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related links
the story of music
remaking music
ears:listen
the sharing of music
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a stereophonic sound spectacular
"instead of one world coming into being from a galaxy of possible worlds,
one message comes into being from a cacophony of possible messages."
-katherine hayles, how we became posthuman (p 11)
imagine music as information floating around the flotsam, until it is summoned
by an instrument whether that instrumnet be organic (like the voice), electronic
(like a synthesizer) or a mixture of both (like a pianist and piano). the creation of
music flows from inception of thought/data through the medium of the instrument and
then travels to meet the ear. there are, however, many types of ears...
the ear acts as a channel that receives sound/music data and relays the data to
an interpreter which then decodes the message. in the case of humans, the
brain acts as the interpreter and the results are catchy tunes that get trapped in
your head. perhaps more interesting are artifical ears: man-made hearing aids, radios
and computer soundcards.
yes, these too can act as ears, but also as interpreters/decoders and
mouths/encoders.
distinctions are then made between live/organic and machine assisted
creation/encoding/decoding. with the soundcard we play with the idea of a digital
form of music. in this instance, information can be stored, manipulated and copied
with ease and precision through the use of a computer. software can now replace
actual instruments and even musicians! the implications of this are simply that
ANYONE can now compose their art at home with a little technical know-how and the
right tools.
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