who are the giants....?

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musicbloke
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who are the giants....?

Post by musicbloke »

Newton said "..if we have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants..."

so who are the "giants of computer music? is the likes of Busoni and Percy Grainger? or maybe Moog? or is the small unsung army of programmers who daily delight us with new linux stuff?

i'd be grateful for ANY input on this one, guys and (presumably) gals...
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Scary Hallo
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by Scary Hallo »

What do you think about Colon Nancarrow?
He made music for 'player piano'. That is for sure no computer. But is ist programmed music, anyway. :D
musicbloke
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by musicbloke »

yes, i'd add Nancarrow to the list, but then i'd also add whoever invented the fairground organ. have you ever seen the guts of one of those babies? they're powered by elastic bands and toilet rolls, but they are the mothers of the revolution!

i think that i'd also include any of the "musique concrete" guys. and Stockhausen to a certain extent, because of some of the work he did back in the 70's.

does Brian Eno count at all? is fractal music really music? algorhythmic music?

all i want is opinions!

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Scary Hallo
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by Scary Hallo »

I have a CD of Stockhausen. It is a piece for string quartet and four helicopters. There was only one performance of this. What a pity.
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spm_gl
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by spm_gl »

I have a double CD called "OHM, The (early?) gurus of electronic music". Basically a chronological collection of the most influential tracks. But very much focussed on "serious" music.

EDIT: Can you post the Name/Code of that Stockhausen CD? Would love to hear it.
--- Spreemusik ---
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Scary Hallo
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by Scary Hallo »

Stockhausen
helikopter-quartett / arditti string quartet

you can have a look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13D1YY_BvWU
musicbloke
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by musicbloke »

likewise, i'd be grateful for the code of the OHM cd. please post.

the reason i started this thread was that i REALLY want to find out who is seriously using computers to originate music rather than rehash old work. and anyway, i prefer the name "art" music. not all composition is "serious". i'm off to throw the toys out of the pram now...
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by spm_gl »

OHM: the early gurus of electronic music: 1948-1980
3 discs and a great booklet. ISBN: 1-55961-574-5
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StudioDave
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by StudioDave »

musicbloke wrote:Newton said "..if we have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants..."
Actually Bernard of Chartres said it first. We know of it via John of Salisbury. Both men were very interesting Medieval scholastics.
... who are the "giants" of computer music?
Max Mathews
Lejaren Hiller
John Chowning
Charles Dodge
Paul Lansky
Jean-Claude Risset

Those are some Old School composers whose work might interest you.

Best,

dp
Last edited by StudioDave on Wed Dec 09, 2009 6:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
musicbloke
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by musicbloke »

...the motherload!

i notice you saved the best until last. i had honestly never heard of the Shepard scale or the Shepard-Risset tone. and i'm absolutely fascinated with Rissets continually accelerating rhythm.

You're spot on, this is the stuff i'm looking for, but i'm greedy! i want MORE.....

PS i think it was musicbloke who once said "don't you hate people who are better at qoutations than you are?". although you probably know who said it first...

sincere thanks

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StudioDave
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by StudioDave »

musicbloke wrote:...the motherload!

i notice you saved the best until last. i had honestly never heard of the Shepard scale or the Shepard-Risset tone. and i'm absolutely fascinated with Rissets continually accelerating rhythm.

You're spot on, this is the stuff i'm looking for, but i'm greedy! i want MORE.....
The Csound site (http://www.csounds.com) has links to music made with that excellent software. MIT's Computer Music Journal regularly reviews concerts and disc releases of contemporary composition for/with the computer. There are many new names out there whose work I've yet to hear, the Journal can give you a heads-up on who they are.

I also like works I've heard by Victor Lazzarini, Richard Boulanger, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, Ludwig Brummer, and Ivica Ico Bukvic, but I'm not sure how easy it might be to find recordings of their musics.

Btw, you might want to get Dodge's book on computer music, it's a good starting point. Ditto for Rick Taube's Notes From The Metalevel and Rick Boulanger's The Csound Book. Curtis Roads' books are worth reading too.
PS i think it was musicbloke who once said "don't you hate people who are better at qoutations than you are?". although you probably know who said it first...
I'm reasonably sure it was musicbloke. I'll look it up on Wikipedia. :)

HTH,

dp
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by autostatic »

My first post :)

I'd like to add the following "giants":
  • Funckarma/Quench
  • Aphex Twin
  • Autechre
  • Bogdan Raczynski
  • Lexaunculpt
  • Drexciya
  • Binärpilot
But I also like more conventional music in which computers are involved like James Yuill, Plus/Minus and The Album Leaf (even though they all use Mac).

Best,

Jeremy
musicbloke
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by musicbloke »

Thanks for those suggestions, and i'll be adding work of this calibre to my list.

(I've got to admit i have a great liking for Bogdan Raczinski. there's a lot of humour in his work. but i'm not here to give opinions. binarpilot does really good stuff too.)

so who is musically at the "bleeding edge" at the moment. does anyone stand out?
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by autostatic »

IDM has had it's peak. I think it's the remixers who are making some of the hippest stuff at the moment. Check blogs like http://discodust.blogspot.com/ and http://redthreat.wordpress.com/ for instance.
Binärpilot is cool, one of the few trackers left that manage to produce quality stuff. At the moment I get the feeling that Jeskola Buzz is being used a lot, Girl Talk is a good example, just check RIP! A Remix Manifesto:
http://films.nfb.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/
http://www.ripremix.com/
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warkus
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Re: who are the giants....?

Post by warkus »

Not musicians, but Kim Ryrie and Peter Vogel who invented the CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) which was the first polyphonic digital sampling synthesizer.
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