SRXII: It lives!

MovingPictures07 wrote: James wrote: Uh oh, Alex's signature is... disturbing. I assume you mean French Alex.

Romanian ex-pat French Alex.  Yes.

MovingPictures07 wrote: A Person wrote: MovingPictures07 wrote: A Person wrote: MovingPictures07 wrote: A Person wrote: MovingPictures07 wrote: Boards of Canada time. BoC time is the best time. Indeed it is. They've quickly become one of my favorite artists. As far as ambient techno goes, I agree that they are probably my favorite.  I still like Aphex Twin's more agressive music better though. There is simply an ingenious quality to all of their compositions that is not able to be matched by any other electronic artist I know. There definitely is a Boards of Canada "sound" that makes them extremely unique to me---almost like being propelled into a certain time period. That's understandable though. Aphex Twin is pretty damn awesome. I don't know what it is about them, their music just has a certain atmosphere that I love. I agree entirely. In their last.fm/Wikipedia bio it has this segment "They have frequently made reference to the warm, scratchy, artificial sounds of 1970s television. Indeed, the Sandison brothers admit to being inspired by the documentary films of the National Film Board of Canada, from which they take their name." I think that explains at least part of what we're both referring to. It has that sort of nostalgic, other-worldly underwater-ish (at times) feel to it. It's indescribable though.

A lot of the best electronic(IMO) seems to be nostalgic, for example I would say Memory Tapes is nostalgic. In fact that is why he is tagged dreamwave on Last.fm.

I say just compose from the heart.  If it sounds good, keep it.  Don't worry about trying to work a particular time signature in.  Music is from the heart, not from a computer or the realm of mathematics.

James wrote: I say just compose from the heart.  If it sounds good, keep it.  Don't worry about trying to work a particular time signature in.  Music is from the heart, not from a computer or the realm of mathematics.

To an extent, you're right... but you need to be able to structure your compositions.

It's like trying to build a building but having no idea about the foundation. You might get lucky and still build an awesome building, but it may topple on you when you try to add other stuff (in this case, syncing instruments).

Let me tell you... if you do not have your time signatures straight... especially if you're doing complex stuff with polyrhythms, your instruments will NOT sync.

James wrote: I'm a solo artist.  I don't need to synchronise instruments.

It still has an effect on how the piece develops though. If you have no concept of time signatures or a piece's built-in metronomic rhythm, then your timing could be off and you will lose the effect you want.

I've often re-recorded pieces hundreds of times to be sure that I had the exact sound and timing I wanted. Even a slight timing mess up can alter the compositional integrity of a piece.

Of course, I'm not advocating that everything be stringent and meticulous. Improvisation is an essential part of many types of music and has nothing to do with this that conflicts with composed music. All I'm saying is that you need to develop a built-in metronome as a musician so that you are able to compose your works with knowledge of what you're doing.

The way I view it is as almost a timeline. It expands infinitely in the positive direction once you start writing/recording, and the space is like a grid on which you place your notes, whether they're completely improvised or entirely composed or somewhere in between. Music has that underlying grid... and if you stray away from it---slightly placing notes where they shouldn't be because of natural human error, it will result in some dissatisfaction.

Unless you're John Cage, of course.

MovingPictures07 wrote: ORANGE

Yeah.

A Person wrote: MovingPictures07 wrote: ORANGE Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

MovingPictures07 wrote: James wrote: Unless you're John Cage, of course. Yeah, then you fill your grid with nothing.

Of course, but then you know that it really isn't about what sound the musician makes, but about the ambient sound at the time the piece is being played. Or something pretentious like that.

A Person wrote: MovingPictures07 wrote: James wrote: Unless you're John Cage, of course. Yeah, then you fill your grid with nothing. Of course, but then you know that it really isn't about what sound the musician makes, but about the ambient sound at the time the piece is being played. Or something pretentious like that.

Of course.