Category: electronic

Ancient history…

In 1969, I became the first composition teacher at USF (also teaching theory courses and comp related courses such as orchestration). I created USF’s electronic music studio. Before, at Eastman, I had been the 1st graduate assistant assigned to build Eastman’s electronic music studio under my major professor and director of the studio, Wayne Barlow. Back in those olden days, my parent’s day (Leon Theremin, Tod Dockstader, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Schaeffer, Edgard Varèse) and then, in my day (Morton Subotnick, Wendy Carlos and others post the advent of synthesizers), it was all called “electronic music.”

Quite aside from the fact that all my current recordings use only sampled sounds, I would not consider it electronic music in the aforementioned sense. Mainly because I only use electronic sounds in lieu of acoustic instruments. I’m really writing for acoustic instruments that I can’t afford to record, so I use samples which I can.

I haven’t written any real electronic music since way back in the last century, about 1993. I’m trying to organize all the stuff I’ve written over the past years, and I keep uncovering things I’ve forgotten.

This post shares a digital album of “electronica” (see further discussion of terminology further down the post) I’d forgotten I’d done: Tales of the Laughing Wizards. That link will take you to BandCamp where you can listen to the tracks a few times free of charge. Also, I’ve given the links to the separate tracks below.

  1. Iliru
  2. Seusur
  3. Janarnkarr
  4. Calulaith
  5. Gahnende
  6. Homuro
  7. M’urneng
  8. Alrareven
  9. Lorserathathgha

Above, I referred to Tales of the Laughing Wizards as “electronica.” These days of precise music marketing terms (which is such a bother), the term “electronic music” has come to mean club music: music you can dance to. Another term, “electronica” has come to mean music produced by electronic means that is not intended as dance music. It’s music to be listened to (ambient, theatrical, contemplative, melodic, music for listening to, etc.). So, Tales of the Laughing Wizards is electronica.

Safe Harbor

The issues coming from “AI” actually began a long time ago before the notion of AI even existed, with the advent of recordings. Up until then, music meant people in a room makes sounds for folks to enjoy hearing. I still believe that is the purpose of music.

But, with recordings came music preserved as if in amber. Suddenly every pianist is compared to Horowitz, every composer to Beethoven. At the same time, we’re blessed with getting to hear Horowitz (I never had the privilege to hear him in person) and I’ve only ever heard a select few of Beethoven’s symphonies performed, live.

So there’s these two parallel steams of musical existence: recordings and live performance. They intersect. I first heard Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring on records. When I was a kid, you could go in a record store and listen to any record in the store in listening booths. I spent hours in the St. Louis Stix, Baer, and Fuller department store listening to that piece. Had records not existed, I would never have heard it. Much, much later I heard it live. There’s no comparison. I heard things in the live performance—little inner voices wiggling around—that, even though I’d studied the score, I never really “heard” before.

Then came electronic music: the Hammond Organ, musique conrète, the Theremin, Oscar Sala, Karlheinz Stockhausen, the Columbia-Princeton electronic music studio, Bob Moog. All of which, progressed to keyboards in almost every home, and then home studios, now all residing in a laptop that plays sampled sound in convincing combinations.

How does this related to AI and the schlock AI generated (I won’t say “composed”) songs on streaming services? It leaves humans out of the equation.

There’s an ethical dilemma for me. Where do I draw the line. I created this demo of a song I wrote to my sister’s lyrics using a piece of software called “Cantai.” It sings the words. It bothers me that that’s a group of singers that won’t be singing that song. That’s a group of instrumentalists that won’t be playing violins, a piano, a glockenspiel, and fretless bass. A recording studio won’t have the income from me renting time, paying for musicians.

But then…I can’t afford to hire a studio, hire vocalists, instrumentalists. I salve my conscience by telling myself I’m making demos to hopefully convince some real human to perform my music. The pretend world of sampled sounds are as close as I’m going to come to getting to experience most of my music.

A good friend who devoted his life to designing and building important pipe organs in Texas and throughout the south despaired when he heard sampled organ sounds that he spent his life perfecting. What of the organs and organ builders whose sounds were robbed (sampled) for me to use on my laptop?

Fortunately, AI “composed” music and synthesized/sampled electronic sounds do not compare to the real thing. It’d be nice to think they’d  never will, but someday in a Star Trek world they may. I’m glad Data realized that making music meant folks (including androids), in a room (perhaps on a starship), making sounds in the physical world for folks (and androids) to hear and enjoy, and to enjoy performing! My sister’s words paint a truth that aligns with that notion of what real music really is.

I guess I’m still not convinced we’re lucky the automobile was invented to replace the horse and buggy…for that matter, maybe the invention of the wheel wasn’t such.a good idea, either.

The Turtle Dove

Reposting some hymn tune arrangements in honor of the Lenten season. Streaming links at hiltonkeanjones.hearnow.com/simple-hymns. MP3 downloads and CDs available at hiltonjones.bandcamp.com/music. FREE CDs available at Lakewood UCC church service.

Sunday Morning Music: Elephants Piss in Fear

The title of this movement from Time Grown Old – Images of the Mahabharata, that I composed back 1995, is a literal translation of an actual phrase from the Mahabharata. The entire four movements form a concerto for pipe organ, percussion, and electronic sound. This recording is me as organist, with the University of South Florida Percussion Ensemble, Robert McCormick, Director. It was recorded recorded at the Bayshore Baptist Church, Tampa, Florida.

To listen to today’s Sunday Morning Music, click HERE.

If you decide later you’d like to listen to all four movements, click HERE. Should you listen to the entire piece, please note that movement 2 begins EXTREMELY softly.

Tales of the Laughing Wizards

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It is so easy to get distracted in life, isn’t it?! My intention with this blog was to regularly call attention to past pieces I’ve written as well as new ones. It’s the “regularly” part of that intention that went astray. So, today, I’m trying to climb back on that wagon and see if I can stay on it.

Tales of the Laughing Wizards is a suite of pieces for electronic sound. Each piece within the suite is a different wizard with a name suggestive of the tone of that piece. I don’t write much electronic music any more, but at one point in my life that was “my thing” so to speak. Now, I prefer to write music that humans enjoy playing on acoustic instruments.

I wish I could find a way to make the sounds that are possible to make with electronics, but with an acoustic orchestra, but that’s beyond me. That’s ok… Getting older has taught me one’s limitations are best just accepted sometimes.

Here’s Tales of the Laughing Wizards!

 

Amidst the city’s desolation, the Anima appears as a woman clothed in radiant white

I added a new track to The Geography of Dreams: Amidst the city’s desolation, the Anima appears as a woman clothed in radiant white.

There’s two kinds of programmatic music: what are often called “character pieces,” short pieces with a descriptive title, the music generally depicting the emotions and character of that description; the other being the “tone poem,” longer pieces depicting blow-by-blow actions of a story line. Late Baroque composers and were fond of the character piece and early 20th century composers of the tone poem (a generalization, of course…character pieces have been popular ever since they were invented, even into the present). This movement is closer to the tone poem approach.

The Geography of Dreams with two movements…more to follow.

Busts made of cork spinning slowly through the air

I’ve started a new suite of pieces, The Geography of Dreams. At various times in my life, I’ve kept a handheld tape-recorder in bed and recorded dreams immediately after they happened. Even before I started doing that, I was aware that certain “places” kept showing up in my dreams. Eventually, I got so curious about this, I drew a map of this dreamworld. It has an actual geography!

So…this suite will portray some of those places and dream-events that happened in them. So far, there’s only this one movement: Busts made of cork spinning slowly through the air — the title (and dream) has sort of a René Magritte feel to it, doesn’t it?!

If you’d like to download the score, HERE is the PDF.

Elven Drums

A good cyber friend from Second LIfe is, in Real Life, an expert creative seamstress and doll maker. A recent event for which she designed and made clothes was TribalXFest (also see LuluVoodoo for examples of her costumes).

This music is fascinating to me. In Real Life, the ultra-liberal church I work for has frequent drumming circles. In Second Life there are elven drum circles where groups of fae may jam one electronic drums while others of us dance widdershins. I confess I prefer worked out drumming to jamming but that’s from the perspective of a listener/composer. I’m sure for drumming participants it’s cathartic!

So, this new movement for The Forest is Elven Drums. I used traditional rhythms for part of the drums, tracks (Maqsum and Baladi for the main body of the song and Nawari and Bambi for the relief strain). Please don’t think I know what I’m doing with these rhythms. I tracked them down on the internet and then used them my own way. A purist will, I’m sure, be in pain listening to how I mangled them.

The Fairy Ring

Frideric in the snow by a fire ring_001 copyHere is a link to The Fairy Ring, the newest addition to The Forest. The first link takes you to the newe addition and the second link takes you to the complete set (only four movements at this point, but about a dozen anticipated).

If you don’t know for sure what a “fairy ring” is, here’s a good description and some background on celtic fairy rings: http://anamkaracentre.com/Celtic_Fairy_Ring.html.

One of my favorite pastimes has become spending time in Second Life as a fairy. (That’s me in the picture on the left.) This whole set is inspired by my activities and friends there.