Twister On An Infinitesimal Plane

Beginning in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, electronic music equipment came closer and closer to being perfected. By a certain point, it was well possible for a musician to realize any sound he could possibly conceive of if he only knew which knobs to tweak and which programs to enter. Hell, he could even add eyebrows if he knew how to derive the formulas. Music entered the realm of the theoretically infinite. This meant that composers had literally an endless palette of sounds to choose from. This was - and still is - a bit daunting. Synthesizers broke free of not only sounds derived from traditional instruments, but accepted concepts of theory.

In "Electronic and Computer Music and the Humanist Reaction," John Rockwell (summarizing the theory of composer Paul DeMarinis) wrote that "conventional harmony and voice-leading were... the result of inherent acoustical laws compromised by equal temperament and the mechanics of conventional instruments. Electronic instruments are, in theory, freed from such compromises; they permit as pure a harmony as the human mind can imagine (although they introduce biases of their own)" (1).

With the infinite spread out, what happens next? If anything is possible, what is actually done? Certainly, many musicians fell - and fall - back on sterile sounds that either reproduced approximations of analog instruments or interpretations of what a computerized instrument should sound like (in other words, futuristic video game bleeps and farts). Bad synthesizers were, and are, a-plenty, though some artists have managed to create truly wonderful pieces of music with them (witness the bulk of the Talking Heads' 1983 "Speaking In Tongues").

Harnessing this segment of infinite is tough. Out of all the known and unknown sounds in the universe, how does a musician choose which sounds best create the largest emotional effect for him or the listener? For me, anyway, the music that elicits the largest response is that which triggers some kind of sensory memory -- the timbre of a certain acoustic guitar part might recall the childhood experience of going to see Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall with parents on some Thanksgiving weekend a dumb long time ago. Or even something more obtuse: the tone of a saxophone could remind me of the sound of the horn on the 1975 Dodge Dart my father drove when I was growing up. Either way, these are analog memories associated with an analog world. Ergo, analog sounds call them to mind. For many older musicians, I suspect that the bulk of their memories fall into this category. Of course, electronic sounds are also part of my childhood -- television advertisements, radio jingles, and video games. As the years roll by, and children of the 80s and 90s begin to mature, I suspect that some electronic music will begin to reference the past instead of the imagined future.

This distinction - memories - manages to limit the scope somewhat, though the infinite field is still very much in effect. Though it's still daunting, some musicians have successfully focused their energies into specific areas of this plane. Some of my favorite artists of late - Beck and Soul Coughing - have done extraordinary work fusing resonant traditional instrumentation with electronica. This challenge of filtering - finding just exactly the right sound - now so successfully accomplished by some, has long been a task of musicians only. For the listener, the options were always finite. There might've been an endless supply of music in the world, but only so much of it could be contained by the boundaries of a record store. I got a new computer last week. I am now the proud owner of a machine that has the capacity to handle mp3s, RealAudio, and other sorts of digital audio media. It's quite exciting, really. For both the musician and the listener, this grants an entryway onto that plane.

The task of the musician has always been something like this: enter that infinite space, locate what he wants, and bring it back out by way of an immense sewer system -- the modern day equivalent of a rabbit hole. Exiting is like popping up through a manhole cover somewhere in the middle of a bustling metropolis. Logically, the piping in the central part of town is that which has gotten the most use, and that which is clogged with the most shit. Likewise, some of the nicer pipes around the perimeter of the city come up in sparsely populated communities. The trick to getting out involved getting out of a well-located manhole cover without getting the said object covered in crap. It's like... a big video game.

Suddenly, there is a tool that connects these things together -- two separate parts of the mind, one for creating and one for receiving. There is direct access to the underworld. Suddenly, the universe is a much freer place. People say that everybody has their perfect match somewhere in the world, but what about in terms of music or art? Somewhere out there, will I find the single most emotionally resonant song? There is a great danger here, too. In terms of composition, it's quite easy to fuck up with thousands of sounds at one's disposal. The same holds true for listening. Too much of anything can be dangerous and can result in a hideous half-assedness that dogs many things.

This is all compounded by the simple fact of gestation. Anything of value will have a instantaneous impact, but it will also take sometime to absorb in order to glean its full meaning. I might download a life-changing song by a tiny band from the backwoods of South Dakota, the likes of which I've never heard before. The song could encompass just about everything I'd ever wanted in a piece of music. But, the realm of the infinite is still there. Music continuously has the capability to surprise the shit out of me. If it didn't, what good would it be? Because of that, I can never assume that anything is the single best thing ever that can never be topped. Music is evolution and will never end. It is, in itself, a boundless, infinite space -- the living embodiment of Siddhartha's metaphor of the river: the past, present, and future at once.

No matter how incredible something is, there's always more out there. Where does the value of the original lie? Okay, this song from the non-existent band in South Dakota is the greatest thing I've ever heard. What next? I happen to check their website and discover that they have nine entire albums of material for my listening pleasure. Attaining a balance between the present moment and the quest for the infinite is tough as all hell, and the net ain't making it any easier. I'm not turning into a technophobe in any sense of the word, but I do have to say that before it seemed easy -- things came with a logical progression. My attention followed a neat, narrow, linear course. Things were revealed to me, so it seemed, in order of their necessity. It's all there now.

Before, I could appreciate something for what it was both because of what it was... and because there wasn't anything in sight behind it. Things came when they came. Now, everything's here at once. How do I fully appreciate what's here when the next step is somewhere in the tangled web before me?

(1) John Rockwell; Electronic and Computer Music and the Humanist Reaction; All American Music; Vintage Books, 1984; p. 140

Jesse > Car > Highway > New York* > eu! > Car reprise
* - with home teases.