[beat]

I hope I'm not coming off as dismissive of electronic music in general... just the idea that "computers and synthesizers and sequencers" represent the future of music. They are, at best, merely instruments. If anything, they're pretty strongly wedded to some very narrow musical conventions, such as 12 tone equal temperament and basic time signatures like 4/4 and 3/4. Getting past those limitations is doable, but difficult.

Electronic music can be wonderfully experimental, but that's not because of anything that's been invented lately. Listen to the Forbidden Planet soundtrack, for example. That was wild, and it was 1956. I work with a lot of electronic musicians, and there's a strong interest in older instruments - analog synthesis, early digital like 12 bit samplers, etc.

I've used recent software synths, but for the most part, they're either not all that interesting, or they're studied knockoffs of analog synthesis techniques from the 1970s and earlier. At worst, many/most hit Brian Eno's criticism of modern synths - they lack character. By trying to sound like everything, they wind up not sounding like themselves.

[jerf]

"If anything, they're pretty strongly wedded to some very narrow musical conventions, such as 12 tone equal temperament and basic time signatures like 4/4 and 3/4. Getting past those limitations is doable, but difficult."

It depends on what you're using. You can get anything from a system that can't be pulled off of 12 tone equal temperament and some conventional time signature all the way up to systems that offer complete and total freedom, up to and including setting the exact values in the .WAV file you generate. I wouldn't say getting past those restrictions are "difficult" necessarily, it's just that by necessity, the more power you take on yourself to define your music, the more work you're going to need to do. By the time you end up with the systems that offer total freedom you have music synthesis systems that look more like programming than musical instruments. But they do exist, and back on the topic of the original article, there's a lot of avant-garde-style work that has been done in them.

When I was going to school and minoring in electric music there was a guy playing with "granular synthesis"; his result sounded like telemetry. I'm not being particularly critical or cruel when I say that... that's seriously what his music sounded like. If you look at how telemetry is generated and compare to how granular synthesis works, it's not hard to see why. Tonality was entirely absent, let alone 12-tone equal temperament.

[ssalazar]

> When I was going to school and minoring in electric music there was a guy playing with "granular synthesis"; his result sounded like telemetry.

I actually have no idea what telemetry is supposed to sound like but I think this guy was just making bad music, with granular synthesis. Granular synthesis can actually be quite beautiful and tonal if thats what you're looking for, see examples [1] and [2] just to dig up some quick examples. Ableton's built-in time stretching uses granular synthesis. One guy's bad granular music isn't really indicative of anything.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6BU18mP3A

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ8zaGuaeBk

[jerf]

My point was not to snark about granular synthesis; my point was to demonstrate the amount of freedom that exists in synthesis methods that have been around for a long time. I understand the criticism that a lot of music is stuck in 12-tone equal temperament, I don't understand the idea that electronic music as a whole is stuck there.

[cannam]

I like the theory (which I think I associate with Ambrose Field) that we recently came out of a period in which invention in music was tightly associated with technological capability.

Most apparent in pop where, for example, each new wave of chart hits in the 80s was driven by the sounds available on some newly-released synth, but the same thing goes on with electro-acoustic music (timbrally, spatially) and modern classical music (in terms of organisation and programme content).

The theory is that this period has ended because we can pretty much synthesise anything now. (Or can we?)

If so, we no longer have the same motivating impulse. Where next?

[beat]

Why not traditions? Why do we have to make progress? There are musical traditions that started in the second half of the 20th century, along with recording and radios, that I think will last for centuries. I wouldn't be shocked to hear electric blues, bluegrass, or thrash metal 300 years from now.

[cannam]

Good question, not one I have any tidy answer for.

The fact that we have so many "more traditional" genres in the first place is a result of some progress or invention having happened in the past. Why should it stop?

Novelty is something people seek in every field of course. But some of what makes music music (as opposed to just a soothing or vexing noise) has to do with anticipation and surprise. Perhaps novelty broadly is appealing to music listeners for similar reasons to why any music is appealing in the first place.

Although many forms in e.g. the classical canon might have been inspired by new technology of the day (most obvious example probably being the piano), genres have often arisen for reasons other than technology. It's plausible that our excursion through a hyper-speed series of technological drivers of musical novelty was just a crazy detour. But then we're back to the earlier question, what will it mean to put aside technological novelty as a driver? Or is it absurd to suggest that it has ended?

[21]

When a new popular genre gets invented or grabs the stage, like Trap music in the last couple of years, how do you view that?

It's pretty obvious that it's different from what was there before, so it is an innovation in that sense.

What's the take from "serious listeners" as mentioned in the article, just a mere stylistic change, I'm very curious about this.

[beat]

As a cultural innovation, trap music is cool. But from a musical standpoint, it's not terribly innovative. It's still a lot of mid-tempo 4/4. The underlying dismantling of conventional harmony was done in hip-hop 30 years ago by Dr Dre, Terminator X, and other great innovative DJs of the early hip-hop era.

That said, I think hip-hop is THE driving force behind innovation in pop today. Even country music is now being driven by hip-hop concepts. The beats of trap will be around for a while, but they sure as heck didn't invent 808 kicks or filter sweeps.

And it's important to distinguish between cultural innovations and real, substantial changes here. Disco was a cultural innovation 40 years ago. It's more or less dead now. 45 RPM singles were a real, substantial change.

[21]

There was a paper I read some years ago about a music student analyzing modern trance music, how it relates to ancient tribal music, and how both relate to the brain. It also explained the mechanism behind the "drop", how the drop is caused by the brain anticipating it and then getting a reward for a good prediction, just like you feel nice when you can predict a twist in a movie or an ad.

What I am saying is that I think that what makes 4/4 so prevalent today is that it is somehow deeply connected to how our brains work, and if you consider popular music subject to Darwinian pressures, it is likely that 4/4 is the most "evolved" one (from a fitness view).

Anyway, I think that in 10 years we will be passing all of our music through a deep neural network, and then ask the network to create new things, like invent a new number one hit, cultural style, or create a new work in the style of Beethoven.

[iammyIP]

Disco is not dead in a pop context? Discos are full. 4/4 Beat is the norm. Ass shaking is standard. It's everywhere. The essence of disco and ass shaking is the essence of pop. Add sonified marriage/breakup proposals to it and then you got all pop in a basket.

Hiphop is not the driving force anymore, also it did not care about harmony at all in a special way. Hiphops focus has always been on rythm. The essence of hiphop is the political rap combined with sampling (pirate citations of all kind creatively layered together). Hiphop (especially rap) has been culturally annihilated.

[beat]

Disco isn't just 4/4... it's a particular 16th note hi-hat groove, conventions around the use of string synths, etc. It's a stylistic period piece, and the underlying rhythms aren't widely heard these days.

I don't know why you think hip hop has been "culturally annihilated". I hear it as an incredibly dynamic and forward-looking genre.

[mafribe]

   it's a particular 16th note

Every pop music genre has a signature sound. This is acoustic branding. It's vital for pop-music to function that the audience can determine in a fraction of a second what brand is being offered. Nothing deep going on.

   I hear it as an incredibly dynamic 
   and forward-looking genre.

What dynamic and forward-looking about 3 decades of "where da hoes at where da bitches at"?

[iammyIP]

Yes, that 70's disco sound. That's gone; Like a snake 'Disco' has shed its skin. My point is that the essence of disco is pretty much alive. Take that to the contrast that the innovative essence of hiphop is resampling - that's pretty dead. Can you name any currently successful hip hop band that does radical resampling over all genres? It's not possible because of music industry lobbying.

[ssalazar]

> Take that to the contrast that the innovative essence of hiphop is resampling

Resampling isn't particularly innovative as Im sure you aware of musique concrete and tape music. Hip-hop is essentially defined by the combination of rapping, sociopolitical subtexts, and, yes, specific music production techniques that include sampling but also certain types of rhythms and beats. Those are roughly in order of importance; notice how few people openly lament the death of sampling but the prominence of a white rapper will prompt endless critical and popular commentary.

> that's pretty dead.

Anyone who can listen to To Pimp a Butterfly and believe that hip hop is dead does not know what hip hop is.

> Can you name any currently successful hip hop band that does radical resampling over all genres?

When has this been the criterion for what makes a hip hop band?

[empath75]

House music is 'just' disco played on an 808. Or that's how it started anyway.

[mafribe]

   As a cultural innovation, trap music is cool.

In what sense? It's same old same old "Where da hoes at where da bitches at" soft-porn junk that the distraction industry has been selling to teenagers for about 3 decades.

[iammyIP]

can you quickly summarise what makes trap trap and what is the special invention here?