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The Music of the Future

futuresymphony.org

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Re: The Music of the Future

#31

Post by beat »

tunesmith wrote: post #9

What other art forms dictate events as a function of time? Dance, I suppose. I must be missing something obvious. Maybe spoken word slams. Most other art forms that are performed over a period of time are not a function of time, but a function of dependency. In a play, you say your line after another actor finishes. Even in a movie it's the same way - it's not locked into an actual tempo until the editing process. Ex…

I was just noting tempo in other art forms last night. I went to a theatrical performance of the play The Lion in Winter (the perfect Christmas story for anyone who has ever wanted to lock their families in a dungeon for the holiday, or gets sick of parents openly playing favorites with kids just to spite each other). I kept comparing it in my mind to the film version, starring Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn. The film version just feels faster and snappier than the theatrical version did. Same dialog, same characters, same scenes, just faster. The movie was less funny and more dramatic than the play.

Re: The Music of the Future

#32

Post by iammyIP »

rudolf0 wrote: post #26
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. They've got their very sophisticated musical theory that's tied to their very sophisticated philosophy, and it produces music that is absolute garbage.

I'm not sure exactly what theories they're referring to here, but if you listen to an avant-garde musician like Stockhausen, you can still hear incredibly beautiful melodies and progressions and rhythms. They're just very different from the norm.

These melodies, progressions and rythms you hear are not there, especially with stockhausen, as he made that absence his main point. It's the same if you talk about seeing structures in old terrestrial tv noise patterns.

Re: The Music of the Future

#33

Post by [deleted] »

rudolf0 wrote: post #26
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. They've got their very sophisticated musical theory that's tied to their very sophisticated philosophy, and it produces music that is absolute garbage.

I'm not sure exactly what theories they're referring to here, but if you listen to an avant-garde musician like Stockhausen, you can still hear incredibly beautiful melodies and progressions and rhythms. They're just very different from the norm.

[deleted]

Re: The Music of the Future

#34

Post by iammyIP »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #29
beat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology isn't what makes music modern. The points raised in the article go much, much deeper than that. This makes me think of the composer Conlon Nancarrow, who mostly composed for player piano. He was often credited as being a "father of electronic music", which baffled him. As far as he was concerned, he'd never composed a single note for an electronic music. But his music was the earliest attempt at seriously…

> Serialization and 12-tone, for all their shortcomings, represented serious questioning of how notes should be organized at all. I think they failed because they dehumanized, and humanity is at the heart of music. Beautifully put. Off topic, but I think the same is true of brutalist architecture.

that seems like a good comparision, brutalism also happened around after ww2.

Re: The Music of the Future

#35

Post by 21 »

beat wrote: post #28
21 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a new popular genre gets invented or grabs the stage, like Trap music in the last couple of years, how do you view that? It's pretty obvious that it's different from what was there before, so it is an innovation in that sense. What's the take from "serious listeners" as mentioned in the article, just a mere stylistic change, I'm very curious about this.

As a cultural innovation, trap music is cool. But from a musical standpoint, it's not terribly innovative. It's still a lot of mid-tempo 4/4. The underlying dismantling of conventional harmony was done in hip-hop 30 years ago by Dr Dre, Terminator X, and other great innovative DJs of the early hip-hop era. That said, I think hip-hop is THE driving force behind innovation in pop today. Even country music is now being…

There was a paper I read some years ago about a music student analyzing modern trance music, how it relates to ancient tribal music, and how both relate to the brain. It also explained the mechanism behind the "drop", how the drop is caused by the brain anticipating it and then getting a reward for a good prediction, just like you feel nice when you can predict a twist in a movie or an ad.

What I am saying is that I think that what makes 4/4 so prevalent today is that it is somehow deeply connected to how our brains work, and if you consider popular music subject to Darwinian pressures, it is likely that 4/4 is the most "evolved" one (from a fitness view).

Anyway, I think that in 10 years we will be passing all of our music through a deep neural network, and then ask the network to create new things, like invent a new number one hit, cultural style, or create a new work in the style of Beethoven.

Re: The Music of the Future

#36

Post by iammyIP »

beat wrote: post #28
21 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a new popular genre gets invented or grabs the stage, like Trap music in the last couple of years, how do you view that? It's pretty obvious that it's different from what was there before, so it is an innovation in that sense. What's the take from "serious listeners" as mentioned in the article, just a mere stylistic change, I'm very curious about this.

As a cultural innovation, trap music is cool. But from a musical standpoint, it's not terribly innovative. It's still a lot of mid-tempo 4/4. The underlying dismantling of conventional harmony was done in hip-hop 30 years ago by Dr Dre, Terminator X, and other great innovative DJs of the early hip-hop era. That said, I think hip-hop is THE driving force behind innovation in pop today. Even country music is now being…

Disco is not dead in a pop context? Discos are full. 4/4 Beat is the norm. Ass shaking is standard. It's everywhere. The essence of disco and ass shaking is the essence of pop. Add sonified marriage/breakup proposals to it and then you got all pop in a basket.

Hiphop is not the driving force anymore, also it did not care about harmony at all in a special way. Hiphops focus has always been on rythm. The essence of hiphop is the political rap combined with sampling (pirate citations of all kind creatively layered together). Hiphop (especially rap) has been culturally annihilated.

Re: The Music of the Future

#37

Post by beat »

iammyIP wrote: post #36
beat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a cultural innovation, trap music is cool. But from a musical standpoint, it's not terribly innovative. It's still a lot of mid-tempo 4/4. The underlying dismantling of conventional harmony was done in hip-hop 30 years ago by Dr Dre, Terminator X, and other great innovative DJs of the early hip-hop era. That said, I think hip-hop is THE driving force behind innovation in pop today. Even country music is now being…

Disco is not dead in a pop context? Discos are full. 4/4 Beat is the norm. Ass shaking is standard. It's everywhere. The essence of disco and ass shaking is the essence of pop. Add sonified marriage/breakup proposals to it and then you got all pop in a basket. Hiphop is not the driving force anymore, also it did not care about harmony at all in a special way. Hiphops focus has always been on rythm. The essence of hip…

Disco isn't just 4/4... it's a particular 16th note hi-hat groove, conventions around the use of string synths, etc. It's a stylistic period piece, and the underlying rhythms aren't widely heard these days.

I don't know why you think hip hop has been "culturally annihilated". I hear it as an incredibly dynamic and forward-looking genre.

Re: The Music of the Future

#38

Post by haywirez »

sublimeloge wrote: post #12

I expect that this article's title will give some Hacker News readers an incorrect impression of what it's about. As the article mentions, this talk was given at the Donaueschingen Festival, so the audience almost certainly consisted mostly of fans of avant-garde contemporary classical music. If the author only mentions jazz or rock, or electronics only in passing, it's because he's primarily talking about the future…

For easily digestible ideas about the future of popular/electronic music, I can recommend Adam Harper's book[0], blog[1] and his recently started podcast/show[2].

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Music-Imagining-Millennium-M...

[1] https://rougesfoam.blogspot.com

[2] https://www.rbmaradio.com/shows/adam-harpers-bubblebath (might need non-US proxy)

Re: The Music of the Future

#39

Post by ciconia »

Not really surprising considering the venue and the audience in front of which this talk was given, but still, a complete disregard for the greatest musical phenomenon of the 20th century _in classical music_, that is John Cage and the profound revolution he has brought to musical thinking is more than enough reason to reject this as nonsense.

It just goes to show how the so-called "avant garde" in classical music is disconnected, and frankly, quite old. It really has nothing to do with the future.

Re: The Music of the Future

#40

Post by iammyIP »

beat wrote: post #37
iammyIP wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disco is not dead in a pop context? Discos are full. 4/4 Beat is the norm. Ass shaking is standard. It's everywhere. The essence of disco and ass shaking is the essence of pop. Add sonified marriage/breakup proposals to it and then you got all pop in a basket. Hiphop is not the driving force anymore, also it did not care about harmony at all in a special way. Hiphops focus has always been on rythm. The essence of hip…

Disco isn't just 4/4... it's a particular 16th note hi-hat groove, conventions around the use of string synths, etc. It's a stylistic period piece, and the underlying rhythms aren't widely heard these days. I don't know why you think hip hop has been "culturally annihilated". I hear it as an incredibly dynamic and forward-looking genre.

Yes, that 70's disco sound. That's gone; Like a snake 'Disco' has shed its skin. My point is that the essence of disco is pretty much alive. Take that to the contrast that the innovative essence of hiphop is resampling - that's pretty dead. Can you name any currently successful hip hop band that does radical resampling over all genres? It's not possible because of music industry lobbying.
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