catalog

Well-known member
barry lyndon is really good, gets better with every viewing, is just a bit off in terms of pace.

the other two are earlier works and a bit more formulaic. but paths of glory is worth it for timothy carey alone and the killing is just really good cos of how fucked it all gets for this poor cunt.
 

catalog

Well-known member
the mark fell talk was pretty good. nothing breakthrough, but interesting enough.

his main point was that he doesn't like the cartesian idea of having a master idea that you then realise through technology.

he says the musical score is the worst invention in the history of music.

he also made a few point about the nature of time, that time does not equal our conception ie past,present, future. He called these "ordinary temporal linear frameworks" that are limited.

"temporality is not time, temporality is how we perceive time".

he was also talking about generally not having an artistic vision, and not wanting one - he got a recent arts council bid rejected cos they said there was no overall artistic vision, but he didn't wanna provide one, cos the whole point was that he didn't know what was going to happen.

he mentioned this record, which i've not heard about before:


he said that what he does is "make a system and then explore that system" and he also said that as a kid he liked to wander about decaying factories, just looking at the space. So i guess a lot of what he's doing is making sound for these spaces? and the imagintion that he gets in these spaces? He said he was from brinsworth, right next to orgreave.

also talked about how he thinks there's too much agreement in modern life - "we need to find a space in which to disagree".

mentioned dj pierre's comments on the 303 - i guess maybe these?

Where did the acid sound come from? [Phuture] did the first tweaking of acid. We had gotten this box called the 303, only because I’d seen this guy named Jasper with it. He had just a regular baseline playing, I thought “aw, that’s nice.” I said, “What’s making that sound?” He said, “This 303” and he then showed me the machine. I said, “Wow, we’ve really been looking for a keyboard module or something that could give us a good bass sound.” Spanky bought it used because you couldn’t get it new anymore, and he had it hooked up, running with the drum machine, but it wasn’t [working]. If you get one of those 303s it’s not going to have any baseline sounds in it, so you got to squeak and squack it till it makes some noise. He said he didn’t know what was wrong with it, how to program it right, so he said, “Could you figure it out?” So when I came over by it, I started twisting the knobs, seeing what they do, because that’s what I do: twist knobs. So I was doing that and we fell in love with the sounds it was making. We fell in love with how I was twisting the knobs with the beat. And then I started twisting them a certain way, and putting emotion and feeling behind it, and Spanky was like, “Yo Pierre, keep doing that, I like that.” I was like, “Yeah, this is something!” We were like, “Yo, that’s style.” We said forget trying to make a baseline, let’s program it like this and just twist the knobs. And so that’s what we did, you know.


that's his vibe i guess - mash the buttons, the idea and the tools are one.

"when you operate a drum machine, you can feel like you're inside a loop"

at the end, he talked about indian classical music, how the note within that tradition is not a specific point in time, rather a cloud of possibilities.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Smart man. Musical scores are an abomination, indeed. if only craner wasn't such an uncultivated angflo-supremacist klaviercentrist brute representing ezra pound and that hippy degenerate Jim Morrison, the most impossibly dullest moron of all times, now and forever.

When you mention Free Jazz, that reminds me about one of Freddie Hubbard recording sessions. There was a section that I wanted to do in that way and I explained it to the performers in very academic terms. And Freddie says: “Free, man, free!” [Laughter] Yes, that is what it was.
Did they talk much before making the recording of Free Jazz? How much did they know going into that session?
It was just like any other session. They came in, fixed their instruments. Go out, drink something. They didn’t talk much to each other. Then, when the time comes, they go about playing, just like anything else.

Like Schaeffer, do you want them to specifically not make associations, not to reference things?
Well, for me it is hard to make references. It is not easy to follow both things at the same time. So, when I go to a concert, a standard regular concert when somebody is playing the violin, what do I care about the man who is playing the violin? It’s what is being played that’s important to me. For that reason, it’s difficult to both see and hear at the same time, which by some effort I manage to do, particularly in the movies.
My typical student does not have a background in listening abstractly. It takes them a long time to learn skills to listen without making references, without saying “that reminds me of this or that, or of another piece of music…” This skill seems like something that is hard to learn.
Well, it shouldn’t be. Because there’s nothing abstract about sound. It is something real.
What do you mean by that?
Just like things that we see, there are things we hear. If you listen to a piece of music, you don’t have to make any references to something else. But there are works that combine both.
I didn’t mean composers choosing to make references, but listeners who can’t seem to help themselves from making references in their own heads, when the music is abstract. The uneducated listener doesn’t seem to know how listen as Schaeffer says, with “blinders”, so to speak…
I don’t know whether it’s a matter of teaching. Music is something very concrete. Sound is something very concrete, so why shouldn’t we listen to sounds as they are? Again, when we go to an orchestra concert, is it the presence of the orchestra, with all those instruments playing, the conductor conducting? Is it sight that makes the difference, that makes us listen to it? No, it shouldn’t be.

 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Did you ever work together on anything? Ever talk about doing that?
No. No, not really. I remember playing a trick on him. I sat at the piano and started banging the keys [Mimaroğlu makes “busy” sounds with his mouth] and recorded it. I said: “Bülent, I want to play you something. It’s a new piece by Stockhausen.” So I played it. With great seriousness, he starts examining it, analyzing it. When I told him what I did, he got very angry. [Laughter]
He was unfortunately a very under-appreciated composer.
Yes, he was a good composer. You know, there really are many under-appreciated composers. But being under-appreciated doesn’t make someone special! [Laughter] The world is full of them!
Since you brought up Stockhausen, how did you relate to his music?
Overall I liked it very much, yes. Overall, whatever of his music came to me I liked very much.
What about other, more serial composers at Columbia, like Milton Babbitt?
Ah yes, well, Milton Babbitt. I may not be too fond of his music, but I must admit it’s important. It’s beautifully crafted. It’s not always a great pleasure to listen to, but he’s an important composer, yes.
Were you able to have your music played at Columbia?
Well, it is difficult to have it played there. The sense is that there are no organizers of concerts. With all the sound system and everything. I used to organize concerts there. It’s a very good hall, good acoustics, good sound system, so why not? Nobody is doing anything. They should do it. It’s one of the rare places in New York where concerts should be given. It’s the centre of the University.
 
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