Re: music query

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Dec 03 2001 - 15:57:31 MST


On Sat, Dec 01, 2001 at 04:56:34PM -0500, David M. McLean wrote:
>
> Specifically, I'm interested in if extropians view the dominant advances
> in music's immediate evolution as coming from theoretical models (much
> the way composers like Schoenberg and others radicalized the "serious
> music" world during the turn of the last century) or from technological
> advances (much the way Ray Kurzweil's K-250 and digital recording
> breakthroughs did at the end of the last century). Or will it possibly
> be a "hard" combination of the two (like the "chaos" composition
> generators & granular synths of today)?

Doesn't culture play any role in the emergence of music? Technology
enables new sounds and forms of music, and people love to experiment
with new musical technology. People come up with theoretical models for
music all the time, some become popular because they provide a sound or
style that fit what people want to play or hear. But in the end what
selects new music is what people listen to, give money for and tell
their friends about, and that is very much dependent on the role of that
kind of music in that culture - a way of expressing certain emotions in
need for expression, a tool for revolt or a new sensual thrill, to name
a few. I have a hard time seeing music as being driven by theory or
technology, it is about human passion.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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