[NewMusic] game soundtracks

[barry threw]

> PG:
> Yes, Berklee -

Disclaimer: I went to Berklee.

> or, where to go to be trained to become a craftsperson in the jazz  
> idiom. It's an industry school, not a place where art is cultivated.

Sometimes the pretentiousness on this list blows my mind. But hell,  
maybe I'm not an artist. Who knows?

> These institutions have killed jazz -

The genre having no relevance to current culture probably has  
something to do with it too. I like jazz. A lot. But I'm not enough of  
a zealot to ignore its anachronism.

> they have transformed it into something not far beyond the realm of  
> painting by numbers. I'm sickened by the results. Out of all the  
> people I know that have come out of that school, less than 10%  
> actually have something to say on their instruments.

People that think writing music is not formulaic to a large degree are  
putting themselves under a great delusion. However, the nice thing is  
that a work is greater than the sum of its parts.

It is possible only 10% of people as a whole have something to say on  
their instruments, in that case, Berklee would be in tune with the  
worldwide average.

>  As Looney said regarding game/sound/music composition - it's not  
> art, it's craft.
>  An apt analogy could be made with an association to the Hollywood  
> movie industry. There are a lot of fine craftspeople working in the  
> industry, but the results: well, I don't even have to say it, do I?

OK. Many, many of the results are bad. There are people working in the  
industry who probably are not concerned with the higher value of their  
work. However, to say there is no art coming out of the movie industry  
I think is a little much.

>  But the idea that art could be associated with something called  
> "game" is curious. Art is "doing something". Games, for me anyway,  
> are about wasting time while you're waiting to do something  
> worthwhile.

Semantics?  Really?  This is what I don't like about the term video  
games.  People automatically discount it. I don't know anything more  
game-like than playing music. Wait, are Zorn's game pieces music? Are  
they art? Are we ignoring his use of the word "game"?

I do think there are games that don't try to be art. I think there are  
games that try and fail.

There are three major entities in the music making world, the  
composer, the performer, and the audience.  For the entire 20th  
century, we have worked on giving up control from the composer to  
freedom of the performer. I currently speak to a group of people that  
often take this to the extreme: complete freedom of performance.  
However, what interactive media does is breaks down the wall for the  
third group, the audience. We give up freedom from the composer, and  
performer, to the audience.  Of course all the performers freak out  
about that just like the composers did..."that ain't art!"

b

--
Barry Threw
Media Art and Technology

San Francisco, CA
Work: 857-544-3967
Email: bthrew (at) gmail (dot) com
IM: captogreadmore (AIM)
http://www.barrythrew.com

"The greatest of the changes that science has brought us is the acuity  
of change; the greatest novelty the extent of novelty."

- J. Robert Oppenheimer