Eclectic I

Friday, October 05, 2007

Forum wk9

The Bent Leather Band graced our presence this week. I have contrasting feelings about this session. I highly admire and appreciate there instruments. They are works of art and incredible skill. The various different control elements they are able to employ through the use of their instruments is astounding. Then there is the well thought out designs for easy use, not to mention the visual aesthetic!

Were I came upon challenges was their desire to use these incredible instruments in a strictly atonal manner. Stuart demonstrated a beautiful and moving use of the 'light harp' to generate an Indian Raga. Yet this was purely for example purpose. To demonstrate that it was a matter of having the right max patch to create whatever sounds you desired. Instead they preferred to improvise music which his melodically and harmonically void.



I am completely in favor of experimenting with timbre and texture of sounds. But sharp stabs of noise random strums of notes are not the ideal way to achieve this. Its unnecessary to stick to rules of harmony, but ridiculous to replace them with even more confining rules limiting the music to complex tones and washes of noise with no sense of the interrelating tones.



There was a reason the ideas of Schoenberg haven't taken off. He took the ideas of harmony to the farthest reaches, and it was necessary to understand this. But its time to return to the ideas of Debussy. Music is for pleasure, not the autocratic following of theoretical dogma!

Reference:

Stuart Favilla and Joanne Cannon. “Forum – Week 9 – ‘The Bent Leather Band’.” Workshop presented at Space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 4th of October 2007.

Haines Christian. “Forum – Week 9 – ‘The Bent Leather Band’.” Workshop presented at Space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 4th of October 2007.

Sebastian Tomczak. “Forum – Week 9 – ‘The Bent Leather Band’.” Workshop presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 4th of October 2007.

Pic References

Delany, John. "Music Tech Forum week 9 bent leather band." John Delany's Blogspot. http://johndelany.blogspot.com/2007/10/music-tech-forum-bent-leather-band.html (October 9 2007).

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home