in the
19th century, there wasn't a piece of
western music that couldn't be played if one didn't have the
sheet music, the right
instruments, and the people to
perform. things got slightly different in the early
20th century. maybe your
trumpet needed the right
mute, or you needed the right kind of
electronic organ. things really got different in mid 20th century when there were hundreds of types of electric
guitars, and
amps,
microphones, etc. then the
synthesizer came and changed everything. now to play a piece of music, the right
synths with the right
patch settings are needed to be played through the right amps, but only before being run through the right
fx processors.
today? it's not just about
notes any more. or
time signatures, or
key signatures. music is becoming more and more about the
uniqueness of
tone.
variance of
timbre. there's no way anybody could take a decent piece of
experimental electronic music today and reproduce it recognizably using
general midi or sheet music, though nearly any song prior to
1980 might be pretty much recognizeable if reduced to just notes on a sheet of paper.
so this is the
next step in music. i almost think we've
exhausted our
twelve tone western
scale. the
pioneers not searching for the perfect
riff anymore, or the perfect
chord progressions with just the right
harmonies. they're searching for the right set of
frequencies, the right timbres.. what's even harder is the search for all of these in order to
unify a piece in reproducing a very specific
emotion or
mood.
one of my most basic
beliefs about anything
creative is that for something
groundbreaking to be good, it takes
skill,
practice,
talent, and
creativity. however, upon the
introduction of a new type of any sort of
art, there are always a few
initial years where those with no skills get a
free ride. take '
modern' art. in the beginning, everyone simply thought it consisted of plain
dots, or giant
cubes of
plastic--
simple,
bland, and nothing more. the untalented
artist saw this, didn't fully understand it, and reproduced a decent
ripoff. since the
public was not used to these new
trends in art, we thought it was good. no longer. there are
thousands of
musicians out there riding this
wave of groundbreaking
sound, and though
99% of it may be
garbage, rest assured there are
gems of
revolutionary music out there being
polished as we
node.