Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!agate!mahogany.Berkeley.EDU!maverick
From: maverick@mahogany.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: ensemble [was timbre perception etc.]
Message-ID: <1991Jun18.185719.13776@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 18 Jun 91 18:57:19 GMT
References: <2118@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> <1991Jun17.170258.17498@agate.berkeley.edu> <1991Jun18.163916.29315@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator)
Organization: UC Berkeley, University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 32

Linda Seltzer writes:
> Vance, you raised an interesting issue.  Too many musical analyses focus on
> pitch issues as if music were a flat document on a page instead of an
> interaction of people playing instruments.  We should be paying more
> attention to the sense of ensemble, the interaction among performers, etc.
> Not that I'm against analysis of pitch content, but maybe the pendulum has
> swung too far in that direction.  The same for pop music.  The notion of
> "tracks" has influenced things to the point of virtually obliterating any
> sense of dialog among performers.  Such dialog is clearly present in
> earlier styles such as old Boogie Woogie recordings.

Responses to this veer off in several directions.  In no particular order:

	* Pop use of the studio has on occasion been musically interesting,
even preserved the dialogue of performers -- take /Abbey Road/ from "Sun
King" onwards.
	* Lots of non-boogie-woogie has displayed dialogue; but in general
the versions of any music that make it to the mainstream lose it.  Case in
point: the mutation of the big-band style from early un-arranged Basie to
smooth composed Glenn Miller.
	* When has the "pendulum" of academic music discussion (my
interpretation of your "we") ever swung any direction but pitchward?

And the only one with any clear comp.music flavor, as I understand the
charter --

	* How, practically, can we achieve that feel of musical "actors"
and "dialogue" and "ensemble" in (studio) computer music?  David Jaffe's
article, the title of which suggests he suggests a solution, rests on a
somewhat strange idea of ensemble timing in human performance, and a
probably inappropriate model of rhythm performance as distortion of an
ideal....