[NewMusic] underwhelmed @ Mills

[barry threw]

> sl: Okay Barry, now you're confusing me, but maybe my confusion  
> stems from
> applying the term "abstract" and what it refers to in visual art to  
> music.
> What you're describing would perfectly fit that definition of  
> "abstract" -
> sound as sound, as opposed to sound describing a pastoral scene, or  
> a cow
> jumping over the moon, or the death of Jesus, with elements that  
> try to
> realistically replicate what these things would sound like to a fairly
> unimaginative person.

Yeah.  Thats true too.  I think thats the meaning I normally thought  
when I described my music as abstract.

But in a different sense its not at all.  Like my example, when you  
have an instrument playing tonal pitch in many ways you are not  
listening to the pure sound anymore.  We abstract pitch, and  
duration, loudness, and a subset of timbre, and give those  
abstractions meaning.  When we write traditional compositions, we  
write in terms of pitch, duration, loudness, and the subset of timbre  
that we can describe with words...and those abstractions are how we  
find patterns in the composition.  Its a layer on top of the pure  
sound, and sometimes when composing or listening you just think in  
terms of these higher level things and not in terms of pure sound.

I think that the music I like to make at this point in life doesn't  
use as many higher level abstractions as compositional elements.  Its  
more just about experience with the sound itself.  While sometimes  
there is an emotional or ambient goal, I usually, these days, don't  
write in terms of higher level structures imposed on the sound.

I think you could have music that sounds the same as mine in lots of  
ways, but does intend its abstractions to have more referential quality.

I _think_ its the same in visual art, and just depends on the  
intent.  Sometimes you have abstract washes of color, or blobs, that  
are supposed to stand in for other things, or be references, and that  
is abstract.  But sometimes you can have washes of color that are  
just washes of color, and aren't meant to be symbols for anything,  
that isn't abstract.

b

Barry Threw
Media Art and Technology


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