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The Music of the Future

futuresymphony.org

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Re: The Music of the Future

#81

Post by jerf »

ssalazar wrote: post #63
jerf wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If anything, they're pretty strongly wedded to some very narrow musical conventions, such as 12 tone equal temperament and basic time signatures like 4/4 and 3/4. Getting past those limitations is doable, but difficult." It depends on what you're using. You can get anything from a system that can't be pulled off of 12 tone equal temperament and some conventional time signature all the way up to systems that offer co…

> When I was going to school and minoring in electric music there was a guy playing with "granular synthesis"; his result sounded like telemetry. I actually have no idea what telemetry is supposed to sound like but I think this guy was just making bad music, with granular synthesis. Granular synthesis can actually be quite beautiful and tonal if thats what you're looking for, see examples [1] and [2] just to dig up s…

My point was not to snark about granular synthesis; my point was to demonstrate the amount of freedom that exists in synthesis methods that have been around for a long time. I understand the criticism that a lot of music is stuck in 12-tone equal temperament, I don't understand the idea that electronic music as a whole is stuck there.

Re: The Music of the Future

#82

Post by elliotec »

rhizome wrote: post #46
elliotec wrote: post #5

A painfully boring chunk of indecipherable drivel that has nothing to do with the future of music.

How can you know whether it has anything to do with the future of music if it's indecipherable to you?

Ok, from what I could tell, which wasn't much, it didn't have anything to do with the actual future of music.

Re: The Music of the Future

#83

Post by cannam »

beat wrote: post #79
cannam wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the theory (which I think I associate with Ambrose Field) that we recently came out of a period in which invention in music was tightly associated with technological capability. Most apparent in pop where, for example, each new wave of chart hits in the 80s was driven by the sounds available on some newly-released synth, but the same thing goes on with electro-acoustic music (timbrally, spatially) and modern c…

Why not traditions? Why do we have to make progress? There are musical traditions that started in the second half of the 20th century, along with recording and radios, that I think will last for centuries. I wouldn't be shocked to hear electric blues, bluegrass, or thrash metal 300 years from now.

Good question, not one I have any tidy answer for.

The fact that we have so many "more traditional" genres in the first place is a result of some progress or invention having happened in the past. Why should it stop?

Novelty is something people seek in every field of course. But some of what makes music music (as opposed to just a soothing or vexing noise) has to do with anticipation and surprise. Perhaps novelty broadly is appealing to music listeners for similar reasons to why any music is appealing in the first place.

Although many forms in e.g. the classical canon might have been inspired by new technology of the day (most obvious example probably being the piano), genres have often arisen for reasons other than technology. It's plausible that our excursion through a hyper-speed series of technological drivers of musical novelty was just a crazy detour. But then we're back to the earlier question, what will it mean to put aside technological novelty as a driver? Or is it absurd to suggest that it has ended?

Re: The Music of the Future

#84

Post by rudolf0 »

iammyIP wrote: post #32
rudolf0 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That seems very wrong just on the face of it. Stockhausen has written numerous papers about his theories of rhythm. And if you listen to his music there is undoubtedly a sense of rhythm, just not any conventional ones. There are also definitely melodies.

Serialism does not mean non-melodic. Procedural creation of music does not mean the melodies and rhythms "don't exist". If anything, they're more there than they are in traditional music.

Re: The Music of the Future

#85

Post by rudolf0 »

iammyIP wrote: post #50
iamatworknow wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the only person who can predict the melodies, progressions, and rhythm is the composer, doesn't that inherently make the composition less random than completely unpredictable and truly random TV noise?

In historical serial music there is certainly a leftover of human interaction with the compositional rule system, so in practice it resembles more to a chaotic attractor than complete noise, i agree. The core conceptual idea of serial music is however the inevitable disembodyment of historic human music into pure structural sound patterns beyond history and beyond (historic) emotions.

Even if they're purely structural, how does that make them non-rhythmic or non-melodic?

Re: The Music of the Future

#86

Post by mafribe »

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…

   As a cultural innovation, trap music is cool.
In what sense? It's same old same old "Where da hoes at where da bitches at" soft-porn junk that the distraction industry has been selling to teenagers for about 3 decades.

Re: The Music of the Future

#87

Post by mafribe »

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.

   it's a particular 16th note
Every pop music genre has a signature sound. This is acoustic branding. It's vital for pop-music to function that the audience can determine in a fraction of a second what brand is being offered. Nothing deep going on.

   I hear it as an incredibly dynamic 
   and forward-looking genre.
What dynamic and forward-looking about 3 decades of "where da hoes at where da bitches at"?

Re: The Music of the Future

#88

Post by mafribe »

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.

Modern pop music is to music what brutalism is to architecture. Cheap, repetitive, horrible.

Re: The Music of the Future

#89

Post by mafribe »

iammyIP wrote: post #32
rudolf0 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

   It's the same if you talk about seeing 
   structures in old terrestrial tv noise 
   patterns.
Noise has plenty of patterns and structure, but it doesn't get repeated. Similar with modern classical music.

Re: The Music of the Future

#90

Post by mafribe »

rudolf0 wrote: post #84
iammyIP wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That seems very wrong just on the face of it. Stockhausen has written numerous papers about his theories of rhythm. And if you listen to his music there is undoubtedly a sense of rhythm, just not any conventional ones. There are also definitely melodies. Serialism does not mean non-melodic. Procedural creation of music does not mean the melodies and rhythms "don't exist". If anything, they're more there than they are…

   If anything, they're more there than 
   they are in traditional music.
Exactly. What makes modern classical music so disturbing to those socialised on pop music is the absence of endless repetition that is the true essence of pop.
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