painting=representative creation of light
media: oil, watercolor, charcoal, graphite…

music=representative creation of sound
media: violin, orchestra, theremin, computer, hollow log….

artemotion..media independent

ssg

Regarding the subject, I’ve also felt the pull of simpler instruments that can ONLY be used as instruments. Something about the endless choices and the possibility of distractions (not to mention gearheadism) makes it hard sometimes to actually make music with a computer for me.

who hasn’t seen the abyss?

And to be fair, you did give it the headline: “Pioneering Composer Paul Lansky Quits Electronic Music”

Press conference: Paul Lansky is retiring from electronic music. Says he will focus on acoustic music.

It may have been the NYT author who chose this angle. But it is interesting to me, as always, to see how artists do choose to focus over time. You know, on a personal level, I think it’s fine — just as it’s fine to focus on writing choral music and stop taking orchestral commissions, or break up the band and keep the duo going, or whatever it happens to be.

When I want to write acoustic music, I just do it. When I want to create electronic music, I just do it. Same for when I want to combine the two. If all I had at my disposal was a stick and rock, I would make music with THAT. When I discover or rediscover a way of making music, I go through the same feeling of ‘rebirth’ or starting anew that he describes. It happens every few years (not just once in a career).

To quote: “To create the sound of a violin – wow!” he said in a recent interview. “I can’t do that on a computer.” A computer is NOT analogous to a violin or any other instrument, It’s a brain-magnifier! (in a way that none of our previous tools have been). Lansky’s computer pieces are clearly NOT attempts to imitate acoustic instruments…they are more like transformations of everyday sounds into music…so I don’t buy this particular argument.

Perhaps this is not even an issue to us, the younger generation, because we do not have such a distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘electronic’. We have grown up with computers, sequencers, synthesizers, cds, mp3 players, etc. We are not in a position to abandon electronics and retreat to ‘natural’ means, because it is natural for us to incorporate both into our lives and creativity.

I’ve heard a lot of his music over the years, and I have to say I’ve always found his electronic music much more interesting, innovative, and sonically alive than his instrumental music, much of which just sounds derivative to me. He’s a true pioneer of computer music, and has composed some of the classics of the genre. And I think he has a real ear for creative sound that I don’t hear in his instrumental work, which is just about the notes and not the sound at all.

To me, that’s the difference between electronic music and instrumental music – electronic music is about the sounds, and electronic music is about the notes. (That’s a simplification, of course, but basically that’s how I see it.) The reason I got into electronic music in the first place was to make my own sounds, and to be able to create and hear my own music, instead of leaving it up to others. (I’ve written instrumental music too, although not a lot, and I certainly don’t think I have much more to say with the same sets of notes that hasn’t already been said a thousand times.)

If he’s serious about not creating electronic music any more, I think it’s a real shame, because I don’t think his instrumental music is going to fill the gap created by the loss of his beautiful sounds. If his concern is that instrumental music is superior because it’s performable and interpretable whereas electronic music isn’t, well, we all know that if that once was the case, it certainly isn’t now.

And the thing I particularly object to in this whole matter is that somehow Lansky’s declaration is seen as a blow against the whole practice of electronic music composition and a validation of instrumental composition, whereas I think electronic music is more valid, active, and creative now than ever, and will continue to be.