what's your autodidactic focus in music?

[xoxos]

at an early point i made a decision to study music without conventional theory, so that whatever sensibilities developed would be from an experiential foundation instead of referential.

after reading wags thread, i can cheerfully say, my practice of music theory is still awfully primitive compared to convention, despite some early formal education (in theory..) and eventually perusing more material for music generating engines.. its the fact that i don't play or practice music formally that makes chord progressions practically meaningless.

so this thread is about, how did you choose to analyse what you were hearing following an independent path? what are you listening for?

my focus was memetic, the ideological content of music formed all the structure rather than convention or theory. even before recording, my cassette mixes were about ideological continuity instead of tone. music can be jarring or unpleasant as a matter of course to me, it escaped me that other listeners could discretise against uncomfortable sounds and ideas.

---
side note, in the first place, i'd say clearly, the music industry is about impressing the audience, so you want all the stunts you can get, and theory is a *big* part of that i think. (i like honesty, which can't compete with entertainment.) this means my music sucks, but the main reason my music sucks is because nobody in the universe ever needed to listen and "musicians" don't want to know about that. we all enjoy our privilege of being "a totally necessary part of this totally bogus bullshit culture".
---

i still listen this way, in that memetic novelty can be contained in discrete ways. like, just saw childish gambino, i guess its the shock that is supposed to grip, but imo the "slip with america" phrase was the prominent memetic novelty "take home" because the rest of it has been seen and heard before. i'm still not listening to chords and their vocabulary remains mysterious to me.

in all this time certainly many theories have entertained me, eg. thinking about linear resonators with the same sense of underlying semantic as pitch.

i figure people might be surprised at the focii others have in music and recording, predominant modes of thinking about voice and consciousness as presented by technologies. at least more depth than "A major suspended always sounds wistful that's what it says in the book and the last fifty years of songwriting". i mean its like, you get bored with your cultures musical traditions by the time you're five, right? how did you try and see it uniquely, so you could pursue the worth and avoid the drag?

[Bombadil]

I just wanted to get laid.

[perfumer]

my focus was memetic, the ideological content of music formed all the structure rather than convention or theory.

What the f**k does that even mean?

[DJ Warmonger]

I always wanted to make club music people would enjoy without drugs.

Same about forum posts.

[Michael L]

To find musicality in the sounds around, I listen for the basic elements of music such as rhythm and tempo, pitch and melody, timbre and harmony, dynamics and form. Spotify has also been very ear-opening.

[vurt]

I just wanted to get laid.

any luck yet?

[Bombadil]

I just wanted to get laid.

any luck yet?

Steady on, old Bean! That's a rather personal question!








no

[datroof]

Since I was a kid, I always wondered why this song made me cry, and this other song made my hair stand up, etc. I was drawn to theory - I kind of intuitively knew that I wanted to take a scientific approach, to understand some of the math behind it all, etc. My dad was a physicist, which probably influenced me. But I'm still fascinated by exactly the same stuff - what is this weird language that speaks directly to our bodies and emotions? How does it work, and what are the messages that connect on such a deep level? It seems like I can almost glimpse it out of the corner of my eye, but can't look directly at it.
Anyhow, music theory has definitely helped me figure out exactly what kind of musical conditions I'm drawn to, and what effects they have on me. I have no regrets about studying music theory.

[jancivil]

The most striking thing in that is the statement regarding "impressing the audience" which I think is, at best a red herring and of no use whatsoever.
It doesn't strike me as more honest than whatever this "entertainment" emphasis is supposed to do which is to be viewed with suspecion.

You appear to liike Duke Ellington above other jazz, which is entertainment, which uses conventional theory, and is informed by conventional theory in a major way. You have two ideas, then, that rather strongly disagree with each other. And I've heard your music where chord progression is far from being irrelevant, in fact had you a better grasp you will have been helped; you're doing something by ear that is not ruined per se by having the vocabulary and the facility. It might not work for you, it might confuse you or stifle but that's not universal.

I had a friend who had a similar belief going, where it's preferable and pure to not be influenced much. He liked the idea of Robert Fripp supposedly with an untainted whole thing. Yet the only music he wrote totally was derivative (this was later). However he was able to improvise as though he wasn't very touched by the outside world, at least on a good dose of LSD.

I took a theory course at the age of 18. I had a pretty good musical vocabulary going by then. I had that thru transcribing off of records, and I don't mean half-assed. I didn't start with a very good ear for pitch, even, but it came to me. I had heard things probably few people hear as a child via my father and his records. Birth of the Cool by Miles Davis, and the Stan Kenton "Adventures In _" series, In Jazz, In Time, In Blues I would hear over and over. Before I heard pop music.

My father wanted me to become a super-impressive trumpet player. What's wrong with that? It's exciting; command of an instrument is a thing in itself. A decade later, I began to develop that on the guitar. (I had orthodontal problems so trumpet was out.) At 13 I started trying to figure how what was happening in songs. At 16 I picked up a Mickey Baker chord pamphlet. I picked up flat five substitution principle and a lot of voice leading, albeit it was just a little book showing you how to finger the things. Eventually I wanted to grok JS Bach, basically so I took the community college course. I began woodshedding classical guitar because this was pretty much what there was as a path to university for me.

There, and at community college, was essentially part-writing in an advanced chromatic harmonic language the whole of most of class time. I excelled at it. Today I don't think in chords as primary. The penultimate section in my latest, I looked at it and it finally ends in definitely a long sustained C7#9 (no problem) but I didn't get there by the name. The interest is in the voices, it's conceptually linear.

I continued my education, and after that (which meant leaps in growth chops-wise) I moved away from the West and that whole kind of music. The Western hegemony promoted in Donald Grout's book, well, I dropped History, it's really stupid to buy into that 'ideology'. I was aware of other things for a good while before that crap.

"you get bored with your cultures musical traditions..." I don't know what that means. In our house, the culture was Stan Kenton afaict. I was made aware of older pop music, my mother went for Nat King Cole for instance. None of this was "boring".
At 12 I started hearing Hendrix and Cream somewhere outside the house. I saw Hendrix 19 days before my 13th birthday and switched instrument again, from drums to guitar. I wanted melody and I wasnt getting it with three toms. I did find most radio pop music pretty boring and always have. That includes The Beatles before they started getting high.

How did I "try" to look at it uniquely? There was no try, I individuated well enough by my own devices I suppose.

[vurt]

i have an audience of 1 who i aim to please.
hes always wasted though so fairly easy to please.
it's just about enjoying the moment, the vibrations and the colours.

[Bombadil]

When I want to make people sad, I play something in Dm, the saddest key of all!

[debra1rlo]

my auto is a Kia not a Focus

[xoxos]

just thinking about scriptures teh other day, been a wile.

jan lives music and interprets thusly.

like troof the perception of order i think is intrinsic to the experience of music as structured, you'd sort of think it has something to do with why most people listen, vital perception (until survival requires not listening ha i liked "stan k" ). if you do that whole "people" gneeralisation.

i mean i was expecting response like, for many sound experimenters the form of the technology they use provides the structure for composition (eg. mucking with a delay pedal). that kind of perception. theory was part of your environment. i'm intending to extricate expression of less referential format. synaesthesia, aminal colours, dunno. see what is made of teh topic, could be useful.

my thought i mean, i wouldn't expect to convey it, part of belief is belief, music and life has always been first and foremost about social effect. people see me as an individualist because they don't understand what i am doing. folks teeing the other day, "that ball's crazy" "that's not crazy that's motion". ha being nice i'm sure. but yes ime perspective is so disjunct that expression continues throught the world without communication occuring. i'd set music on fire and kick it over a cliff if it had social benefit to do so. (its alright, it doesn't and has been done already).

i just think people should stop singing about anything but west papua. at least, to some moderate degree like. look.

[Bombadil]

I will not buy this record, it is scratched!

[vurt]

just thinking about scriptures teh other day, been a wile.

jan lives music and interprets thusly.

like troof the perception of order i think is intrinsic to the experience of music as structured, you'd sort of think it has something to do with why most people listen, vital perception (until survival requires not listening ha i liked "stan k" ). if you do that whole "people" gneeralisation.

i mean i was expecting response like, for many sound experimenters the form of the technology they use provides the structure for composition (eg. mucking with a delay pedal). that kind of perception. theory was part of your environment. i'm intending to extricate expression of less referential format. synaesthesia, aminal colours, dunno. see what is made of teh topic, could be useful.

my thought i mean, i wouldn't expect to convey it, part of belief is belief, music and life has always been first and foremost about social effect. people see me as an individualist because they don't understand what i am doing. folks teeing the other day, "that ball's crazy" "that's not crazy that's motion". ha being nice i'm sure. but yes ime perspective is so disjunct that expression continues throught the world without communication occuring. i'd set music on fire and kick it over a cliff if it had social benefit to do so. (its alright, it doesn't and has been done already).

i just think people should stop singing about anything but west papua. at least, to some moderate degree like. look.

that's vaguely what i said. sort of.
you want actual equipment list?
whatever it is, guitar/pedals/synths/random stuff... its about seeing what it can do, finding interesting bits and sharing them?

i did also mention the colours