EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 27, Number 1 This issue's topics: Public taste and creative blocks (8 messages) Your EMUSIC-D moderator is Joe McMahon. Please send articles to emusic-L@auvm.american.edu (or EMUSIC-L@AUVM.BITNET). Administrative mail should be directed to xrjdm@scfvm.nasa.gov. Digests will be distributed semi-monthly to monthly. For faster response to questions, subscribe to EMUSIC-L@AUVM.BITNET (or emusic-l@auvm.american.edu). The EMUSIC-L discussion group can alo be accessed via bit.listserv.emusic-l on Usenet. Subscribers to this list may send articles to EMUSIC-D@AUVM.BITNET (or emusic-d@auvm.american.edu); they will be reviewed and forwarded to EMUSIC-L. Back issues are available from xrjdm@scfvm.gsfc.nasa.gov. This is a manual operation, so requests for things like "all back issues" will take a long time. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Apr 91 15:33:00 CST From: greg@IHLPM.ATT.COM Subject: Re: recent EMUSIC-L posts... Huey, Thanks for your thoughts in response to my questions about the comparisons between high school vs professional orchestras/bands/choirs. You also asked some questions about myself and the music scene around Naperville (or I assume the western suburban area of Chicago in general). Since I'm kind of new to EMUSIC-L I suppose a public response wouldn't be out of line, to serve as somewhat of an introduction of myself. Some of you may wish to skip over the rest of this. >> Greg Youngdahl AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, IL > Just curious here: I know Bell Labs is probably a cool job & all, but > what's your connection to the EMUSIC-L ? My impression of Naperville is as a > cultural wasteland. There's more going on here in The Middle Of Nowhere, MN > than there ever was in Naperville ( 'the last bastion of free expressionism', > we used to call it, quite facetiously ) > What do you do musically? In a band? What are your interests? Any cool > gear? If you don't mind my prying- I'm curious. The only music scene going > on in suburbia that I ever hooked up with was a bunch of high-school dropouts > who took *far* too much drugs to be coherent, much less serious musicians. > ...& if there *is* a scene going on back there, I wouldn't mind having > something to do over my vacations... > Thanks in advance, > Huey > > G.S.'Huey' Callison, Computer Science, Winona State University, Winona MN > ...formerly Materials Handling Specialist, Amoco Research, Naperville IL Well, Bell Labs has a lot of good points, but there are times when I think I'd like to work somewhere where a "project" was on the scale of a few people (maybe around 10 +/- 5) and extended for a few months rather than a scale of 350 people covering 3-5 years (and, often as not it seems, then being canceled :-( ). As far as EMUSIC-L goes, I heard about it from another list I participate in, and thought I'd see what it had to offer. So far I'm finding it interesting. I suppose Naperville is kind of a cultural wasteland, I don't remember ever actually *doing* anything there (besides work) like seeing concerts or plays. I actually live a few miles further west in Batavia. There is no more going on there, but at least they have enough water for sprinkling my lawn in the summer (unlike Naperville), and I could actually afford an OK house there. I really have no desire to inhabit Naperville. As far as music goes, I played lead guitar in a local R&R band in high school (but didn't drop out), and for a few years afterwards. We played mostly copy songs, danceable top 40 type of stuff, with a limited number of original songs sprinkled in. We performed at local clubs, bars, wedding receptions, partys, banquets, etc (basically anyone who would hire us). For a while we had a really good vocalist, and I believe he was a good part of the reasons for our limited success (I've always been of the opinion that a mediocre band (instrumentally) with good vocals will be more successful than a band of outstanding musicians with only mediocre vocals - generally speaking). At some point he threw in the towel, and some of the rest of us carried on, but it seemed that we had been a better band before, and I wasn't too happy doing that when I felt we had done better in the past. That, along with other factors (like all the internal frictions inherent in a band, as well as the hassle of tearing down all my stuff, hauling it to some sleazy bar, setting it up, playing for a while (which was the fun part), tearing it down again in the middle of the night (or early in the morning), hauling it back ...), influenced my decision to leave the band. Now I get together occasionally with some of my musician friends and we try our hands at writing some original songs. I bought an acoustic piano a couple of years ago and have been learning to play it. I had a Korg Poly-800 even back when I was still playing in the band (and still have it). My current gear is not all that cool, rather mundane actually, but it keeps me entertained. I have a Kawai K1 as a MIDI controller, with a Yamaha TX81-Z to provide a few more voices. I have a Korg DDD-5 drum machine which is OK as a stand alone unit, but leaves a lot to be desired in its MIDI implementation. I record on a Teac 3340-S (4 channel reel-to-reel) using a Peavy 12x2x1 mixer. For effects I have a Midiverb-II and an old MXR flanger/doubler. I also recently bought one of those Casio plastic saxes from the Danmark catalog to fool around with. This is in addition to my two electric, one acoustic, and one bass guitars. One rather time consuming project lately has been writing software for my home brew MIDI controller I built for my PC-6300 (IBM clone like thing). It is not MPU compatible, so I either need software in source code (I have successfully ported several applications to use my interface), or I must write it myself. I have learned a lot doing this, as well as enjoyed it, but I have come to a point where I'd rather spend my limited spare time writing music, rather than writing software for writing music. My sequencer program does what it does well, but there are so many features I'd like to add, and if I could spend 8 hour days working at it (like a commercial vendor does) I could probably add them in a reasonable time, but with only a few evening/weekend hours each week available it would take me a while, and recently I've been feeling like I'd rather spend that time musically. Besides, one feature that I have really come to want is SMPTE capability so I can sync up recorded acoustic instruments (piano, guitar, bass, whatever) with some sequenced parts, and I'd need to research/design/build/debug some additional hardware and software to accomplish that. No doubt I'm still more fluent with a guitar than with a keyboard (or plastic sax), and probably deep down more of a technician than a musician. In the band it always fell to me to fix any broken amps or effects, to figure out what PA equipment we needed and how to hook it up and use it, and any related stuff (we always hired a light guy, otherwise I suppose I would have had to deal with that as well). The couple of times we were in a *real* recording studio it was up to me to deal with the engineer to get things sounding the way we wanted. I've also run our sound system for other local bands, as well as producing demo tapes of original material for some local musicians. I guess I've never really considered myself to be a really creative musician, but rather more of an interface between the creative guys and the technology. I've written some of my own stuff, but I'm really more satisfied with things I've worked on with other people, adding bass lines or guitar riffs to their songs, and doing the recording and mixing end of things. As far as musical interests go, I'm kind of stuck in the past. I've never really understood the appeal (at least musically speaking) of Heavy Metal, Punk Rock, Rap etc., although there is occasionally an interesting song or two. When I go to the CD store I often want to find something contemporary, but usually end up with something from the 60s or 70s. Even when I find a current release it is usually by someone who is left over from that era. Some specific influences... certainly the Beatles, I can't deny being somewhat fanatical. Other names would be (in the order they come to mind) Moody Blues, Supertramp, Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Cream (and its descendants - Eric Clapton probably influenced me on guitar as much as anyone else), Jimi Hendrix... If anyone has some suggestions about current artists that would be in a similar vein I'd like to hear them. I think the characteristics of this music that appeal to me are the use of dynamics, theme and variation type of composing (as opposed to verse/chorus although that is often good too), clean sounding instruments (I have nothing against the use of a fuzz tone - I often incorporate one myself, but to me all I hear in Heavy Metal is distorted guitars with no dynamics - yes there are exceptions...), and good vocal harmonies (although instrumental music can be just as pleasing). I'd really like to find some contemporary music that I can appreciate, however, I have this feeling that the big record companies have been taken over by people who have been trained in running businesses, and have no clue about what makes good music. They hire the band their nephew plays in or whomever they perceive as trendy at the time (or even try to create their own trend), with no regard for the musical content. No one is taking the time to find and nurture any real talented musicians. I have this fantasy that there is room for local record companies that cater to a market in the area (whatever area they are in) rather than nation (or world) wide. I have seen ads for companies that will produce CDs from a master tape for a few dollars per CD, cheap enough that you could sell them for 1/2 the price of a CD from one of the big record companies and still make some money. The Beatles recorded Sargent Pepper's on 4-track decks (admittedly better ones than my Teac) and it stands up to stuff being recorded today. It seems to me that it should be possible to produce good recordings of local talent using relatively inexpensive equipment, and sell their CDs in local record stores cheaper than the current fare. This would be a way for talent to get known in their area, and get noticed by larger record companies. I'm kind of surprised that this hasn't happened already, there must be some kind of political clout from the big record companies over local stores that is preventing it. In any case my current home improvement project is finishing my basement into somewhat of a recording studio, and hopefully eventually I can find a way to make it happen. WOW, a lot more flowed out there than I would have predicted. Hope it wasn't too boring or self serving. Anyway, as far as a Naperville music "scene" I agree there isn't much to offer (at least that I've found). However, if you are vacationing here, drop me an e-mail if you are interested, and maybe we could arrange some musical event (a jam, song writing, ???). Of course I'd have to question the sanity of anyone who came to Naperville for their vacation!!! And finally, if someone in the local area thinks they can relate to any of this, and might want to spend maybe one night a week pursuing similar activities, send me some e-mail, and maybe we could work something out. Later, -- Greg Youngdahl AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, IL att!ihlpm!greg ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 14:31:59 EST From: Robert=Wade%DPNET=Mgt%DP@DPNET.HQ.AF.MIL Subject: Greg Youngdahl Greg, the list of influences was refreshing. I couldn't agree with you more on the state of what is considered popular today. I don't want to be accused of saying that new directions in music aren't really music (although with the proliferation of sampling it seems evident that the imagination of new artists is getting weaker and weaker), but my opinion overall is that what the average public seems to be interested in is very dull, lifeless, repetitious music. Groups like Supertramp, and most definitely Steely Dan, really CREATED something...not just put together some rhythm tracks and a couple of samples of horn hits and someone else's vocals. But of course most of the artists you listed and that I particularly like to listen to and play were popular before MIDI was invented. The moral: they HAD to know what they were doing and how to pull it all together to work. Me? I learned keyboards by ear, and am only now getting to the point where if someone says play an Gmaj7 I can do it (with various inversions). As far as new artists that actually sound fresh AND creative...well, Miami Sound Machine gave the genre a much needed shot in the arm, but now with the evolution into just Gloria Estefan, it's becoming very "same". You might give a listen to Basia. From the moment I heard "Time and Tide" I fell in love with the style. Very clean production, mostly of an Argentine flavor (though my girl is Polish and lives in London). She reminds me somewhat of Gino Vanelli's style (before he went to more mainstream styles beginning with the "Black Cars" lp) If you listen to Gino's "Storm at Sunup" or "Brother to Brother" you'll see what I mean. Celine Dion ("Where Does My Heart Beat") suprised me with a wide variety of styles. I must confess that even though most of their stuff is simple, I do like Roxette. We used to do several of their songs. But most assuredly I feel that music peaked between 1974 and 1984. We saw a lot of changes and innovations in style and equipment. I'm still waiting for the next big change. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Apr 91 08:45:00 EST From: The Silicon Junkie Subject: I got the techno-blues. I'm moderately discouraged with music lately. I'm a self-taught guitarist who jams with a self-taught keyboardist, and between the two of us, we have quite an arsenal of sound reinforcement and recording equipment. The source of the discouragement is the technology itself, which seems to act as a barrier to creation. We play our own original music (rock-jazz-new age-stuff). We have accumulated a stack of tapes we term 'concept tapes.' These are just musical fragments that we have yet to combine into completed pieces. I consider us to be talented and very creative, but we lack skill in arranging. Whenever we get together, we crank out another concept and then go on to yet another. Maybe our equipment is too big for us, and we can't reach the pedals, or should put the training wheels back on. We just enjoy playing music, and the sterile environment of technology seems to take all the fun out of our Monday night jams. Anyone else out there with the techno-blues? Any suggestions? Any books that would help? Any philosophical enlightenment? --Tim. "I'm not into this completion thing." -- The Big Chill ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Apr 91 13:05:10 EST From: Robert=Wade%DPNET=Mgt%DP@DPNET.HQ.AF.MIL Subject: re: I got the techno-blues. Well, I'm a self-taught keyboardist (who played drums for 12 years) and I have acquired quite a bit of gear as well. I am also a vocalist. I confess I don't understand your block. I have seen so many basement bands where members would come in and say "listen, I just learned that neat riff from Guns-n-Roses" and everyone jams on a few bars of the song but no one ever learns the whole thing. The technology is designed to HELP not hinder. If you don't learn what the equipment you have is for then you'll always have pieces of songs. What you should do is listen to songs you like. And by listen, I mean pick out each part and try to follow it from intro to tag. By doing this with each part in a song, you learn how each part builds through choruses, bridges and finishes in the song. This should give you some good ideas on how arrangements work. When you arrange a song, think of it as a story. You have a build in the fullness and dynamics, as well as drops in them, to emphasize what your song is trying to communicate. Concept tapes are good if you have a great idea for a chorus or bridge or verse, but didn't get enough inspiration at the time to create the whole piece. You are then able to save what you DID create until you can come back to it with a fresh mind. I've got a lot of songs I've written and arranged and I use Copyist Professional to print the charts. The only thing I lack on these arrangements is guitar (bass lines are easy, the leads are way beyond my playing skill). If your problem is mostly with getting guitar parts on paper, you can get a midi converter and then lay it into a sequencer like your keyboards. But really examine what you have all the equipment for and work with each individual unit so the technology works FOR not against you. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 10:53:23 BST From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: I got the techno-blues. >I consider us to be talented >and very creative, but we lack skill in arranging. Whenever we get together, >we crank out another concept and then go on to yet another. Sounds like you have the correct diagnosis. I don't know any sure-fire shortcuts to arranging skills. If you're into conventional arrangements, check out Eric Turkel's book (Arranging Techniques for Synthesists, I think it's called). Or, you can do what I did - select some pieces of music from CD's, similar to your style, and analyse them with paper and pencil. work out the tempo, count the bars, lock your sequencer to it by trial-and-error, drop markers where the structure of the piece changes, note the harmonic structure and instrumentation, and try to clone the entire piece. You may not get very far with it, but it'll be a very useful exercise. I did this for the first track of Johannes Schmoelling's Wuivend Reit album, and have a big chunk of it cloned quite closely - it was a useful exercise in getting to grips with song structure and building/combination of sounds. Having to arrange an entire live set is a good exercise as well. Our live sets are continuous, Tangerine Dream style (yeah, I know) so I've now got a lot of experience in building bridge sequences and modulating key within them (some classical harmony training is dead useful here as well). Bridge-building is actually quite fun, and leads to some very interesting musical ideas as well as practice in arranging. >Maybe our equipment is too big for us, and we can't reach the pedals, or >should put the training wheels back on. Or maybe you have too much gear (look who's talking...). After I got the VFX, I immediately felt the need to get rid of the TX7, Matrix-6 and MKS-7. They were being grossly under-utilised, and I felt uncomfortable having dead metal around. I have slightly too much power right now, but my arrangement skills are improving I think so I can keep it under control. I hope. >We just enjoy playing music, and the sterile environment of technology >seems to take all the fun out of our Monday night jams. Hmm. Explain. Sure, some instruments are better than others for getting ideas quickly (the VFX is very good, the TX7 was hopeless), but I think this unlock-your-creativity-with-this-wunda-box argument is advertising hype to an extent. Think clearly about how your instruments are helping or hindering the process - then you can do something about it. Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Apr 91 11:34:56 BST From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Yay, gripe time! (Re: Greg Youngdahl) > Greg, > the list of influences was refreshing. I couldn't agree with > you more on the state of what is considered popular today. Looks like I missed the beginning of this thread. Shame. Well, I'm not going to let that stop me... > don't want to be accused of saying that new directions in music > aren't really music (although with the proliferation of sampling > it seems evident that the imagination of new artists is getting > weaker and weaker), Ah, *BZZT*, you're equating the proliferation of technology with the decline in artistic skills. The two are running in parallel, perhaps, but I don't think there's a direct correlation. Some artists *have* done good stuff with samplers (Jarre, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Johannes Schmoelling). Conversely, taking away a Pet Shop Boy's Fairlight isn't going to improve his music. The problem is that the music industry now is concerned with shipping product, not with promoting music. New bands are driven to do mass-market material to fit the current fashion, following last month's lead rather than setting the new one. That sampling technology happens to make this easy right now is no fault of the technology. > but my opinion overall is that what the average > public seems to be interested in is very dull, lifeless, repetitious > music. The average record-buying public is a teenager called Sharon. Sharon follows the charts which are seeded by major radio stations, promoted in turn by the music industry and followed up with personal profile articles in glossy magazines with names like "17." > But of course most of the artists you listed and that I particularly > like to listen to and play were popular before MIDI was invented. > The moral: they HAD to know what they were doing and how to pull it > all together to work. Now, there is an interesting thread here (ask Metlay about Tangerine Dream sometime); but, there were lousy posing artists before MIDI and there are still excellent ones after MIDI. And if you think that MIDI means that you don't have to deal with technical troubles and know what you're doing to make things work properly, would you like a quick rundown of the operation of my live rig? > But most assuredly I feel that music peaked between 1974 and > 1984. We saw a lot of changes and innovations in style and > equipment. I'm still waiting for the next big change. It's not the music that's at fault, it's the economic structures now in place which govern its production, marketing and distribution. Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Apr 91 10:57:00 CST From: greg@IHLPM.ATT.COM Subject: The Public's Musical Taste Robert (and all), Something in your reply to my post rang very true with me, and after bashing the record company executives, I suppose I have to acknowledge the other side of the equation... > weaker and weaker), but my opinion overall is that what the average > public seems to be interested in is very dull, lifeless, repetitious > music. Unfortunately I can't aggree more. How well I remember playing out with our band, and doing songs we had spent several rehersals perfecting, with tight arrangements, synchronized solos, harmonies, all stuff we were proud of. We would play a song like that, and do it to a tee, and sometimes we'd be lucky to hear one hand clapping ( 8-( ). Then we'd go into some mind numbing three chord thumpity-thumpity-thump song that we threw together in 10 minutes at the last rehersal, and the dance floor would fill up, and we'd get a standing ovation at the end. Go figure. Yes, it is true, the masses don't appreciate the same things in music that the musicians do. In the final analysis I suppose I can't blame the record company execs for giving them what they want, I just wish they would also find a way to give me what I want, and maybe to raise the expectation of the masses along the way. Ok, so now in a final burst of schitsophrenia (I doubt that is how it is spelled, but I don't feel like looking it up right now), I wonder how it is that most of the successful music based plays and movies seem to have interesting, well written music (not necessarily always in a style that I want to emulate, but still I can appreciate it), instead of booring monotinous music. Apparently there are some parts of the masses that do appreciate a more than "dull, lifeless, repetitious music". > But most assuredly I feel that music peaked between 1974 and > 1984. We saw a lot of changes and innovations in style and > equipment. I'm still waiting for the next big change. Well hey, why wait, lets make it!!! PS. Does anyone realize how terifying it is to see your name on the subject line of electronic mail that is circulating throughout the world?!! -- Greg Youngdahl AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, IL att!ihlpm!greg ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Apr 91 17:28:48 EST From: Joe McMahon Subject: Re: Yay, gripe time! (Re: Greg Youngdahl) To quote Yanni from a Keyboard interview: "There's going to be a lot of little Yannis out there." Unfortunately, he was right. Bad enough we have *one*... :-) The technology provides an unprecedented power to make your own music. It also provides the power to let someone else sweat out the details and then you to take "the good parts" and use them unchanged. Illegal? Maybe. Maybe not. But it will kill you dead as a creative artist. There are also, sad to say, people who could be performers, possibly even good performers, who use the technology to take the easy way out. Play just two bars of the drum track, or program them, and let them run the whole length of the song. Can't work out that neat riff? Okay, just sample it. Hey, everybody does it... This is not to claim that sampling and musical collage are invalid art forms. Richard Trythall's "Ommagio a Jerry Lee Lewis" is a music concrete piece constructed solely of pitch-shifted, speed-changed, filtered, cut-up, and reassembled bits of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On". And it's wonderful. Funny, intense, and a real left-handed homage to the original artist. Collage *is* an art form (see Ernst's "Une Semaine de Bonte"). Even photocopying can be an artform if the artist pushes the machine past its limits. Musical collage can make "your" music. But unless you work hard at it, it just makes somebody else's. --- Joe M. "Warning: do not drive or operate heavy machinery under the influence of this music. Boredom-induced sleep may result..." ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************