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the "random music thoughts" thread


fledgehog
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All the Queen talk inspired me to revisit Roger Taylor's 1981 masterpiece Fun in Space. Maybe the most underappreciated album ever by a well-known artist. Just love that album.

 

2013's Fun on Earth is really excellent also; easily his best since Fun in Space. Lifted this quote off Wiki. Good stuff:

 

Regarding the release of the album's lead single, Taylor said:

 

"What happened to the protest song? Music is now so polished, shiny and predictable, we have forgotten to try and say something with it. I am getting old and like everyone, have the right to say something about the "state of control" we live under - powerless to do anything about it. In case you hadn't noticed. The high street is full of holes. We are fighting a pointless actively negative war which is killing our young soldiers and which we simply cannot afford. This war promotes and prolongs terrorism. This is our Vietnam. Unwinnable. Pointless. We are taxed and retaxed while the nation is not only broke but utterly bankrupt, being propped up with tax payers' money and money which is simply printed. We are spied upon by 5 million cameras. We have thousands of petty rules and regulations more than ever before – no wonder people are bewildered and confused. As a nation we own almost nothing including water, electricity, gas, airspace and major manufacturers. Personal privacy is non-existent. We are directionless. I'm pissed off – you should be too."
Edited by Rutlefan
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Kate Bush is a mad genius.

 

And someone my college self really wanted to cuddle with! Regardless, agree about the genius part. Hounds of Love is one of those albums that doesn't age.

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All the Queen talk inspired me to revisit Roger Taylor's 1981 masterpiece Fun in Space. Maybe the most underappreciated album ever by a well-known artist. Just love that album.

 

2013's Fun on Earth is really excellent also; easily his best since Fun in Space. Lifted this quote off Wiki. Good stuff:

 

Regarding the release of the album's lead single, Taylor said:

 

"What happened to the protest song? Music is now so polished, shiny and predictable, we have forgotten to try and say something with it. I am getting old and like everyone, have the right to say something about the "state of control" we live under - powerless to do anything about it. In case you hadn't noticed. The high street is full of holes. We are fighting a pointless actively negative war which is killing our young soldiers and which we simply cannot afford. This war promotes and prolongs terrorism. This is our Vietnam. Unwinnable. Pointless. We are taxed and retaxed while the nation is not only broke but utterly bankrupt, being propped up with tax payers' money and money which is simply printed. We are spied upon by 5 million cameras. We have thousands of petty rules and regulations more than ever before – no wonder people are bewildered and confused. As a nation we own almost nothing including water, electricity, gas, airspace and major manufacturers. Personal privacy is non-existent. We are directionless. I'm pissed off – you should be too."

 

Great album!

 

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Zebra mastermind Randy Jackson released a brilliant solo album in 1991!

Check it out folks! A perfect blend of eighties AOR and early nineties prog.

The cover isn't bad either... ;-)

RmtplLt.jpg

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I hate Jim Morrison but think The Doors are okay.

 

My BFF Dave, was like this also. He was a singer also, Had Choir in school, etc. I don't know that he ever changed that view...

qZ2cAX3.gif

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Music is a form of art which can only be perceived over time. One cannot create music that does not exist in time, and to view any music at only one specific moment in time is to strip music of its life force. One would perceive only a clipped noise (or less), which cannot be music. Conversely, architecture is a form of art which can only be perceived in space. One cannot create architecture detached from space, and to view any architecture at only one specific point in space is to strip architecture of its existence. One would perceive only and atom (or less), which cannot be architecture. So then a precise similarity exists between music and architecture. Each is an accumulation of parts over space and/or time, and neither can exist divorced from time or space respectively.

This raises the question of whether music can exist outside of space, or architecture outside of time. Practically speaking, this cannot be. Music being a physical manipulation of the air, it requires space for the air to be manipulated. Architecture being a manipulation of materials into forms, it requires time for those materials to be changed into architectural forms. Architecture also requires some time to be experienced fully by a viewer. However, here I find a key difference between the necessity of time to music or space to architecture, and vice versa. Being that all art is primarily an imaginative exercise, it must matter less whether the art form can exist in the real world without space or time than whether it can exist in the imagination without one or the other.

While music necessarily requires time and space to be experienced in reality, the conception of music in one’s mind does not require space in which air can move. If you’ve ever had a song stuck in your head, or ever thought of a piece of music and how it goes without listening to it, you can attest this is true. In the realm of the imagination, music can exist separated from the movement of air which brings it to our ears in reality. However, it still cannot exist in the realm of imagination without imagining a series of successive sounds over a period of time. Similarly, architecture can easily be conceptualized without time in one’s mind. A building can be envisioned instantaneously (if not necessarily designed in that way), and in full 3D detail if one has strong enough capacity to summon the image. On the other hand, one cannot envision architecture without envisioning the space it takes up and contains. Even in our imagination, an object is restricted to spacial existence. Thus, I argue that architecture’s natural medium is space, and music’s time.

Furthermore, I argue architecture and music are excursions to opposite ends of the spectrum on which all things exist, and on which human beings fall roughly in the middle. Building’s have a natural tendency to want to stay put, to outlast time. Music has a natural tendency towards motion, to keep pace with (perhaps even outrun) time. People have a tendency towards both staying put and continuing motion. If one stays in place for too long, they risk starvation, dehydration, illness, natural disaster, and a host of other paths which lead inevitably towards death. Generally speaking, corpses don’t move, or rather they are not animated. To attempt to stay put and outlast time in this world is futile as one will encounter death before the end of time (assuming the end of time wouldn’t bring death as well). However, continued motion is also dangerous. If one never stops, social intimacy becomes all but impossible, all kinds of tasks which require some amount of stationary time cannot be satisfactorily taken on. Sleep and rest (and relieving oneself) also become impossible. While constant motion will also lead to death (getting no sleep may be the first to take you), its association with social cutoff is more relevant to this discussion. Put more generally, a person who tends to stay put will find boredom, depression, monotony, obesity, weakness, etc. A person who tends to stay in motion will find they are overwhelmed by the constant motion, they’ll encounter weariness, social deterioration, anxiety, stress, etc. Neither a fluid and constantly mobile lifestyle nor a stationary and static one can satisfy a person’s need for quality of life. A balance must be struck. If a balance must be struck for humans, it’s only natural this would be reflected in the ideals of our art, and in the things we tend to find beautiful.

This may be why we find extremely simple, one-dimensional buildings to be ugly or distasteful. Buildings which are monolithic, which read statically, which discourage the eye from moving, or even prevent the eye from escaping remind us of stagnation, and death. Meanwhile music which is fluid above all else, which changes pitch and meter as often as possible, which relies on no underlying harmonic structure or rhythmic organization, also strikes us as ugly, and dissonant, and unmusical. John Cage’s many excursions into randomly generated music are a decent example of this, as well as the genre of black midi (not the band). Because architecture is on the far static end of the temporal spectrum, we find it hard to relate to and love if it doesn’t show at least some appeal to motion; because music is on the far fluid end of the temporal spectrum, we find it hard to relate to and love if it doesn’t show at least some appeal to staying put.

Our preference for balance between static and motion is also apparent in what we find beautiful in nature. A beautiful tree may be the ideal of of all architecture, because a tree has stood and battled against time with success, but has also grown and strengthened because of time. It is a static object at a glance which grows and changes with extended time. Perhaps then we seek for our buildings to emulate the relationship a tree has with time. Not necessarily to outlast it, but to cooperate with it without giving in to the destruction it can wreak. Similarly a beautiful wave may be the ideal of all music. A beautiful wave has come about because time allows water to change forms, but for the moments when the wave exists, we would seek to stop (or at least slow) time to better appreciate the structural beauty nature has wrought. The wave is bound to crash at the shore and break, but for a limited time it has a beauty to be found in its organization and form unlike anything else in the world. Perhaps then we seek to make music which emulates the relationship a wave has with space.

If any of the above theory holds water, how can one combine music and architecture for a perfectly balanced and beautiful art?

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I just discovered that Weezer's "Say It Ain't So," is the same chord progression as Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" but modulated down a half step, changed from minor to major, and played backwards.

 

Smells Like Teen Spirit: e (i) a (iv) G (III) C (VI)

 

Say It Ain't So: c (vi) G (III) Ab (IV) Eb (I)

 

the theory of it is a little tricky, but it looks to me that Rivers (songwriting expert that he kind of is) might have been messing around with Smells Like Teen Spirit and thought to himself "what if I played it backwards," then made a few adjustments and wrote Say it Ain't So.

Edited by Entre_Perpetuo
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I knew that Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye would be a massive hit the first time I heard it. I also knew that the guy would be a one hit wonder. He was too weird to be anything but.
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I've had these lyrics going through my mind since I got up this morning:

 

:musicnote:... It's been such a long time, I think I should be goin', yeah

And time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rollin'

There's a long road, I've gotta stay in time with

I've got to keep on chasin' that dream, though I may never find it

I'm always just behind it... :musicnote:

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