Hold a single note or chord for a whole hour, and call it music.

Started by Mandryka, April 25, 2020, 04:40:20 AM

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Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

steve ridgway

Quote from: Mandryka on March 09, 2021, 11:31:30 AM
I feel a bit ambivalent about drone music. I mean, do we really need so much of it?

No, I enjoy a certain amount in the mix and prefer earlier works that were groundbreaking at the time to derivatives decades later.

Mandryka



https://www.discogs.com/London-Contemporary-Orchestra-Giacinto-Scelsi-String-Trio/release/16244055

I completely missed this when it came out last year - late Scelsi, drone and microtone stuff, so you know the gen, but still . . .  a good example of the gen. 

However I have to say that my first impressions of the performance are not entirely positive, I think that Arditti did a more nuanced and subtle recording of the string trio.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

steve ridgway

Quote from: Mandryka on May 09, 2021, 07:34:44 AM


https://www.discogs.com/London-Contemporary-Orchestra-Giacinto-Scelsi-String-Trio/release/16244055

I completely missed this when it came out last year - late Scelsi, drone and microtone stuff, so you know the gen, but still . . .  a good example of the gen. 

However I have to say that my first impressions of the performance are not entirely positive, I think that Arditti did a more nuanced and subtle recording of the string trio.

Thanks for the report, I don't actually have any recordings of the trio yet.

Mandryka



Listening to this today, La Monte Young's melodic version of the second Chinese dream. It's one note music, and I know, we've heard it all before and what's the point of more of the same. But I do think that somehow La Monte Young has magic powers and can hold down a note for an hour and turn it into music.


It may just be me of course.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka



Listening to Georg Friedrich Haas's 9th quartet, about 40 minutes of drone and overtone music, it struck me how so much of Haas's music is like Radigue's , Radigue of Trilogie de la Mort - I mean drone and melody created in the distance shimmering quietly and mystically. There are dynamic changes which make it ebb and flow beautifully. And there are events which, in context, appear fairly important - the entry of cello, a modulation, that sort of thing.

I'm not sure if this quartet is designed to be heard with sensory deprivation, i.e. in complete darkness. I read somewhere that it is very composed, as composed as a quartet by Haydn. And that's an interesting move on Haas's part, I think some of his  earlier quartets were more a sketch of ideas for the musicians to play with.

This is a very fine piece of music, and a great performance. It deserves to be more easily available - PM me if you want it. I don't think it has been released commercially and I'm not sure how I got it.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

https://www.youtube.com/v/5a8szQyozxs

Liam Carey's yes and no is made up of a single 22 note chord made from a harmonic series on C, by changing the voicing of this chord he makes varied music.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Rinaldo

A little bit of thread necromancy, even if I'm not hundred percent sure this live "folk drone" recording qualifies – after all, it's just 43 minutes long.

Pau by France



Hurdy-gurdy, double bass, percussion, bliss.

T. D.

A work for aeolian harp, presumably with some post-processing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghWKx5rMfTI

There are other pieces by the same "group" (Aeolian String Ensemble)

T. D.

Alvin Lucier, Disappearances for string quartet. Not an hour, but 16+ minutes should get the point across.

Bandcamp audio: https://collectionqb.bandcamp.com/album/alvin-lucier-navigations

Youtube video (only half the playing time of the recording; I don't know why):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsTamSLWMXI

Review: https://www.lafolia.com/string-theory-36-predominantly-quartets/

Mandryka

Phill Niblock, kontradictionaries. This is very processed music, and all the better for it IMO. The musicians recorded some sounds, Niblock processed them and made a tape, played it back to the musicians who then added bits. I like it very much, though I'd be hard put to say why I like it, or what I like about it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1TuCXqhuUbA
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKe6udcvLhI&ab_channel=LatvianRadioChoir-Topic



In  Rytis Mažulis Ajapajapam for choir and sting quartet, the voices' and strings' sustained tones meld together and soon lose a strong sense of either identity, as focus shifts to tracking the changes in density created by the continual entries for individual singers, which are then lost as they enter the global sound mass. Occasionally, individual voices rise out  of the texture, but then quickly recede; we again perceive the homogenised nature of the pitch clusters.

It's very good.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

LKB

Quote from: steve ridgway on April 25, 2020, 08:24:30 PM
Astronomers say they have heard the sound of a black hole singing. And what it is singing, and perhaps has been singing for more than two billion years, they say, is B flat -- a B flat 57 octaves lower than middle C.

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/science/music-of-the-heavens-turns-out-to-sound-a-lot-like-a-b-flat.html

This put a grin on my face. To see why, go to 19:35 in the video below:

https://youtu.be/GvWNyM6AzIs
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen...