Steve’s Stuff

I came across this interesting article while searching through The Wire archives. Some of the entries will surprise you, as this is not strictly covering popular breakbeats. In fact, I’m not sure I saw the “Amen” groove listed at all. There are some very interesting selections from Conlon Nancarrow to Varese. There are also some surprises such as Ligeti’s Atmospheres, which is essentially arhythmic. The article dates back to 1992, but they’re still as relevant as ever.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/442/

This is a classic. It’s available elsewhere, but now it’s available here as well. For anyone interested in the origins, Alex Ross as already done the leg work on his popular music blog. Check it out.

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2006/02/you_vill_enjoy_.html

04_arnie_schoenbergs_second_viennese_school.mp3

Threat Level Reports the following:

“The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2007 (PRO-IP), advocated by the RIAA and introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Michigan), includes a proposal to treat the unauthorized copying of a ten-song CD compilation as ten separate acts of willful infringement, resulting in a maximum penalty of $1.5 million.”

Does the punishment fit the crime? This reminds me of the federal judge who sued his laundry service for $60k + after they lost his pants. Seems crazy right? He lost the case, but the husband and wife that ran the laundry service lost their business. This could happen.

One commenter puts it rather well:

“We should penalize EVERY ILLEGAL COPY WITH A 10 MILLION DOLLAR FINE!!! Then attach their property, put them in prison, and teach them all a lesson. Wait, if ALL the people downloading illegally are financially unable to buy a new CD, or in prison, then the Major Labels go belly up at exponential speed.”

Yikes!

Whether you believe “Inland Empire” is a great film filled with mystery, or a meaningless assemblage of unsettling scenes, you can’t deny that it has a great soundtrack. Sound design has become so important to Lynch that all of his films since “Lost Highway” feature a constant extra-diegetic sound source of some sort. In “Lost Highway”, there were obvious musical selections separated by ominous rumblings and barely audible industrial sounds. Now in IE, the distinction between what is “music” in the traditional sense and what is ambient sound is almost totally blurred. Not all music has melody, and not all ambient sound is without melody - even if only in an abstract sense. While I’m disappointed that Angelo Badalamenti didn’t collaborate, Lynch seems to have taken on the task himself with great success.

In many ways, this is an interesting companion to the film. It appears that Lynch created lengthy selections, which he subsequently cut and arranged to work with the editing and flow of the film. Now, we’re able to hear them in their entirety, as Lynch originally conceived them. To me, it’s a fascinating window into his creative mind.

Beyond Lynch’s original material, there are some interesting selections ranging from Beck to Penderecki’s intense modernist works. The big disappointment for me was the curious omission of the music from the burlesque club scene. It was a great subversion of sleazy stripper jazz into something atonal, but still groovy.

Finally, many speculate that a lot of the film is explained in the lyrics of “Polish Poem”, and this is an easy way to hear it. There do seem to be some answers, but as is typical for Lynch, they’re clouded in vague, poetic language and end up raising more questions than they answer.

This is an excellent soundtrack. Even if you were not a fan of the film itself, the music stands on its own. It’s different from the popular “Lost Highway” soundtrack, but I think it’s equally good.

Triadic Memories is my absolute favorite Feldman piano work and probably ranks up there with my top five Feldman works of all time (the others include his Piano and String Quartet, Rothko Chapel, King of Denmark, and Crippled Symmetry). Solo piano works so well for Feldman’s music for a number of reasons. Works such as “Why Patterns?” can sometimes sound a bit shrill if the musicians have not made good sonic choices. Anytime you have flute and orchestra bells as two thirds of an ensemble, you’re bound to risk a lot of high-frequency irritation. By contrast, the piano has a wonderful range that is never grating on the ears. (I should point out though that I do like “Why Patterns?” when it’s performed well)

I’ll comment first on the work itself and then on the interpretation.

There are some reviewers here that claim the work is “boring”. This could be for a variety of reasons. The most obvious is that they’re inexperienced with 20th century modernist art music. But, I’ll give these listeners the benefit of the doubt and address these criticisms anyway. There is no perceptible form at work here. You can’t follow it as you would a sonata. There is either very little repetition or quite a lot - it’s difficult to say which. Sometimes I feel like I’ve heard a certain section before, but other times it feels through-composed. That is all to say, there are valid reasons for not enjoying Triadic Memories.

Additionally, as with all extended-length Feldman, if you don’t happen to enjoy the mood and texture of a particular work, you’re probably not going to like it. “For Philip Guston” does not appeal to me because I happen to not like the small idea that Feldman expands into a nearly four-hour work. On the other hand, I like the sounds of his second String Quartet, which is even longer.

Ultimately, I would suggest listening to Amazon’s 30 second previews. They give a very representative sampling of the work. It’s as simple as this: if you like the preview, you’re in for a treat because it’s more of the same for about 93 minutes. If you don’t think it sounds good, then you’re not going to like the work.

These are all subjective perspectives anyway. Personal taste aside, this is one of Feldman’s strongest works. It perfectly realizes his delicate, haunting aesthetic and induces the type of meditative listening experience that he typically requests of his listeners. Beyond that, he finds variety with simple ideas. The broken chords of Triadic Memories, if stacked vertically, would form more-or-less normal triads, but Feldman arranges them into major and minor seconds that destroy any chance of triadic consonance. It’s beautiful stuff, really.

Marilyn Nonken provides a terrific interpretation of this difficult work. After listening to it around ten times, I cannot find any faults or errors. Her tempo is slow, but not too slow. Most importantly, she maintains excellent rhythmic integrity. For those who have had the chance to examine the score, you know that Triadic Memories is rhythmically complex - deceptively so, I might add. Nonken is able to convey this accurately and avoids the pitfall of making the notes seem like a random cloud of pitches.

Overall, I can’t recommend this recording highly enough. The only question for Feldman fans is whether to buy the double CD or the DVD-Audio version.

As hoped, I’m starting to get a lot better making music with a lot of gear. I think the trick is having one or two elements that are unobtrusive, but can hold everything together. This gives a sense of continuity as well as providing some musical content that I don’t have to constantly worry about.

Another trick is focusing on one thing and not trying to micromanage. It’s like the first drum set situation - the little drummer has his/her first drum set with all sorts of drums and cymbals and they want to get around to all the different sounds at every opportunity. As expected, this isn’t very musical. For some reason I had to relearn this lesson over the course of a few hours.

Playing two midi keyboards at once is not actually all that difficult as long as you’re not trying to play two radically different things at once. I have it set up so one is usually a bass sound and the other is some sort of pad* or lead sound. The second midi keyboard is significantly more limited because it controls the Roland synth module. The Roland synth module is very very lame. The only usable sounds are a biting square wave, a nasty saw tooth patch, and a mellow pad-like patch. Most of the variety is going to come from Reaktor.

I’m not using the drum machine all that much right now, but Lauren plans to join me at times during the show, so I imagine she’ll put it to good use. The cool things that I’ve found to do with it include running it through the Alesis FX unit and totally overloading the Alesis until it starts freaking out and making “bad” sounds.

The Alesis is a bit tricky to control. It’s old and I’m not 100% sure that it’s functioning properly. It really only has the three controls that one would expect (In, Out, and Mix). I’m getting some interesting results by running a totally wet (meaning totally processed, as opposed to partially processed) signal at extreme output levels. I can manage the overall volume with the mixer so nobody is going to go deaf. When you overload the Alesis it does weird things in addition to the normal feedback and infinite delay effects. Random squelches and squeals are always fun. Always.

This is a sample of my short hand that helps me get things set for a particular piece. From here, I have all the settings that I need to remember. You’ll probably wonder where the notes themselves are. That’s the easy part. I don’t need to write it down.

Song 4
R:SongD.ens
MID1:Equi4
MID2:082Saw
K:PR1
AFX:84
IN:6
MIX:6
OUT:6

*a pad sound is something full and rich in texture that can go on underneath a more active melodic line. They’re typically used for chords and such.

First the music -

As I previously posted, I’ve switched from Pd to Reaktor for the majority of my sound design. This is because it offered a lot of power and flexibility in a short amount of time. Had I had maybe an extra three weeks, I would have probably been able to use Pd instead. See my previous post on Reaktor for more info and for some screen shots of the Reaktor code.

I’ve spent hours composing frameworks for improvised electronic music. The frameworks have a number of components: first comes the musical idea (what I want it to sound like and communicate), second is the tools to produce these sounds, and third is practicing using the tools so that I can adequately realize my ideas.

Reaktor has on average 30-50 controls per instrument. I don’t need to use all of them all the time, but it’s nice to control functions like filter cutoff and resonance, amplitude envelope, formant center, and usually two or three other parameters specific to the instrument. This is the classic electronic music conundrum - the interface presents many options, but they require virtuosic manipulation if real-time sound synthesis is desired.

I’ve mapped a number of important controls to midi instruments to solve some of these problems. I’m controlling Reaktor with an M-Audio Radium 61 keyboard that comes with 8 knobs and 8 sliders. I’m also using an M-Audio Oxygen 8 v2 to control a different synth module (more on that later).

Regardless, control over five+ software instruments plus mixing both within Reaktor and externally for live sound is no small task. Reaktor sounds are fed through a virtual mixer with the resulting submix sent to an external FireWire mixer. At this stage, I’m adding some hardware including an old Kawai R-50 drum machine, an Alesis MIDIVERB II effects unit, and a Roland synth module. I’ve connected the Alesis FX unit through the mixer as an auxiliary send, which enables me to apply it to any track (e.g. the Reaktor feed, the drum machine, the synth module).

I’ve posted a number of experiments on the wiki. I have one week to practice, so hopefully it will keep getting easier with more interesting results. I may hit up a few musical friends if they’re in attendance just to keep things interesting.

Now onto the other parts of the project -

Keith has six light sensors working with his logochip. He’s planning to install a black light in the middle of our area with his light sensors all around. The audience will walk between the light and the sensors and this will trigger his lighting effects. I’m not sure how they’re programmed, but he will probably have more to say on his blog.

Tyler is taking care of the construction of the walls. Our presentation needs to be dark so that our light sensing works and it needs to be closed off so that our lighting effects don’t interfere with other installations. Tyler is also still working on his infinity table.

We’ve already scaled back a couple things. I was hoping to use ultrasonic sensors instead of light sensors so that we wouldn’t have to place a light in the middle of the floor. Keith made some attempts at using an ultrasonic sensor, but opted to go with light because it was much easier. I’ve made a few adjustments as well such as the switch from Pd to Reaktor. I would also have liked to have Keith and Tyler do more with artistic lighting design. As it looks right now, the lights are simply triggered on and off by the sensors. This is a partial victory, but it’s a very simplistic type of interaction (one that almost isn’t work doing). But, it’s what they had time for. I feel like with an extra week, Keith, Tyler, and I could get together on the creative elements of the show. With the time available though, we’ve had to make sacrifices.

Overall our show won’t be a total failure, although it will be more difficult for the audience to see what we’re trying to say (hi/low art). Worst case, people think I’m the DJ for the event - a horrible, experimental DJ playing his own music that nobody wants to hear. Heck - they my not even realize that I’m making the sounds on the spot. I’ll do my best to explain that or have my team mates explain it.

Sorry that there aren’t any pictures. There’s really not much to see. It is, afterall, music . . .

Success! After trying so hard to get Pd to play long samples, I finally decided to learn some Reaktor programming. Reaktor is a modular synthesis environment from Native Instruments. It’s a lot like Pd, but it’s a lot easier to make interesting software instruments. For instance, if you want an array of wave forms to choose from, you just create an oscillator bank whereas in Pd you would need to calculate all of the different waves you want to use, leaving a lot of room for error and such. It’s particularly useful for things like filters and reverb. In Pd you have to design your own filters (lots of math involved), but in Reaktor, you can just drop in what you want.

Yeah, this makes it a lot easier, but that doesn’t make the results invalid - just efficient. I’ve used Pd plenty. I know I can build most of the things in Reaktor, but it takes so long and I don’t see the point when I have a better tool available. Pd is a great learning tool and using it allowed me to jump right into Reaktor without much trouble.

Anyway, the point is, Reaktor has a multi channel “tape player” that stores audio files of any size in memory and can play them back efficiently. Pd just never offered any good way to do this easily, so I’m switching mostly to Reaktor. When I say “easily” I mean, a way that I could figure out in three weeks. I’m sure plenty of people have done similar things in Pd, but they probably have double my programming experience or more. In the end, all that matters is that it works. No extra points for doing it the hard way.

This shows Reaktor’s Tape Player

This is the top-level Reaktor code

This is some lower level code. As you can see, it’s basically connecting modules like in Pd. At its most basic, it has all the same low-level objects as Pd, but it also has a great library of ready-made stuff.

This is another review for Amazon.com under my usual nom de plume “Steward Willons”.

This is a frustrating DVD. I love Steven Schick, Roger Reynolds, contemporary music, and the work itself. The DVD itself is severely disappointing.

First the good news. Watereshed IV is a wonderful addition to the ever expanding body of multi percussion literature. As usual, Steven Schick turns in a masterful performance, clearly demonstrating why he is *the* final word in contemporary (non-keyboard) solo percussion. His performance of Watershed is amazing to watch. One interesting note: he appears to be following the score during the performance. This is highly unusual for him - I’m not sure what’s up with that. If he can memorize a 60+ minute work like John Luther Adams’s Mathematics of Resonant Bodies, I’m not sure why he’s using the score for this performance. Regardless, I can find no fault with the performance whatsoever.

I’m not as familiar with Roger Reynolds’s work having only heard a handful for his pieces. Watershed is interesting to watch, but you definitely get more out of it having the score to follow along. The scope of the 25 minute work is so large that it’s difficult to keep the ideas in mind. From looking at the score, I can see thematic material, developments, and variations, but from simply listening, it’s not nearly as clear. If you don’t have access to the score, this is will require a number of listenings before things come into focus. The good news is that it’s worth your time.

There are some interesting interviews with Reynolds, Schick and the sound engineer offering some very interesting insights not just to Watershed, but to sound spatialization and music in general. The spatialization definitely adds a lot to the work. If you don’t have a 5.1 system, headphones are the next best thing. The DVD includes a 5.1 and stereo mix, both of which sound good.

Now the bad news. The image quality is abysmal. You might think I’m exaggerating when I compare the picture to what you’d expect from Real player or Windows Media. I promise you - it looks that bad. The image is blocky, pixilated, dark, and flat. This is totally inexcusable when there are some many great looking DVDs out there. Additionally, there is an annoying “W” in the lower right hand corner for the duration of the work. W for Watershed??? I have no idea why it’s there. Just a pointless distraction.

While I can recommend the music, I can’t recommend this DVD at all. I’d be very suspicious of any Mode Records DVDs. I do know that this was their first and (if what their website claims is true) the first “art music” DVD ever produced. Maybe they have figured out how to make a decent product in the six years since this came out.

Of course, watching Steven Schick is always a treat and, as I always say, a crappy Watershed DVD is better than no Watershed DVD at all. Just make sure you know what you’re getting before you buy this.

I’m doing a bit of video work for J.C. Combs’ final percussion ensemble concert. He’s created a tribute to Harry Partch, one of the most prominent microtonal composers. Partch was a renegade free-thinker who broke the bonds of Western tonality and equal temperament (the common tuning practice of the West) by creating a unique 43-note scale and an array of original instruments. My task is to play some video clips from a Harry Partch documentary along with editing and a few other tasks. All the clips were preprocessed so by the time Pd is involved, it doesn’t have to do any stressful video work.

I’m used to using PDP and PiDiP, two Pd externals that are fairly decent at image-based processing of live video. They’re not so great with pre-recorded video. I may have just mentioned this in a previous blog post, but allow me to repeat how annoying it is that the software designers decided to only support some obscure Quicktime codec that is now long gone. PDP supports .avi, if I remember correctly. Huh. That’s funny. .avi is a Windows format, but PDP isn’t even ported to Windows. Who came up with that great idea?

Fortunately, GEM (Graphics Environment for Multimedia) is a much better Pd external complete with a little documentation and some tutorials. Building a video player was mostly a matter of looking through the help files, reading a couple tutorials, and putting it all together.

The first step is to download Pd-Extended. It’s got all the major Pd externals included. I’ve included my patch below, although you might as well just go through some of the help files to make your own.

As you can see from the Pd code below, everything is straightforward. The [gemwin] object creates the window and accepts a number of messages including dimensions, border on/off, cursor on/off, and rendering on/off. Make sure you send dimension and border messages before creating the window. It’s easiest to stop rendering while you’re not actively watching a video. I didn’t run into CPU problems, but you never know.

The [pix_film] object played my QT files without and problems. Just send it a message with the file name and path. You can go frame-by-frame, auto-play, and see the total number of frames in the movie. I added a gain control [pix_gain] so that I can do nice smooth fades. Finally, you supply the dimensions of the video output. It’s a little confusing because you create the GEM window, but then you also have to specify the size of the video output within the GEM window. It would be nice if GEM automatically scaled the window so that you could use an object like [rectangle 4 3] and it would keep the same aspect ratio without you having to figure out a size that’s close.

There are a few objects left over, so just ignore those. I should have just deleted them. I found GEM video playback to be very high quality, but easy on the processor. I recommend it for anyone wanting to play video in Pd.

The central idea at work is the mixture of “high” art and “low” art. Where a traditional modernist position focuses exclusively on high art, a postmodern position is open to the use of so-called low art techniques. The term “disco” is being used to refer to a dance club environment and should not be confused with 70s disco music such as “YMCA” and other classics. A dance club is certainly out of place in an art gallery as it is a form of popular entertainment. By contrast, experimental sound design is right at home in a gallery setting. What happens when we combine them?

The dialectical tension between high and low art often achieves explosive results as is the case with the music of John Zorn or the cinema of Tarantino. While the issue is not unique to the postmodern era [William Grant Still’s “Afro-American Symphony” (1930) predates postmodernism by at least 30 years], postmodern philosophy takes a keen interest in the topic. The elitist high art community is a hegemony in need of examination with a very critical eye. Although Still used “blue notes” borrowed from the low art of jazz to great effect more than seventy years ago, this remains a highly controversial technique.

Deconstruction comes into play as we question the binary opposition of high art and low art. The institution of high art obviously defines itself in opposition to low art, while keeping it in a subordinate, inferior position. We are questioning this hierarchical value system as it doesn’t necessarily represent the authoritative position that it would have us believe it represents. Prior to the postmodern era, the ancient standard of quality, as determined by a select group of individuals, maintained a separation that, while effective in filtering commercial and other non-artistic products, also kept certain legitimate art forms from receiving recognition.

Electronic music is one such art form. Though it has roots in the popular dance club traditions of the late 20th century, this says nothing about the artistic validity of contemporary electronic composers working today. With this project, we are showing that although there may be superficial differences between what is commonly accepted as electronic art music and what is widely considered commercial electronic music, they are, in essence, very similar and thus both deserving of artistic recognition and criticism.

The plan for our project breaks down into three sections: music, lighting and sensing.

Music

Steve is composing original music. Some will be in a definite electronic dance music style similar to Techno, IDM (Intelligent Dance Music), and Drum ‘n Bass; some will be of an experimental sound design nature consistent with what is typically considered electronic art music; and finally, some will be a synthesis of these two styles freely combining elements from each.

Steve is using a variety of software tools for this composition including commercial software (Native Instruments Reaktor, Pro-53, and Absynth 4), and Pd. Most of the sound generation will come from Reaktor. Pd will be used to create a custom sampler and effects processor for both the live performance and the automated performance. The Pd patch will tie all the musical elements together and will translate sensor input to control various parameters.

Lighting

Since lighting and music is already an established tradition, we will not explain it further at this time. The lighting design will follow concepts explored by the music with the lighting consisting of a conventional dance club light show; a more experimental, artistic use of light; and an synthesis of the two techniques.

The lighting, as with the music, will be controlled by sensors placed around the performance space.

Sensing

We are exploring the use of light, infrared, and ultrasound sensors. The performance space will be divided into a number of segments and as spectators walk through the space, changes in audio and light will follow. The spectator will not be aware of the effect their presence has on the installation other than the fact that it is changing as their position changes. Sensors will not be continually receiving input and will thus be unpredictable to spectators. For instance, walking to the rear left corner will not always have the same effect.

Spatial sensing is difficult with a high volume of people present and will be more effective with a limited number of spectators present at any given time. Because of this, and because we are interested in live performance, the Final Friday show will be a live performance rather than an automated experience and thus will not use the sensor input. This doesn’t change our message and concept in any way. It is simply a different delivery method. Live performance only might even be preferable, but since the exhibit will remain up for some time, it isn’t practical to have an artist doing constant performances.

Generative art refers to art generated, composed, constructed, or somehow produced with an algorithm in a computer, mathematical, or other autonomous process. Prime examples include certain works by John Cage and, most currently, Brian Eno’s “77 Million Paintings”. During a recent visit to the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE), I saw first-hand many different generative art projects. I noticed an interesting thread throughout - each description included a phrase to the effect of “we’re ______ and then looking at all the possible outcomes to find the best results.”

The key is the “all possible outcomes”. Imagine if Stamitz had mathematically calculated every possible symphony in the 1700s. There would be nothing left to explore and the most respected of all forms would have disappeared almost as quickly as it began. Mozart and Beethoven surely wouldn’t bother composing symphonies because Stamitz had, in a sense, written them all. Sure, one could make a case for composers creatively breaking the rules of the algorithm to produce original results, but this is a hollow shell of an argument because no composer wants to use a form that has been played out, so to speak.

One could also argue that we would still have seminal works such as Haydn’s “London” symphony or Beethoven’s 9th, but they would be credited to Stamitz who would have discovered them while sifting through the results of his compositional algorithm. However, I counter this with two claims: first, generative “composers” are overwhelmed with a multitude of possibilities making them unable to examine every possibilities, thus ensuring that many of the results will go unnoticed; second, it’s likely that many symphonies that we now regard as classic would be discarded because they didn’t fit into the current style of the period. Bernstein’s “Kaddish”, for example, certainly wouldn’t make the cut, to say nothing of Schoenberg! If Stamitz had generated every possible symphony, and even if he lived long enough to examine each one, he would most certainly discard anything beyond what the 1700s regarded as musically beautiful and we would never get to hear Beethoven’s “Eroica” with its lopsided development or and of Mahler’s monster creations.

From this point of view, I pose the question: how many masterpieces did Brian Eno kill when he synthesized 77 million paintings? How many great works are we deprived of by generative artists everyday? Are these artists exploring a radical new creative methodology, or are they ruining art for everyone?

My final thought is that the human mind is creative beyond all understanding and if the symphony didn’t go on to become the preeminent art music form that it did, Haydn would have written equally great works using a different form. However, if all artists began composing algorithmically, finding original forms would quickly become difficult. As Umberto Eco points out, once we have the blank canvas, the ripped canvas, and the charred canvas, where can we go from there but backwards?

I have this wonderful image in my head. People are learning to play instruments, not for a teacher, not because their mother made them, and not necessarily even for public performance: they’re learning the instruments for themselves. They’re home alone making music for themselves only. There are no teachers, no critics, no others to judge them - just themselves and the music. I can’t take credit for the idea - it came from concert percussionist, publisher, and contemporary music advocate, Sylvia Smith. In an interview, she described how she tries to play a little xylophone everyday because she enjoys it. It’s music that no one hears (other than her husband, Stuart Saunders Smith - one of the most important contemporary composers today). It’s not practicing, there’s no goal, there’s no frustration, only the pleasure of creation.

Why don’t we have more people learning to play instruments for themselves? The closest thing we have are amateur guitarists. You’ll find an average of 1.4 guitars in every college dorm room*. Many of these guitarists have the right idea. You find them all over the place, playing songs that they write for themselves, not for anyone in particular - just for them, or a few close friends. They don’t need to be great and they don’t even need to be “good”. As long as they are happy with the sounds they make, that’s good enough.

Unfortunately, todays society tells us that if we’re going to do something, we’d better be amazing at it, or it’s not worth doing. Maybe we’re to blame. The guitar playing college kid is a stereotype that gets a lot of heat because “they suck”. By what standards do they “suck”? If you’re comparing them to Buckethead or D’jango Reinhardt, yeah - they do suck. But who are they hurting? They aren’t posing as professionals, they aren’t asking you to pay them, and they aren’t really hurting anybody.

With today’s overabundance of available media, there’s a constant flow of entertainment . Thus, there’s no need for us as individuals to create - we just let other people do it for us. After all, they come up with better stuff than we would, right? We’ve lost the sense of personal creation and the joy that comes with it. Muhammad from the TASD class understands this. On his blog he writes, “I simply make some noise, but it’s my noise and I love it.” This is exactly what we need more of. Now, lets see about something other than guitar because, seriously guys . . . :-)

*statistics made up on the spot by me.

This is another review I wrote for Amazon.com

– — – –

Perhaps the only things more polemical than Adorno’s critique of Schoenberg and Stravinsky are the reactions that followed. Unfortunately, many people still assume that they understand Adorno’s views and arguments concerning these two composers. The reductionist tendency to simplify Adorno’s view to “Schoenberg good, Stravinsky bad” shows just who has and who hasn’t actually read this book. It is never so simple. Adorno is frequently critical of Schoenberg in very perceptive ways. Of course there’s no mistaking who Adorno favors, but to consider this book as a good-vs-evil study is far too limiting. Not only is this a great study of the then current state of musical thought, it is also an interesting overview of twelve tone music, how it works, what it seeks to do, and why it’s important.

The format of the book is especially nice. Adorno’s favored paratactical prose style can be incredibly difficult when multi-page paragraphs begin to accumulate. For the most part in Philosophy of New Music, each new paragraph is marked by a heading. This keeps the ideas organized and focused. Adorno’s paragraphs seem to function as a spinning out of an idea in a very fluid manner and the length of his sections are just the right length to allow the reader to comfortably follow him without getting bogged down. His theses is developed piece by piece, but clearly dividing up the ideas helps the reader see the logical progression. Having read other Adorno writings, I found this to be unusually clear and concise. I wonder how much more useful Aesthetic Theory would be if he had used this structure.

The remarkable clarity is probably due, to a large extent, to Robert Hullot-Kentor’s translation. I’ve read many other translators with varying degrees of success (Ashton’s attempt at Negative Dialectics being one of the worst), but Hullot-Kentor is by far the best. Adorno’s writing is riddled with allusions and references that are frequently vague or obscure. Hullot-Kentor does a great service to readers by including additional references and background information. His detailed understanding of Adorno’s complicated thought is evident in every sentence. Reading Adorno has, to me at least, never been so straightforward.

In addition to the translation, Hullot-Kentor provides an excellent foreword providing both a context and an overview of what is inside. His description of the translation process is, as always, interesting. Hullot-Kentor has found a way to provide very readable English translations while maintaining Adorno’s linguistic artistry.