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Summer Reading - The rest is noise
StoreTags: summer, balls, fundamental, reading
Author: Roshi on July 02 2008 Viewed 3137 times. 25 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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Hooray for summer! And hooray for reading what you want to read, instead of biochem textbooks!
Right now I'm reading "The Rest is Noise" by Alex Ross. It's a well written survey of a large swath of 20th century composers, including Bartok, Shoenberg, Duke Ellington, Richard Strauss, Debussy, Xenakis, Partch, Schnittke, and mentions of Velvet Underground, Radiohead, IRCAM, and much much more.
For people like me who have large gaps in their knowledge of 20th century composers, it's invaluable, and a great read - Ross manages to give you the historical background, biography, and impact of each composer in a way that's snappy, dishy and eminently readable. At the same time, his descriptive writing about the musical pieces is vivid and illuminating about the theoretical idiosyncrasies of each piece. His writing on the gestation and impact of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' alone makes it worth reading. I highly recommend it.
Also, right now I'm working on Bartok's 44 duos with my teacher, which is a set of 44 duets based on folksongs that seem simple on the page, but which are harmonically really strange and wacky. For example, one of the duets I'm playing in G major (1 sharp) and he is playing in Eb major (2 flats). They were written for beginning violinists, but they get rapidly stranger and stranger and harder and harder as they go on.
I'm finding them really inspiring, composition-wise, and it makes me want to write ensemble pieces of beginning musicians, who don't really have a lot of interesting pieces to play. | |
Comments
07/02/08
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tantan
I don't like this blog, it makes me feel dumb and unedubuhcaded about musics
I challenge you to find a music related question that I actually know the answer to
07/02/08
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Roshi
What industrial band's name is a euphemism for a thin young canine?
07/02/08
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Roshi
also, what em411er's name is a misspelled star wars animal?
07/02/08
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tantan
lol thnx I feel better altho I'm not sure that the 2nd question is musics related 
07/02/08
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nagrom
I'm reading selected texts from "Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music" among other things.
One other thing: "Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization" by Alexander Galloway.
07/02/08
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j_chot
WHY DO MUSICAL TEXTS SEEM TO DRIP WITH MASTERBATORY-NESS?!?! IS IT ME? AM i THAT FUCKING STUPID OR IS MUSIC REALLY A SCIENCE AND NOT AN ART?
07/02/08
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Roshi
Oh cmon, chot.
It's just another way to look at music.
There's nothing a little learning won't hurt.
07/02/08
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tantan
chotty -- are science and art diametrically opposed?
07/02/08
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nagrom
I think what he's complaining about is philosophy in music, not art. Chot, you just need to get down the the discourse, that's all.
07/02/08
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nagrom
sorry!
* I think what he's complaining about is philosophy (in music), not SCIENCE.
07/02/08
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dkarma
dunno much about music books, but a few of my favorites and quick reads btw are:
Gateway by Frederik Pohl
Treason by Orson Scott Card
Neuromancer by William Gibson
and the Dark Tower / Gunslinger series by Stephen King
I know I know the gunslinger series is 7 books and about 4000 pages total, but you really can't put them down once you start...ka being a wheel and all
07/03/08
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Roshi
sorry, dkarma
only arty farty books that piss j chot off are allowed in this thread.
07/03/08
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yghartsyrt
„the rest is noise“ is high up on my want list. i was about to buy it for some nice reads while having some days off.
that ocean of sound book is really nice. haven't read haunted weather. though i found „ocean of sound“ sometimes a little to much jsut desrcibing things and i felt, that the lack of theory, that was there at some point a little sad, because, it really had the potential, to go really deep. but i read it some years ago, so i might be talking bullshit.
a great book for summer reads is: beyond photoshop.
it's about generative design, algorithmic art and using the software beyond it's designed purposes.
link
some nice examples and thoughts in there
07/03/08
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jogn
the friends of ed are great for these no nonsense books. Though i'm not too sure about this one.
I've got maeda on media. The dbn guy who eventually inspired proce55ing. It's more like the usual design type reads, mostly pics and ideas, and nothing really about implementation. But the reading list is
microtrends
the power of gold
and spook country
07/03/08
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monty
Space Is The Place, the Sun Ra biography by John F. Szwed is a good read.
and People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee "Scratch" Perry
by David Katz is also good.
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