The Perfect Ping - The World's Ugliest Music

[Opus106]

That title is just to get one's attention. It's apparently the world's first mathematical pattern/repetition-free music.

http://www.youtube.com/v/RENk9PK06AQ

[petrarch]

Only a very specific type of tone row would qualify for that pattern-free designation: The all-interval tone row. But then, the procedure described is not completely pattern-free, because there are meta-patterns: Multiplying by three is such a meta pattern (the 2nd interval is 3x as big as the first, the 3rd 3x bigger than the 2nd, etc).

The lack of variation in dynamics in the piece makes it too bland and mechanical. Otherwise I don't doubt it could be interesting and enjoyable.

[Josquin des Prez]

Yeah, if only Schoenberg had died a decade later, this is precisely what his music might have sounded like. 

[ibanezmonster]

Sounds like something Boulez would write for children.

[Luke]

One problem here is that the guy doesn't take into consideration that patterns are perceived even when in the strictest sense they aren't there. He takes Beethoven's 5th as his example of highly pattern-permeated music, but even here, the patterns are perceived more than actual, much of the time. The first Da-Da-Da-Duh is not 'the same as the second only higher'; it descends a major third whilst the second descends a minor third. We are supposed to perceive an identity here, but it isn't really there, except rhythmically and gesturally. It's the same idea as the tonal answer in Bachian fugue, where the subject is not answered in an exact transposition, but altered so as to ease the workings of the fugue - we still perceive the repetition and the pattern, but it isn't really there (and the effectiveness of the tonal answer was always one argument against the rigours of serial theory, though an argument that missed the point a little I think).

In the case of the piano piece played here (called with presumably unintentonal irony a sonata, which is a pattern-based form of course), there are, inevitably, 'tonal-answer-like' large-scale patterns of rising and falling which give the music a certain sense of repetition. This sort of thing is unavoidable, of course - the goal of the exercise is almost unatainable, musically, though I'd suggest doing away with pitch (with which patterns are always perceptible) would be one way of approaching it...

[snyprrr]

That was ridiculous.

One note at a time?

I would have pegged this around 1955.


I think this proves sooomething... someone tell me what it is!!

[Cato]

That was ridiculous.

One note at a time?

I would have pegged this around 1955.


I think this proves sooomething... someone tell me what it is!!

It proves that the Internet can be an incredible waste of time!   0:)

[bwv 1080]

you cannot escape the gesture and phrasing of the performer either

would hold this out as the world's ugliest music:

http://www.youtube.com/v/9fCtDO7OcRM

instead of math, they polled people to see what they disliked most in music and came up with things like bagpipes, tubas and the banjo, with political slogans, advertising jingles and cowboy lyrics

[Mirror Image]

Speaking of the world's ugliest music, I think this qualifies...

http://www.youtube.com/v/Ve0XrTiFiwo

[cilgwyn]

Speaking of the world's ugliest music, I think this qualifies...

http://www.youtube.com/v/Ve0XrTiFiwo

Nice to hear someone doesn't like the 'Concerto for Orchestra'!

[Szykneij]

you cannot escape the gesture and phrasing of the performer either

Yes. I find interest in the performer's phrasing and the random rhythms. I think the piece would sound much uglier if every note was the same length. Imagine it played as a continuous 8th note run.

[some guy]

Well, Mirror's example of ugly music has quite a lot of repetition. The premise of the original clip, that beauty is somehow related to repetition (and nothing else, one is tempted to add!), is pretty questionable. Mirror's example doesn't just question it; it destroys it.

And, even then, the third reich and roll isn't all that ugly. Boring rather.

Which brings us to one of the more besetting difficulties with these supposed scientific illustrations of beauty and ugliness and so forth. Beauty and ugliness are not scientific terms. They are not scientific concepts. Using "science" to prove or disprove something about things outside of science's purview just makes you look silly. (And I know, the guy in the original clip doesn't try to prove anything, really, he just keeps repeating the original assertion. Repeating things may not create beauty, but it does make them true! Rich people create jobs. Rich people create jobs. Rich people create jobs. Rich people create jobs. See? It works! Rich people create jobs.)

But seriously, matters of value are all relational, the relationship between observer and the observed. These "scientific" excursions into realms of value and judgment almost invariably downplay the relationship, if they attend to it at all. And so miss the point, over and over again. (I found that "sonata," just by the way, to be fairly pleasant sounding. Not terribly interesting--the patterns that my brain found in it (which is, as Luke so eloquently pointed out, what brains do) didn't thrill me. Bing, bing (up high)--bong, bong (down low). Yawn. But not, I repeat (!), not ugly.)

[ibanezmonster]

would hold this out as the world's ugliest music:

I was wanting to listen to that one again, but I didn't know where to find it, thanks.
The rapping opera singer and the kids constantly saying, "Do all your shopping at Wal-Mart!" are priceless. Pretty soon, I'll be listening to music as annoying as that, just like every year.

[Cato]

(And I know, the guy in the original clip doesn't try to prove anything, really, he just keeps repeating the original assertion. Repeating things may not create beauty, but it does make them true! Rich people create jobs. Rich people create jobs. Rich people create jobs. Rich people create jobs. See? It works! Rich people create jobs.)

Quite true: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. have created both directly and indirectly millions of positions.

There are exceptions: I do not believe George Soros, as a currency speculator who manipulates markets and governments, creates quite as many jobs as they have.

The guys hanging around the local 7-11 and the Circle K, I am positive, have not created any jobs for anyone.  And the 46% of Americans who do not pay income taxes have probably not directly created very many jobs.   

http://victorhanson.com/articles/thornton110211.html

[Cato]

Google filed this under "World's Worst Music"

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/116952/the_worlds_worst_music_video/

[Mirror Image]

Well, Mirror's example of ugly music has quite a lot of repetition. The premise of the original clip, that beauty is somehow related to repetition (and nothing else, one is tempted to add!), is pretty questionable. Mirror's example doesn't just question it; it destroys it.

And, even then, the third reich and roll isn't all that ugly. Boring rather.

Well maybe ugly wasn't the right word but this is certainly terrible music, but, then again, pretty much anything by The Residents is going to be bad.

[starrynight]

Which brings us to one of the more besetting difficulties with these supposed scientific illustrations of beauty and ugliness and so forth. Beauty and ugliness are not scientific terms. They are not scientific concepts. Using "science" to prove or disprove something about things outside of science's purview just makes you look silly. (And I know, the guy in the original clip doesn't try to prove anything, really, he just keeps repeating the original assertion. Repeating things may not create beauty, but it does make them true!

Very true.  And of course if someone repeats something often enough people will start believing it however unfounded it may be, that's how stupid people can be.

[Opus106]

Very true.  And of course if someone repeats something often enough people will start believing it however unfounded it may be, that's how stupid people can be.

Well, now that's two of you. If more people could give me confidence, I will start believing in your assertion.

[starrynight]

Beauty in the past has been connected with symmetry and order.  Music was thought to reflect such objective and eternal values, thus the idea of the music of the spheres.  However in the 20th century the idea of music and art in general as being chaotic rather than ordered became accepted by some.  So as was said what is beautiful or ugly in modern terms is far harder to say.

[Ten thumbs]

That was ridiculous.

One note at a time?

I would have pegged this around 1955.


I think this proves sooomething... someone tell me what it is!!

Sounds about right. I recall that we 'invented' music based on pi in duodecimal at school. that would be around 1958-9