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gwilendiel

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Posts posted by gwilendiel

  1. Nicely done. :)

    I'm surprised nobody else has said anything yet. I wasn't quite thrilled in the first seconds, but I quickly forgot about that and was nicely surprised once it got going.

    I'm not even going to criticize anything about it really, it sounds like you know what you are doing and nothing that I could perceive as a flaw truly hurts the art of this song in my mind, personally.

    Sorry if I'm gushing too much, but I really do like it that much.

  2. Ditto.

    Another option: a high-quality do-it-yourself kit. Does such a thing exist?

    Actually, now that I think of it, it would be a good idea to have something like that...

    The problem with music boxes in the traditional sense is the tines, cylinder, and the rotation speed. Tines have to be tuned by making them the appropriate thickness or shaving them down, and the cylinder needs to have the pins or 'bumps' on it, not sure what they are called in technical jargon.

    But if there could be tunable tines and like maybe a copper sheet where you make indentations on the reverse with a tool and then wrap it around the cylinder, you could make your own arrangement....

  3. Honestly, I think you'll have a difficult time finding a commercial service which readily does this, especially if you want a traditional music box (with all the classic mechanical workings, like not a computerized faux music box or something)

    Though you may want to look more at custom instrument makers or craftsmen... I would have said clockwork makers, but it seems those are rare too in modern times (ones that actually make clockwork, and not just craft wooden cabinets)

    Most custom built things nowdays use manufactured parts, so it would be very hard to get a one-off music box that plays a custom tune I'd think. Also you might need to be prepared to spend some real cash....

    Edit: I partly take that back.

    You can have boxes done and get the movements, its the cylinder you'd need.

    But here: http://www.deanorgans.co.uk/musical_movements.htm

    So if you could find somebody who has the right cylinder or can arrange one for you, you'd be set.

  4. This is definitely worth continuing to work on.

    For now I think the beginning of the track needs some eq work, get the right instruments in front. The 'long intro' effect in this case is more likely a mastering problem than a compositional one, it sounds like everything is already there but you need to tweak some levels to change how it is heard and to give it more defined 'phrasing' if you will.

    Just my two cents.

    Edit, also the rapid clicking effect, I think that has potential, but its a little to 'samey' the whole way through. You could try varying the velocities a bit if you want to keep it in.

  5. I think the intro could use a little filtering on the main line, just to have it come in more smoothly. A ground bass coming in late in the intro and following through to the transition would give it more connection. You could also use the filter throughout the track, changing the lead in less of a repeated pattern.

    The piano-ish sound near the end could be introduced subtly into the earlier parts to make it less surprising when it does show up. Also, I think it needs to be more clear above the bed of the rest of the track.

    Keep working on it, you've got a good start.

    Thanks for your feedback! A lot of this track is actually 'placeholder', (like the whole intro is done with a preset, I plan to change that, as well as add variance to the lead) but I didn't want to say that and bias your view of it too much. And the end is well.. not the end heh :)

    But thank you very much, you've given me good ideas. It may take me some time yet but I'll get it down.

  6. Nice!

    Some suggestions (my opinions only, I'm no master of music):

    The opening sounds a little shallow to me, I'd maybe change one one of the toms/bongos to a lower one.

    In the beginning, the bass is a little fat to me. When other instruments come in later, the fatness is good, but when it's by itself it could use a little less low frequency or a little more high... it isn't drastic, only a minor tweak would be good. This may be a scenario where you adjust eq 'on the fly'.

    The same with the kick drum when it first comes in, it's a little too punchy for not having much else around it. Later on the punchiness is very good, but not when its alone. It also needs a way to be 'introduced' less abruptly somehow.

    Again, just what I personally would do if it were me, what you do is you.

    Edit: disregard my comment about the kick, I missed your revised version. I'd say the kick is quite a bit better in that one.

  7. Also, I'd like people to listen to this

    Even though this isn't the feedback forum, and that I don't consider myself in any way 'innovative', I was inspired by innovative things and wanted to try something new to me to break free of things I felt were holding me back.

    So I used Milky Tracker and made the above song. I got the idea to 'draw' music by hand, and that is basically what I did; I drew all the samples by hand, and plotted the notes on the tracker piano roll. There are no sliders, no filters, no effects, except the slight reverb on one instrument which is made of actual 'echo' notes placed manually, but it isn't a filter or preset either.

  8. re: IBBIAZ

    That's the thing. I've said it probably a dozen times now - who did it and when is irrelevant.

    And you just posted good example of improvisation and breaking structure for the sake of more artistic form. It's the form! The form! No matter how many people borrow from it, or who made it, or whatever, there is still the form which makes it what it is, unlike some 'contemporary' easy listening music which is as homogeneous and unoffensive as one can get, and is done that way intentionally.

    I wonder if we take a random piece and really examine it, how many 'broken rules' would we find? For example, the Printer Jam remix by Barbarix which I posted actually contains elements similar to classical music, yet to many people who don't know how to listen, the timbres and filthy dubbing along with the heavy use of dissonance tends to hide this fact, and they will say it is just noise.

    Anyway, on a lighter note... back to Mozart!

    331 mvt.1 (part 1)

    and (part 2)

  9. So, this thread blew up into seven pages and I don't really want to read all of them...

    But I assumed you meant innovative music for *now*. Like I said, there hasn't been any real innovation in music since the mid 90s, and that's pretty much only due to electrical sounds that were being fiddled with from the 80s. At this point, it's all just mixing and matching styles, not defining anything new, so you'll be hard pressed to find something innovative going on within the last ten years.

    If you want innovation in music *theory* (like you eluded to in the initial post), look up John Cage and any of the rest of those pretentious jerkoffs who try to pass their noise as music, and this was all happening in the 50s and 60s. As for things that mose people would consider *music* in a science form, you're better off looking into Miles Davis and the like from the earlier half of the century who developed modern modal harmony.

    But again, I'm going to stick with my statement that (unless there is something going on that I'm unaware of underground), you're not going to find anything really innovative in music in the last decade. Nothing that is *currently* innovative.

    Sadly, I think I have to partly agree... but I also must partly disagree. I don't know where this attitude about 'pretentious' things comes from either. And you tacking 'jerkoff' onto it smells of closed mindedness, but then again, you missed the thread, along with all the examples and clarifications. But you don't want to read it, so go on not reading it - it makes no difference either way if you proceed away from here with incomplete information thinking you know something.

  10. Cassiodorus (6th century AD) defined music as "the knowledge of proper measurement."

    I think there is truth to that.

    Logically it must have truth to it, because music must be measured in some way in order to be created in the first place, not to mention the conscious of the artist will always measure in some form, even if they don't realize it.

    As an absurd example, let's make an imaginary song. We will only use one long unbroken sample of white noise. It would be unintelligible to most if not all human ears, it cannot be measured or distinguished from other white noise, probably not even by the creator. However, if you consider timbre, as zircon brought up, you now have a way to distinguish and measure the song as a structure that has some form of character to it, it no longer is the same white noise as any other generic white noise.

  11. Sorry for the double post, but this just occurred to me.

    We can break this down even further and try and get rid of some of this confusion.

    There is a science to music, as I alluded to earlier. Nearly everyone who isn't tone deaf can agree when something is in tune, or in harmony. With a few exceptions due to harmonics of particular instruments, notes fall into harmony with each other for purely mechanical reasons. This is why it is easily recognized and duplicated. That is part of the objective science of music. The thing about it, and the thing that comes down to preference, is what harmony do you use, or when is it good to be dissonant?

    The same concept applies to nearly every other component of anything which you could choose to call music. Meter is pattern, (or lack thereof at times). It is a mechanical application, a clock for example is analogous to a fixed meter. It is so fixed in fact, that we keep time of day with it - you can't get much more mechanical than that.

    So everything has a science behind it, because at some point it stops being an idea and becomes a physical manifestation with real world effects.

  12. @gwilendiel

    That was actually just a Big Lebowski quote... my lame attempt at being funny in light of the fact that I was kind of a little bit dead wrong.

    Though right now it just looks like a huge promotion for the Wild Arms project, which is okay too :D

    Ahh, thats alright. I have a headache and I get cranky and tend to ramble when I don't feel well anyway.

    But yeah. I wasn't trying to label things in a 'this is how it is in the whole world way'. That wouldn't even be objective because it isn't true in reality, but people seem to be taking it that way.... I'm not looking at things in a stiff regard, nor am I being pretentious. That is in fact what I am trying to beyond in this thread. I want to do away with opinions for a moment (as much as is practical anyway) and truly explore what drives people to do what they have done, and the effects it has had on reality - whether it be rediscovering a thousand year old technique, or something that was only considered 'new' on the western half of the planet or whatever... generalizations which are too broad or opinionated ultimatums were not my intent.

  13. Too many strands to keep in the old duder's head... :D

    It has less to do with standards and more to do with what is.

    For example, by universe standards, planets that support life are rare (Earth being the only one we know of). That's just how it is. It's objective because it is what exists in fact. It becomes relative if a second universe exists that contains all planets which support life, but that does not change the first universe. It's also relative if hypothetically Earth were the only planet to exist - it wouldn't be rare because we would have nothing to compare to and therefore no concept - but that is not relative in actuality because it is not fact in this universe. We only know one universe but we do not call it rare just because there's only one that we know of.

    I don't know why that is hard to grasp... and I really didn't want things to go this way. I'm really getting off track way too much.

  14. What? How is that objective at all? Off the top of my head, Indian music actually has a far more rigid melodic structure than Western music...

    All the more reason it's objective! It isn't a false dilemma or a Hobson's choice. The existence of more than one rigid structure supports the idea even more, if in different arenas.

    So for a hypothetical example, you have something that is unheard of in Western music, but might even be commonplace in Indian music. The Western and Indian 'circles' may have relativity to each other, but on their own they can be measured objectively. So yeah, an unheard of element in Western music - Take away Indian music, un-invent it - that does not change what exists in the Western standard. Or the opposite, take away Western music, and what was unheard of becomes commonplace because what you have left is the Indian structure.

    I still disagree with this pretty wholeheartedly. For example, nobody in the academic world would dispute Stockhausen's status as extremely innovative (in the normal sense of the word) yet he almost exclusively focused on concepts like chance music and manipulation of sound. Music is not just notes and rhythms, it is also timbres, so by definition anyone who is creating new timbres is being musically innovative.

    Well yes, yes it can be. Omission is not always disregard.

  15. Innovation is relative, and you'll be surprised just how far out it can get. The stuff you've been posting feels like a folk song compared to some of the stuff I've been exposed to lately (read: assigned to listen to).

    Perception is relative. The 'science' of music isn't. Anything involving structured creation is not relative because it exists in an tangible and quantifiable sense. It's how it makes you feel which is the relative part.

    Also, it's a big mistake to lable certain things you find distasteful a random mash-up. Some things are a mash-up, but some things have a ton of thought and experience behind them, and lots of people may find it beautiful. (Eighth Blackbird's most recent concert here at Richmond garned really positive, even spiritual reviews by many attendees. There was one couple there asking the group which CD would be best as a lullaby CD for their toddler.)

    I didn't label anything, I just said it happens. Many people do mashups simply as a means to an end, such as making money. They honestly could care less what they do, they only do it because in their mind "some fool will listen to this and give me money". Can we always identify who does this exactly? Well, no. But perception and connotation are different from intent. Some people steal but that does not make Bob or whoever you want be a thief.

    And thank you for your contribution, by the way. Interesting things there.

  16. then for me I'd say Glitch music. before 2005, the idea that you could use clipping, skipping, blips, static, etc. as part of the music, or create an entire song with only just that stuff was unheard of to me (as I was really into mainstream electronic music).

    also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphomatriarch

    Good example, along with circuit bending too which kind of falls in with that I think. Like taking an old toy and ripping it apart and rewiring the electronics to produce the glitching effects you are talking about. :)

  17. It's basically impossible to be truly innovative in music, at least in the sense of doing something that nobody has done before. I would argue that if we're going to talk about innovation, we should discuss artists or composers who skillfully craft unusual music that is outside of any given pop or academic trends, but that is also enjoyable and appreciable by the general public. I once went to an electronic music concert at Peabody (where our own DrumUltimA had a piece performed) and while a lot of the music was certainly nothing I had ever heard before, it was also painful to listen to and excrutiatingly boring.

    On the other hand, the other day tefnek showed me this;

    And I would call that innovative. It sounds like Pendulum and older Prodigy mixed with Beastie Boys - drum n' bass rap. I just haven't heard anything like it, and I think it's extremely well-done. While I'm sure other people have mixed DNB and rap, I give credit to the people who have done it well for the first time.

    There's a first time for anything, because the earth hasn't been here forever. But for practical purposes and to avoid further arguments, I'll agree with you.

    And what you posted reminds me somehow of dub. Like Mistabishi - except perhaps a bit more strictly organized. At any rate I like it. Here's some other interesting things

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7VoHENRx8k

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfhWMMAyuD0

  18. so what's more innovative.

    the winstons for creating amen brother

    or

    the first dj/musician/composer/computer dork to same their little break?

    Like I said, it isn't a contest. And sorry, but I didn't understand the second sentence.

    But to put plainly what I've been trying to say, this is about innovative music or elements, not innovative artists.

    Like jazz or funk variants are very radically innovated, genre wise. So are certain forms of dub. They do things that were previously not understood, especially in early years. They are not simply emergent, like a lot of the rock variants out there. We understand them now, but that's now. Who invented it first is irrelevant to the fact that it exists and is exceptional in some way.

    The reason I'm wondering this, is I've been thinking about what constitutes music in itself. There is a specific science to music, and likely certain biological reasons it appeals to us. For example, if you take a simple sine wave, and run it at a wavelength of 132 and a frequency of 261.63 Hz, you should get a C4 note. Any time and every time. But since it's a plain wave, it probably won't sound good - so you need to create harmonics, almost like a distortion to the wave. Like violins use a sawtooth wave that is extremely complex due to the string vibration and body shape... if I remember correctly, the wave is similar to a trumpet but with more harmonics. This also makes them a pain in the rear to synth from scratch using FM synthesis.

    But anyway... I digress. I'm not sure where all that came from. My head is kind of flooded at the moment.

  19. HOW COULD I FORGET ARCADE FIRE?!?! Damnit, they're like the hipster icon, so foolish of me.

    Also, just because you're unfamiliar with J Dilla's work doesn't mean he's not innovative.

    Yeah. It's a funny thing. If you aren't familiar with it, it's not innovative. If we'ere too familiar with it, it's still not innovative.

    That's why I posted Mozart's Violin Concerto no.5 just now.

    People who like Mozart accept this, it's nothing 'new'. However, at the same time, it features syncopation throughout most of the piece, and many velocity and tempo changes. But the irony is, people who don't appreciate this say it sounds 'strange', especially when somebody else does it. Why is this I wonder? I'm willing to bet that if this piece had never been done before, and a music student did something similar today, it could be criticized depending on the view! "You didn't follow the tempo enough" or "this part is too quiet" "There isn't a beat to it"

    See what I'm getting at now?

  20. Double post to put things in perspective.

    This is true innovation:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x4v9K657V4

    And so is this:

    I did not pick these two because they are 'fancy' nor am I trying to look smart. I'm being honest. Let's try not to get lost in a contest of what people think is cool or not.

    I simply want to explore, not argue with people about what is really innovative.

    Any exceptional musical discovery is fine! I don't care who it is, or if it's the original or a modern example, or if its chaotic or has a tempo. I was just giving general examples.

    I know we can't agree on everything, and I know I did argue a bit over a couple things, but that isn't where I wanted to go at all. So please, a little leeway with eachothers opinions ok?

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