From Peter Hollo Sent Wed, Oct 21st 1998, 08:23
<LONG RANT WARNING> (Irene, enjoy!) Brian Flanagan wrote: <A whole lot of patronising misinterpretations and total rubbish not worth repeating snipped> Man, you have seriously not read a word of this discussion have you? Boards of Canada were in fact one of those groups suggested as using detuning in a very cool way. Mike & Rich too is a joke band and I'm sure the out-of-tunedness is deliberate, even though I don't listen to it much... For the record, the bit near the end of nlogax by BoC isn't out of tune at all, it's just weird harmonies over the bassline and stuff, and is exquisitely beautiful. And all the "out of tune" bits in Selected Ambient Works Vol II are clearly there for a purpose and make the tracks in question particularly effective. On the other hand, "Easy Muffin", track 2 from Bricolage by Amon Tobin, 10would be one of my favourite tracks if it weren't for the horn sample that comes in about 46 seconds into the track and is considerably flatter than the rest of the track. NO WAY was this meant to be like that for the effect - and I just can't listen to it without discomfort. Similarly there's an early track on "Dead Cities" by FSOL which has a synth line that's slightly out of tune with its surroundings and totally destroys the point of its being there. Samples are put there for a musical purpose, and if that purpose does not involve detuned-ness, then being out of tune may be a very big draw-back to a lot of people. > > than much of the uninformative crap we usually read in CD reviews > as I say....good or bad is obviously not good enough for you... Well if you mean "The new CD by x is really good" should make me go and get it, that's just crap. A review should tell me something about how the CD sounds and whether it might be worth my listening to it in a shop or gambling on mail ordering it. [I suspect that's not what you meant; if so, I'm sorry.] > > in which case it's like a colour blind person going "For god's sake, > > stop all this anal babbling about red and green, who cares?" > terrible analogy.... we are all capable of listening to the music we > love on this list, so obviously you DO think you can "listen" to music > better than me.... I disagree, that's not what I was saying at all. I am suggesting that just because you don't care about it doesn't give you the right to deride those who do, or tell us we're doing something wrong. Basically, it's not what you're saying that matters to me - I don't care whether _you_ care about accidental out-of-tune music - but that you can't help being extremely offensive to those who do care. You say you're "well in line"... well I think you're way _out_ of line for telling those of us for whom sloppy out of tune sampling (ie where it's not MEANT to be there stylistically) is important are "sad" (in your first post) and now "utterly utterly snobbish". Go on Brian, tell me I'm a snob because I like classical music too. Tell me I'm a loser because I've studied music theory. You've already told me I like lame crap like Joe Satriani (what kind of stupid analogy is THAT?)... Maybe I don't like the Sex Pistols too hey? (try again) And I was saying "I can listen to music better than you" was I? I don't think so! It was me in "###SELF DEFENSE MODE###" but whilst you go into self defense mode when I reply to you, you clearly don't recognise that I might want to defend myself too. As I said above, I don't think I can listen to music better than you at all, but there's a very large cross-section of IDM listeners for whom being in tune matters (in those cases that I have outlined) and you've just told us we're sad snobs who are, I presume, LISTENING TO MUSIC FOR THE WRONG THINGS. Thanks for letting me know the right criteria for music listening Brian. Now I know I guess. Peter. P.S. Maybe not my last words on the matter, but I don't think this discussion is off-topic myself. I'll try and not be baited next time, or take it off-list! -- Peter Hollo xxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx http://www.fourplay.com.au/me.html FourPlay - Eclectic Electric String Quartet http://www.fourplay.com.au "Of course, dance music can be a music where you lie on your back and your brain cells dance" -Michael Karoli of Can, quoted in Wire mag.