Here's an interesting fact: If you take the music of a specific era, 
sort through it, throw away all the junk and keep only the very best of 
the music, the end result is an impressive pile of music. Listen to that 
and you walk away with the impression that "back then, they made REAL 
music!"

Or at least, that's what I've been doing since I unwrapped about 25 
hours' worth of 1950s-eta rock & roll music yesterday. ;-)

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Invisible wrote:
> Here's an interesting fact:

90% of everything is crap. That said, if you keep only 1%, you're doing well.

Ever listen to a classical music radio station? Most of it is boring and 
lame. It's only the good music that lasts 100s' of years.

I'm wondering what the golden age of rap is going to sound like.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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On 29/03/2010 4:58 PM, Darren New wrote:

> I'm wondering what the golden age of rap is going to sound like.
>

The same as it does today cRAP!

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Invisible wrote:
> Here's an interesting fact: If you take the music of a specific era, 
> sort through it, throw away all the junk and keep only the very best of 
> the music, the end result is an impressive pile of music. Listen to that 
> and you walk away with the impression that "back then, they made REAL 
> music!"
> 
> Or at least, that's what I've been doing since I unwrapped about 25 
> hours' worth of 1950s-eta rock & roll music yesterday. ;-)

Although some genres produce nothing but junk, or have produced nothing 
new since the first couple of albums by the first couple of artists.

The heavy metal genre, for instance, has had only a small handful of 
bands that can be regarded as anything like first rate, and they all 
came out in the very earliest days of metal.  Since then, it has all 
been derivative noise.  The same could easily be claimed for rap/hip-hop 
and country-western.

Regards,
John

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John VanSickle wrote:
> The heavy metal genre,

An audio engineer I worked with said his group had once done spectral 
analysis on different kinds of music, and heavy metal was indistinguishable 
from white noise.  "So when Mom tells you it sounds like noise, she's right!"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Here's an interesting fact: If you take the music of a specific era,
> sort through it, throw away all the junk and keep only the very best of
> the music, the end result is an impressive pile of music. Listen to that
> and you walk away with the impression that "back then, they made REAL
> music!"
>
> Or at least, that's what I've been doing since I unwrapped about 25
> hours' worth of 1950s-eta rock & roll music yesterday. ;-)

1% of 1950`s best still sounds awful when compared to 1% of 1790`s best. ;)

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nemesis wrote:
> 1% of 1950`s best still sounds awful when compared to 1% of 1790`s best. ;)

I remember reading a book wherein the protagonist was chatting and said 
something along the lines of "I never bother to read a book that isn't at 
least 100 years old and still popular."   The person he's talking to says 
"doesn't that rather limit your options?"  The protagonist says "Not really."

Several chapters later, you realize the protagonist is a vampire.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
> > 1% of 1950`s best still sounds awful when compared to 1% of 1790`s best. ;)
>
> I remember reading a book wherein the protagonist was chatting and said
> something along the lines of "I never bother to read a book that isn't at
> least 100 years old and still popular."   The person he's talking to says
> "doesn't that rather limit your options?"  The protagonist says "Not really."
>
> Several chapters later, you realize the protagonist is a vampire.

I'm no vampire. :)

Still, I think like this:  do I know some given work of art already?  If not, it
doesn't matter if it's 5000 years old:  it's completely new to me.

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On 29/03/2010 11:44 PM, nemesis wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> Here's an interesting fact: If you take the music of a specific era,
>> sort through it, throw away all the junk and keep only the very best of
>> the music, the end result is an impressive pile of music. Listen to that
>> and you walk away with the impression that "back then, they made REAL
>> music!"
>>
>> Or at least, that's what I've been doing since I unwrapped about 25
>> hours' worth of 1950s-eta rock&  roll music yesterday. ;-)
>
> 1% of 1950`s best still sounds awful when compared to 1% of 1790`s best. ;)
>

True :-D

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Darren New wrote:

> 90% of everything is crap.

I don't think that's necessarily true.

Take YouTube. 99.9998% of YouTube is crap, presumably because *anybody* 
can post *anything*. You don't get to release a recording with a major 
record label unless you're minimally competant.

> That said, if you keep only 1%, you're doing well.

Indeed. I would imagine all the music ever recorded in the 1950s numbers 
in the hundred billions, and I've got, like, 30 tracks here.

> Ever listen to a classical music radio station? Most of it is boring and 
> lame. It's only the good music that lasts 100s' of years.

Most classical music sounds dull and boring to me. Only a select few 
pieces are worth hearing. Every year my mum forces me to listen to the 
New Year's Day concert in Vienna. *yawn*

It's the same with organ music. Once you get over the initial "this is a 
pipe organ", most of it is unspeakably dull. But every now and then, the 
occasional piece comes along which sounds awesome all the way through.

> I'm wondering what the golden age of rap is going to sound like.

Bahahaha!

I'm wondering what 21st century music will still be popular in 50 years' 
time. I honestly can't think of any good music I've heard recently 
that's new.

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John VanSickle wrote:

> Although some genres produce nothing but junk, or have produced nothing 
> new since the first couple of albums by the first couple of artists.

Perhaps. Of course, one person's generic clones are another person's 
distinctive sounds. It's all pretty subjective.

For example, there are people who claim that all trance music sounds 
identical, or those who complain that every Enya song ever recorded 
sounds identical. (I saw a comment on Bash where somebody claimed that 
Enya sounds the same played backwards...)

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On 30-3-2010 10:25, Invisible wrote:
> John VanSickle wrote:
> 
>> Although some genres produce nothing but junk, or have produced 
>> nothing new since the first couple of albums by the first couple of 
>> artists.
> 
> Perhaps. Of course, one person's generic clones are another person's 
> distinctive sounds. It's all pretty subjective.

An important thing is whether you have heard enough of it to notice the 
differences. For many young persons used to listening to pop/rock or 
worse all violin concertos will sound the same.
Also reminds me of the story of a friend who lived some time in a 
japanese village. There was another european woman there. Most japanese 
could not keep them apart, eventhough one was long and blond and the 
other short and redhaired. As we all know, all chinese look the same 
(though not to Darren, who has only trouble with Aboriginals and Koreans).

I can't find the source but once I read a comment about two loreena 
mckennitt albums that it was the same music because on both albums she 
played piano and harp; on both albums there were instrumentals, ones 
with own lyrics and an old poem set to music. See: they are the same.

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Darren New wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
>> 1% of 1950`s best still sounds awful when compared to 1% of 1790`s 
>> best. ;)
> 
> I remember reading a book wherein the protagonist was chatting and said 
> something along the lines of "I never bother to read a book that isn't 
> at least 100 years old and still popular."   The person he's talking to 
> says "doesn't that rather limit your options?"  The protagonist says 
> "Not really."

Consider that since the American Civil War something like 60,000 books 
about the war have been published.  Even if you cull the bottom 99%, you 
still have lots to read.

Regards,
John

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Darren New wrote:

> I remember reading a book wherein the protagonist was chatting and said 
> something along the lines of "I never bother to read a book that isn't 
> at least 100 years old and still popular."

Popularity doesn't necessarily mean that something is good.

For example, apparently everybody thinks GEB is great. Personally, I 
read about 25% of it and then stopped out of sheer boredom.

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On 30-3-2010 15:08, Invisible wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>> I remember reading a book wherein the protagonist was chatting and 
>> said something along the lines of "I never bother to read a book that 
>> isn't at least 100 years old and still popular."
> 
> Popularity doesn't necessarily mean that something is good.
> 
> For example, apparently everybody thinks GEB is great. Personally, I 
> read about 25% of it and then stopped out of sheer boredom.

That in no way proves or even suggests that it is not great. ;)

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>> For example, apparently everybody thinks GEB is great. Personally, I 
>> read about 25% of it and then stopped out of sheer boredom.
> 
> That in no way proves or even suggests that it is not great. ;)

It does rather suggest that it's not for everybody though.

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
4bb1ff06$1@news.povray.org...
>>> For example, apparently everybody thinks GEB is great. Personally, I 
>>> read about 25% of it and then stopped out of sheer boredom.
>>
>> That in no way proves or even suggests that it is not great. ;)
>
> It does rather suggest that it's not for everybody though.

You mean it is not so popular or not so good?

Marc

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On 30-3-2010 15:39, Invisible wrote:
>>> For example, apparently everybody thinks GEB is great. Personally, I 
>>> read about 25% of it and then stopped out of sheer boredom.
>>
>> That in no way proves or even suggests that it is not great. ;)
> 
> It does rather suggest that it's not for everybody though.

yes, greatness of books, music and other arts is like the spin of an 
electron. You can not know what value it has without observing it.

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>>>> For example, apparently everybody thinks GEB is great. Personally, I 
>>>> read about 25% of it and then stopped out of sheer boredom.
>>> That in no way proves or even suggests that it is not great. ;)
>> It does rather suggest that it's not for everybody though.
> 
> You mean it is not so popular or not so good?

Everybody seems to think that GEB is this wonderful book that's really 
interesting to read. I did not find it so.

My point being that "greatness" or even "goodness" is not so easy to 
define. It's subjective.

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andrel wrote:
> As we all know, all chinese look the same 
> (though not to Darren, who has only trouble with Aboriginals and Koreans).

It took me about a year or two before I could semi-reliably tell koreans 
from chinese from japanese.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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Invisible wrote:
> For example, apparently everybody thinks GEB is great. Personally, I 
> read about 25% of it and then stopped out of sheer boredom.

Me too. Then I matured, and went back and read it again, and it was 
absolutely fantastic enough that I read it twice more. GEB are tremendously 
*subtle* books, and if you miss the subtlety, you've missed the point.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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Darren New escreveu:
> Invisible wrote:
>> For example, apparently everybody thinks GEB is great. Personally, I 
>> read about 25% of it and then stopped out of sheer boredom.
> 
> Me too. Then I matured, and went back and read it again, and it was 
> absolutely fantastic enough that I read it twice more. GEB are 
> tremendously *subtle* books, and if you miss the subtlety, you've missed 
> the point.

possibly he'll mature too and start enjoying both GEB and Mozart. ^^;

the only reason people say a symphony is nothing but a bland wall of 
sound is because they usually are not able to pay attention to both the 
small details going on in the sound texture, individual motifs playing 
in parallel in the background and the larger overarching themes going 
throughout subjected to continuous change and tension...

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis wrote:

> the only reason people say a symphony is nothing but a bland wall of 
> sound is because they usually are not able to pay attention to both the 
> small details going on in the sound texture, individual motifs playing 
> in parallel in the background and the larger overarching themes going 
> throughout subjected to continuous change and tension...

Nothing music does this as well, and manages to be dramatic at the same 
time.

Ultimately it comes down to what you like. I reject the idea that just 
because somebody says a piece of music is good, I am morally obliged to 
like it. I like a piece of music because I enjoy it, not because 
somebody tells me to like it. This applies equally to the people who 
tell me that I'm required to like Handel and Ravel and to the people who 
tell me that I'm required to like R&B and hip-hop.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Nobody is telling you to like it, just pointing out that the reasons why 
you probably don't like it.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis wrote:
> small details going on in the sound texture, individual motifs playing 
> in parallel in the background and the larger overarching themes going 
> throughout subjected to continuous change and tension...

And this is exactly what GEB does. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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Darren New escreveu:
> nemesis wrote:
>> small details going on in the sound texture, individual motifs playing 
>> in parallel in the background and the larger overarching themes going 
>> throughout subjected to continuous change and tension...
> 
> And this is exactly what GEB does. :-)

I might say:  almost every deep work of art does that. :)

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis wrote:
> Darren New escreveu:
>> nemesis wrote:
>>> small details going on in the sound texture, individual motifs 
>>> playing in parallel in the background and the larger overarching 
>>> themes going throughout subjected to continuous change and tension...
>>
>> And this is exactly what GEB does. :-)
> 
> I might say:  almost every deep work of art does that. :)

True. I was simply being relevant. ;-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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On 3/29/2010 8:58 AM, Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> Here's an interesting fact:
>
> 90% of everything is crap. That said, if you keep only 1%, you're doing
> well.
>
> Ever listen to a classical music radio station? Most of it is boring and
> lame. It's only the good music that lasts 100s' of years.
>
> I'm wondering what the golden age of rap is going to sound like.
>
Actually.. Someone else stated it more like.. 90% of everything is crap, 
if you are lucky, 10% of it might survive, of which 50% will still be 
crap. In other words, its incorrect to assume that only the good stuff 
survives. A lot of total junk does too. Far more than we would hope, in 
fact.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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On 3/29/2010 10:58 AM, Darren New wrote:

>
> I'm wondering what the golden age of rap is going to sound like.
>

 >>shudder<<

-- 
~Mike

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