whom?
for whom do you create music?
an audience, real or imagined? yourself? or do you just create … without caring about the whom?
sometimes i create pieces for a real/specific audience: a person (runagate) or group (ooTray). sometimes for an imagined/general audience (lovers of experimental electronica). sometimes for myself, without feeling the desire/need to share the results with anyone.
often these days i make pieces for MUSIC itself: MUSIC as passionate audience, colleague, friend.
March 22, 2009
• Posted in: questions
2 Responses to “whom?”
I spent a long time a few years ago making music with a specific intention in mind, rather than an audience. I took the concept of sound waves moving around a room, and tried to imagine what the negative space would sound like, and how I could go about creating the “opposite” of sound. I created it mainly through feedback loops which were directly driven and manipulated by old tapes of classical music (I only had a 4 track recorder, a couple of delay effects and a tiny sampler at the time). I think I was mainly trying to prove something to myself rather than making music “for” anyone.
I gave up on my experiments eventually, after it had evolved from making feedback loops into smashing records to pieces and gluing them back together again, and I kind of ran out of ideas so I picked a guitar up for the first time in a long time and started trying to write “nice” music for people who sit in pubs listening to acoustic music. After a few performances I got bored, as I found I wasn’t doing it for myself anymore: I was trying to do what I thought other people wanted to hear. Apart from that, my lyrics were, on the whole, atrocious.
I gave up music for a while and concentrated on learning more about sound design, and recently I’ve tried to find a common ground between the two parts of my musical past - something approaching noise, but more musical than just pure random feedback. I tend to set things up so noise/sound is generated automatically, then take it apart and make a more structured piece through careful editing. I definitely make music for myself again. I did have a short period of wanting to be played in clubs by a DJ friend of mine, but repetitive beats don’t suit me; I find them very boring to work with. I guess that period was another failed effort in making music for other people… (Having said that, it was great when I was there and he played some of my stuff in a club, seeing people dancing to my music).
That was a much longer reply than I originally intended it to be! Anyway, cheers, and keep up the interesting writing in CM; I always look forward to getting new inspiration from your column.
I play the clarinet and when I practice or play at home I am doing it for myself in that I am trying to hone a skill. The few times I play for an audience I am playing to anyone and everyone but especially for the people who enjoy and appreciate music. I participate in a jam session monthly and I am then playing for fellow amateur musicians and for myself. I see your idea of playing for MUSIC and I guess I have been doing that for a while. It goes beyond honing a skill and playing to some kind of appreciativeness that I imagine that is “out there” and nebulous. I think this last audience is the one I most wish to “impress” not in a cerebral sense but in a fulfilling sense. It is like writing in a diary not meant to be read by other eyes but not entirely for self.
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