time and techno

zhao

there are no accidents
a good way to know if one is "in the moment", according to Zen practices, is that when meditating, and someone comes up from behind and goes "BOOYAKA!" ---- if you are startled, you are not here of this time, but asleep or adrift in some other time; and if you are not startled at all, you are awake and "in the moment". (it being, ofcourse, preferrable to be in themoment rather than not)

it seems to me that the time induced by good techno is a kind of eternal present. the listener is locked into the immediate present by the insistant beats, but is simultaneously pulled toward some kind of Forever. the "Now" eclipsed by infinity, a split moment forever balanced between repetition and difference ---- each moment is unique and nuanced, but all exists within a continuum of sameness ---- a field of homogenous specificity ---- and non-specific homogeneity.

thoughts anyone? ;)
 
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DJ PIMP

Well-known member
I had a good conversation with an accomplished local Techno (with a capital T) DJ who described that effect as "keeping people in the tunnel" which also describes his musics dark, linear nature.

I think in essence rhythm is a kind of time distortion.

Alhough, the other day I was walking rapidly up a hill, and realised the ideal rhythm for walking or running is when the heel and toe of each footstep fall in time with the beating of the heart. Bombom, bombom, bombom.

The points of the bodies impact with the external are synchronised with the bodies fundamental internal rhythm.

It was a pretty out-of-it feeling.
 

mms

sometimes
well i've read but forgotten the time that was worked out as being the present, ie the part of a second that the brain registers as the actual now rather than a mixture of future/past.
i've been meaning to ask if anyone on this board knows what it is actually.
wondering if like stroboscopic light the same principals can be applied to intervals of the way the brain registers time innit.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
well neurologically speaking as soon as one's brain registers a moment it is already the past.

I think different music embodies or induces different kinds of time... all rhythm stretches time perception, yes, but in different ways... gamelan kind of registers the time of heavenly bodies, and prog rock is kind of about myth or fantasy time... just thinking aloud here really.
 

DJ PIMP

Well-known member
mms said:
wondering if like stroboscopic light the same principals can be applied to intervals of the way the brain registers time innit.
We may register the passing of time as being a series of moments (or is that an aspect of memory?), but is consciousness itself contiguous? I would guess it is, which is that feeling of being in the moment that confucius describes.

That feeling of homogeneity-in-time is how I understand the application of the idea of being "one in the spirit" etc.
 

mms

sometimes
confucius said:
well neurologically speaking as soon as one's brain registers a moment it is already the past.

well apparently not and as i said i used to know what the actual measurement was, the same as any other sensation like light or sound there is a sum of the time the brain registers actual present before it becomes past.
 

tate

Brown Sugar
confucius said:
all rhythm stretches time perception, yes, but in different ways...
Is this really the case? Not sure what you mean by rhythm "stretching" time perception, I guess - sounds a bit too romantic and vague for me. When I am mixing drum and bass or dubstep in a venue, it seems that my 'time perception' is far from 'stretched' but is in fact much more precise and focused than say 99% of the people in the room
confucius said:
I think different music embodies or induces different kinds of time... gamelan kind of registers the time of heavenly bodies, and prog rock is kind of about myth or fantasy time....
But "embodying" a worldview or "being about" a certain conception of time is a very different thing than the actual rhythmic structure of the individual piece. To take your examples of prog and gamelan, whether I am listening to Gentle Giant or Van Der Graaf Generator or Yes (god forbid), or a recording of Javanese gamelan music, I can still listen to the music in a similar way -- to the rhythmic/beat structure in relation to the time signature, to what sorts of harmonic and melodic systems are at work, how the musicians are actually playing together, how the piece works as a whole, how it relates to other pieces in the genre, how it affects me, etc.

In other words, I wouldn't be so quick to agree that larger mythical or religious or ideological conceptions of time can be so easily transmitted along with the music, not without the support of additional cultural or contextual factors anyway. Though matters here get very complicated.

To play devil's advocate for a moment, I am happy to listen all day to recordings of Buriat Mongol shamans performing ritual songs about visionary spirit transport, but without belonging to that lifeworld/cultural system there is little chance that the rhythm alone is going to 'induce' an alternative conception of temporality for me. Am just trying to avoid mystification here, speaking as someone who has done ethnomusicological fieldwork in Croatia and Bosnia, and to a much lesser extent Mongolia. (And of course I would never deny that formal features [e.g., sampling, drumming, ritual participation, whatever] can combine to form new temporal unities.)

Interesting topic, though
 

zhao

there are no accidents
Tate said:
I wouldn't be so quick to agree that larger mythical or religious or ideological conceptions of time can be so easily transmitted along with the music, not without the support of additional cultural or contextual factors

do you think different cultures have somewhat unique concepts of time, embodied by it's philosophy and way of life? a crude example: music from the mountains tend sometimes to be more meditative and music from forests can sound more agile and alert. or island music often has that too-much sun spaced out blissfull quality.

that sounds amazing, what a cool job, ethnomusicology. but on your travels did it not seem like that the different art people choose to make reinforce particular perceptual habits?

Tibetan chants in some ways completely destroy time all together, and the music of the whirling dervishes exist in an accelerated cyclical time.

and surely physical sensations which influence one's perception of time is induced by the organisation and choice of sounds placed further apart or closer to eachother?

chopped and screwed is super-drunk-time and happy hardcore is having-to-go-very-badly-but-there-is-no-bathroom-time :D
 

Martin Dust

Techno Zen Master
I've seen time stretch or run in slo-mo a couple of times, once when working with a dream-machine and once driving back from Arbor Low, I was chatting away in the car when we noticed loads of people on the crossing (to late to do anything) - with no panic, we drove around/thro them in some serious slo-mo kung fu mind fuck action. Completely in a state of neither-neither. It completely freaked us all out, couldn't drive for a couple of hours later...
 
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