Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!mhuxt!mhuxr!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Arthur Pewtey) Newsgroups: net.music,net.music.synth Subject: Re: Drum Machines - A Flame Message-ID: <1040@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Sat, 1-Jun-85 16:11:42 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1040 Posted: Sat Jun 1 16:11:42 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 6-Jun-85 20:38:10 EDT References: <317@mhuxr.UUCP> <979@pyuxd.UUCP> <320@mhuxr.UUCP> Organization: The Chartered Accountants Who Want to Be Lion Tamers Association Lines: 107 Xref: linus net.music:6633 net.music.synth:303 >>Your Max Roach example shows how humans produce "alive" (by YOUR standards) >>music. They fail to show WHY drum machines ipso facto produce "dead music". >>Your standards of "aliveness" seem based on notions of jazz improvisation >>being the prime factor in "aliveness" of music. Does this mean that >>classical (sic) music, with all its notes written out in advance, is >>necessarily dead? [ROSEN] > Rhythm is at the core of all music. > ... the Kronos Quartet doing interpretations of Thelonious Monk. No > improvisation whatsoever, yet the Quartet captures the essence of Monk's > music. How? They grasp his sense of rhythm and it colors their reading > of his music. The key is interpretation. Classical music gives its > practitioners less leeway in remaking a piece in the player's image than jazz. > As a result, interpretation is everything. Since you can't change the > notes, you must really dig into the ones that are there and render > your understanding of them, and of the piece as a whole. The subtle > shadings and shifts of emphasis that are the interpretive devices of > classical musicians are rhythmic in nature. Any and all of those variations and interpretations can be demonstrated in electronic rhythm machines. Who is to say that the emphasis in music should be on the player's "interpretation"/alteration of the original intentions of the composer. Who better than the original composer to decide how he/she wants the music to be played? What you're complaining about (apparently) is the lack of "interpretation" on the part of the machine. Of course a machine doesn't get to interpret! A Linn or a Drumulator or whatever isn't designed to be an AI project. It's designed to be a recording/notational system of laying out a drum part to be reproduced as the composer intended. The ability to "interpret" only adds to the experience of the player, it doesn't *necessarily* add to the listener's experience in hearing what the composer had in mind, which IS the bottom line. > The core of any successful composition, classical or otherwise, is > rhythmic. Listen to the four note theme that begins Beethoven's Fifth. > The dramatic impact ("thus fate knocks at our door") of the motif > is due to its rhythmic, rather than harmonic content. That's funny, I always thought the core of a piece of music WAS the harmonic content. Perhaps that's based on what type of music I listen to. Perhaps your emphasis is based on the type of music YOU listen to and the way you listen to it. Personal value judgments, not factual truths about music. > I could go on, but I am sure you get the picture. Rhythm is at the core > of any successful music. Rhythm is the essential part of performance > because it is the only tool available across all types of musical > performance. The sound of a drum machine, being the result of prior > programming, can't participate in the subtle (and not so subtle) > interplay of rhythmic variations that give a performance its tension > and crackle. Conclusion: drum machines have no place in the performing > process. Crock! Rhythm is one of many elements that make up "successful" music, and it happens to be the one YOU personally place the most emphasis on. Fine. I state again, in your above paragraph you place particular emphasis on jazz improvisatory technique when you speak of interplay the way you do. Now, to take an absolutely contradictory point of view: The single most boring concert I have ever attended (with the exception of a Jerry Garcia show which very literally put me to sleep despite my proximity to the speakers) was a concert I saw by the Human League. Apparent reason: their use of tapes instead of live percussion (electronic or otherwise). The feeling I got out of the show was that NO ONE was doing anything percussion-wise. (It didn't seem like anyone except the vocalists was doing anything at all, and I'm not too sure about the vocalists.) This negative experience led me NOT to attend another show later that night at the Ritz featuring Depeche Mode (another band known for using electronics). Which is a shame, because I was told I missed a good show: Depeche Mode turns out to be very creative in their use of all this electronic machinery, invoking an incredible array of sounds that liven up a show. The point: it's not the tools that make the music, it's the way they're used by people. You still sound no different from someone who complains about those "new-fangled eelectronic gizmos", because they don't produce "natural" sound. His prejudice and emphasis are just as arbitrary as yours. > Try one last experiment: listen to some piece of music that you DON'T like. > Any piece, it does not matter. Concentrate on the rhythm. Is it interesting, > lively? Does it grab you irresistibly, and pull you along? Does > the piece get from here to there? I am willing to bet that the answer to > all these questions is no. For you, the answer is no, because of the way you choose to listen to music. Don't assume that that's true for everyone. GIVEN your emphasis, I think it unlikely that you could ever like a piece performed with a "drum machine". (Unless, of course, you listened to a piece without knowing, or caring, how the sound was made, and only found out afterwards. Which is my whole point: it doesn't matter HOW the sounds are made, what matters is WHAT sounds are made and how they affect the listener. To decide in advance "Oh, this uses a Flurrmnifizer so it must be awful" is blatantly prejudicial.) > P.S. The essence of jazz is NOT improvisation. One only has to listen > to Duke Ellington to disprove that (he often wrote his sidemen's solos). > The essence of jazz is another discussion entirely, one that I will not start > in this already too lengthy article. > "What good is melody, what good is music > When it's not possessing of something sweet > Well it ain't the melody, and it ain't the music > There's something else that makes this tune complete > It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing" Swing isn't JUST rhythm. Swing is undefinable. Try defining it some time. (Maybe Ellington's taste has the same musical emphasis that yours has. And maybe that's why you like him.) And where did I say that the essence of jazz is improvisation? -- "If you offend everybody, you're doing a good job." --David Steinberg on the subject of satire Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr