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As a musician I was prepared to roll my eyes at this article but it's really good. When I was a kid I would play with Music Construction Set on my Apple ][, "p

by dfan 12y ago

As a musician I was prepared to roll my eyes at this article but it's really good. When I was a kid I would play with Music Construction Set on my Apple ][, "painting" lots of random notes into one or two bars and then putting repeat signs around then. What sounded totally random and annoying at first became kind of catchy once you listened to it eight times in a row. The composer that I really admire for unabashedly using repetition before the Minimalists really took off with it is Olivier Messiaen (the Turangalîla Symphony has lots of great examples). Classical music is historically largely about continual transformation, and he was unafraid to just cut and paste big sections. It worked magnificently.

theOnliest 12y ago
I had the same reaction when I saw the title, but then I saw the author. Her book on repetition won the outstanding publication award from the Society for Music Theory this year. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard her present and she was really fascinating (even though I'm normally not interested in cognition at all).
- dfan 12y ago
  I didn't realize she had a book on the subject (although of course now I see that it's mentioned in her byline). Thanks for calling my attention to it.
svantana 12y ago
See also: Acid House. An astonishing number of classic tracks in the genre are based on "random" sequences on the Roland TB-303 synth, repeated hundreds of times. (The synth's sequencer is tenuous to program, so just pushing the buttons randomly is a quick way to get a sequence of notes)
- pistle 12y ago
  Oh, but that filter, glide, and accent circuit can elevate. They sometimes behave so strangely.
mazelife 12y ago
The cut-and-paste aspect of Messiaen's music is definitely one of it's many unique features. That said, it's always been my belief that Messiaen got the idea from Stravinsky, specifically the Rite of Spring, which takes the same approach.

by dfan 12y ago

theOnliest 12y ago

I had the same reaction when I saw the title, but then I saw the author. Her book on repetition won the outstanding publication award from the Society for Music Theory this year. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard her present and she was really fascinating (even though I'm normally not interested in cognition at all).

dfan 12y ago
I didn't realize she had a book on the subject (although of course now I see that it's mentioned in her byline). Thanks for calling my attention to it.

svantana 12y ago

See also: Acid House. An astonishing number of classic tracks in the genre are based on "random" sequences on the Roland TB-303 synth, repeated hundreds of times. (The synth's sequencer is tenuous to program, so just pushing the buttons randomly is a quick way to get a sequence of notes)

pistle 12y ago
Oh, but that filter, glide, and accent circuit can elevate. They sometimes behave so strangely.

mazelife 12y ago

The cut-and-paste aspect of Messiaen's music is definitely one of it's many unique features. That said, it's always been my belief that Messiaen got the idea from Stravinsky, specifically the Rite of Spring, which takes the same approach.