C.A. Picard - Electronic music on the margins

 

I use the word 'exploratory', as experimental has decades of anti-establisment sentiment, both ways, in the public consciousness. Exploratory is also open-ended. Of course, people saying something is experimental/exploratory, versus saying they are experimenting with/exploring some such. Good language equals good thought - Wittgenstein.

 

So I agree with you that some few have great talent. Yet, people in general are pretty capable. They need proper exposure and tools. There were people arguably with less talent and overall musical comprehension than I doing better composition assignments, because they just followed the guidance in the curriculum.

 

Musician to me does mean someone who can physically perform on an instrument. However, composers aren't necessarily musicians. Take Steve Roach, one of the top second-gen electronic composers, simply because he has composed most like a composer.

Anyone can now make electronic noise. Pretty much in the same way that anyone can create abstract art. I've got some time for some artists, such as Picasso, who started off with some degree of talent and then explored boundaries. They've done their apprenticeship and paid their dues. However, for every one artist like that, there are 10,000 scribblers trying to pass a lack of talent off as "abstract art". 

Listening to M. Picard's jolly ditties, they invoke no imagery, have no dynamics - at least for me. It pleasures me not, and music is all subjective. Which is why you're perfectly entitled to your opinion, and so am I. 

Taste doesn't get in the way of comprehension, I fully *comprehend* what is music and what is not music. This is noise. For "unfamiliar" music, I was listening to Amon Duul and early Hawkwind many years ago and I've always liked unusual music. 

This is a bit funny, as I'm English as well, as were a lot of experimental musicians in the 60's, Floyd being an example, so bang goes that theory. ;-)

As for quality, pop on the Muffwiggler website or ask my friend Gwen, who does "noise" much better than this. 

"No" he replied, "but I once trod in some."

Static is indeed noise. 
Noise is not music. Music has rules and conventions. 

There's a growing tendency in electronic music for non musicians to buy modular synthesizers and then just make noises on them. About 90% - possibly higher - of all people who actually own a modular seem to just plug everything at random and then somehow convince themselves that what they're producing is "music". 

Here's one I built earlier, at component level. Thing is, I'm really a saxophonist, but I'm also a multi instrumentalist. The woods are full of people with zero musical training - or the deluded who think being able to strum a few chords on a guitar turns you into a musician. 

I have a massively open mind about music. If you listen to my stuff, there are all kinds of influences in it. If I listen to the OP's stuff...... I'm very sorry. I don't even hear the beginning fundamentals of music.

"Not for me". Others taste may vary, and if the OP is happy with is work, fine for him. I would remind him that posting work on a public forum invites critique, and it's never all good.