Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Electronics Make Music
metoikos writes "Forget about hacking your Gameboy -- what about cat toys or Teddy Ruxpins? Any of these is fair game to a circuit bending hobbyist. Essentially, circuit bending is the art of making interesting noises come out of re-engineered consumer electronics, mostly toys.
Bending recently came into the spotlight when a number of news organizations discovered the 2004 Bent Festival at New York's Tank.
Derek Sajbel, a bender from California, is writing a book/doing a documentary on it." BishopBerkeley writes "Circuit bending has apparently been going on long enough among a large enough contingent of benders to merit a weeklong festival dedicated to bending circuits. The art is largely a process of making musical instruments by 'bending' the circuits of fairly common electronic instruments and gadgets. According to this article in the New York Times people have been making rather interesting music by modifying the strange toys with which a lot of us grew up. If you're near Manhattan, and you didn't know about the Bent Festival, then think about going. You can find more info at the official circuit bending web site."
Bender Festival? Think of all the oil, cigars, and robot pr0n there would be...
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
So If I just go ahead and bend this keyboard something interest should come out...
K DS FHAKEJHROQWEOURQWLKJEF:LKJ#!LKJ#@$!
waits 10 seconds...
ASDLJGFLKJ#$()!*U@#$!)ADFKOH#@$I!HJ@#KJRQWEKJFA
Electronic toys have also been known to melt (well, 'bend') when the batteries start running low.
-- If you can read this, you are too close to my signature.
I'm sorry but I'm not sure you can call that anything but controlled noise, albeit poorly controlled. It's pretty bad.
If that's all it takes to be called music, then I'm going to record all the noises my car makes and sell a CD of it.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
I remember reading a story about how an HP engineer set up a row of printers (I think it was 12, in total) and he programmed the servos to sing "Happy Birthday" for a fellow engineer... I wish I could remember more details but I'm in no state to look up details right now.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
As the Barbie Liberation Army
Bah. If you want to know circuit bending, check it out from the real masters...
I've been torturing electronics for years, and have some personal instruments that make sounds no commercial synthesizer could ever do.
Hah agreed.
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was that Big Mouth Billy Bass someone modded a long time ago to say "Pork!
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
For those of you who don't remember that device (and I have only vague recollections of seeing it on TV myself), the Teddy Ruxpin was a stuffed bear which moved its mouth in sync (more or less), to the words of any cassete placed in the device. When packaged with a book & tape, it would, in effect, read the book to the child.
Now I imagine that by now you're wondering what on earth this could possibly have to do with copyright law, right? Allow me to quote from this: And we had best get used to unusual decisions like this. Unless you live to be over 70 (and barring a change in the law), absolutely nothing copyrighted during your lifetime will ever pass into the public domain.
Of course, if you're a US voter, and you would like to help end some of the copyright inanity (the DMCA, the NET Act, etc.), feel free to petition your representatives. You can call them for free via this 1-800 number (they will help transfer you to the proper representative): 1 (800) 839-5276
Not to start a dictionary war but from websters:
I would define music as sounds created with artistic intent.
Not all of the music I listen to neccessarily has rhythm and melody/harmony. And Harmony is a concept of western music, other musics are based on other mathematics.
Ambient music, which I like a lot, does not neccessarily have a discernable rhythm or melody, but can be very intersting to listen to.
There is only so much you can do when restricting yourself to octive based music. Just about everything that would sound nice to most people has already been done. That's why I find experimental music so interesting. It is different.
I like music that is sample based, and I like music that is made from unorthodox techniques, such as the current article suggests. I like normal music too but music like this just fascinates me.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
ASDLJGFLKJ#$()!*U@#$!)ADFKOH#@$I!HJ@#KJRQWEKJFAKDS FHAKEJHROQWEOURQWLKJEF:LKJ#!LKJ#@$!
Try listening to Einstuerzende Neubauten. I'm sure that they've used something that sounds like that in at least one of their songs.
And that way you can save yourself another keyboard.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
Apparently from reading comments on this board so far, most people seem to be offended by experimental music. "You call that music? That's just noise!". Believe it or not, Noise actually is a genre of music and has a rather large following. I don't care if you don't like it, but I could just as easily criticize whatever MTV or Classical Rock things you are all listening to.
Remember, people used to say the same thing about Rock N' Roll, which in my opinion is a completely stale genre. Try and open your minds a bit to things you don't understand.
I've had some fun with cellphones recently. Have your cell phone in one hand, and use the other to have a friend's cell phone yours (may as well use his minutes, right?).
/.-ing), and used my cellphone and answering machine to create some cool noises at the end.
When the call is established, put the cellphones in... er... a 69 position I guess. Microphone to speaker. You should get some pretty cool feedback this way, and you can 'control' it (sort of) by moving the phones around.
I recently covered the Pixies song "Alec Eiffel" for an online Pixies tribute album (link omitted... don't need the
grib.
maybe
I would defind music as sounds created by someone other than a country singer.
Ok, who let grampa out?
I can't disagree with you on that. I guess the impression I get is that it sounds like squeaks and what not. Then again, I've never heard one of those things.
Wireless News www.DailyWireless
If you think that's cool, look for a copy of the CD "Symphony for Dot Matrix Printers" by [The User], as previously discussed on Slashdot. It's excellent.
Not quite as good, but still worth buying, is "Xerophonics"
Of course, circuit bending is how popular electronic music started. Kraftwerk were building their own instruments from scavenged parts in 1970.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Bending is to Slashdot as Swinging is to the rest of the population?
:)
And the two groups both have very different interpretations (and uses for!) "toys".
I love Slashdot. Without it, I might not be producing bizarre music from electronic childrens' toys, making my computer look like it's actually made from wood, and learning why running for geeks is at all different to running for anyone else!
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
If that's all it takes to be called music, then I'm going to record all the noises my car makes and sell a CD of it.
Actually, there is an entire genre of modern-classical music, Pioneered by Pierre Schaeffer where the music is made primarily, or exclusively from found sound. It celebrated it's 50th anniversary a couple years ago or something.
A show on a local radio show does Musique Concrete once a month. One of my favorite shows was musick made entirely from train sounds. It's funny that I thought of that from a slashdot article posted earlier today.
Usually the sounds are manipulated in one way or another.
The music that this article talks about is not Musique Concrete, but it is experimental music that would probably be appreciated by the same people.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
I down loaded some of the MP3's. It isn't music. I sounds like some piped a flawed PRNG thru /dev/audio.
I physical hurts my ears and my son looked at the computer like it was about to blow up.
I was and is just horriable sounding.
Led Zeppelin used it to great effect. Here is the Beach Boys using it in Good Vibrations
One would venture to call this a 'bender' device since it is functionally the same as a metal detector, and works by sensing the proximity of the player's hands to the antennae.
Any other similar devices or early bender apps?
There is only so much you can do when restricting yourself to octive based music
Wrong. Let's say you play eighth notes at 120bpm for three minutes. Even if you restrict yourself to the 7 tones in a particular key instead of a full twelve tone octave, that's 1.3 x 10^325 possible songs.
Okay, so most music has a bit of repetition in it, so let's say the verse lasts 30 seconds out of that song. You still have 1.5 x 10^54 possible verses. And I'm not even taking chords into account.
Only non-musicians think that there's no new music to be made, because non-musicians simply don't realize the potential that exists in every single musical instrument. Of course, the other reason could be because pop musicians aren't even trying anymore. Fact is, there is plenty of original music being made, you just have to look for it. Go down to a big-name music bar on a Friday night instead of browsing slashdot. (Yeah, yeah, I know. But I've got a gig tomorrow.)
On a side note, I am so sick and fucking tired of electronic "music." I don't know about you, but I want my music to be played by a fucking MUSICIAN, wielding an instrument like an extension of his body and putting all the feel and soul into it that ONLY a human can. THAT is music, not a bunch of wav files you strung together in Acid and called a song. Some guy sitting at a keyboard is not a musician, okay?
Let me know when you find electronic music that can make you cry or fall in love or get that amazing "that rocked so much" feeling when you hear a great performace. It's the human element that truly makes music what it is.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
I read all the comments to this point, and saw no mention of industrial.
It started at least 15 years ago (though some other versions may have started earlier)...in Germany.
They recorded (sampled) industrial noise, and mixed it together with vocals, percussion (indeed, some bands used the sampled noises AS vocals and percussion) to make music. Skinny Puppy is a great example.
Just thought I'd bring it up.
I'll answer for the noise making people. Please read this sentence again so it's not mistaken that what I say next is serious.
Ahem. It's not the music it's you. You need to open your mind up because you obviously don't understand our music. Try opening your mind instead of criticizing. I suggest you use a twelve gauge. Which reminds me, I just made a 19 minute excursion into the realm of mimiced 12 gauge sounds created with a bent Simon and some baked orange peels. I'd post a link but it's beyond you all to understand. Beeps and screeches are in a realm beyond all of you mortals. Even I have problems recifying the complex melodies and harmonies (if they existed in our music, chumps) because this is gods music. I only wish Bartertown really existed so I could record underwold because that was music that could only come from a choir of angels. I don't expect any of you to understand, what with your time and key signatures and beats and notes and tone and what not. Silly things like scales and talent. Free your minds from "notes" and structure. I've wasted my time enough with you all. I'm going to go open my mind more by listening to a car compactor that could use an oil job.
That is worse than techno. I mean, it sounds like someone took a cat and pluged said cat into the wall. That isn't music, it is noise.
I haven't checked out the sites yet, does that mean they have mp3s to download (look of excitement).
You probably wouldn't like the song Ethno Techno Squeako Skweeko by God is my Co-Pilot. It is a 3 minute song that sounds kinda like Techno, but with Clarinet and lots of squeaky toys.
Some people find it annoying but it is one of my favorite songs of theirs. Most of their music I would describe as noisey punk rock.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
It ain't a troll just 'cause it's true. There are way too many techno fans with mod points out today. Music always has and always *should* be created by humans using analog instruments.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
do not try and bend the circuit, that is impossible. instead only try to realize the truth. there is no circuit.
Okay, so most music has a bit of repetition in it, so let's say the verse lasts 30 seconds out of that song. You still have 1.5 x 10^54 possible verses.
True, but different verses may still sound roughly the same. Though your melody has several dozen notes in it, a judge will often take only about eight of them when determining what melodies are "substantially similar" for copyright purposes. Now you're down to under six million melodies. Compare that to how many songs have been written (over 4.5 million in BMI's repertory alone), and you get the depressing result of the article "A Chilling Effect on Music".
On a side note, I am so sick and fucking tired of electronic "music." I don't know about you, but I want my music to be played by a fucking MUSICIAN, wielding an instrument like an extension of his body and putting all the feel and soul into it that ONLY a human can.
OK, so how do you feel about Laurie Anderson , who plays hand-made experimental violins and Pauline Oliveros , who plays Accordian, but not in such a way that you can tell it is an accordian?
And out of curiosity, how do you feel about the music of Wendy Carlos, especially the Switched On Bach series?
I like and have a very large collection of classical music, I just like other music too, and some of it is quite weird, but usually more complicated than "a bunch of wav files you strung together in Acid" (Although that makes me wonder if you've listened to Not Breathing.)
And for clarification, part of what I meant about the limitations of octive based music was looking at stuff like eastern music.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
Haha, I love it, nice. If you weren't an AC you'd be on my friends list.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Famous noise artist G.X Jupitter-Larsen, when performing with his band, The Haters (who celebrated their 25th Anniversary last month), used to hold a live microphone against an electric grinder.
At maximum amplification.
Until it stopped working.
As GX is fond of saying...
A xylowave occurs everytime an effect has no cause, or a cause has no effect.
Three Squirrels
Check this link outa kers.htm
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~hsakr/hdspeakers/hdspe
I saw this a while back, you gotta check out the movies clips.
"I have great faith in fools: Self confidence my friends call it." ~Edgar Allan Poe
Please log in so I can make you a friend. You are insane, but fun to listen to.
Also, if you like instruments that you hold in your hand, here is a gallery of all sorts of really weird instruments.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
Needless to say, something as odd as circuit bending doesn't have an "official" web site. However, the person widely credited with starting and popularizing circuit bending is Reed Ghazala, and his site is http://www.anti-theory.com/. Got to give credit where credit is due, folks... More information on bending and other amazing experimental musical instruments is available at http://www.oddmusic.com.
Does this remind anyone of Aphex Twin? He created a couple of albums using analog toys and circuits, including the sounds of the programs recorded on cassette tapes for the ZX-Spectrum computer (people from Europe will know what I am talking about), that was my first computer by the way a whooping 3.5 Mhz with 48K or ram.
None of these non-standard uses are authorised by the patent holders. I'm notifying each and every one of the manufacturers about these blatant violations of the DMCA.
I've never hard of any of these people, which was probably what you were expecting. I went to all of the web sites you provided but could find no clips for download except for Not Breathing, see below.
OK, so how do you feel about Laurie Anderson, who plays hand-made experimental violins and Pauline Oliveros, who plays Accordian, but not in such a way that you can tell it is an accordian?
Playing old instruments in new ways is what keeps music alive and thriving.
but usually more complicated than "a bunch of wav files you strung together in Acid" (Although that makes me wonder if you've listened to Not Breathing.)
I listened to a little bit of it, but it sounded pretty much like your typical samples over percussion loop techno. I don't know how you can even bear to mention that kind of crap in the same sentence as classical, which is the absolute hardest genre to execute due to the fine degree of dynamic and tempo control and sensitivity that every single musician on stage has to have. Techno, or even popular music can't even begin to compare.
And for clarification, part of what I meant about the limitations of octive based music was looking at stuff like eastern music.
New and interesting scales are always fun to listen to. Try listening to something in the Locrian mode, it'll weird you out without even resorting to random noises.
Interesting note of the day, it's not always an even twelve tone scale. The half step is not the smallest unit of pitch. Microtonal music can go down to quarter steps, but it requires incredible skill to be able to manipulate pitches in ranges that small. There's also temperments of tuning, where each note in the scale is sharped or flatted slightly from its even temperment (straight logarithmic scale of frequencies) pitch to lend a certain flavor to songs played in certain keys. It's how everything used to be tuned.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Happens I know a little Keyboardese...
KEYBOARD: "Arghh! It hurts! It hurts! Oh the pain!"
Were Teddy Ruxpins still around when Enter Sandman came out?
Reminds me of at a place where I worked they had a toy singing Christmas Tree. I can't stand Christmas Music for personal reasons, but to make a long story short I really wanted to put in a tape of Current 93, especially their gothic folk music stuff. (Not as much for the spooky noise. Falling Back in Fields of Rape might be appropriate.)
Never did it. Would probably get me fired. Example Lyrics. I particularly like Hourglass which has accoustic guitar, flute, chello, violin, and really intense vocals.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
Oh, the fun I used to have with a Casio VL-Tone twenty or so years ago. I was playing keyboards in a sort of psychedelic funk band (think XTC meets Parliament) and though my main keyboards were a Farfisa Mini-Compact, a Roland Juno 106, and an Ensoniq Mirage, a pair of VL-Tones were part of my gear.
Despite tone generators worthy of a Nokia cell phone, a rhythm box that made a 606 sound like John Bonham, and a four-banger calculator to boot, they sounded like God's Own Voice when run through a Roland Space Echo, an Electro Harmonix Memory Man, various fuzz boxes and guitar effect pedals, and an Ampeg bass amp driving an 18" speaker.
For purely visual effect, I'd have my roadies duct tape one to each of my forearms for that Casio Borg effect. We used the cheesy rhythm box sounds as a click track for one of our songs (our drummer was steady enough to keep in sync without a headphone feed).
Playing melodies on those tiny chicklet keys was a bitch, though, especially after a few backstage drinks.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I am getting tired of reading yesterday's nytimes stories on /. This article was released twenty-four hours ago on NY Times Online, and has been in print all day.
When I was in 4th grade or so, I had one of those "Little Professor" calculators from Texas Instruments which I decided to abuse with a sottering iron one day for shits and giggles. After messing around for a little bit, I found by reconnecting the transistors I could get it to make different sounds controlled by the keys. Suffice to say, it was very limited, but fun to play with for about a week.
Funny how this is suddenly a fad.
Formula One company Asiatech made one of their engines play The Saints Go Marching In".
Details here (at the bottom).
Here were a bunch of MIT grads that did just this...and everyone loved them at the time. Sure they included guitars and other equipment but they always had the BENT deal....
I've never hard of any of these people, which was probably what you were expecting.
/. article is talking about specifically isn't in the same league, but I'm usually interested in experimental music, even if it is being weird for weirdness's sake. After listening I decide if I actually like it or not. And there is experimental music that I dislike. I just find it interesting in general, and like to check new stuff out.
It doesn't suprise me but if you're into Classica I might have expected you to have heard of Wendy Carlos. Switched on Bach was the first full album made completely from a Synthesizer. It was also the first classical album to go double platnum or something.
Laurie Anderson is an Avantgarde performance artist who had a one hit wonder in the 70s (Oh Superman) which got her a 8(?) album contract with Warner Brothers with complete artistic control. Her hand-made violins include a Viophonograph which has a mount for a 7" record on it with a stylist on the bow, The tape=bow Violin which has audio tape on the bow, Zeta MIDI Violin which retrieve aduio from a sampler, a digital violin (Not sure how this is different from the MIDI), and is a Clevinger Bass a unique instrument?
Pauline Oliveros was another pioneer in electronic music. In her early days she was particularly inspired by the frogs in a bog near the studio she created music in. She did many variations on a theme based on this. You probably wouldn't like this stuff because I would describe it as electronic noise.
You might like her Deep Listening project which uses such instruments as accordion, trombones, didjeridu, garden hose, organ, flutes, and electronics. This music is Ambient, very relaxing, but most songs do not have a discernable rhythm or melody.
(About Not Breathing) I listened to a little bit of it, but it sounded pretty much like your typical samples over percussion loop techno.
The stuff on the website is more unreleased stuff for the fans, and is more just messing around. If you were to search Kazaa for a song I would recommend Sacred Relapse from The Starry Wisdom.
I don't know how you can even bear to mention that kind of crap in the same sentence as classical
Well, for one thing I am interested in all sorts of music, just about everything except top 40. In recent years I've become completely bored with most guitar oriented music. Another thing is I'm more into Industrial than Techno, and would classify Not Breating as being more Industrial. That is heavily influenced by the fact that my first experience with them was seeing them live, warming up for Pigface, joined by Mike Spybey and people playing accoustic instruments including didjeridu. The first song started really slowly and kept building and building into a crescendo. I count it among the 10 most incredible performances I've witnessed, and it blew away the main act.
which is the absolute hardest genre to execute due to the fine degree of dynamic and tempo control and sensitivity that every single musician on stage has to have.
Well, are you talking a Symphony, an Ensemble, a quartet or a solo act? I've witnessed a string quartet perform Bach, followed up with Avantgarde "noise" including screaching, and being very impressed with both works so to speak.
Yet another thing is that Industrial music has a lot of inspiration from modern classical music such as John Cage and Pierre Schaffer. So there is an evolution from classical music to the Avantgarde and Industrial musics.
Interesting note of the day, it's not always an even twelve tone scale. The half step is not the smallest unit of pitch. Microtonal music can go down to quarter steps, but it requires incredible skill to be able to manipulate pitches in ranges that small.
You mean like Gyorgy Ligeti?
If so then yea, I heard it in the store one day and had to buy it. Very cool stuff.
Maybe the music this
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
Anyone still subscribed to Emusic.com can download Symphony #2 for Dot Matrix Printers as well as Xerophonics.
Also, a project everyone can download for free is Droplift which is created by multiple peole inspired by Negativland. (Of whom everyone should have downloaded their illegal U2 single by now. It's about a little dog named Snuggles.)
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
Laurie Anderson is the only I have no gossip on...
I don't know for sure, but she pretty much sets off my gay-dar. At her last concert she mentioned her partner, something I don't recall on any of her albums, all of which I own. Anyway, she didn't mention the sex of her partner, but I got the impression it's a she.
And she did a split album with William S. Burroughs and John Giorno, both of whom I know are gay so um....
But then Laurie is definately on the skinny side so I don't think I would describe her as a bull-dyke.
I'm not sure why I picked 3 women. Just the first few off the top of my head who in some way transend Classical and Avantgarde music.
I could have mentioned John Zorn but he is more between Jazz and Klezmer and Avantgarde.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
quoth sahonen: "Let me know when you find electronic music that can make you cry or fall in love or get that amazing "that rocked so much" feeling when you hear a great performace."
Okay - here's one for you: VNV Nation. (the one song they actually have on the site is an old remix and not representative of their work really). Maybe not for everyone, but they put on the most amazing live show I've seen, and it's pure electronics with vocals. Quite literally life-changing for me.
I see no problem with looking to interesting sources for sound. While I do agree there's plenty of possible songs possible with 'traditional' means, I think finding interesting ways to produce the sounds is an entirely viable option. In GOOD electronic music, not only does the musician compose the song, but they effectively create the sound it's played with. There are more ways to produce pleasing sounds than just strings and breath.
Though I admit that just making the interesting noises is not that amazing to me, musically. They have to be used well, by passionate musicians.
It doesn't look like much now, but I can't wait to see where it goes. Imagine working at a toy store, and posititioning Tim the Talking Teddy squashed under a stack of boxes, begging, "Please help me... I don't want to die." I don't see any real meaningful non-entertainment purposes to it, but I sure as hell wish I could reprogram my little brother's talking dolls to say, "bitch, ima fuck yo' ass up!"
Death before Techno!
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Exactly my definition. Sound created with artistic intent. A rather extreme example: Someone records the sound of a truck driving by. Someone gives the tape or whatever medium to someone and says, "This is a recording of the sound of a truck driving by." Another person, an experimental musician, to express his/her rebellion against "normal" music, records the same truck driving by. He gives this tape to someone and says, "This is a song/track/work that I just finished recording." The former is not music, while the latter is. Now, I wouldn't be too impressed with said musical work, and I'd probably only listen to it once before absorbing all the appreciation I could from it, but I wouldn't say, "Are you crazy or stupid? That's not music! You need rhythm and melody to have music!"
I'm sure most of you will mock this example, but in my mind, that is what seperates music from just sound. Sound is just a waveform, just like a painting is just a bunch of matter arranged to form patterns of color. What makes them art/music is the intent. Are they created for functional purposes, or simply to express the creator's self? That is the difference, to me.
Otherwise, music and art both become very messy to define, as well as unnecessarily exclusive.
Have any of you ever heard Merzbow or any other Japanoise bands? It's some of the most extreme and nontraditional music I've heard. Most people would think it's simply the sound of electronics going badly badly wrong. White noise. Screeches. Metallic squeals. Snatches of looped jazz. Check it out if you want to see how far the limits of music can be stretched. I attended a Merzbow concert at the end of a film festival and was amused at the stream of people leaving, not knowing what the hell was going on and covering their ears, leaving the people who actually came to the festival to see him (like me).
BTW, if you are actually interested in hearing Merzbow, www.amazon.com has audio samples. Be sure to turn your speakers down, however. Check out Venereology for one of his harsher albums.
I would expect the closeminded attitudes from most places, but I thought that geeks and nerds were supposed to be open minded. I love electronics and I love electronic music. Not crappy dance music, but music that sounds like it was created by robots and cyborgs and artificial intelligences.
The guitar/bass/drums thing has been done, done, done, done, done to death. Blah. How boring. It's the 21st century. I think it's time for new kinds of music created by new kinds of instruments. To paraphrase Masami Akita of Merzbow, if noise is sound that's unpleasant to listen to, then pop music is noise to me.
Go ahead, mod me as as flamebait or a troll. But try to open your mind just a bit first.
I can't tell what's going on here.
... or they're trying to defeat the RIAA by creating "music" that sounds just like the deliberately corrupted mp3's on KaZaA.
Either they're trying to prevent filesharing by making crap that nobody would ever bother to download...
To be music, I think that sequence of sounds needs to strike you as something more than just noise. I mean I suppose I could go into a technical definition of how tones relate to each other, the classical 12-note to an octave scale is NOT an arbitrary decision but relates to how sound waves work, but it's kind of lengthy for a ./ post. Basically, there is more to being music than just making noise. I mean I can play an executable as PCM or PWM data, that doesn't make the resulting noise music.
I think industrial music is an excellent example of the difference between moise and music. It started through the sampling of sound from industry (as in factores, foundries and such) and the use of that in music. This was applied with some impressive results, eg Skinny Puppy. However while that is music, you'd be hard pressed to walk in to an actual factory and listen to the random sounds in there and call THAT music.
Just because someone screws around and lays something to a track doesn't make it music. That doesn't mean that music can't be changed by experimentation, but just because you are experimenting with sound doesn't mean you are creating music.
On a side note, I am so sick and fucking tired of electronic "music." I don't know about you, but I want my music to be played by a fucking MUSICIAN, wielding an instrument like an extension of his body and putting all the feel and soul into it that ONLY a human can. THAT is music, not a bunch of wav files you strung together in Acid and called a song. Some guy sitting at a keyboard is not a musician, okay?
While I agree in spirit, I can't disagree more in implementation. I've recently adopted midi sequencing as part of my personal repertoire. Why would I do a silly thing like that? Well, go check out my music on my website. Notice any missing sounds from the mix? Like, perhaps, a bass that I don't own? Also, I'm moving away from thrash metal and into more melodic stuff, and as such I'm wanting some good harmonies and texturing noises (violins and synths, mostly), upon which I'll be building compositions, rather than just songs. So I figure there's still a human element, and there's still the base muse being involved here.
To keep it with real humans playing every single instrument, I'd have to know a hundred musicians all with the ability to play a variety of instruments. I'd need a big, good acoustical room for them to play in, and hundreds of high-dollar microphones to record them. Then I'd need to compose a score and distribute it to all the musicians, wherever they are, and it would really suck if the day came to record and I discovered I had an entire harmony line written out half a step too low. Oops. Without having all these "friends" I'd have to hire them. So you're looking at a thousand-dollar proposition for me to make the music that I want to make.
Or, instead I can delegate the less-important parts to the computer, play the important parts myself, take my time, and do it all with existing facilities/utilities. In the end, what's going to be the noticeable difference between the two recordings (assuming all technical factors of recording being equal)?
Not a whole lot. I could probably get a little more collective emotion into the recording by having humans play it. Instead I'm depending on the listener providing that extra emotion. And it's not like the computer is writing the music, just performing. In the long run, I can get a midi pickup and literally play every part, just not all at once. ;)
So it's not as simple as just "electronic music sucks". There is good and bad electronic music. I particularly enjoy Yello. I also enjoy some of the sampling that Anthrax has been doing lately (as in the last ten years). On the other hand, I don't enjoy the music you hear in a standard techno dance club. That stuff doesn't appeal to me, it's all loud, throbbing bass drum and more or less random samples thrown on to "sound cool" and "have a dance beat". Of course, in that case they're not trying to make music, they're trying to make dance, which is a different muse entirely, I think. Or should be, anyway.
Like what I said? You might like my music
A track made with windows(TM)sounds only.
With the great sound of some of these toys once bent, if you listen to just "normal" music, I'm sure there are some bent instruments slipped in. If you listen to any electronic music, the probability is almost 100% that you've been liking the sounds of these things already, possibly even as some of the main instruments in your favorite tracks.
Bands like Nine Inch Nails, Meat Beat Manifesto, and I'm sure many others use these things in their music. Some of the people I have been doing visuals for have been using bent instruments and I've been playing with them for a while now. You'd never know that toys were making some of the sounds. I would assume that everything was created somehow on the computer if I didn't know better from firsthand experience.
It is true that it is possible for some people to do some interesting things.
However, that isn't the case most of the time. Usually these people have little or no electronics knowledge. Instead, they do a lot of drugs and poke around the live circuits with spare bits of wire.
At the end of it, all they're left with is some broken toys and hopefully a recording of an oscillator burning up as it's shorted to something else.
My other first post is car post.
A band called Self (www.selfies.com) has already created and released an entirely toy-instrument based album titled "Gizmodgery" - search Amazon for it. It was released on Dreamworks in 2002. The US version is out of print, but the Japanese import is still available. It is a brilliant album of REAL songs, not jokes and I would recommend checking it out. Check www.selfies.com, they may have some downloads available.
Elliott Smith Tribute CD available now on Double D Records! Visit www.doubledrecords.com to order.
That was my band in high school, and it's some kind of law or something that high school bands have to suck. I'm a much better player now, playing in a much better band (ironically, a former electronic project), but we haven't put anything on tape yet.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
I'll sometimes resort to MIDI when I'm recording demo stuff and I'm not a good enough guitarist to pull it off (I'm primarily a bass player/drummer) or when I don't want to wake people up with drums, but I hate doing it just because the feel is so horrible, especially on the drums. In order to put in the feel that comes naturally to me playing live, I have to mess around with the velocity of every single note, and even then you don't quite get that subtle "behind the beat" feel that makes it funky.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Every instrument on this album is a toy.
Gizmodgery
There's an album by Self called Gizmodgery. It was made entirely with Fisher Price toys. It's pretty hard to find, but definitely worth the effort. Here are a couple of reviews:
here's one
here's another
I saw a portion of Nicolas Collins' entertaining workshop at the Tank last night in NYC. Incredibly fun and interesting stuff no matter which side of the noise versus music argument you find yourself, particularly if you are curious about hacking CD players, licking circuit boards, etc... Mr. Collins is an assistant professor at the Art Institute of Chicago and Editor-in-Chief for the LMJ and is teaching a 3-week workshop on Circuit Bending in June. I haven't been able to find any links to the workshop just yet.
yeah..Matmos, the electronic group who did a lot of the beat programming for Bjork's last album Vespertine, are big into circuit bending. I mean, for electronic-focused music, there's only so many things you can do with an 808. More groups are breaking out of the confines of dance music, and I think that's a Good Thing.
And who they fuck matters because? Not trying to flame or troll, as I have a feeling that by your User name, you probably are not homophobic, but still, I wanted to add something to the conversation.
Nope, I'm not in the least homophobic, and It probably doesn't matter who they fuck. I suppose I was trying to take the fun out of the trolls by causually discussing it. Then again, with Burroughs it kinda matters because he did write about aspects of his own life quite extensively.
And hey, I found out something I didn't know because an AC replied saying Laurie Anderson is married to Lou Reed. I've been meaning to get into Lou Reed for a while now. This just increases my desire to get some of his albums.
Funny that someone would mod my post flamebait, as I was not using the term gay as an insult, simply as a matter of fact.
I'm a fan of Burroughs and Giorno. John Giorno is a gay buddhist poet who uses a lot of electronics (delays mainly) in his poetry. I think all his stuff is out of print except for "You're The Guy I Want To Share My Money With" which only has two poems. And I was only able to find one other poem when searching Kazaa.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
I haven't gotten into Japanese noise yet, but have heard of it. When I was on emusic.com I did download a couple of various artists noise albums that included Japanese artists.
What I can say is that a performance of an Oakland project Noisegate is also in my top 10 performances. It was so loud I had earplugs and my hands over my ears for the entire 30 minutes of their performance. You didn't exactly listen to it as much as feel it. They had a guitar and two keyboardists (I think) but you wouldn't be able to tell there was a guitar from listening to a recording of it.
Noise isn't high on my music priorities, but there are some noise projects that do really impress me.
I'll have to check out this Merzbow project. Thanks.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
the official site would be anti-theory.com the homepage to the man who created/coined circuit bending..Reed Ghazala