More Music
So, I found some music I was looking for, and I figured out where Squarepusher and those guys are not doing their job, I think. I have been listening to The Well Tempered Clavier by Bach. Go here and click on the links on the left to listen to it. It is amazing. It is very simple in that it is just a piano playing, but it is very musically complex and completely entrancing to listen to. When I put it on it attracts my whole attention.. for instance I can't put it on and do something else, I have to stop what I am doing and listen to it. I get stopped and lost in it; I am sure it is because it is new, though, but I want it to be that I am distracted because finally something satisfies me but I doubt that is true. Anyway, the reason why I think The Well Tempered Clavier is musically complex and rich and interesting is that it does not just vary in time like most music, it varies in.. I don't know what the musical words are to describe it. But it has multiple different melodies that all intertwine together and you can follow an individual one but they all sound really nice together. There is a main one and there are other ones that kind of dance around the main one that are variations on the main one and it is so beautiful, and the variations on the main one are kind of games, like deviations from the main melody, so it is kind of like musical playing around but it is really beautiful. It is like in a techno song when the guy throws in something unexpected and it pumps you up, the composer is doing that, playing around with you with the melody, teasing you, playing with you when you are listening in this really fun, gentle kind of teasing but really clever really smart way, it makes me so happy to listen to it. I feel like I am being teased by Einstein when I listen to it. It is really frustrating that I do not have the vocabulary to describe what I mean. I read about it in Godel Escher Bach years ago and he made a big deal about the music in that book but I never went and actually listened to it because when I thought of classical music I thought of symphonies and orchestras and I could never really get into all of that stuff. But I think this is the most engaging music I have ever listened to. Squarepusher and Aphex Twin and those guys are really clever about making new envelope pushing music that is interesting to listen to, but only in the time dimension, so their music winds up ultimately being very boring to listen to after a while once you get over the initial shock and newness of it. They are just arranging things in a sequence and that is it and once you get the hang of it it kind of becomes dull. So no matter how clever they are about it, no matter how cool their drum flutters are or whatever, it is never anything more than putting things in an order, no matter how unique or surprising that order is. Eventually, you catch onto the pattern and it will becomes dull. But these fugues that Bach wrote are astounding because they are arranged not only in time but they are also several different melodies stacked on top of each other, all harmonized and wrapped around each other as you move through time so the fugue is really rich and complex to listen to. It is three dimensional to your ear. Even though it is just one piano playing the music itself is very pleasing, complex, intricate and rich. It is way more difficult to pick apart what is going on in the fugue. I sit there and listen to it and I think to myself, "This is a very simple song", because it is when you kind of step back from it, but when you try to focus on what is going on, the song is really really complex and confusing. Squarepusher and Aphex Twin, even though everything appears to be really complex and confusing, it isn't; after a while you just realize it is erratic, not really complex or anything. It's just surprising and erratic.
Okay, Squarepusher and Aphex Twin are like jump-out-and-scare you horror movies. Yeah, the first time you see them they scare the crap out of you, they do their job really well. You get totally freaked out and jump of your chair. But after you see them a couple of times, you know where the scary scenes are and the movie isn't really as scary anymore. Bach is more like one of those really creepy movies that is psychologically creepy, so later on when you are in bed, you get completely freaked out. Or when you are walking down the street, you get totally freaked out. Or later on when you are eating dinner or doing something completely innocuous. And you can watch those movies over and over and over again and those same scenes will scare you forever, you never stop being creeped out by those scenes. I feel like I could listen to these fugues for years and never really get tired of them because when I sit and try to pick them apart while I am listening to them they are so complicated that I wind up only being able to do one part of them at any given time.
I feel like emailing Squarepusher and saying, "Okay aren't you tired of time yet. I dare you to write a fugue." How cool would a fugue be with different instruments. Or without the constraints of instruments. With his sick mastery of time and those drum flutters everywhere, oh man.
Okay, Squarepusher and Aphex Twin are like jump-out-and-scare you horror movies. Yeah, the first time you see them they scare the crap out of you, they do their job really well. You get totally freaked out and jump of your chair. But after you see them a couple of times, you know where the scary scenes are and the movie isn't really as scary anymore. Bach is more like one of those really creepy movies that is psychologically creepy, so later on when you are in bed, you get completely freaked out. Or when you are walking down the street, you get totally freaked out. Or later on when you are eating dinner or doing something completely innocuous. And you can watch those movies over and over and over again and those same scenes will scare you forever, you never stop being creeped out by those scenes. I feel like I could listen to these fugues for years and never really get tired of them because when I sit and try to pick them apart while I am listening to them they are so complicated that I wind up only being able to do one part of them at any given time.
I feel like emailing Squarepusher and saying, "Okay aren't you tired of time yet. I dare you to write a fugue." How cool would a fugue be with different instruments. Or without the constraints of instruments. With his sick mastery of time and those drum flutters everywhere, oh man.