smooches
April 17, 2009 6:38 PM
Fluidsynth with the Yamaha piano soundfont from http://zenvoid.org/audio.html. My mouth. A zoom H2 personal recorder.
This was almost a mefi music challenge piece, but I messed up but liked where it went anyway.
This was almost a mefi music challenge piece, but I messed up but liked where it went anyway.
posted by idiopath (4 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
Crikey. I'm not sure what to make of this. Sounds like the background to an escape scene.
posted by freya_lamb at 5:44 AM on April 18, 2009
posted by freya_lamb at 5:44 AM on April 18, 2009
idiopath, your music leaves me in a dilemma.
I listen to a lot of music that most people would consider too noisy (Pig Destroyer and Imminent Starvation for example).
What you make is as far removed from what I listen to as Imminent is to, say, Robert Johnson. So I ask myself, if I can enjoy both of those, why can't I enjoy idiopath's noise? Surely I can make the conceptual jump - after all, I GET that the sonic and (a-)rhythmic dissonance is the point. There must be something wrong with me!
I've been thinking about it pretty hard and here's my theory: I live bang in the middle of a very noisy city, in a place where it is impossible to escape noise at any time of the day. I'd be willing to kill live humans for an hour of perfect silence each day. So when I play your music, all I hear is the white noise and rhythmless (on the surface) dissonance that I am surrounded by all the time.
I guess what I am saying is, I enjoy your music in theory (somebody's gotta mess around with what we consider musical), and maybe someday I'll be able to enjoy it in practice too. ;)
posted by vanar sena at 1:51 AM on September 30, 2009
I listen to a lot of music that most people would consider too noisy (Pig Destroyer and Imminent Starvation for example).
What you make is as far removed from what I listen to as Imminent is to, say, Robert Johnson. So I ask myself, if I can enjoy both of those, why can't I enjoy idiopath's noise? Surely I can make the conceptual jump - after all, I GET that the sonic and (a-)rhythmic dissonance is the point. There must be something wrong with me!
I've been thinking about it pretty hard and here's my theory: I live bang in the middle of a very noisy city, in a place where it is impossible to escape noise at any time of the day. I'd be willing to kill live humans for an hour of perfect silence each day. So when I play your music, all I hear is the white noise and rhythmless (on the surface) dissonance that I am surrounded by all the time.
I guess what I am saying is, I enjoy your music in theory (somebody's gotta mess around with what we consider musical), and maybe someday I'll be able to enjoy it in practice too. ;)
posted by vanar sena at 1:51 AM on September 30, 2009
Very much belatedly replying: I actually moved from an extremely quiet rural area to a city in my teens, and have never since been tempted to move back to where it is quiet.
I think the big secret to being able to appreciate unusual music is finding different sets of criteria for judgment and meaning making. If dissonance can only mean anger or pain, then of course you wouldn't want to listen to dissonant music. But even in nature, with nothing human or mechanical around, you are surrounded by dissonance, in the sounds of water and birds and the rumble of thunder there are complexities going on everywhere. The meanings we attach to sounds are often much more powerful than the simple biological response. In my more recent work I am trying to tie my timbral intensities and peculiarities to bird song in particular, in order to find a referent for strange noises that is not laden with negative human emotion.
I like to make the comparison to spicy, pungent, or bitter food which we learn to appreciate as a part of becoming an adult - once you are old enough to know which things will or will not harm you if swallowed, there is no need to slavishly follow the first instincts of pleasure or displeasure. And as we all hopefully learn, there are gustatory pleasures and nuances to be found beyond the likes of candy and pizza (though there is of course nothing to be ashamed of in not being ready to eat offal, which is probably an apt comparison for much of the music I make).
posted by idiopath at 4:05 PM on May 29, 2010
I think the big secret to being able to appreciate unusual music is finding different sets of criteria for judgment and meaning making. If dissonance can only mean anger or pain, then of course you wouldn't want to listen to dissonant music. But even in nature, with nothing human or mechanical around, you are surrounded by dissonance, in the sounds of water and birds and the rumble of thunder there are complexities going on everywhere. The meanings we attach to sounds are often much more powerful than the simple biological response. In my more recent work I am trying to tie my timbral intensities and peculiarities to bird song in particular, in order to find a referent for strange noises that is not laden with negative human emotion.
I like to make the comparison to spicy, pungent, or bitter food which we learn to appreciate as a part of becoming an adult - once you are old enough to know which things will or will not harm you if swallowed, there is no need to slavishly follow the first instincts of pleasure or displeasure. And as we all hopefully learn, there are gustatory pleasures and nuances to be found beyond the likes of candy and pizza (though there is of course nothing to be ashamed of in not being ready to eat offal, which is probably an apt comparison for much of the music I make).
posted by idiopath at 4:05 PM on May 29, 2010
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posted by xorry at 10:02 PM on April 17, 2009