I’ve been watching a seemingly endless array of movies.. that’s been my day today.. well that and an itty bitty bit of work.. fueled by the inspiration from some of those movies.. and perhaps this post will turn out to be similarly inspired.. but.. if I’m to post this, it can’t be too much of a post.. cause the real deal posts.. are too much work to have finished.. or to finish on a night like this.. it’s 5 AM after all.. and I’m tired.. so don’t expect too much.

So what am I driving at? No, not in this post.. but in life.. the life away from writing this thing.. Maybe I should try and explain what I mean.

One of the films I’ve watched in my recent array was a documentary on Thomas Merton.  Merton was a monk whom I read a bit of at some point around college.. He was important, for among other things, a kind of east west dialog.. and he was a bit of a prophet. I can’t quote him properly, but in my “what am I driving at question” he sorta communicated my meaning somewhere.. This idea that God is always giving us seeds, but those seeds rarely turn to fruit for the simple reason that the conditions aren’t quite right.

I have a difficult time making distinctions between myself and God sometimes. This is not to say that I have a hyper inflated ego, or anything like that.. but that the nature and depths of consciousness are such that.. well I suppose you could argue that it’s only from the stand point of the ego that we are so differentiated from the world that we could look at our selves as distinct individuals.. as a pose to seeing all the mutual dependancies.. from which we are a product.. and it is in this sense that I find the difficulty in distinguishing myself from God.

But my analogous thought to Merton’s, or my analogous meaning.. think of all the thoughts that you think over the course of a day, or a few days, and think of each thought like a seed from God.  Ok.. I know, you’re thoughts? But where do our thoughts come from? Where do they come from prior to there dawning on our awareness? They are, are they not, products of complex dynamics.. inside of which we are linked to, well, everything. Do you follow?

And these thoughts are also expressive of something else.. which is like.. oh lets call it our existential relationship to reality… err, maybe that’s not the best thing to call them.. or not the meaning I’m after here. Maybe it’s more like.. they are expressive of the course we are trying to navigate through life. They are somehow about choices we make.. we make the choice to think down a path.. or look down a path.. or perhaps to walk down it. These are the thoughts of that path.

But the choice of paths.. and all of this.. I use the phrase “choices we make,” but again there’s the ambiguity here. Conscious will is not really the thing in charge of our lives.. there is, after all, fait.. the seemingly random nature of the universe.. the issues of mice and men.. and of course, the unconscious factors. So when I ask “what am I driving at” what I’m trying to do is look at all those thoughts, and see what the path might be that they are expressive of.

I think of prayer life.. or my relationship to the divine.. as kind of “call and response” esk. I believe we all, even the atheists among us, have prayer lives.. have relationships to the divine. Now.. this is a “transfiguration of the common place” esk point of view.. This transfiguration of the common place.. well among other things was a book by Arthur Danto on Aesthetics.. It was a wrestling with issues of modern art, or what is often called modern art.. Dushamp’s water fountain, Warhol soup can’s.. some John Cage fun..

The idea is what is the implication of “the frame.” Well it’s quite a rabbit whole to go down, to try and fully explain this.. but the point is.. that there’s something we call “prayer,” there’s something we call “a relationship to the divine” and these terms.. are frames.. that frame things a certain way.. but if the thing we are trying to refer to with our frames.. is something intrinsic to the nature of.. lets call it prayer or relationship to the divine.. it might be possible to find things that hold these same intrinsic qualities.. which we do not put in these frames.

And so it is that I’ve spied the “unconscious spiritual lives” that exist in all of our lives.. without us even being aware of it. We, without realizing we are doing it.. say a prayer… ask God for something.. and we even get our selves an answer.. all while not being at all aware of it.

There is this notion that things are in “God’s hands.” This is.. a mysterious thing, is it not? Do we believe there’s some invisible force behind phenomenological reality? Well, in psychology it is fact in the sense that those things that we do not work out within our selves, we are forced to work out in our lives.. as our psychology makes them manifest them selves in our lives.

This is a complex point.. I mean what’s the distinction between us doing it and God doing it? This point is made even more complex by the fact that the psychologist is… in a very basic sense, a kind of substitute for a priest.. and that what we now call “psychology” was once called “spirit.”

In any event, I have my eyes firmly focused on this problem.. this question.. and the sorta unfolding of my own destiny and how that relates to these sorts of questions.

I’ve been sitting on this name for a good.. I don’t know, maybe 7 years? And so haven’t really mentioned it to anyone.. or not much anyway… and finally I’ve bought the URL, and posted a trailer to the site.. or the site is now a trailer for the future of the site.. or better yet, its a work in progress version of the trailer of the site..  and by work in progress what I really mean is that it’s like.. I’m sitting on my computer in the studio.. working on it, and you come over, peer over my shoulder, and see what’s going on.. and now I’m asking you for feed back.. and I really want it!

So, the site is… drum roll please Bad Sphincter Oedipus. It may take you a moment to decode.. so I’ll help you out.. Bad Sphincter Oedipus, of course, translates to Bad Ass Mother Fucker.. It is somewhat of an homage to Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.. The mother’s used to be called just mothers.. for mother fucker, but the label made them change it.. It’s an old term you’ll find in blues meaning someone who can really play “like a mother fucker”.. 

The basic idea of the trailer is that the real site I want to put together will be a lot of work, and its not clear to me exactly when I’ll get through it.. particular as my attention is often on other things.. I wanted to post some content around the Bad Sphincter Oedipus project.. and I felt like I needed to put up the site before I could start posting content.. and then the content would link back to the site.

Ok, lets talk about Matt’s Self Criticism / where I think it needs to go.

1. The Flash movie just loops.. and um.. plays sound, and the user doesn’t really have control over the sound.. this is bad.. though less bad for a band / music site then a conventional site.. but still not good. I’m not quite sure what to do about this.. should I give you youtube like controls where it plays  through once, pauses, and you can replay if you like? Should you have to press a button to make it start?
2. The design really isn’t thought out well. If you don’t watch the Flash movie, you wouldn’t know what the site was, or anything. To this I should add that I think the only way you’d come to this site is from a profile link on ether twitter or Youtube, or from a facebook fan page.. (once they let me set up such a thing, seems like they don’t like the name Sphincter) or whatever it is I set up.. you could see it in other ways, but that’s really what its  there for.
3. It is REALLY just thrown together, not really well designed at all.. as I say, its just a place holder for a site.. but depending on how long I keep it up there, before I get onto replacing it with an actual site… it might not be a bad idea to design it well.

And so, I’m looking for your feed back

What do you think? Do you think it’s bad to throw up a site like this as an interim solution? If I were to make an effort to not just finish this work in progress, but bother to design it right, what do you think I should be thinking about as I design it? Any other thoughts or feedback? Would love and appreciate any feedback anyone might have. 

I don’t know how realistic my video ideas are, or what.. my feeling at this particular moment is.. probably the most important thing is simply to commit to them.. in a long term sorta way.

Ok, here’s the basic deal.. Video is like.. big these days on the internet.. you may have noticed? I’m basically looking at video as packaging for my music.. or as an extension of the experience of my music.. as a part of the art object. I’m really approaching video from a unique sorta aesthetic perspective… 99.9% of all video production today is produced inside of a certain set of conventions that don’t really get pushed all that much. Sure, there’s great video and film work made this way.. This isn’t a giant value judgement about that.. but its also not what I’m seeking to do.. What I’m seeking to do is approach video from a very ART perspective.

At the moment this means.. screwing around.. It’s a combination of exploring certain ideas as they come to you, and trying to learn the tools… At the moment the tool I’m working with is Apple’s Motion… which is a part of Final Cut Studio.. as an aside, its breaking news that a new version has just come out.. but we shant speak about that.

The project started on a sorta doodling branding adventure a few months back.. I was working in Photoshop and Illustrator.. trying to craft out a logo.. based on some sketches I had done.. This also included messing around with photography.. what follows is a part of that project.. as it looked at one moment in time…

 Motion is a motion graphics / animation program.. and one of the things you can do is import photoshop files.. complete with there individual layers.. I did some funky things.. and placed the different layers at different places in space.. to basically turn something like the above image into a 3D image that I could fly the camera around.. and play with various.. well.. ideas.

I’ve been working steadily on this for the last 3 or 4 days; creating these various little psychedelic video clips. The resulting clips seems to be about some kind of exploration of identity and personal branding… or at least that’s what they made me think of.

The idea originally was to simply put out a sorta complicated screen cast of my DAW.. put it on Youtube.. so that I could sorta share what I do in a certain way..  and I figured if I did that.. I’d at least need some sorta titling / motion graphic sequences.. to sorta.. make it look serious.. I may still do this.. I don’t know.. but now I’m thinking of it more like music video elements.. to be sorta remixed together latter on.

There’s a whole sorta visual language.. set of icons.. symbols.. whatever.. that make up the visual identity I plan on making for myself. [editors note: Matt has been working on this language since at least college] It’s something you are much more inclined to read as Fine Art then.. well communications / graphic design.. Though as I elluded to earlier.. I am thinking about this from something of a design perspective.

My kinda goal is to try and produce something that looks like a million bucks.. something that makes you go “wow, that’s fucking cool.” Make something that would seem to have the sorta production values you could expect from the music video of a major label artist.. way back when they had big budgets…. But something totally different.

The hard fact of the matter is I’m early in on learning to do this stuff.. and a great distance from where my ambition is aiming.. and it is not totally clear that I’ll be able to realize these goals I’ve set for myself…

Well.. whatever.. I actually don’t think those kinds of production values are all that important.. I mean they are for my vision.. but I also think if you just do good story telling.. and put together a number of good pieces… I think you really can have something.. so that’s really kinda what its about.. but.. why not aim high?

[editors note: This was meant to be posted about a week ago] 

I just received word on this.. well moments ago.. and I’m all shook up by it.. more so then I had expected to.. I had gotten word that she wasn’t doing well as of a week or so ago.. sounded bad as a couple of aunts had made there way to upstate NY.. which.. you know, is not a great sign.

I, and my parents.. lived in Mass.. I grew up out here… its a 3 hour and 15 minute drive up to Rhinebeck NY.. where.. well my mom’s side of the family is from.. so we pretty much make it up there for Christmas.. every year since I was a kid.. and maybe other times here and there to.. but.. on some levels its like visiting another planet.. and some how in the disconnections of distance I find myself wondering why I feel so shook up.

The picture above was taken.. what, last summer? We had a family reunion..  

A little latter:

I’ve been going through the various picture I have of her.. that I haven’t gotten around to posting yet.. here’s a couple..

The blog theme kinda squishes it a little, or I imagine it will…

Latter that night

I think the shock of it.. has sorta settled a little bit. Now the mind turns to other things.. like getting my father ready for the trip up.. and all that might entail.. and what have you…

Seems kinda like a rough time.. I lost my mother a year ago last december.. which seems, in someways, almost like a life time ago.. and now loosing my grandmother.. seems like a lot of loss in a short span of time.. going from feeling like life is almost immortal.. to mortality meditation just barging down the door of consciousness.. regularly.. 

Right now its kind of difficult to take it in.. that I won’t see my grandmother living again.. that that presence wont be there in the same way..

I think you can kind of feel her presence in these pictures…

I’m not even sure how many years ago it was now.. when her health came into question… That it was as many years ago as it was… is something.

I feel a little bit of a sense of loss of words..

A couple latter: 

In the following picture.. I don’t know if you can really see it in this picture.. at this size.. you’d have to see it at its original size on flickr… but its like a patented ”Mammy gesture,” the way her lips are sorta… 

tucked in a little.. Having something to do with her sense of humor.. as she interacts with my Dad.. its def a family with a lot of personality… that much is beyond doubt..

These are definitely pictures to be seen at full size.. (and not this size)

There’s something about the realism of photography, and these pictures, that draws me in… Something about traditional media aesthetics.. and the sorta mediation effect they have between us and reality.. how this all shapes us.. and then to have this little window here.. that in someway says “now this is what life is really about.” 

The oldest of these pictures are.. well less then a year.. most around the 6 month mark..

Isn’t that a beautiful picture?  

Reminds me of this bit of Jung:

I could probably go on for some length talking about this sort of thing.. they psyche and life and death… these stages of our lives..  but I’m feeling a bit tried at the moment.. perhaps I’ll pick this up again latter.

Many days latter:

I plan on posting more.. about my time in Rhinebeck NY, and all this sorta thing… 

I regard exploring new possibilities, as an artist.. stretching into new things.. as being one of the most important things you can do.. and it’s probably true in most other walks of life. Generally it’s a kind of oscillation.. between that area where you are really strong.. and the new areas you’re just starting to explore… It’s about integrating these two things.

In some of my newer directions.. I have some fear that what I’m doing might be nieve… The reason being because I am venturing into areas that are more conventional then my work normally is.. so that if you’re taking you’re first few steps on a very well trotted road, how excited can you be about what you find? I mean.. sure, you’re excited.. but maybe for everyone else its “Ho hum, I’ve seen that before.”

Still.. it is still me making the music.. still a product of my aesthetic thinking.. my aesthetic sensibilities.. still something that largely comes from within..  still my process.. etc. So whatever it is I’m doing.. it’s still inescapably me.. still has a certain.. I’m not sure what.

Ultimately.. where I see the future in the new stuff is finding ways for it to be more and more imprinted with.. whatever it is that’s unique in me.. and integrating it with the older stuff. 

Into the New Music 

If  you’ve been listening to my stuff for any length of time.. you’ll note that this new track is basically an evolution of some of what we heard on ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures:

Glitchy Goodness mix (As of yet untitled early mix) by Matt Searles

What we hear here is what we were hearing in Deep Space.. but now arranged, mixed, and sorta composed around.. in a kind of new way. It’s been said that the Deep Space stuff was like exploring out into space.. and now we are listening in on Alien conversations..

It’s a crazy kind of dark and harsh ambient.. or that track is, isn’t it? Makes me feel like a journey into the shadow side of the soul.

About this direction

The direction opens up a whole lot in the way of possible possibilities… err, so let me describe the process of the above track.

Inside Reaktor 

I started out in Reaktor.. with a sound source by which you can make music / sound / whatever.. via twiddling some knobs with your mouse.. by twiddling the parameters of sequences, synthesizers, sound generators, effects processors, and mixers.. you can only adjust one parameter at a time.. and you tend to not do it too abruptly most of the time.. you spend a lot of time navigating the interface just to get so you can get the thing you want to tweak’s parameter…

Controlling one parameter at a time.. sorta slowly.. with gaps between where you can tweak.. has the effect of making for a somewhat slowly organically evolving sound.. and because we are talking about parameter tweaking.. its as if the resultant sound is.. well it sounds like its coming from the same device who’s pattern and behavior is shifting over time.. and expressive in that way.

Parallel Compression  

So you do this over and over again.. generating a few sound files.. and you take these sound files and submit them to an automated process of what is called “parallel compression.” Parallel compression means.. you have a sound source.. that gets thrown through many compressors working in parallel.. and you mix the outs of the various compressors.. indeed I mix the sends into the compressors as well as the sounds out.. The idea is that the various compressors you’re dealing with all color the sound in different ways.. in relationship to things like.. the dynamics of the audio.. and they also effect the dynamics of the audio differently..  

So we are both colorizing the sounds and shaping there dynamics.. the latter of which will allow us more control once we get to the mixing and arrangement process.

The Mixing and Arranging Process

Next I take the audio files and load them into my DAW.. Digital Performer. 

There’s certain interesting aesthetic issues that pop up about this point. Because each sound file was generated independently of one another.. there’s no “design” to there interrelationships accept that they were all created at the same tempo… There relationships of timber and pitch (counterpoint, harmony, orchestration).. are.. in essence indeterminate.. which kinda brings us into John Cage Country…

What is similar is that.. in many cases the effects treated to the instrument are the same.. or at least some of the effects are the same.. and they are all created via the same process.. so the way they evolve over time is very similar: Process dictates a probability distribution of attributes.. so that its as if there’s a systems level interrelationship of stuff.

The process of mixing and arranging is then our chance to insert a little design into the production.. For now I’m not doing anything much more sophisticated then deciding when an audio recording should be inserted into the arrangement, choosing additional effects for that instrument.. effects of the general mix.. and mixing the instruments.. –Although I have been creating custom stuff with say.. Native Instruments Machine.

The Mixing

In my conventionally unconventional music.. harmony is at least in part conceived of as 3 dimensional..  What I mean is.. the issue of overlapping frequency ranges is a central issue to the mix engineers stock and trade.. and some of how this is dealt with is panoramic positioning.. and just where a sound should be located in a virtual sound stage. Because in my music the mixing and the composition are integrated.. harmony is conceptualized in a context of spacial relationships.

So if you think about it.. the process of mixing.. can be like a process of contextualizing material.. which means embedding meaning into it..  and um.. that kinda thing.

What you end up doing is listening to the material of the audio.. the various audio files you have.. and asking questions.. What you do is making decisions about.. what to highlight at one moment or another.. what should be dominant in the mix.. how the sounds should interrelate.. how to make things interesting in terms of how the track evolves over time..

So in essence the mixing is the composing.. moving things around in space.. automating effects.. and all this kind of thing.

Where Maschine fits into all of this?

Maschine is in essence a pattern based percussive sequencer.. and a little bit more. You compose in it various patterns.. and then in your DAW you tell it when to play what patterns..

So, at the very least Maschine represents the possibilities of pattern based sequencing.. to my music.. something that’s very good for real time music production.. and based sequencing is a big part of what’s going on inside of Reaktor in much of this production.

Machine gets mixed in like any other element.. though its the one element where we have conscious control of.. so that it works to somehow.. fit things together.. I guess.. another layer of it..

Where to go from here

It seems to me that there’s an incredible number of possibilities moving forward from here.. I have an obvious interest in working out how to create a kind of music that is similar to this.. in a live scenario.. and then there’s all the kind of possible mutations of this…

With Kore [ and hands on controllers more genearally ] 

Kore, shown here:

represents one obvious set of possibilities. You can load up various software instruments, effects, and what not.. into Kore.. and control them via its buttons and knobs.. which you map to various parameters of the instruments / effects in question.. You have various pages of mappings that you can then move between.. allowing you real time control.. without a mouse.. and in a way were you can control multiple parameters at once.

Real time control of software, in this fashion.. radically changes the way you think, and how you work with.. the software.. it’s really awesome.

 A day or so latter:

Implications 

The full implications of real time hands on control of software in this fashion, and relative to this sorta production style are really.. well more then I can really lay out in full for you here today… but I can throw a bit at yea

Manipulating multiple parameters at once

As mentioned earlier… mousing around single parameters at a time produces a certain kind of organic evolution of the sounds.. hands on control is a very different beast.. we are not talking about… well there’s a certain artistry of performance.. kind of more power.. and with that power comes the need to know how to temper it.. and anyway.. there’s a good deal to explore here.

Beyond this.. things can get a little complex.. especially is we are using multiple controllers.. and the idea that we can now play with interrelationships on the performance level.

Recording Automation rather then Audio

A significant difference between the way I was tweaking away in Reaktor.. and tweaking away with controllers in a DAW is that we are now recording automation data of a performance.. and not simply the resultant audio.

This means we can go back in and edit the performance.. we can perform on one set of parameters on one take, and another on another take.. so that the results can become a good deal deal more complex in how they evolve over time..

There is a kind of negative.. which is.. well has to do with most modern music.. that you don’t really have to make choices.. when you can alway edit / adjust things latter… this is a kind of long conversation.. but basically it has to do with.. the creative process.. and being pushed into situations where you have to work your way out of the hard way.. and in so doing.. often that’s how brilliant things happen.. But without going to far into this topic.. I will say that ultimately its up to the artist, in how to relate to the technology on this level. 

Taking it to Ableton Live, and the joys of patterns.

I imagine the next phase of things is to take the whole production, and bring it into Ableton Live.. creating patterns.. using MIDI effects to tweak the patterns.. and make it so the whole production is produced this way…

Here we really get to thinking deeply about how to take this into the live arena.. also… we are getting out of Reaktor.. and using the rest of my instrument library.

This is sorta like.. “lets go do stuff in the usual studio” stuff. It’s hard to say too much about a path you’ve yet to walk but.. An Ableton Live based… pattern based.. compositional process.. can actually lead you into a world of more control.. more.. lets say design developed.. stuff.. then traditional linear sequencing… 

Basically.. you have a bunch of patterns.. and you play with how the different patterns play together.. this can be how you think of production and composition in the real design sense.. or it can be like the design of a framework for improvisation.

There’s perhaps more to say here.. but I’m tired..

Integration

The final subject is really integration.. to integrate this stuff with the stuff that I’m actually good at… or maybe the better way of putting it is where I’m already strong..

I see this kinds of hands on.. tweak it.. kind of organic evolution of sound.. as having certain elements that my more programmed.. crazy attention to detail music lacks.. In case you haven’t heard this stuff.. a reasonable example might be this remix of the Cobert Report Interview with Lawrence Lessig.. I did recently

BSO Steven Cobert Lawrence Lessig ReMix by Matt Searles

This track took me about a month to do.. there’s a hell of a lot more attention to detail then you might notice at first..  ( including a fair amount that doesn’t really come out when listened to streamed).. the problem with this track is perhaps mostly how short it is.. as so much of this sorta thing for me tends to be about taking a little trip.. and its hard to go that far in a couple of minutes.. In some ways you can listen to it as a prototype for the new direction of what we are calling my conventional work..  Even with whatever it’s flaws might be.. it does represent a step forward on that trajectory… 

I love the idea of taking a whole month to do a single track.. I mean just the level of detail you can achieve that way… that much love and attention to every moment.. of course it’s a little on the unrealistic side.. but still!

The integration can probably happen along multiple axises

 

1. If you create a music form where it literally takes a month to finish a couple minutes of music.. to have this along side music where in a day’s work can give you twenty plus minutes worth of music.. well.. now the month for a couple minutes is realistic.. 
2. I have this notion of a whole album that is of the tweak kind.. where via creative mixing.. the super programmed detail stuff.. sorta comes out of that world.. where in you’re really considering the album as a whole. ( which may not make a lot of sense for custom play lists )
3. The Tweak-age stuff could be an element inside of the super detailed programed sequence stuff.
4. There’s a lot of stuff I’m thinking about where.. you have.. say.. a kind of tweakage space reverb and delay inside of a deeply programmed mix..  

A Concluding Statement

Stretching is important.. and that’s really what this is about.. What’s slightly strange about this post is that it seems to almost emphasize the.. let call it objective facts.. over the sorta internal organizing principles that would be.. what is actually known.. the facts.. we must.. as Hunter Thompson would say.. buy the ticket, take the ride.. to really get at.. so it is a strange synthesis.. and we’ll have to see what happens.

In any event.. in the end.. this is just like a confession of one tiny piece in a much larger puzzle

 

I’m getting ready to slip into unconsciousness.. and feeling sorta in awe of how long it’s been since I’ve posted.. and all the 100s of drafts I’ve rejected inside of that time frame.. mixed with all the things I feel inspired to write about… So I figure I gotta post something.. and whatever it is, its got to be short.. so..

I’m thinking about electronic music a little bit.

Electronic music, to mind at this moment, is like the most incredible genera of music around.. I suppose this is in large part because it doesn’t really refer to a genera, but more a way of making music.. and if you’re familiar with how music is being made today.. I think it’s reasonable to say that at least 90% of everything made today is made on a computer.. and thus is electronic music.. even if we don’t generally view it as such.

But what I really dig is the seriousness of the genera.. or that there are areas of electronic music that are so serious.. be it from a compositional perspective.. philosophical sorta aesthetic perspective… and then.. you have club music, rave music.. dance music so to speak.. and then it goes so far as the music that underlies Rap.. or you think of the stuff going on in Nine Inch Nails or Marilyn Manson…

History of Electro Acoustic Music 101 

The history of electronic music can probably be told in a variety of ways.. but basically you have these major universities.. and only a few of them.. back in the early early days.. that were able to afford these computers that would take up whole rooms.. big rooms at that.. that were the only places with the power to make it happen.. and so only a very few were able to get access to these things.. and so the early stuff has this rather serious classical sorta influence..

Eventually.. out comes these analog synths from folks like Moog.. made popular by Wendy Carlos and the like… and eventually made cheap enough that regular musicians could afford…

Now.. all these years latter.. there’s a hell of a lot of tools for electronic music that you can down load for free.. and then we have the commercial software..

Seriously Serious Avant Guard fun 

I’m getting ready to enter a phase where in I’ll call myself a serious electronic sound artist.. seems like a good way of putting it. Not that I ever wasn’t.. but now there’s a kind of new focus to it.

One of the areas I’m naturally attracted to is.. a kind of world of seriously serious seriousness.. of.. avant guard delights. Historically this is music Frank Zappa might call “ugly,” …ugly not being a negative term here. I think of the 60s revolutionary spirit.. the rethinking of basic values.. and the effect that some stuff became very difficult listening.. and something good for the more snobby among us.. to listen to and think we is better then them…  

Matt’s mitigation of the ugly 

LOL, of course I am better then them.. where’s my Thursten Howl voice? But um.. I’ve never meant to make music that was in anyway unapproachable. The issue of approachability is a design consideration.. But.. I’m also interested in exploring sorta far out ideas… 

I guess.. and I don’t know.. it’s hard to tell at this point.. but it seems like there’s certain compositional ideas.. ways of thinking.. a kind of.. set of things.. which kind of characterize my music at this point.. and then.. there’s a set of things that I’m exploring with the idea of adding new dimensions to it. So.. basically I have a set of strands.. all at varying levels of maturation.. that I basically weave together.

At the moment I started to write this post.. I’ve been contemplating the development of a whole lot of new strands… some of these strands I’ve been contemplating for the last.. almost 20 years.

The construction of these strands.. some of them anyway.. seems rather daunting.. steep learning curves required to get anywhere near my vision..  Should I speak of these? Well.. it would take a whole post to explore but a part of this but…

Algorithmic Composition

What we are talking about here.. basically, is writing programs that create compositions… Indeed create performances. Or perhaps we aren’t writing the program.. perhaps we are just setting up conditions..

My first thoughts on this matter… I was probably about 15 years old.. having just taken up guitar.. and was a bit of metal head.. Early on I had become interested in making music that was.. strange.. out there.. experimental… in part as a kind of philosophical reaction to the music I’d heard before.. it was a revolutionary spirit..

Let’s say we wanted to use an algorithmic approach to making heavy metal music.. how might we go about it? 

Theory Geek-O-Ree 

My view had been.. lets start with a scale.. create a randomly generated synthetic scale.. 8 tones.. where we could use a regular diatonic framework.. warped into our synthetic scale. From where we could have a probabilistic framework..  

Perhaps it would start by thinking about chord progressions for a riff.. or something like that.. divide time up into..  a few parts.. say what chord it is.. and that would be like the center around which the various instruments would play.. generally play one of the 3 notes that would make up that triad.. or perhaps playing the 7th, or perhaps playing a 3rd below the route..

We could.. at any given time divide up the chord.. saying this or that instrument would play around this or that note of the chord.. so you’re talking about a kind of harmonized modalism…

The Aesthetics of which are? 

In a certain way.. the kind of ideas I had were like a quantified version of how I actually make music… how I think about composition.. accept that my compositional framework… it’s like a way of thinking… and eventually.. in my process.. I leave my thinking behind.. go on this or that tangent.. and whatever.

I don’t actually have much of a music theory background.. what little I have is.. extrapolated, questions.. I eventually came to think of it as.. like being the product of an out dated cosmology… and so set out to build a new one… and I suppose that’s what my music actually is about. It’s really a kind of revelation of an intuition.

A few latter:

Think I better post this.. if for no other reason then to say I’ve posted something recently at least!