Sound of BACH

One of the reader left a comment, ” the post should have more media ” —– Yes, I’m well aware of it.

And the post shouldn’t be longer than 140 words otherwise no one would read  😀

In fact I got many plan to put a photo or video image into the post, such as ” I should put my Ancient Yoga

dancing video image into  Most Bizarre Story in Zen :-D”  or a photo of frosted leaves

into  Cold Blow — ( I’ve seen the frost in the night ) but  when I went to the same place next day,

frost wasn’t there. 😀 — It’s a bad tendency of ex-photographer, don’t want to settle with casual photo or

somebody else’s photo found in the Net.  😉

Anyhow,  while searching a music sample to talk about with my friend,  I stumbled a Youtube

image which I should have put into my BACH post —— ;

This is a part of J.S.Bach’s  Art of Fugue which I’ve talked about, but not from the beginning yet still

it may give some idea.  This musician / programmer, SMALIN having 200 or more music videos there.

And I found his graphical representation of the music is very effective as we can see the structure

of it in one glance.  Especially, the graphical patterns are much easier to distinguish than hear in sound.

To make the image,  may be the Midi cord is directly triggering the position and the length of each note,

therefore it is rather simple but very clear.  Same tonal information is in the music score, graphically

though, I found this is the simplest and more effective demonstration.

t—–

Then what I found the next to above clip was —— jaw dropping funny music video.

As a matter of fact this (yet another ) Japanese phenomena [ Miku Hatsune ] was totally new to me

until only few weeks ago.  This music animation program was created by YAMAHA as an open-source.

Anybody input the phonetic note, it will be played in synthesized voice, and the character Miku Hatsune

will sing as the user programmed, so that, anybody can produce a music anime of female singer, free.

There said to be half million Miku Hatsune video clip in the Net. ( search them, if you are interested in )

——- In 60~70th, there were two memorable musicians played BACH in new sounds.

One was the Swingle Singers. They played Bach’s polyphonic music purely by a jazz scat like voices.

And another was a French pianist Jacque Lucie and he played or improvised  Bach in Jazz.

Both sound are still in the bottom of my music memories, alongside the more traditional classic musician,

Jazz musician and they formed the music culture of my life.

Between Jazz and Baroque music, there is a common character of the improvisation —– spontaneous

on the spot creation.

Very interesting fact is, when musician is improvising the phrase, frontal lobe of the brain

became inactive. Frontal robe is the place, where rational thinking or process of causation is taking place.

This is the exact parallel to the Buddhism teaching  Mushin.— To be creative, don’t think.

Open mind mean, don’t impose a preconceived idea or judgement —– or Thinking.

You may wonder, ” Without knowing the passage, how musician can improvise ?  With the intelligence

shut down, how musician can control music making ?” —— may be you are not a musician.  That’s why

you ask this question.  If you still need to think about This Music, you can not improvise it on the spot.

When you became This Music or This Music became You, and you can play it without reading score,

without thinking —– then you can improvise it in total freedom.  Zen Buddhism call it Ichijo / Oneness.

So, with open mind, see and listen this  BACH sang by  Miku Hatsune —– It’s not too bad 😀  Ha ha ha.

Did you enjoyed ?  Or is it gone too far you think ?

Some irritating noise and instability of the sound there, still, considering it was created by an ordinary

person, using freely available open source, —— it is pretty impressive.  I like it. Thanks to the creator.

___/\___

—-

PS :

Following the previous Post, there was some exchange of opinion in Emails.

And this is the extract  in which,  I found,  it is highlighting the point of

” How to make a perfect music piece which will hit the guts of others “

————-

Though, important point is, —- What  are the guts.

Everybody got more or less the same guts, having it

tens of thousands of years.

Its mean, what will hit it, has been tried and sorted out

spending thousands of years of time, by millions of people.

That is how most of the culture in the world came to

have pentatonic —– same conclusion.

The reason is, it was written in the Dharma. ( Ref; Harmony

in Dharma )

And the guts is ruled by the Dharma, not by one’s brain.

Deviate from the Dharma, yet make perfect one is hard,

if not impossible. ——–

—–

Equidistant Tonal system was perfected in the time of  J.S. Bach, though it has been only utilized for

the convenience of key-tone change.   And its use became universal, despite of the existence of some

discord (which has been simply avoided to occur as Taboo, by the composer.)

So that,  Arnold  Schoenberg is the first one to fully explore the musical possibility of its system.

But, big but, do you or anybody on the street, ever listen, let alone remember his music ?

Some (very rare person, may be a student / ex-student in classic music) may say

“How about his organ music [ The Ascension ] it is spiritually very striking isn’t it ?”.

I can agree, its sound very spiritual though,  as I wrote in ” Blank Space ” it is because of slow-moving,

continuous high tone, which is vague and undefinable,  hence our brain abandon to define its

meanings,  then start to feel  ” Something Unknown there”.

This very feeling, “abandon to impose own thinking, and leave the Mind open” is happen to be

the same to Buddhist’s Mushin —— we describe it  Spiritual.——- All of us share more or less

the same perception and the same guts.  Simple  😀

—– So, departing  from the tradition, and explore complete freedom in sound making,  is a good attempt,

though,  better not forget, we and yourself are still within the Dharma’s  rule.

Other’s guts is under this Dharma too, so that better chose the direction accordingly.

( The Expression —– which is also common with others, mean Communicable, has to be

emanated from own guts” Blank Space ” too —— not from the thinking or technical possibility )

Please read the Post ” Freedom in Restriction “. (Under a category [Music] )

___/\___

—

Life to be Artists

I’ve received a question from a keen reader of this blog / Jaganathan, who is

creating / developing  fancy program of creating even fancier sound, out of computer.

————

anyway id like your thoughts or a blog post 🙂 Why do many artists end

up depressed, do drugs, kill themselves.  And how to keep doing good

work irrespective of whether it is a success or failure.  How do

continue doing sincere work even if nobody gives a sit.

—————–

In anyone’s life,  to see what is the success, having many facets —— Financial ?, Social recognition ?,

Historical importance ?, Personal Pride and Confidence ?, Made people happy and became local Hero ?

All those may satisfy the ego.  But in reality, before think about success, most acute needs are to survive.

—-

When I finished hi-school and chose the direction and Uni’, I hated to go to science and technology side

as I didn’t want to be enslaved by the technology —– I’ve applied to Art College.  Though I was told by

the member of  Alpine Club in that College  “Want to become Sculptor ?  Oh no, even studied in here,

its impossible to live on the sculpture.  You may end-up an art teacher in a junior school or a craftsman

making dummy for the shop” —– What a hopeless situation. I gave up and next year I went to a Uni’

where we don’t need to fix the direction / Faculty / Major  for the first year —– then end up to take

Sociology by accident.  Before apply the Art College, an art teacher told me ” The success rate of

top Art College ( Where I wanted to go) is about 50%, and the other would be less than 10% ”  here

success mean, able to live / survive on the skill or the art which was studied in the college.

This was the time, Art was the traditional Art, long before such as Conceptual  Art became main stream.

Art is a very subjective commodity.   Commodity mean, the objects which can be sold and owned.

Though, when the type of art, and the educational direction has changed to the Pure Art and a theory

of Conceptual Art, sellable art became the dirty word as it is Commercial / Crafty, to live on

the Art become even harder. Who want to buy a pile of dung / (said to be) conceptual art installation. 😀

——- So, the question of Jaganathan is a little bit out of time or not a kind of the matter to rise a question.

Depressed, infested by Drug, kill oneself or even kill others —– may not be anything unusual.  😀

Even worse, as the art education is aiming to the concept, not the skill, actually no skilled useless persons

were flooded to the labour market ( it include the Media study as well).

Under such situation, if any artist want to have satisfying life should better take Buddhist’s paradox.

Forget success, forget recognition, forget financial reward and just make own art —– but perfect one.

Perfect Art would hit the guts feeling of the others. It impress the people and make their mouth shut.

——- so-called success will follow. ( But, as long as the one is hoping and expecting the day will come, with

ego and greed there will be no perfect art or success. —— in this aspects, Dharma is very harsh )

So that, so-called  Positive thinking, or Keep your hope live etc etc are all but just the sweet words.

The Buddhist Mushin is the very strict term, if not perfect, it would be all in vain.

If Jaganathan is developing new program, if it is exciting enough, he could be absorbed into its work,

he couldn’t be disturbed by useless thought —— its mean, he needs to make his work interesting,

important enough —– here, crucial inspiration, key idea which he may get it in the Blank Space

may become decisive factor.  So, to see its new idea, in complete open mind / Mushin holding the key.

( Here, chicken and the egg,  Exciting project absorbs person’s mind and make him into Mushin, though

to get exciting idea need to have Mushin —– shut up, just start.    Ha ha ha. 😀 )

——- So, how about, take a walk, —— Do a Walking Zen and get Mushin first  🙂

___/\___

___

DorkBoat

Yesterday there was a marvelous boat journey called  Dorkboat organized by the Dorkbot London.

Dorkbot is a group of the people ” Doing strange things with electricity “ —— as their motto

suggests, it is the gathering of the people who is doing with electronics, electricity what so-ever

to show off or discuss what so-ever about their free-minded creation.

Naturally, some are purely digital electronics /

computer programmed graphics or music.

And some are involving kinetic mechanism with

electronic control.

As the group is completely open to anybody

some are doing it alongside of his or her profession

with profound expertise, but some time

utterly an outsider of electronics came up

with very witty approach of an invention.

—

Me to join the group was, again a sheer coincidence.

Somebody a friend, happened to know the member

introduced me to the Dorkbot London as I’ve been

making a lots of funny kinetic sculptures and designing lots of electronic devices.

I liked their motto and my approach —– making the things which are utterly useless but fun,

was exactly matched and found a common ground.

Since then, virtually all of my public exposure such as to French TV, news paper or BBC

were happened with the Dorkbot.  ( Gathering can be seen only for the members, which mean strict

Health and Safety Regulation which is always our headache, can be avoided )

—-

On the boat from Westminster Pier to Kew, we saw the presentation of many funny devices ——

” Mocking bird can be seen as a  recording device (since they can repeat human words ! )” or

ever hilarious  J.Rarson’s game controller, and some music performances  etc etc.

It’s funny to think, the people who follow rigid and rational Physics and Electronics rules

still able to conceive such utterly useless nutty idea 😀   —–  This is THE creativity.

—-

Event was coincided with the farewell award giving for the departure of one of the founder

Alex McLean / formidable  experimental Programmer, as his family is moving out London.

I wish his family’s ever happier life in new location

and his creative projects to ever more flourish.

—