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Re: Matthias' conversation



Excellent thoughts, Ted, thanks for sharing..

Many similar ideas here in this Interview. Mini-Documentary:

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Music for a Divided World (2017)













On Jan 30, 2021, at 13:40, Ted Killian <tedkillian@charter.net> wrote:

Dear Andy/Matthias,

Among EDP users, former users, non-users, and many others I see a tendency to musically express all sorts of (pleasant and unpleasant) things if the artistic need, concept, intent, and will are there — plus the means (maybe hardware, maybe software) to accomplish same.

Many of us may or may not appreciate long continued exposure to what I sometimes playfully (even admiringly) call “glitchtronica,” (a whole category occupying my iTunes library) but the truth is that it is very truly reflective of many peoples lives these days (and has been for many decades now).

Life imitates art, imitates life, imitating art (and so on) . . . and if the means were not there, artists and musicians often find other means and/or make those means for themselves.

I love and appreciate “normal” music (clear structure, identifiable “hooks,” “riffs,” identifiable rhythm, melodic and hummable “tunes,” etc.) as much as anybody — the vast majority of my CD/MP3 collection falls into this category. 

Who cannot fall in love with Bach and remain human?

However, I have also have come to appreciate diverse “musics” that almost have an absence of some or most those things — an exposure to a broad spectrum of non-western, and more modern “avant grade” musics at a tender age is likely to blame.

My ears (and musical imagination) have become too “big” to stuff back into something smaller at this point, and . . . as a result, my own concept of what music is and might possibly be reflects all of that exposure.

Once one has seen and understood Picasso’s “Guernica” it is hard to go back to anything by Norman Rockwell with the same set of eyes.

Then again, at the same time, I wouldn’t want to spend all day, every day, only listening to my friend Jeff Kaiser’s work, or Penderecki’s, or Stockhausen’s . . . I would go nuts.

But I would sorely miss all of them if they were taken from my catalog of experiences — and would similarly “go nuts” if I had to listen only to top-40 (or even worse . . . modern “country” music) new age, or “muzak" all day, every day.

The genie is out of the bottle, Pandora’s box has been opened, humankind ejected from the garden — too late to turn back, you can never go home again as the same person (the child). 

Heavy, harsh, angsty, glitchy, and generally unpleasant musical expressions will exist as long as people (musicians and listeners) need them.

Funny thing is, as much as I listen to heavy, harsh, angsty, glitchy, seemingly random, rhythmically sputtering, nearly atonal music any more, I begin to hear it in nature all around me.

Birds can be pretty astounding and weird musicians, as can be waterfalls, and volcanoes.

Apropos of nothing (as the saying goes) . . .

I try to take each new musical experience as just that . . . a new door to open and explore.

Best regards,

Ted


On Jan 30, 2021, at 2:19 AM, Andy Butler <info@andybutler.com> wrote:

Matthias Grob
I would love to go deeper into this thought. but not now since I am in a rather delicate situation in Brasil and hopefully not on this channel... how about the good old mailing list?

Matthias Grob
now, let me breathe and finally whisper here what I think for decades (and did not say because it might be offensive and certainly bad for my work): while it's totally Fascinating what my friends create with my creation, its often a lot more Pleasant to my ears what they play without it (or less of it). so I did something wrong, no?
in other words, my ears have a problem with chopped music, at least when its at a fixed crossfade speed and pretty random moment of a note. can anyone feel or observe a similar tendency?




Charles Zwicky
212 414 9541 (voice only)