my 9v thread is locked

[9V]

It's you that don't understand what i ask, that is much much simpler! You tell me about very complex music that almost no-one listen to... Music for teachers like you, when you have to expand your knowledge. For people like me it is very difficult just to understand and play composers like chopin, bach etc. and all the very difficult tonal music out there. So, i doubt there are people here like you, who can already play complex tonal music and want to compose on a sequencer something more difficult than chopin, lizst, etc. You are going too far. You should understand that when someone composes a piece of music on a sequencer, or with the guitar, piano etc. 99,9% of times just follows tonal rules (sometimes very simple, with three chords 3/4 or 4/4, sometimes very complex, like frank zappa). This is what i mean when i say "technically" and "tonal music": normal musicians (99% of us, i guess). In this case, i prefer to use ONLY midi tracks, because it is MY effort, MY attempt to make music. Using prefab samples for me is not music. It is kind of a fake music... MIDI vs AUDIO: that is what i mean... I don't consider "music" audio samples (played by others and mixed together by me). For me it is just a collage of sounds. You can call it "my music", but for me it isn't.

[stringtapper]

It's you that don't understand what i ask, that is much much simpler! You tell me about very complex music that almost no-one listen to... Music for teachers like you, when you have to expand your knowledge. For people like me it is very difficult just to understand and play people like chopin, bach etc. and all the very difficult tonal music out there. So, i doubt there are people here like you, who can already play complex tonal music and want to compose on a sequencer something more difficult than chopin, lizst, etc. You are going too far. You should understand that when someone composes a piece of music on a sequencer, or with the guitar, piano etc. 99,9% of times just follows tonal rules (sometimes very simple, with three chords 3/4 or 4/4, sometimes very complex, like frank zappa). This is what i mean when i say "technically" and "tonal music": normal musicians (99% of us, i guess).

So basically you're saying "Most of the music I know doesn't work like that, so I won't consider it as evidence that my argument is wrong."

Just because there is music that you are not familiar with doesn't mean that it is not music. It's not my fault you are only interested in popular music.

Anyway, the main point is that music indeed exists that is created with musical parameters that fall outside of what MIDI can address. Whether you or 99% of the world's population are aware or familiar with it has nothing to do with the technical elements of the music itself. It is music, and MIDI alone cannot address its musical elements.

[9V]

But I thought it was understood that we are on a forum in which 100% of users compose their music with old tonal rules... You are going too far, as I said... My arguments are much simpler. I just think that, when composing music with a sequencer, only MIDI tracks can be considered music, because you can always change, edit, replay them like on a score or with an instrument. With audio tracks you can't, because the only tools you have to edit them are "sound" tools (sound engineering). The only way to play music with audio tracks is "LIVE" (like with ableton live, for instance), that is to say: modify parameters IN REAL TIME. If recorded it becomes sound. If you read my original thread, this is my only argument. The rest is your imagination.

[stringtapper]

But I thought it was understood that we are on a forum in which 100% of us compose their music with old tonal rules...

Why would you make such an assumption? Well, regardless of why I'm here to tell you that you are wrong.

You are going too far, as I said... My arguments are much simpler. I just think that, when composing music with a sequencer, only MIDI tracks can be considered music, because you can always change, edit, replay them like on a score or with an instrument. With audio tracks you can't, because the only tools you have to edit them are "sound" tools (sound engineering). The only way to play music with audio tracks is "LIVE" (like with ableton live, for instance), that is to say: modify parameters IN REAL TIME. If you read my original thread, this is my argument. The rest is your imagination.

So I'm "imagining" the part where you offered your opinion that 99% of music tonal as support for why music that doesn't use MIDI parameters is not music? You JUST did that in this thread and you did it in the original thread. I am NOT imagining it and it's simply mind-blowing that you could state that I am when the evidence is right there in text.

And yes, we already know your (continuously repeated) reasoning for MIDI being music and audio not being music. But I have already given you examples of music that could not be created with "MIDI" parameters alone, music that uses the manipulation of timbre, whether through instrumentation and orchestration or through electronics, as a musical parameter. Read that again: music where timbre is manipulated as a musical parameter, a parameter that MIDI simply cannot address or manipulate directly. The fact that this music exists is itself what defeats your argument.

[9V]

yes, for me everything you cannot reproduce with MIDI parameters is not music. It is my opinion, not a law. It is not "i am better than you" etc. I just think (as i said) only tonal, writable, readable, editable (with tonal parameters) music is music. What's wrong with this? Does it mean i am a troll?! I simply don't want to call "music" a remix. For me the ones who compose music using prefab loops are not making music, but remixes. Like a collage. If you tell me your avant-gard musicians works cannot be MIDI reproduced or written on a score, i just reply for me that is not music. Even Schumann once said "that is not music" about some chopin's chords... What's wrong with that?! It's a forum, not a tribunal!

[stringtapper]

yes, for me everything you cannot reproduce with MIDI parameters is not music. It is my opinion, not a law. It is not "i am better than you" etc. I just think (as i said) only tonal, writable, readable music is music. What's wrong with this? Does it mean i am a troll?! I simply don't want to call "music" a remix. For me the ones who compose music using prefab loops are not making music, but remixes.

Again you sidestep my immediate points and move to something I haven't talked about. I'm not talking about remixes or music made with pre-made loops. I'm talking about high-art compositions by some of the greatest musical minds of the last century; compositions that contain musical parameters that are not editable with MIDI (timbre).

This is the first time that you've said it is your opinion that only MIDI is music, instead of saying it as a hard fact as you have done countless times before. So we're getting somewhere!

What I have attempted to do is educate about the fact that many of the greatest musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries completely disagree with you and that most of those who study music seriously will at least admit that your opinion is very rigid, conservative, and, frankly, ethnocentric because there are entire traditions of non-Western music that definitely don't fall under your strict definition of music.

[9V]

But you already said i am musically conservative, and i replied "yes, i think i am a purist". What's wrong with that?! I already replied that for me works like "4'33" by john cage are not music... but conceptual jokes for musicians. Those great musical minds are interesting, but not enough to say their music is music. Infact you can find someone (conservatives?) who will tell you: "no, it is not music: music is melody, harmony, tonal rules, chords, intervals, rhythm and tempo" (in a sequencer: MIDI). Otherwise, one must explain why.

[stringtapper]

But you already said i am musically conservative, and i replied "yes, i think i am a purist". What's wrong with that?! I already replyed to me that 4'33 by john cage is not music... Those great musical minds are interesting, but not enough to say their music is music.

Did I say there was something wrong with it? Like I said before, it's only now that you're admitting that it's only your opinion, and you are conveniently forgetting about all the times that you argued your point as if it were hard fact and if someone didn't agree with you implied on several occasions that they were not musicians.

Be as closed-minded as you want about music, but I can tell you from experience and from the standpoint of someone who is a musician that broadening your thinking in this area couldn't hurt you. It's not like once I discovered the role of timbre in music that I threw away all other musical elements and stopped playing my instruments. Take a chance. Broaden your horizons.

[9V]

and what has this to do with people considering me a troll?! I think people think i am a "troll" because i made some negative considerations about some USA policy (but 90% of my harsh comments were against italian situation) and because of my opinions about music in a sequencer (because i think audio tracks are not music but sound). The rest is your imagination, as i said... Now: i promised the moderators i will never talk about politics in the forum. But regarding MIDI vs AUDIO, i think i am right. Your arguments confirm me the "audio music" is 0,01% of world's music out there.

[stringtapper]

and what has this to do with people considering me a troll?! I think people think i am a "troll" because i made some negative considerations about USA policy (but 90% of my harsh comments were against italian situation) and because of my opinions about what i consider music in a sequencer.

You really do have a selective memory.

You were trolling for the very reason I cited in my earlier post. In that original thread you were implying that people weren't musicians or that somehow American culture was responsible (a negative implication) for their "wrong" opinion.

You know this too. You are just playing dumb.

[9V]

you remember wrong. I said many american kids here think audio is music, and i said maybe it is because of different cultures. Here (in italy) music is the code ("silent" tonal rules: the "grammar"), not the sound made with music. I said it could be a language/cultural gap. never talked about "responsability" or "negative implications" (?!). After all i always speak well about american artists and thinkers (chomsky, stallman, zappa, jack black, RATM, SOAD, belushi, diamanda galas etc.)...

[stringtapper]

you remember wrong. I said many american kids here think audio is music, and i said maybe it is because of different cultures. Here (in italy) music is the code (tonal), not the sound made with music. I said it could be a language/cultural gap.

But you're not denying that you implied people weren't musicians if they didn't hold your views?

And you're wrong, music is not only "tonal" to all Italians. Your own Luciano Berio would not have agreed with your opinion.

[9V]

yes, for me if someone does not use notes, chords, scales and rhythm cannot be called a musician. For instance, people using prefab loops (played by others). Of course they can be called "artists" (they are) but not musicians. Like djs, sound performers etc. They make music ONLY in real time, when performing on stage. Otherwise their works are "sound collages". Things like remixes etc. for me are not "music", but sound. And the ones who play "music" in this way are not musicians. For me a musician is the composer, or the performer (with a musical instrument) of written, composed (tonal) music. And, in a sequencer, "music" is only what you find in midi tracks. The rest is just sound. Is it an offence?!

[stringtapper]

yes, for me if someone does not use notes, chords, scales and rhythm cannot be called a musician. For instance, people using prefab loops (played by others). Of course they can be called "artists" (they are) but not musicians. Like djs, sound performers etc. They make music ONLY in real time, when performing on stage. Otherwise their works are "sound collages". Things like remixes etc. for me are not "music", but sound. And the ones who play "music" in this way are not musicians. For me a musician is the composer, or the performer (with a musical instrument) of written, composed (tonal) music. And, in a sequencer, "music" is only what you find in midi tracks. The rest is just sound. Is it an offence?!

Again, you only want to talk about the "DJs" to support your argument, but when I bring up high art composers who have used non-MIDI editable musical parameters like timbre you say "You're going too far!"

Yeah, I'm "going too far" because I'm revealing the fact that there are musicians well-trained in "the code" who disagree with your assertion that "the code" is the only musical parameter by which materials may be sculpted into music.

[9V]

i already told you what i think about your attitude... To me you are pontificating too much, you always say "hey, i am a teacher, you are ignorant, read that book, i studied stockhausen..."... Free to act like that, but what I mean is much much simpler. And the paradox is that many users here can insult me in a very harsh way and call me troll, without any risk at all. When I reply to loopstationzebra "nice and funny" (?) sentence "you fucking mong, tesla wasn't socialist" with "in USA you don't even know Tesla was socialist?" i get a warning by the mods because "you imply american people are ignorant" (??!!!)... When i reply "maybe you are slow" because i thought "slow" meant "lazy", people like you invoke the ban, even if i explained it was my ignorance due to english lacks and i apologized... "two measures and two yardsticks"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBtXfBdEXEs