Jem makes a statement

>From:	MX%"Jem Finer" 9-SEP-1995 12:01:26.97 
>I've been trying to program Jungle style drums without a great deal of success ! 
>Has anyone any tips either of a programming nature or of other places to look ? 
> 
Yeah, use your ears, learn to play, or buy some midi-files. 

--
Physicist Programmer, Bristol Uni Particle Physics

From: (Jem Finer) 
Subject: techno v couscous

Just to stick my oar in this subject for a moment and say YES to all those 
people who have stuck up for the idea that great music can be created 
on/by/with anything as long as some imagination,originality and feeling are 
involved. There's a hell of a lot of ace sight reading grade 50 classical 
or whatever muso's who can't play a note unless someone puts a score under 
their nose, there's untrained kids who can beat out awesome Art Blakey-esque 
drum solos on an old dustbin. And of course there is a lot of crap composed on 
computers but no more than is composed on guitars,pianos etc. 

Dear physicist in your lab, souskous is great but don't tell me that there 
have never been any shite souscous musicians/composers or tunes. By the 
way, why are you using Logic if you seem so averse to the use of technology 
in music, surely the beauty of the computer is not only that it makes the 
ability to make music more open to more people and helps break down the 
elitism and myth of the musician in the way punk did nearly 20 years ago, 
but that it opens up so many more possibilities for composition,sound and 
performance. 

Ligeti,Hungarian composer, recently heard some of his"notoriously 
difficult" piano works performed the "way he intended" for the first time. 
Not by a highly trained musician but by a computer MIDI-ed up to the Royal 
Academy of Musics concert grand.(see WIRED 1.04 page 93) 

So come on, music either turns us on or it doesn't and that's the listeners 
perogative and what the hell does it matter how it was created. 

By the way thanks to the few kind people who posted some tips, as opposed 
to snidey clever dick sideswipes, re Jungle drum breaks - any more always 
of intrest ! 

Lastly someone said, "What about banjoes ?" - Well my friend I think 
they're dead cool !! 

bye for now, 
Jem Finer 

>From:	"Jem Finer" 14-SEP-1995 12:38:23.55 
>Subj:	techno v couscous 
> 
> 
>Dear physicist in your lab, souskous is great but don't tell me that there 
>have never been any shite souscous musicians/composers or tunes. By the 

No, there is crap music from everywhere. 

>way, why are you using Logic if you seem so averse to the use of technology 
>in music, surely the beauty of the computer is not only that it makes the 

Because there ain't enough good musicians around to play with :-). Well, 
I do have a band but I like writing and jamming with the sequencer. Helps 
develop my playing, too. And i'd use it more if it worked properly but of 
course I have a dead platform (ST) with virtually non-existant support 
and I'd far rather buy a coupla new guitars than a mac to be honest. 

>ability to make music more open to more people and helps break down the 
>elitism and myth of the musician in the way punk did nearly 20 years ago, 

Yeah, and there was a heap of crap punk too. Punk (apart from a few rare 
exceptions) pushed to "so bad its good" ethic to its limits. I can't handle 
music made with that attitude. 

>but that it opens up so many more possibilities for composition,sound and 
>performance. 

>By the way thanks to the few kind people who posted some tips, as opposed 
>to snidey clever dick sideswipes, re Jungle drum breaks - any more always 

Hey, my first response was probably the best tip you could get, either use 
your ears and brain to analyze and then try to recreate the sound you want 
to emulate, or hire someone who knows how to do it. 

>of intrest ! 
>Lastly someone said, "What about banjoes ?" - Well my friend I think 
>they're dead cool !! 

I hate country and western :-). 

>bye for now, 
>Jem Finer 

Hope you have a nice big jungle hit ! 

--
Physicist Programmer, Bristol Uni Particle Physics.

>From: "Physicist Dude Guy" 

>Yeah, and there was a heap of crap punk too. Punk (apart from a few rare 
>exceptions) pushed to "so bad its good" ethic to its limits. I can't handle 
>music made with that attitude. 

We had, I thought, already agreed that good and bad were a matter of 
personal taste. The thing about punk and its relevance here is, I think, 
that both punk and computers gave people who would otherwise have been 
alienated from becoming musicians (or making music) the idea that such 
pursuits were not only the domain of some mythical beast - THE MUSICIAN - 
but something that anyone could have a go at. O.K., so this results in some 
"bad music" but many people who started out on one three chord trick or one 
sampled loop have gone on to make fine and imaginative MUSICIANS making 
what most people would agree is exciting music. 

>>Lastly someone said, "What about banjoes ?" - Well my friend I think 
>>they're dead cool !! 
> 
>I hate country and western :-). 

1. Does the world really care whether you like country and western or not ? 
2. The banjo is an instrument not a genre of music and as such has been 
used in myriads of diverse musical incarnations. 

>>By the way thanks to the few kind people who posted some tips, as opposed 
>>to snidey clever dick sideswipes, re Jungle drum breaks - any more always 
> 
>Hey, my first response was probably the best tip you could get, either use 
>your ears and brain to analyze and then try to recreate the sound you want 
>to emulate, or hire someone who knows how to do it. 

I have ears, I have a brain, I am able to analyse things but like most 
people I sometimes arrive at the point where I could do with a bit of 
assistance. I was, perhaps mistakenly, under the impression that this logic 
users "forum" was a place where people using logic could support each other 
when they hit obstacles not carp at each others diverse musical tastes. 

cheerio, 
Jem Finer 

Copyright 1995 The People That Wrote This (Including, but not limited to, Jem Finer) All rights reserved

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