easily the smartest thing ever said about electronic music

[Guest Adjective]

from simon reynolds, who has his moments, despite everything:

 

"Electronic music strives to create experiences instead of describing them."

 

 

 

 

(i have no clue where i found this originally.)

 

found it

 

 

 

lol please tell me you photoshopped this just now

indeed i did

[Guest the anonymous forumite]

happy 200th post anonymous forumite!

 

oh thanks buddy, I feel different now.

[Braintree]

Music is on a "here and gone" time basis. It's always creating an experience.

 

I think I know what the author of the quote is trying to say, but it's a bit of a stretch.

[Guest KY]

I pretty much agree, but only under the scope of Western musical history.

i want to hear more of your thoughts on that statement; i'm wholly familiar with music outside of western conventions.

 

but i definitely agree with the sentiment, as far as electronic versus most other musical forms. erik satie's piano work, for example, still reflects representational—be it impressionist—experiences imo. also, electronic musics gay

[karmakramer]

I think people are looking at this too hard. It's of course a generalization and yes it is true. All electronic music is an experience and lyrical music is not always an experience. When I put on an electronic record for the first time, the feelings, thoughts, etc... will ALWAYS be unique to me, while music that describes the feelings, thoughts, etc... will SOMETIMES leave little room for the listener to make their unique interpretation.

 

For example:

 

"WHO LET THE DOGS OUT!? WHO WHO WHO??"

 

Is this song about me at the age of 5 walking on the beach at nighttime? No.

 

Is this song about someone letting the dogs out? Yes.

 

Lyrics help an artist better express THEIR feelings and sometimes your feelings... while Electronic music is a mutual relationship that anyone can relate to.

[Guest the anonymous forumite]

Kramer, the problem is:

 

Lyrics is one thing, music is another.

But lyrics are usually coupled with music. So you must draw a distinction and not label both as an experience, not because they can't be, but for the sake of this debate's clarity.

[awepittance]

pbn this may have applied 10-20 years ago when electronic music was something new, a gimmick in and of itself, but if you really break it down almost all mainstream music today is electronic music at it's core. It's rearranged or made and edited on a computer and people like Radiohead use a lot of electronic percussion. What about artists like Depeche Mode? Are you defining electronic music as something purely instrumental? and if so why would that generalization apply to only instrumental electronic music and not instrumental music that is acoustic?

[Guest Franklin]

i think the quote may be correct in describing music that does not have any lyrics, rather than just electronic music. What about a band like sigur ros singing gibberish? what about godspeed you black emperor! with no lyrics at all?

 

understandable lyrics seem to be the issue here.

[awepittance]

In other words, I find the argument of Reynolds to be built upon a bit of a rigid, structuralist idea about music.

 

precisely, it baffles me especially right now in our musical development as a society that someone could even attempt to impose rules or structural rigitidy to the situation.

 

we are in a state sonically/musically/aurally when pretty much anything is possible, with things like Melodyne Direct Note Access coming out you will soon be able to sample the entire saxaphone track out of a full jazz band. there is NO SUCH thing as 'electronic music' anymore as a totally separate entity, pop/electronic/r&b/rap it's all fused together now there is plenty of crossover.

 

you have to specify in more details hat exactly this guy means by 'electronic music' or what you think he means in order for this to make sense. It just comes off as someone very out of touch with music of today.

[playbynumbers]

Anyway, as sexy as this quote may appear, it is nonetheless valid for any genre of music. I'm not impressed.

 

it really isn't. radiohead's "pyramid song" isn't creating a NEW experience, it's RE-creating thom yorke's experience in the british museum (long story), which he translated into a very specific series of representations. sure, it's new for you, but it's a representation not of some artist's experience in the studio (which even electronic musicians have, obviously) but the experience that LED TO the experience in the studio.

 

I'm not sure we're debating over the same thing...

 

My argument is the following one:

 

1) Music is an experience in itself

 

This premise is difficult to deny. Music is not like a computer process, even if BOC say so, the result (the song) has this phenomenal quality that is different to each one of us, but it still appeals to our qualia. It's like tasting chocolate or smelling a rose, it's always an experience, even if you had it countless times. Music is like love, dude. An experience.

I'm not sure I understand your point, but I guess your point is the distinction between two kinds of experience: the real life experience that leads to produce music and the experience of what it is to be in a studio, right ? I'm not talking about this. What I am talking about is the emotional/physical and even mental experience music produces in you when you listen to a track you really like, say, for instance, Kid For Today. Listening to music is an experience, just like smelling a rose or eating burgers or seeing a movie.

 

So yeah, I'm not talking about the story behind a song or what led to it being recorded or any kind of conceptual experience, I'm talking about the experience I am in when I listen to music. That is, mostly an emotional one and in some cases physical or mental, as you may have understood by now.

 

 

 

music is obviously an experience in itself, but the point is the nature/mode of that experience varies according to whether music has lyrics/narrative or not. electronic music is more generative and not re-presentational; more open to interpretation, creating entirely new experiences and not echoing the artist's meaning.

 

an imperfect analogy: abstract art versus portraiture.

 

 

 

 

also, this:

 

I think people are looking at this too hard. It's of course a generalization and yes it is true. All electronic music is an experience and lyrical music is not always an experience. When I put on an electronic record for the first time, the feelings, thoughts, etc... will ALWAYS be unique to me, while music that describes the feelings, thoughts, etc... will SOMETIMES leave little room for the listener to make their unique interpretation.

 

For example:

 

"WHO LET THE DOGS OUT!? WHO WHO WHO??"

 

Is this song about me at the age of 5 walking on the beach at nighttime? No.

 

Is this song about someone letting the dogs out? Yes.

 

Lyrics help an artist better express THEIR feelings and sometimes your feelings... while Electronic music is a mutual relationship that anyone can relate to.

[awepittance]

so if i get the jist correctly, this really is a contrast between instrumental and lyrical music, not electronic vs non electronic music. there is plenty of electronic music these days that is full on lyrical pop music, and plenty of acoustic or rock instrumentation based music like tortoise that is completely lyricless

 

 

damn you simon reynolds!

[Guest zaphod]

not sure i agree with this. maybe some electronic music, but there's plenty that has a certain impressionistic slant to it that immediately brings to mind an experience. but i guess it isn't describing it in the literal sense of lyrics, maybe? i don't know, doesn't most music try to do this?

 

 

 

i would say that basically all modern western music, from classical composers to indie rock bands, are representing something through music --- in bach this would be the gospel of matthew, or whatever, and in radiohead it would be post-whatever angst. this is especially obvious when there is language involved, and the majority of music has language involved somewhere (opera, choral, etc.).

 

electronic music, and at least i think this is what he's getting at, creates something sheerly new; there's nothing that it refers to other than itself, no narrative. in a certain basic sense, of course all music leads to 'new experiences'; but electronic music doesn't have a narrative (usually) and isn't describing some experience that happened to the artist. boards of canada are CREATING an atmosphere of childlike wonder/dread, not representing it through lyrics; you aren't experiencing childlike wonder/dread as mediated through them describing their own experience (with the music as just like an accompaniment to emphasize it).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i can't totally get behind this because it seems like you're either splitting hairs, simplifying or not delineating the difference between creating an atmosphere and describing one. for instance, radio amor by tim hecker is, basically, a narrative in sound of hecker's experience on a boat in honduras. and this is communicated perfectly through the music and found sound, with the later tracks becoming more intense (azure azure) representing a storm and then the calm after it (trade winds, white heat). and you don't need lyrics to communicate this, they would simply be redundant (the song titles aptly describe the track and then the musical imagery, or whatever you want to call it, the choice of sounds and textures, brings you into the "story" of the album). so i think this music is descriptive without literally describing the experience, but then it's also representative or impressionistic because taken without context you might be able to separate the tracks from the overall album and project your own experience onto them. and then it also creates the experience of being lost at sea for the listener. but then this is one of the better albums in the last decade.

[karmakramer]

so if i get the jist correctly, this really is a contrast between instrumental and lyrical music, not electronic vs non electronic music. there is plenty of electronic music these days that is full on lyrical pop music, and plenty of acoustic or rock instrumentation based music like tortoise that is completely lyricless

 

 

damn you simon reynolds!

 

Its a generalization, its not always going to be true, but for the most part electronic music doesn't have lyrics in the traditional sense. Yeah on some Aphex Twin tracks there are voices talking or whatever... but it's an entirely different use of words and has no relation to a Bob Dylan song or something. The main attribute to "electronic" music is not that its made with electronics or that it's instrumental, but that it rides on feelings and atmosphere. While non-electronic music lacks subtly and often clearly states the songs purpose... limiting our minds ability to wonder to the abstract.

 

Electronic music is a new type of music, it's one that encourages people to sit in their rooms alone with headphones and a spliff.... letting your body and mind go to places only you imagine.

[Dan C]

lolwut

[karmakramer]

If you sit in a room with a group of people and put on a lyrical song, there would be more of a discussion then if you put on a instrumental "electronic" song. The reason is because the lyrics immediately ground the listener into the singers state of mind. So there is instantly a common ground for the group of people in the room. However when you put on instrumental music, people tend (in my experience) to space out or not talk about the music at all, besides commenting on if they like it or not... It's just far more abstract and each individual is in different place.

[Dan C]

While non-electronic music lacks subtly and often clearly states the songs purpose... limiting our minds ability to wonder to the abstract.

 

It was more that bit.

[Guest Mirezzi]

I think it's worth discussing, perhaps as an aside, but maybe it's the crux of Reynolds' point in the first place: without vocals, especially traditional vocals, it's hard to create an experience that doesn't involve humans and therefore earth. I don't mean to sound like a giant fucking dork, but seriously, I'm pretty sure most of us here have listened to particular records (for me it would be perhaps Arovane or Mego artists like Fennesz) and imagined an environment that's either alien or post-human or not altogether tangible / familiar.

 

In that sense, I could find the quote defensible, but it depends on reducing the broadness of the phrase "create an experience." If we stipulate that phrase to mean "envision an atmosphere / landscape, real or imagined," then I'm on board with this discussion.

[karmakramer]

While non-electronic music lacks subtly and often clearly states the songs purpose... limiting our minds ability to wonder to the abstract.

 

It was more that bit.

 

I don't see whats funny or confusing... if you listened to Britney Spears for the rest of your days ... your mind would be restricted versus if you listened to Autechre.

[Dan C]

What about teh jazz mang?

[Guest Iain C]

While non-electronic music lacks subtly and often clearly states the songs purpose... limiting our minds ability to wonder to the abstract.

 

It was more that bit.

 

I don't see whats funny or confusing... if you listened to Britney Spears for the rest of your days ... your mind would be restricted versus if you listened to Autechre.

 

hahahaha

[awepittance]

While non-electronic music lacks subtly and often clearly states the songs purpose... limiting our minds ability to wonder to the abstract.

 

but when you say non electronic music to me that can mean Bartok's solo piano works that most definitely take my mind to abstract worlds when i listen to them.

instrumental music as a whole i can get on board with the notion that helps the listener's mind go to more abstract places less associated with the human world. i just don't see why it would have to be electronic to take a listener to this place. Consider that people born in 1990 have been hearing the modern definition of 'electronic' music their whole lives, now taking it's hold as the overwhelming majority of billboard charting pop music. Someone who has grown up in this environment might find a square wave lead instrument even more familiar to them than say an armonica (not harmonica). To them sitting down and meditating on the same piece of music, once played back on a square wave and once played back on an armonica, potentially the acoustic armonica piece would take their mind to a more abstract place than an electronic square wave version.

i think fairly soon, like 10 years from now 'electronic music' will be a dated and non applicable term

 

Electronic music is a new type of music, it's one that encourages people to sit in their rooms alone with headphones and a spliff.... letting your body and mind go to places only you imagine.

 

music has served this purpose all through out the history of man kind, instrumental music especially. Acoustic music has served this purpose, but now in the last 60 years there is a new tool, electronic sound. think of spiritual or ritualistic drumming, it was specifically designed to let the listener go into an ecstatic or hypnotic state without the use of lyrics. some under the influence of ayahuasca or mushrooms (obligatory spliff comparison ).

[karmakramer]

While non-electronic music lacks subtly and often clearly states the songs purpose... limiting our minds ability to wonder to the abstract.

 

but when you say non electronic music to me that can mean Bartok's solo piano works that most definitely take my mind to abstract worlds when i listen to them.

instrumental music as a whole i can get on board with the notion that helps the listener's mind go to more abstract places less associated with the human world. i just don't see why it would have to be electronic to take a listener to this place. Consider that people born in 1990 have been hearing the modern definition of 'electronic' music their whole lives, now taking it's hold as the overwhelming majority of billboard charting pop music. Someone who has grown up in this environment might find a square wave lead instrument even more familiar to them than say an armonica (not harmonica). To them sitting down and meditating on the same piece of music, once played back on a square wave and once played back on an armonica, potentially the acoustic armonica piece would take their mind to a more abstract place than an electronic square wave version.

i think fairly soon, like 10 years from now 'electronic music' will be a dated and non applicable term

 

Electronic music is a new type of music, it's one that encourages people to sit in their rooms alone with headphones and a spliff.... letting your body and mind go to places only you imagine.

 

music has served this purpose all through out the history of man kind, instrumental music especially. Acoustic music has served this purpose, but now in the last 60 years there is a new tool, electronic sound. think of spiritual or ritualistic drumming, it was specifically designed to let the listener go into an ecstatic or hypnotic state without the use of lyrics. some under the influence of ayahuasca or mushrooms (obligatory spliff comparison ).

 

i agree with everything you said...(second point) but electronic music is still a new type of music that... etc.

 

never said it was exclusive to electronic music...

[Guest Iain C]

I don't see whats funny or confusing... if you listened to Blackout Crew for the rest of your days ... your mind would be restricted versus if you listened to Bartok.

[Guest Ominous]

i think i remember this quote from Generation Ecstacy; so the appropriate context for what he said are the raves and clubs that he was talking about in it. The act of going to the club, taking E and being in a state of trance was the experience. But as Awepittance said, it's a return to the ritualistic group experience for the Western world. /chinstroke

[chenGOD]

a) Simon Reynolds is a cunt.

b) see a.