composer,

Please don't be mad.

I am sorry that you feel that I am attacking you. My intentions were only to clarify what I believed to be contradictions in your argument. To be clear, I prefer music to be "performed live." I am a piano player by trade, accompanying ballet, modern dance and tap classes during the day. Nights I play jazz, rock, and country gigs (I live in Dallas Tx so don't hold it against me; there's alot of money here in country music).

Between all that nonsense I write for industrials, commercials and film.

I am surrounded by live music and I love it. Wouldn't have it any other way. Trying to sequence parts in the studio vs. getting a great player to knock out the part in one take well there is no comparison. So you see I'm not really disagreeing with you. I actually do agree with you on many levels.

I must confess that I originally joined this discussion because of your exchange with William. I felt that you misrepresented your own opinions (as well as some of my own) by being less than clear with your language. Plus, oversimplifying issues rarely if ever serves to clarify one's point of view.

I'm sorry. There I go again.

Thank you for being a good sport.

Clark

That is quite alright.....a little arguing is good. Helps keep you on your toes.

"OK...enough with the electronic composition talk....if you really knew anything about the electronic composers you mention in these posts you would stop comparing VSL users to them" - composer

"composer" -

If you don't want to offend people, stop writing stuff like this. I do know something about these early electronic composers, and don't appreciate your arrogant and obnoxious implication I don't. Also, I thought it was obvious that what they were doing is different from current digital sampling. My point was simply about creating music purely for RECORDING.

Also, what you say about sampling being "mimicry" of an orchestra - sorry, but that is not how I see it. It is the use of pure, isolated orchestral sound as a musical concept. A profoundly different thing from mere "mimicry."

Finally, the idea you stated that no one here can even think about writing something as good as Bach - every composer aspires to being the best he can be, and should never place limits upon himself or others. Based upon the attitude you display, that may be just about all I have to say to you.

Music is shit.

P.S. I'll be erasing the post above, but it's here for everyone's amusement for 24 hours! LOL [;)]

William,

I apologize for offending you. Just as I think people did not completely understand my point....perhaps I misunderstood yours. So, if I did, I am sorry. I don't doubt that you know about the many prominent figures in electronic music. I think you felt that one of my reactions was addressed specifically to you concerning them, but I don't believe the one in question was. I will try to carefully address my comments in the future. Additionally, my response to your earlier comments was overtly harsh, and not appropriate. I grew frustrated with the way my earlier posts were taken. I felt they misunderstood, but I did the same to you. I feel that sometimes the impersonal nature of a forum contributes to this.

Sorry about the Bach comment....I didn't think it was that offensive. In hundreds of years there has not been many composers of Bach's status. I hope someone on VSL achieves that status. So...bad comparison I guess.

Again...my apologies

@evanevans said:

P.S. I'll be erasing the post above, but it's here for everyone's amusement for 24 hours! LOL [;)]

Thanks Evans! [:)]

Well, I missed this whole thing! Bummer.

I'd say I'm with William on the whole sample thing... at least, in general. I think it's true that the vast majority of VSL use is intended to emulate the "live" orchestra. However, I also think there's a whole world of interesting work to be done in the area of using these samples as individual sounds, with their own inherent musical qualitites. This is potentially a very interesting line of investigation. I'm trying to do a little of it, and am hoping to explore it in depth in future. The difficulty is that I think that it demands quite a different way of thinking about musical form, because once you've abstracted these samples into pure sounds, then suddenly any notion of arranging them based on the parameters of instrumental performance is essentially arbitrary. Not good, not bad. But simply one method of organization among an infinitude.

If one makes this step (which is extremely difficult to make) then I would argue that s/he is indeed in the territory of the early electronic music composers. I say this because to make this step would require a complete dismantling of one's understanding of what these sounds signify, and how they relate to one another... which may, in fact, be impossible to do.

It's even arguable that this is a *more* difficult step to make than the pioneers of electronic music made, because it implies a process of tearing each sound away from a 300 year history of associations. Seriously. To find a new context for a new sound is not such a big feat. But to find a new context for a sound with as much "baggage" as a flute, or violin... now *that's* tough.

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

Here's something I've done that mucks around with VSL a little. Not at all what I'm talking about, but at least it's clear that this is not intended for "live" instrumental performance:

http://rubato-music.com/Media/WFT_orch_morph.mp3

(just an excerpt from a contemporary dance piece I'm working on)

jbm,

Well said. When I previously mentioned the abstraction of conventional samples by "taking the VSL timbres and coming up with unusual non-acoustic applications" I was inferring but not entirely thinking as comprehensively about what you so ably describe.

And your music sounds great. Very modern dance. I mean that in the best way possible. I am around a lot of dance on a daily basis so hearing your music I can almost visualize the choreography. I'm sure others will find it very programmatic in that fashion as well.

I myself recently completed music for my first ballet (and am recomposing it now for the DVD using VSL) and I must say it was very artistically rewarding to experience it complete with costumes and lighting (and a huge sound system). Please post more stuff when you can, too. I will offer up some of my own as soon as I get it done, I would like your reaction.

composer,

I'm glad you said something there to William. When I mentioned that I entered the discussion after your exchange with him I didn't include that I was concerned about some of those rather impassioned remarks. Bravo, man. Believe me when I say I've flamed up shit a lot worse...

Clark

Thanks composer. I know I do the same "harsh" stuff myself. You're right - it is the distant communication aspect of this that causes it. Also writing - I start typing at a keyboard and get carried away.

JBM, that is an excellent point about having to tear away assumptions that have accrued like mineral encrustations over centuries of orchestral sounds. Perhaps one way to do it is to think of what the original purpose of the orchestra was, in the conception of composers long ago - to provide all of the sounds that could be used in music. Today we have vastly more, and yet the norm is to content oneself with what was available three hundred years ago.