The Song Fight Bulletin Board

erikb wrote:
Sure. But a clever musician will 1) find a way to make music such that the understanding of ...blah blah blah.

No - a clever musician will make bootys shake, with a view to an eventual exchange of bodily fluids - that's all.

And therein lies Phunt's major problem. No one will ever bounce their grandchild on their knee and with a playful wink say " Y' know - if it wasn't for the 2nd movement of Phunt Your Friends' Rockopolousaninjananophone Eternal - The Vishnu Cycle and half a bottle of Bundaberg rum - your daddy may never have been born..."

The sexual act, when done correctly, should be all over and done in under 3 minutes. So should a good song. It all fits.

Caravan Ray wrote: The sexual act should be all over in under 3 minutes.

Well there's my problem.

I think pyf's "Satisfaction" could make for a nice quicky. That is more or less what it's about. Some folks might have trouble getting past the dying whale noises, but that's totally a turn-on in my book.

[quote="Mogosagatai"]Erik, your questions are walking the line between “help and how toâ€

If these sort of questions are beyond the scope of the Help and How To section, I apologize, and won't mind if they removed.

no, i think these are good questions.
these are good things to think about!
-bill

I think you should move to Tucson and live in a big house with me and some others. That would make your music better.

Mogosagatai wrote: If said reasonable person were to listen to all of our songs, or even just a few more, I would expect em to begin to see that we’re being purposeful and meaningful and not just fucking around.

The issue as I’ve read from the response to your music, and from my own listen to this song, is that you aren’t giving people a desire to explore more of your music. You shouldn’t assume everyone is familiar with your catalogue of songs, you should give them a reason to want to listen to all of them. When you don’t, you may have written off someone for life.

erikb wrote:Do you care if people think that about you?

Mogosagatai wrote: Yes and no. If a person refuses to be reasonable about the matter… well, sucks for em, and I’d hope ey wouldn’t hang around just to piss on us.

It really isn’t for me to say because I didn’t review your song this week, but this may be at the heart of the reaction you’ve gotten. You seem to be saying “Here’s my song and if you don’t like it, well too fucking bad.â€

Ok I'll take this at face value for once. You want practical 'help and how to' on how to make your songs more immediately 'get'able? Well, here's an experiment you could try...

Go back to a fight review that you did, an honest one (I don't think you write them with a hidden agenda - but if you do, find one you didn't.) Go through it, make a list of the things you stated that you liked (vocal style, guitar sound, structure) and a list of the things you didn't, for each entry.

Now choose a song of your own (not from the one in the fight, for true lack of bias). Listen to it, while you're reading over the lists. How many of each could you actually apply to your own songs?

I find people are their own best critics, even if they don't always realise it ...

j$

In response to all your questioning Erik, I'll just say that self-evidence is a pretty strong argument. It's circular, but so is every argument, when you boil it down. I believe we've already had the 1+1=2/Godel/how-do-we-know-we-know-we-know argument before. It's self-evident to anyone who cares enough to look that we're not fucking around. If someone doesn't care enough to look, then that's fine, but ey'll be completely unjustified in attacking us. My point is, if you (generic) care enough to accuse of being intentionally annoying or disruptive, then care enough to research your claims. Reading what I'm saying right now, or practically anything Egg or I have said all week, should be sufficient evidence. Listening to any of our songs with a careful ear should also be sufficient. If one of them doesn't satisfy you, then another will.

Dan-O from Five-O wrote:The issue as I’ve read from the response to your music, and from my own listen to this song, is that you aren’t giving people a <b>desire</b> to explore more of your music. You shouldn’t assume everyone is familiar with your catalogue of songs, you should give them a reason to want to listen to all of them. When you don’t, you may have written off someone for life.

Well sure. We make no such assumption. And we are trying to give people desire to explore more of our music.

I wrote:If a person refuses to be reasonable about the matter… well, sucks for em, and I’d hope ey wouldn’t hang around just to piss on us.

Dan-O from Five-O wrote:You seem to be saying “Here’s my song and if you don’t like it, well too fucking bad.â€

MU

Mogosagatai wrote:Anyway, if there's still a question in anyone's mind that Phunt is just fucking around, than I encourage em to read everything that Egg and I have said this week

This is the root of the problem, as far as I can see. For proof that we're not 'fucking around' see the copious amount of writing about it after the fact. You need a way to incorporate this into the songs. It is too much to expect people to go 'aaah it's phunt, it must have deeper meaning'. And if they are not inclined to the music, they won't be inclined to read copious liner notes. It's a vicious circle, maybe.

mog wrote:(pay attention to the lyrics), (pay attention to the meter)mutually palindromic ... The same motif can be found ...

This is well and good, but in all honesty it's just games. Why should people pay attention to the clever parts if they can't get past the approach? The question you MUST answer in yourselves is how much does the discovery of these little 'easter eggs' by anyone else matter to you?

If the answer is 'a lot. I have something to say that I want to be heard' then it would reach more people if you framed them in a format that was more condusive to the ear. Meet people half-way is my advice.

If the answer is 'no, we are happy to know they are there' fine, keep on keeping on. Just stop starting threads to which there can be no post that will satisfy you except 'you guys are the bizz! Keep on keeping on!'

OF course, anyone could argue that these actually don't offer any proof that we're being intentionally annoying. But that would unreasonable. Really.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you appear to be implying you are being intentionally annoying. A freudian slip? In which case, you have answered all questions this thread could ever pose. So I won't say any more.

Mogosagatai wrote:If a person refuses to be reasonable about the matter… well, sucks for em, and I’d hope ey wouldn’t hang around just to piss on us.

Dan-O from Five-O wrote:You seem to be saying “Here’s my song and if you don’t like it, well too fucking bad.â€

I didn't say you couldn't learn theory from the internet, I just said it wasn't the best way to do so.

Mogosagati wrote:My formal musical training is next to none. Never had a class on it, and I played percussion in high school band (hardly counts). I certainly know more music theory than Egg, having learned most of what I know from the internet (to contradict what someone said earlier) and from just playing around with midi. But anyway, Egg's ignorance of music theory is irrelevant to his musical genius. He simply lacks knowledge of the formal system of rules designed to help people make pleasing music. He can make pleasing music without following those rules. When he does follow the rules, he does so unknowingly, but that doesn't make his musicmaking any less intentional or meaningful. He knows what he's doing, in a deeper sense, and that matters more than formal training,which is just a helpful tool to help people turn ideas into sound. If he can do it without the tools most people use, more power to him.

And here we come to the crux of your misunderstanding. Your lack of training is ENTIRELY relevant. And it's not about knowing different sorts of chord progressions and whatever else you think theory is all about. It's about the flow of the piece, understanding momentum, and how to focus attention on the important parts.

And saying that Egg only does things right by accident isn't helping your case any. And I AM saying that your lack of training makes your music less meaningful. It doesn't matter how much intention is behind it. If it can't stand up on its own, well, it's going to fall over.

Back in the Thread of Hate, I said

there ... people here who will never really appreciate [your work, but] there are also quite a few who are honestly trying to get you to improve ... you tend to treat the latter as the former...

You claim that's not the case, but whenever someone says that your constructions are rambling/poorly constructed/tedious, you just counter with "well, you're just not paying close enough attention" without ever once contemplating that they might actually be right.

And claiming that people with years of training and experience are actually going to be worse at understanding your stuff is so completely inane, I'm not sure how to begin a rebuttal. If you honestly think that, then it's clear you know practically nothing about modern electronic and electroacoustic music. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

Dan-O from Five-O wrote:I'm starting to lose focus and just get caught up in the semantics. My main points stand in the review I gave you, and they're really just reinforcing what a lot of other folks have said.

Bleh. Same here.

In other news, you should read Silence by John Cage. You'd dig it. Also, give Autechre's album Confield a try. I heartily reccomend the track Pen Expers.

The only point I'm trying to make is that we're not intentionally annoying, which is the issue that started all this (when Glenn Case said we were). And yes, anyone who still believes that we are is being very unreasonable. No one has to believe our work is valid, except in the sense that it's <i>not deliberately annoying</i>. But at this point, I think I'm preaching to a) the choir, and b) the deaf. If you're among the deaf, sucks to your ass-mar.

Mind if I steer this thread back to Egg's topic? What would make our cake more tasty, assuming that we're not just going to start writing conventional music all the time? The answers can be given in reviews of our music (and often are), so no one really needs to reply to this unless they think that have a really strikingly hepful comment. Strikingly unhelpful comments are not welcome, and accusatory comments are strikingly unhelpful.

Tonamel wrote:And saying that Egg only does things right by accident isn't helping your case any.

Never said it. It's sometimes true, but he's pretty purposeful too.

Tonamel wrote:whenever someone says that your constructions are rambling/poorly constructed/tedious, you just counter with "well, you're just not paying close enough attention" without ever once contemplating that they might actually be <i>right</i>.

False.

Tonamel wrote:And claiming that people with years of training and experience are actually going to be worse at understanding your stuff

Never did. I only said it was possible, and it is.

Anyway... train us if you want us to improve. (btw, people are already doing this)

Mogosagatai wrote:The only point I'm trying to make is that we're not intentionally annoying

I never said you were, and, in fact, agree that you're not.

Mogosagatai wrote:Mind if I steer this thread back to Egg's topic?

Tonamel wrote:...it's not about knowing different sorts of chord progressions and whatever else you think theory is all about. It's about the flow of the piece, understanding momentum, and how to focus attention on the important parts.

...

I AM saying that your lack of training makes your music less meaningful. It doesn't matter how much intention is behind it. If it can't stand up on its own, well, it's going to fall over.

I never left. Where have you been?

Fighting back the heathens, man. I wasn't talking to you. You've been at least somewhat helpful.

By the way,

Tonamel wrote:it's not about knowing different sorts of chord progressions and whatever else you think theory is all about. It's about the flow of the piece, understanding momentum, and how to focus attention on the important parts.

If that's your definition of music theory, then I'd say Egg is pretty well trained. By himself, no less. I guess you disagree.

I do disagree.

I said that merely to illustrate that theory is more than knowing chord structures and classical forms. Sonatas haven't been in vogue for a very long time, but I still had to learn it. Not so I would know how to write a sonata, but so I would understand the concept of form. Knowing the form behind sonatas and rondos and etc are less about knowing sonatas and rondos, and more about being able to create my own forms, armed with the knowledge of what makes a form good. With that knowledge, I can ensure that I'm not going to be stuck writing in ABA structures my whole life (Which I still do far too often).

I'm never going to write a piece using completely functional harmony for no reason. (Strict adherence to functional harmony = Bach) But understanding functional harmony, and seeing how later composers diverged from it (adapted different folk modes, compressed the standard harmony from fifths to thirds, played in two keys at once) helps me to comprehend where music's been, how it got here, and where it's going. And that understanding helps me know what made Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Cage so revolutionary. Knowing how they broke the rules helps me to understand how I can do it in my own way.

You don't have this understanding. And without, at the very least, a thorough examination of the history of modern electronic music, you're not going to have any of the tools neccesary to understand what makes a piece good, and what makes a piece bad.

Most of the people on this board don't need this kind of training, because they aren't doing the kind of Serious Arthouse Works that you do. And as much as you might like Phillip Glass, do you honestly think you could describe what he does in his pieces, and why?

Also, let's be honest here. Do you really think I would have mentioned flow, momentum, and focus if I thought you were doing those things well?

Nnnope. So... what should we be reading?

Tonamel wrote:And as much as you might like Phillip Glass, do you honestly think you could describe what he does in his pieces, and why?

Ja.

Well, you're wrong. I'm not talking about hidden concepts and deeper meanings. You're all over that stuff. I'm talking about musically. The actual construction of his pieces.

But enough of that.

As far as reading goes, the only thing I have to offer is Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage.

More important than reading, you need to listen.

You can read all you want, but if you aren't paying attention to what other people have done, it's all for naught.

Tonamel wrote: I'm talking about musically. The actual construction of his pieces.

Me too!

Thanks for the suggested listening.