musinum

From "How to Listen":

What a heading! This guy has to tell me HOW to listen to his music? Well, no, I'd like it to speak for itself, but as with any musical form, there are ways of listening that may help to get the most out of what's there.

An example may help: Western classical music is traditionally complex harmonically (vertically), and relatively simpler melodically and rhythmically (horizontally). Much of the musical message is in the harmony, and the ear trained to listen to that music grows very sophisticated harmonically.

The classical music of (let's say) Northern India tends to find its complexity, and hence to convey much of its message, in melody, rhythm, and indeed, delicate nuances of scale and pitch, as evidenced by (e.g.) the introductory statements of scale and meter that begin a raga. The ear trained to that music grows correspondingly sophisticated in detecting the message conveyed in the rhythms and pitches it hears.

Two sets of ears, belonging to the same human species, and yet to the Western ear unfamiliar with Eastern music, the relative lack of harmonic complexity will perhaps make it sound like a pointless droning... The message in the intricate rhythms and precise shadings of pitch and ornament will elude it as much as any dog whistle or bat cry out of human range may do.

Conversely, to the Eastern musician, the classical music of the West may sound like the artless banging of a child on a toy drum... The shades of meaning and emotion which may induce in the Western listener every kind of emotion will be mostly lost on the ear not trained to decode the message.

Even within a genre like jazz, the "moldy fig" traditionalists literally could not hear what was happening in bebop when it first emerged. There were masterful musicians, and there were those who just "ran the changes" on the chords, but to the moldy figs, they all sounded alike, the transcendental and the mediocre. What our ears may now easily hear was not accessible.

Coming to the point, there are things to listen for in fractal music, in generative music in general, and in this music in particular. By and large, I like to let the music be what it is... I like to let the underlying structure show itself, and work itself out. (I'll explain more about that later.)

One point in particular about fractals, including fractal art and fractal music, is that fractals are defined by being "self-similar." That means that at any scale they appear to have the same structure. Think of an ocean coastline viewed from space, then the detailed shoreline as we zoom down, and finally the little irregularities, the ins and outs, we see as we walk along the water's edge. Or again of a tree branching and re-branching, and the veins in the leaves doing the same down to the microscopic scale.

As music is played out in the medium of time, what this means, at least in the case of music composed with the aid of the MusiNum program, is that the differences between, let's say, fifteen seconds and one minute from the point of origin of a fractal piece will be roughly the same as the differences between fifteen minutes and one hour.

If the pitch of various voices is rising, for instance, it will tend to rise as much in the last three quarters of an hour as it did in the last three quarters of the first minute. In the intervening time, many structures will tend to be, not repeated, but restated, at many scales of time. Patience may be required to accustom oneself to this form, but patience will often be rewarded.

The best way to listen to many of these pieces is not to bring prior expectations to them, but to simply let them be, as you might simply let the flora and fauna be on a nature walk, and observe them as they truly are. The gradual unfolding of qualities inherent in the structure is what is known as a "logarithmic spiral," and such a spiral can be observed in the growth of shelled animals such as the nautilus.

I will talk about more things later, including the "hinged" pieces in which the peak of excitement and change is in the middle of the piece. Enough for now.






2500: Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks Theme
5000: Bruce Brubaker - China Gates
7500: Mystified - Plunder 2
10000: Phillip Wilkerson - Comfort Zone
11111: Metricks - Blue River
12500: Citadel of Mo - Third Eye
15000: Deepspace - Deserted Factory
17500: Felixdroid - Theme
20000: The Golden Dawn - MOONLIGHT
22222: David Elsener - The Subway Killer-Noise (Live With Noel Leu on Guitar)
22500: Spencer Brewer - Muse, The
25000: Vangelis - Irlande
27500: Dulci - Just a Gigolo
30000: Rodrigo Rodriguez - Turtle Ceremony
32500: Yuminale - The Valley
33333: Orchestra Baobab - Wango
35000: Roots Manuva - Witness - live
37500: Titee & Pixieguts - Year of the Future
40000: Keller Williams - Freeker by the Speaker
42500: Osmani Soundz - Spiritual Master Key
44444: Software - All We Hoped For
45000: Loscil - Discrete Entropy
47500: Validine Chronus - Ape
50000: Miwa Momo Hojo & Yuichi Nagao - Shiro
52500: James Yorkston and The Athletes - Woozy with Cider (original version)
55000: Slowdive - Missing You
55555: D+ - Green Party
57500: Frank Van Bogaert - Docking
60000: Valley of the Giants - Claudia & Klaus
62500: Ben Barden - Message for a Child
65000: Reigakusha - Kangen: Sandaien Ichigu: IV. Kyu
66666: White Rainbow - April 25th 11:14pm
67500: Betty Carter - Open The Door
70000: Djinnestan - Sail of Floss
72500: Mooma - The Herd Forming Song
75000: Akasha Voices - Part 4 Erde
77500: Lanikeha - Celui qui Chuchotait dans les Ténèbres
77777: paan - Trip to Norway
80000: Robert Henke - [diagonal]
82500: William Basinski - Melancholia 1
85000: Oscar Peterson - Love for Sale
87500: Tya - Baiame
88888: Ethan Rose - Rising Waters
90000: Rachid Taha - Malika
92500: Roy Hargrove - Dream Traveler
95000: Brothers Johnson - You Make Me Wanna Wiggle
97500: McCoy Tyner Trio - Changes
99999: Cul de Sac - Death Kit Train
100000: (2009-09-25 00:02:40): Deepspace - Sol
100001: Doc & Lena Selyanina - Ich Rufe
105000: Raymond Scott - Manhattan Minuet


gotcha by anniversary tracks grabber


current eclecticism rating: Take your top 20 artists. For each of these artists, collect the top 5 similar artists. The resulting number of unique artists is your eclectic score. If the score is small (extreme = 5) your musical preferences are very limited, and if it is large (larger than 80, extreme = 100), then you have an eclectic musical preference. You can compute your own score

My eclectic score is currently




The 70 related artists for my profile are Aaron Marshall (2), Akashic Crow's Nest, Alfarspace, Baskyl, Colours Run, Corrado Rossi, Corrientes (3), Crisopa, Danny Becher, Deepspace (3), Dementio13 (3), Dementio13 Feat Pixieguts (3), Digital Beat, Djinnestan (2), Felixdroid (3), Friends of redhalo (3), Fugdale (2), HealeyIsland (3), James Johnson, Jash, Jason Rubenstein, Jeffrey Letterly, Jesus Diestre, Kind of girl, Kit Watkins, Lee Rosevere, Lynn Johnson (2), M. Persson: Sounds, Mario Raposo, Marvin Ayres, Metricks (2), Metricks & GaiaBeat, Metricks & Phrulex, Michael Sandler, Milo Moesche (2), Moonjabber, Mystified & Saluki Regicide, Neafas, Northcape (3), Oortcloud, Osho Musicians, Parasme, Phase Speed, Phillip Wilkerson (3), Pixieguts, Planet Bliss, Remergence, Renato Ventura, Rowboat Magicians, SK123, Saluki Regicide (2), Scumbo, Serge Blenner (2), Solar-Wind (2), Telomere, The Amazing Rolo, The Peach Tree, Thom Brennan, Tim Doyle (2), Titee & Pixieguts (2), Tom Earnest, Tree Helicopter (2), Validine Chronus, alexander wigger, dcallen, funkcartel, genius loci, inn3rflow, k.m.krebs, rübe & luki




Current super-eclecticism rating: Take your top 50 artists. For each of these artists, collect the top 20 similar artists (where the artist itself is the #1 most similar). The resulting number of unique artists is your super-eclectic score. You can compute your own score



My super-eclectic score is currently




The most similar artists for my profile are HealeyIsland (15), Dementio13 Feat Pixieguts (13), Streams of Europe (13), Jash (12), Friends of redhalo (12), Remergence (11), Max Waves (11), Tim Doyle (11), Solar-Wind (10), Yuminale (10), Solipsism (9), Baskyl (9), M. Persson: Sounds (9), Titee & Pixieguts (8), Pixieguts (8), Djinnestan (8), Northcape (7), Akashic Crow's Nest (7), Adrian Carter (7), Herrera (7)