Forum Week 11

Construction and deconstruction of music.

This week presented a few more interesting points to consider.

Nathan's talk on Black Metal gave us an insight into the lengths of how musical culture will reject technology, or emulate this, to create a certain sound. The LP played to us represented a poor quality recorded on poor quality. It is interesting to see that poor quality can now be seen as an effect. Even in popular music you can see this with the very popular effect of emulating the "radio" sound by dropping out low end frequencies in the EQ.

The Ambient music of Aphex Twin shows us that music doesn't need to be complicated to be interesting. It is also a demonstration of how timbre can present as much importance as harmonic qualities in music.

Simon's presentation on "jacking" music showed how dance and pop music is created through borrowed ideas and layering these ideas. He gave the impression that he is opposed to this idea, but i believe that when done well this represents a very similar skill to actually composing these ideas in the first place. Is it not true that when these composers wrote their pieces they too borrowed ideas from others. Maybe even copied. But in the case of "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk, i totally agree with Simon. That is laziness! I also agree with Simon when he says that the originals are much more engaging. In the case of dance, the originals have much more harmonic and, in many cases, rhythmic interest. But it must be agreed that the constant repetition of certain riffs can induce other sounds to be heard. i.e. hearing the musical idea differently. Very similar to Phillip Glass.

Overall interesting and intriging arugment presented, more interesting than last week i believe.