and information means that there is no meaing behind any of it. Every arguement, idea and theory can be justified in the right context and therefore every theory can also be disproved.

As for syntagms Sassure stated that the signified and signifier are generally arbitrary and defined by context. Baudrillard states that in the postmodern world the signifier and signified are fused and therefore the idea of the symbol is as important as the symbol itself, yet an idea only has meaning in context and therefore as an abstract has no meaning.

now, if by 'real' you mean truth or true, than it is almost essential that societies tend to do away with it. they need no points of the true to exist, it even scares them (revoliutions, for example). but this 'real' is no more natural or physical.

I don't think societies have shied away from it. In my view of mankind it seems at first we wanted to believe then know, then we realised it is impossible to know and now wish to understand. Therefore reality was destroyed, almost ironically, when we realised that there is no singular and absolute interpretation of reality.

I have to agree with Nikolas. What is real? And the statement "the ontological side of being AND its anti-metaphysical character (that is - being as a domain of multiple)" is complete rubbish. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

Having read some of your other statements, I would conclude that you are talking complete crap. Maybe you are offering this as a joke.

Sorry but I don't understand that argument firstly you say if physics and nature are real then I'm wrong because a society is full of the virtual?

Surely for me to be wrong society should be filled with nature and physics and originality.

I'd agree with you that our society is filled with syntagms of meaning but to me this consequently destroys meaning, similar to your ideas of abstract thought not defined by empiricism. In this society, the postmodern society, we grant meaning to everything; we live in a constant bombardment of information, codes and ideas, we live in a world dictated by ideas and ideas don't need to be real. Likewise the sheer wealth of ideas and information means that there is no meaing behind any of it. Every arguement, idea and theory can be justified in the right context and therefore every theory can also be disproved.

As for syntagms Sassure stated that the signified and signifier are generally arbitrary and defined by context. Baudrillard states that in the postmodern world the signifier and signified are fused and therefore the idea of the symbol is as important as the symbol itself, yet an idea only has meaning in context and therefore as an abstract has no meaning.

I don't think societies have shied away from it. In my view of mankind it seems at first we wanted to believe then know, then we realised it is impossible to know and now wish to understand. Therefore reality was destroyed, almost ironically, when we realised that there is no singular and absolute interpretation of reality.

ideas are real. there is no natural society. sure, we eat, scraggy and belch, but how it is dealt with it in a society is a thing of another kind. any society is virtual. there is no ONE of a society. they are singular.

natural society would be the one in which there is nothing behind human-animal, that is - war and death\sex situation. you don't want such thing to happen, do you? only ideas bring forth something extra animalish in human.

what these postmodern thinkers did was taking as a starting point the idea that there's nothing behing language, so it was natural for them to think meanings as devoid of any metaphysical unity. they were right in that ideas don't have to be meaningful. what they were wrong in is to think that language is totalazing. it's not. there are things behind language, mainly ideas.

i have to completely disagree that society has anything to do with truths. on the contrary it tries to exlude truth or nivelate them (truths) to the level of opinions. in politics it is state order against revolution or resistance. in relationship between two - attempt to sexualize it - there is no love just sexual connections. in arts - no genuine novelty of art is welcomed, because it would demand the change of things and perspective (that is kick some conservatist donkey). and so on.

I have to agree with Nikolas. What is real? And the statement "the ontological side of being AND its anti-metaphysical character (that is - being as a domain of multiple)" is complete rubbish. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

sasy vyshniu, it might mean nothing to you, but it is not my goal before thinking to consider opinions of any shmuck like you.

if you don't like the way people dance or talk, don't come to the party trying to ruin it.

other than that - my statement is perfectly clear. ontological side of being is mathematics, science of being as such, without any empiricism. form of being, if you wish. and its anti-metaphysical stance means that there is no ONE being, no whole or totality, which, then, means that it is a domain of pure multiples. there is no set of all sets, only plurality of sets. or, if you wish, situations.

well, i'm making too much coffee for you, so, yeah, sasy wyshniu.

Therefore reality was destroyed, almost ironically, when we realised that there is no singular and absolute interpretation of reality.

this is contradictory. if there is no reality, only interpretations, than there could never have taken place such thing as destruction of reality. only of one interpretation of reality, which had its essence in trying to totalize and ''wholesize'' reality. reality is plural. it's not one.

..now back to my original post.

here is some particular examples of how electronic music brings new things to art of music. and how they are true and not simulations.

there is two works\projects i'd try to consider. namely, christian fennesz's work with ruyichi sakamoto and alva noto's (carsten nicolai's) work with same sakamoto. these are not purely electronical works. rather electroacoustic. in sakamoto's work with fennesz (''cendre'') we hear piano improvbized by sakamoto and electronics by fennesz. and they sound together. there is something other you experience than just by listening to piano, or electronics. in my terms electronics creates space for piano. a room for it. and, essentialy, being included in the process it sheds some light onto things that are in it. room moves piano as piano fills the space of the room. it is novelty, and creating something new and consistent, it has as its index the event of truth. it is an event in music. hence, true. it's not the sum of its parts, but some new being. which the sole purpose of art.

sakamoto's work with carsten nicolai brings forth another type of relation between electronics and piano. now it is piano that works as a space-place which is broken, extended and inhabited by electronical operations (very basic). as such piano never existed before. its (music's) genuine novelty is extension and different variations of piano-idea as a space. thus, in doing it, it creates a new being, non-existent before (the event of electronics).

these are general remarks, and have nothing to do with time of the music - it could have been that it was done before (these types of musical operations). the thing is, it couln't have been done without electronics. ergo, electronics are able to bringing forth true works (solo or in acoustic colaboration). so, it has its idea and being, and is not just a simple variation of difference. it is new thought in music. as irrational numbers were new type of beings in mathematics some time ago.

if you don't like the way people dance or talk, don't come to the party trying to ruin it.

other than that - my statement is perfectly clear. ontological side of being is mathematics, science of being as such, without any empiricism. form of being, if you wish. and its anti-metaphysical stance means that there is no ONE being, no whole or totality, which, then, means that it is a domain of pure multiples. there is no set of all sets, only plurality of sets. or, if you wish, situations.

Yes sorry to butt in and ruin the party. But what can I say? Ideas are cheap. I think you can drown in meaningless ideas like this.

it is novelty, and creating something new and consistent, it has as its index the event of truth. it is an event in music. hence, true. it's not the sum of its parts, but some new being. which the sole purpose of art.

Sorry to butt in again. But you really need to get out of bed, stop reading the "Philosophy for beginners" books and start relating to people. This is aesthetic drivel. I will give you some credit in that I understand you are not writing in your first language. However, the sole purpose of art has never been to create "some new being". Nor can truth be an index. What you are saying is you like Mr Sakamoto's work. OK. Say it. Don't bury it in pointless pretention.

And I have to repeat my earlier question. Is this a joke? You haven't rediscovered the secrets of Baroque counterpoint have you?

Yes sorry to butt in and ruin the party. But what can I say? Ideas are cheap. I think you can drown in meaningless ideas like this.

well, you seem to be a dog. and dogs should go out to the street. or, even better, just go to the local low-life bar, find the meanest and ugliest guy in there and get into a dog-fight. that will help.

this kind of talk does nothing on the net. do not go trying to insult anyone you don't know.

Sorry to butt in again. But you really need to get out of bed, stop reading the "Philosophy for beginners" books and start relating to people. This is aesthetic drivel. I will give you some credit in that I understand you are not writing in your first language. However, the sole purpose of art has never been to create "some new being". Nor can truth be an index. What you are saying is you like Mr Sakamoto's work. OK. Say it. Don't bury it in pointless pretention.

And I have to repeat my earlier question. Is this a joke? You haven't rediscovered the secrets of Baroque counterpoint have you?

i'm in bed less than you could imagine. firstly, you don't know what i do for a living. i bet my salary, you could not sustain a week like that. so get off or step up.

now as for 'philosophy for beginners', let's say i could give you credit for calling works of plato, aristotle, spinoza, kant, hegel, heidegger, derrida, deleuze 'philosophy of beginning'. for any great philosophy treatise or book is a new beginning.