Original Message 1/10                 Date: 15-Aug-00  @  02:47 PM   -   Connections and Music

ggehiere

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This is kind of a philosophical thought, and I'd be
interested in how this sits with other people:

All information stored in our minds is connected to
other data. When we think 'car' there are other datas
attached to the 'car' data - steering, wheel, gear
shift, etc.

The brain finds information, by following literal lines
of thought.

When we hear a joke, we are joining two or more
previously unconnected ideas. For example,

A woman goes into a bar with a little Chihuahua dog on
a leash. She sits down at the bar next to a drunk.
The drunk rolls around, leans over, and "Splat! " He
pukes all over the dog. The drunk looks down, sees the
little dog struggling in the pool of vomit, and slurs,
"I don't remember eating that!"

The connection here, for some, may be between eating
and dogs. Read it ten more times (or maybe just once)
and it won't be funny.

When a connection is formed, a mild state of euphoria
is caused, by a chemical reaction in our brain. This is
why music and art and learning feels so good. However,
the more we access a connection, the less exciting it
gets (but easier to connect), as is the case with a
joke you've heard 10 times.

So, creativity, is basically the forging of new
connections, and 'good art' or 'good music' will be a
connection few people, if anyone has ever connected.
Good music being the compilation of new melodies,
rythms and frequencies in new ways.

Remember, music doesn't exist. In reality, it is just
sound. Music happens in the brain - it is our
observance of or

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Message 2/10                 Date: 15-Aug-00  @  04:59 PM   -   RE: Connections and Music

arska

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interesting... but why you can listen to same piece of music over and over, but usually don't read books, or watch movies many times??

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Message 3/10                 Date: 17-Aug-00  @  04:42 AM   -   RE: Connections and Music

jj

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Well, I do read a few books over and over again, must say that. Frankly I think its that much harder to increase the density of connections in the written form, such that only upon subsequent readings new and euphoric connections can be achieved.

THC seems to have a very similar short term (very short, at most around 2 seconds) effect, where by a delayed repitition will refuse with the original event; this effect produced by a certain extention of the moment, or now. Can you say DUB? DNB? Ragga? just in terms of sound, ya.

So lance my boils but I've been rereading Thomas Pynchon for the past 8 years or so. Lately, comes down to me reading a pynchon, reading something else, reading another pynchon, reading something else, and over again and again, each time through the cycle (cycle of novels, that is, dude's only got 4 1/2 novels) I understand more and more. However Pynchon has moved from nearly opaque, to pure poetry for me. To such a point that I may no longer have to read him to feel that voice, connected as I am with it now. Much like a deep melody.

ANYWAY, I like those ideas about connections gghheeiirr(s'what your name translates to in my lazy mind).

On the topic of jokes, literature, connections and the human mind, silly story by Asminov (fuck if I could ever spell the most slightly eastern name), you know, Issac A., called Jokester. It's about aliens dropping jokes into world culture to chart the flow of information. Pretty silly, but amusing to a 12 year old who doesn't talk to people.

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Message 4/10                 Date: 17-Aug-00  @  01:38 PM   -   RE: Connections and Music

ggehiere

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In regards to books, and in addition to jj's comments:

Some books, songs and peices of art are too shallow to
encourage multiple readings. We will be drawn to
re-experience things we somehow sense still have
connections and data left to absorb. We also re-read to
remember data we haven't accessed in a while.

Think of a network - each thought is linked to other
thoughts. Through disuse, connections decay. Entire
pathways of thoughts and data can be re-accessed, if
some key or map was available to re-establish that
connection - like re-reading a book, or a note we left
ourselves.

(I perform under the name 'memory module'. My songs are
places I store hints to my memory, sometimes with audio
cues like the sound of my alarm clock, or a recording
of waves.)

So how do we utilize this to make better music? I used
to do industrial new age stuff - linking machine noises
to ambient electronic and acoustic melodies... which
I'm bored with now. I think it was popular (locally, at
least), because no one ever knew what I was going to
turn into music next - but it's so obvious, isn't it?

Traditional music, like trance (which is what I'm into)
is so much harder. Samples help introduce new
connection to an audience, but it's still limited to
notes, timbres, rythms, etc. Maybe d'n'b is more like
millenium age industrial..

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Message 5/10                 Date: 18-Aug-00  @  03:10 AM   -   RE: Connections and Music

Pongoid

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GG, great point. Nice thought. At least in my book, a
great piece of music is one that I can listen to over
ten times and still hear new entertaining aspects to
satisfy my need for something new to experience. So
it's just arrangements of kinetic energy in the
atmosphere that induce certain feelings, but that's
cool for me.

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Message 6/10                 Date: 19-Aug-00  @  02:39 PM   -   RE: Connections and Music

casparproject

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Great thread. One way to apply this connections idea is through the use of dissonance/consonance relationships in the same way one would use the unrelated/related relationships in the joke. Say for instance, you start off w a bassline that follows a certain progression, then you bring in a melody, that follows a slightly different progression, yet works with the bassline, then on top of that you bring in a pad, or chord progression that works with the melody, but is slightly discordant with the bassline, then you drop out the bassline and fatten up that chord prg w another pad to emphasize the new chord progression, then bring in a NEW bassline that is perfectly in line with the new progression. The sudden, and unexpected connection of the harmonies creates that same euphoria, as the listener was expecting the original bassline to come in w the dissonant relationship. For me, it's all about transcending the listener's, or reader's, or spectator's expectations, and giving them something that is more pleasurable and enlightening than what they had originally expected. Like when you watch a movie, and think you have the plot all figured out, but really it's much more deep and insightful than you could have expected (ie. The Usual Suspects).

Peaceout,

Peter

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Message 7/10                 Date: 20-Aug-00  @  12:51 PM   -   RE: Connections and Music

arska

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Brian Eno said that "repetition is a form of variation"; sort of same thing the ancient greek guy (Herakleitos?) said you cannot step in to the same river twice... you heard something first time; next time it's the first time you heard it second time...

shamanistic drumming

jokes: have you heard joke about the guy who laughs three times at every joke; first when he hears it, second time when it's explained to him; and the third time when he get's it..

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Message 8/10                 Date: 21-Aug-00  @  08:35 AM   -   RE: Connections and Music

ggehiere

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I think human drumming is different because of the
multitude of hits played at slightly different
velocities, falling slightly in and out of sync with
each other - which is why the rythms of 'drum circles'
can seem interesting for long periods of time.

With electronic music, it's hard to incorporate the
same kind of 'always the same, always different'
procedure. Maybe this is why we use delays,
modulations, etc., to keep rythms interesting.

However, ecstacy through music is just a fleeting
realization. Music thats highly repetitous, like
electro and techno, can have euphoric moments, but it
doesn't happen often throughout a track - there aren't
many highs and lows. Assuming euphoria is the state one
is going for... Otherwise we do tend to end up with
'chin stroking' music, hmm?

Anyone have any more comments, please? How about more
of an explanation of what you're talking about, Peter?
For those of us with little theoretica

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Message 9/10                 Date: 01-Sep-00  @  08:02 PM   -   RE: Connections and Music

slipperyfinger

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I think music or any art form purpose is to present to concepts - beauty and truth. Truth being the expression of what your feeling or feelings of the time and not just to make a quick buck. And beauty - no matter what you write if you put beauty in it it'll be loved. But true beauty is what comes out of truth and truth is what comes out of true beauty. So yes I do agree with the 'connection' theory but if a song or a movie or a book represets some beauty or truth to a individual or society than as long as it is still relevant and prevailing it will remain interesting and a joy to view.

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Message 10/10                 Date: 21-Sep-00  @  07:55 PM   -   Connections and Music

btwz

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Thank-you all for this refreshing bit of thread.

My take:

Each sensory experience (with the exception of smell) can be broken down into a finite set of modalities. This is true of sound - pitch, timbre, amplitude, location / time is the entire palette. The way we organize these essential elements, and way the listener experiences them is as recontextualizations of the familiar. For nine months in your mother's womb you heard something like a 909 bass drum at 60 bpm with the highs rolled off - How awesome it was when the envelop finally opened....

A euphoric connection is made through a re-evocation of our first taste of a given sound or sound combination in rhythm. We surrender to it because it IS familiar. If it were strange or new we would resist it.

It is more difficult to give in to our pre-concious
as muscicians who recognize the elements and what reponses they evoke. We know that playing an augmented scale for example (all whole tones) sounds like dreaming. But like tickling ourselves, it doesn't quite have the same effect sui generis.

Knowing what we know, however gives us the power to render ourselves anywhere within the music we choose, and turn euphoric reponses on and off like a spigot if we work at it. There are several ways to do this through polyrhythms alluded to by ggehiere. For example a basic clave line like one-two-k-one-two-three, creates a five over four pattern. We hear these as accents against the standard four on the floor. This is not how an African hears it. He/she hears the clave as five downbeats per measure with four accents. You can't hear both at the same time. You can, however glide from one to the other and back again at will, creating a audio gestalt shift that is really something. I believe that the euphoria you experience there comes from reconnecting to the familiar beat structure you born into.

~B

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