Sunday, November 4th, 2007 // Paperhouse
It’s easy to find agreement on the Internet. Just type in a band name on www.last.fm and you’ll find hundreds of fellow listeners, along with suggestions for other “similar” bands to listen to, but are they really similar? Most websites list bands together based on who listens to them, not how they sound. They base their statistics on average listening habits, which says little about the actual quality of music.
For example, post-punk bands The Sound and The Chameleons have both clearly influenced the group Interpol; the music sounds the same stylistically, and the guitar work on some Chameleons songs is eerily reminiscent of certain Interpol lines. But neither band appears on Last.fm’s “Similar to Interpol” list — instead, the website recommends The Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse, bands that sound nothing like Interpol and just represent some sort of indie band zeitgeist that has nothing to do with the music.
Music-based social networking does not reveal true musical connections, which is a problem, because most people aren’t willing to look any further. Average listeners are often uninterested in expanding their musical educations; they seek little beyond what is fed to them by the Internet or their friends. But services like Last.fm cannot replace the time and effort needed to find new exciting artists. For truly new music, listeners have to look elsewhere.
One idea is www.scaruffi.com, run by Piero Scaruffi, who claims it’s one of the first websites ever. Scaruffi updates frequently with truckloads of new content, including contemporary music reviews. He has his own strong opinions and isn’t afraid to share them. I’ve probably found more new artists that I’ve loved from Scaruffi than from any online taste aggregator so far, even though I disagree with many of his opinions. I remember being crushed when reading his thoughts on Björk, a musician I love; he wrote, “The first impression with Björk’s music is always of something terribly trivial, obnoxious and, ultimately, boring.” But Scaruffi also led me to Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom, an album which not only earned me some serious cred with my dad, but also introduced me to one of the most beautiful male voices in rock, along with some really weird song structures. By exposing myself to the opinions of one other person who really loves music, I’ve discovered more than I would have by following the aggregated listening habits of a million others.
So, next time you’re looking for something new to listen to, ask just one person. Better yet, ask one cranky opinionated guy on the Internet who thinks Captain Beefheart is possibly the greatest rock musician of all time.
Sunday, October 28th, 2007 // Paperhouse
Sometimes, when bands make their albums, they get the idea to make one song transition directly into another, proving that the album format isn’t quite dead yet. The popular concept of “shuffling” kind of screws this up. I like listening to albums all the way through, probably largely due to the fear that maybe I’ll miss one of these sweet transitions: Shuffling through my playlist, one song just cuts off mysteriously! Terrified, I’ll hurriedly try to figure out what I just missed out on, only to learn that I’m already on to some other random track. I appreciate spontaneity, but this is just annoying. Below are some times when you should flip off your shuffling and slip into loop to fully appreciate these excellent transitions:
Radiohead, Kid A, between “Idioteque” and “Morning Bell”
The players in Radiohead take their song transitions very seriously. On Kid A, not only do you get that noodly ending on “Optimistic,” but also a neat little fade-out at the end of “Idioteque.” Does the song end there? Yes and no — the music smoothly transitions from a fuzzy guitar wash to insistent drumming and more of Thom Yorke’s crooning. It goes from electronic to spastic. Despite the smooth transition, “Idioteque” and “Morning Bell” are two distinctly different songs.
Wolf Parade, Apologies to the Queen Mary, between “Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts” and “I’ll Believe in Anything”
In this transition, the pseudo-ending of “Dear Sons” is reminiscent of its intro, until the drums kick in — kind of like Radiohead’s transition into “Morning Bell.” Perhaps intense drumming is a tenet of the song transition: Here, the band uses them to emphasize the songs’ different rhythms.
Justice, Cross, between “Genesis” and “Let There Be Light”
Though the two songs have the same sort of feeling at the transition point, overall each has a completely different mood: “Genesis” is loud and overbearing, whereas “Let There be Light” is a much more wobbly number, leading into Justice’s bouncy and poppy hit single, “D.A.N.C.E.”
The Microphones, The Glow Pt. II, between “I Want Wind to Blow” and “The Glow, Pt. 2”
This transition is great because it’s unpredictable; it moves from a repetitive drum rhythm and chord progression to crashing drums and cymbals and a wailing electric guitar. After getting your attention, the band switches back to acoustic guitar strumming while vocalist Phil Elverum sing-talks about taking his shirt off and other things.
Sunday, October 14th, 2007 // Paperhouse
Music fans, especially those that listen to electronic music, are probably aware of a technique called sequencing, where the artist arranges notes played by a synthesizer in time. The artist often uses an interface called a “piano roll,” which mimics the traditional musical staff. Most electronic music is sequenced in this way, though some experimental musicians develop their own techniques, while others deviate entirely.
Tracking is a variant of sequencing, though it differs from the original in two principal ways. Unlike sequencers, trackers are only used to arrange and trigger the playback of samples. Secondly, trackers do not attempt to mimic the musical staff. Trackers arrange time along the vertical axis as opposed to the horizontal; they don’t separate sound sources by instrument or have a direct concept of note length. Instead, trackers trigger sample sound files and allow them to play for their lengths, and then another sample is triggered in the same channel. (Channels are represented as columns in the software, analogous to one “instrument” in the piece, though channels can also be samples.)
So why should you care? The tracking paradigm’s advantages are exactly the disadvantages of traditional sequencers — trackers are very quick and easy to use, requiring no knowledge of traditional music theory. Such ease has kept trackers out of most academic settings, but they’ve gained a following in the demoscene — a loose collection of groups making computer-based music videos rendered in real time. When working with tracked music files, it is also (comparatively) easy for musicians to write interpreters — programs that pass audio to be rendered as sound. And, as you don’t need a sequencer, you don’t have to write a synthesizer to use along with it.
But aside from demogroups, trackers are ideal for many college students. Are you a CS student looking to learn more about sequencing and sound processing? Write an interpreter for some well-known tracker format; it’s an excellent project. Are you an aspiring electronic musician? Start learning on a tracker. Lots of musicians who don’t even use trackers for final products first lay out sketches of their ideas with a tracker, because they’re so easy to use and quick to operate.
And it’s not impossible to become a well-known musician via tracking; all Venetian Snares music is tracked, for example, and there are plenty of others. From the old standby ScreamTracker III to the Impulse Tracker and FastTracker 2 (the two most popular trackers when tracking was at its peak in the late ’90s) to new hybrid software like Jeskola Buzz and Renoise, tracking is worth checking out.
