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Not trying to be arrogant here, but who listens to this?

computer-audiophile

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Of course. No, I’m not a musician, although a long time ago I played some electric bass guitar. My Fender Jazz is still somewhere in the attic, where it looks at me reproachfully when I’m up there…
But in my working life I wrote about popular music for a newspaper, mainly americana and country, two types of music to which I now seldom listen anymore.
Thanks Shorty, nice to know. I also played a Fender bass in a beat band at first when I was young.

I haven't been in the ASR for very long. Why am I here? Well, I've been trying out some new cheap Chinese DACs lately and reading up on the specs.

Now that this thread is about the music itself, which is my great love, I've noticed my European perspective here. Vive la différence! :)
 
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Axo1989

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Nice post.
My mind made a direct link to Kandinsky's paintings. You're seeing something recognizable, but you're just not sure what it is....

I should give it a "thumbs down" for killing any chance of getting work done before I head home. :p

50.jpg

I do love that Kandinsky painting.
 

Multicore

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My comment was aimed at persons posting here about how the music sounds like something falling down a flight of stairs - and yet, how many movie soundtracks might they have listened to - and enjoyed - that incorporate atonality, polytonality, dissonance, etc. without their being aware? What was new back in the day is just part of the cannon now.
Me too. The "old romantics" is my psychological model to help me understand why people want to foreclose on these rather inoffensive ideas of aesthetic relations.
 

Multicore

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Thanks Shorty, nice to know. I also played a Fender bass in a beat band at first when I was young.

I haven't been in the ASR for very long. Why am I here? Well, I've been trying out some new cheap Chinese DACs lately and reading up on the specs.

Now that this thread is about the music itself, which is my great love, I've noticed my European perspective here. Vive la différence! :)
Cheap Chinese DACs are a big fat yawn. They're done. They are over. These days even our dongles perform better than the equipment used to produce the recordings we listen to and anything else in our playback systems. They are therefore the least interesting thing of all that has a role to play in our listening. Ok, maybe they are more interesting that RCA interconnect cables but not by much ;^>
 

Multicore

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Alternatively, do until your guitar what Jaco Pastorius did to his bass: get a pair of pliers and rip out those frets.
I know of only one guitarist who plays fretless and have no idea why there aren’t more like him.
Guitar is a chordal instrument. If you remove the frets you end up with a melodic string instrument with a fingerboard and there are better ways to design such a thing. For example, the violin, viola and cello. Or if you want to pluck then the oud, which I also play but extremely badly.
 

Multicore

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Saw microtonal music mentioned earlier in the thread:


"I composed the Twelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media in 1979 and 1980 as illustrations of a research project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities in conjunction with Webster College, St. Louis. The project was to explore the tonal and modal behavior of all the equal tunings of 13 through 24 notes (to the octave), devise a notation for each tuning, and write a composition in each tuning to illustrate good chord progressions and the practical application of the notation."

00:00 Fanfare in 19-Note Equal Tuning, Op. 28a
02:31 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Andantino
06:24 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Allegro volando
09:03 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Suite in four movements
13:57 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Allegro moderato 17:20 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Sostenuto 20:38 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Lento
24:20 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Con moto
27:18 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Andante ma non troppo
32:00 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Moderato
35:08 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Allegramente
37:58 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Comodo
41:59 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28: Allegro moderato
46:14 Suite for Guitar in 15-Note Equal Tuning, Op. 33: I. Prelude
49:06 Suite for Guitar in 15-Note Equal Tuning, Op. 33: II. Sarabande
51:55 Suite for Guitar in 15-Note Equal Tuning, Op. 33: III. Gavotte (Tempo di gavotta)
53:01 Suite for Guitar in 15-Note Equal Tuning, Op. 33: IV. Gigue

This is a really excellent demonstration of the use of different tunings as a way of making intervals and chords in diatonic music sound a certain way. A lot of composers approach microtonal systems without understanding the physical, mathematical and psycho-acoustic fundamentals. That can work, of course, but, given where our technology is, I wish there were more interest in adjusting the tuning of relatively familiar harmonic systems, as Blackwood demonstrates here. Thanks for sharing Ray!

My friend and former band mate Ken Ueno composed a really beautiful lullaby for guitar Ed è Subito Sera played by Aaron Larget-Caplan. It uses a nice simple quarter tone tuning. Look for it in your streaming service. The short clip on youtube is no good.
 

JaMaSt

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For example, an old acquaintance of mine, the cellist Michael Bach Batischa, invented the Bach bow. You can read about it on his website.
Lots to explore on that web site. Thanks for the link.

Edit: Just Wow.... The Bach Prelude.... I've never found a recording or performance of Bach's Cello works that just "does" it for me. Of my 500 CD's (now flac files) probably 150 are Bach. For the solo violin partitas and sonatas, Arthur Grumiaux is my go to guy. But this performance is wonderful.


Edit 2: He tackles the Beast. The Chaconne from Partita No. 2.

 
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computer-audiophile

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He slays the beast! Incredible.
Hi JaMaSt

I am very pleased that the link was of interest to you. I find Michael's website quite chaotic. I haven't seen him in a while. He belongs to our sound research association CARMEN.
John Cage, Dieter Schnebel, Walter Zimmermann and Hans Zender have composed in close collaboration with Michael Bach for his BACH.Bogen. At Karlheinz Stockhausen's express wish, Michael Bach's one-hour version of "ZODIAC" for cello with a round arch was composed (premièred in 1998 in Bayreuth).

What I also find really great are other performances by him and his partner:

In cooperation with the visual artist Renate Hoffleit, Michael Bach Bachtischa has realized string and sound installations in public spaces worldwide (Germany, France, Ireland, Israel, Japan). They often sound with specially written compositions and performances. The project "Schloss Kapfenburg stringed..." (2000) was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest musical instrument in the world.

Unfortunately, I wasn't there myself, but we organized a video evening with it at CARMEN a long time ago.

EDIT: I found a old video of that:

 
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Shorty

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Guitar is a chordal instrument. If you remove the frets you end up with a melodic string instrument with a fingerboard and there are better ways to design such a thing. For example, the violin, viola and cello. Or if you want to pluck then the oud, which I also play but extremely badly.
Yes, it must be difficult to play. And, judging from this clip (start at 2.43 minutes) it very much sounds (on my iPad) like an oud.

The artist is Erkan Oğur, who plays fretless since 1976. At 6.30 minutes into the clip, he plays an electric fretless 8-string guitar, in a peculiar way.
 
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computer-audiophile

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Cheap Chinese DACs are a big fat yawn. They're done. They are over. These days even our dongles perform better than the equipment used to produce the recordings we listen to and anything else in our playback systems. They are therefore the least interesting thing of all that has a role to play in our listening. Ok, maybe they are more interesting that RCA interconnect cables but not by much ;^>
I'm getting slowly used to your mocking comments. :);)

While I'm scientifically inclined and have developed sensitive physical (non-audio) measuring instruments, I don't share ASR's philosophy that everything sounds the same if measured well enough. I've also heard small differences in the topping and SMSL DACs in A/B/C comparisons. But I find it boring to argue about it. We don't all have the same knowledge and experience. I just wanted to give my opinion.

I am also fascinated by certain developments. Innovation never stops and also not my curiosity. Also DACs develop further.

Besides digital electronics, you can now also get nice tube amps from China that are comparatively cheap and well made. For example from Line Magnetic. I show here a LM setup in my house which I used last summer for a while. I prefer to use my own designs, but I also really like Line Magnetic's stuff. This development reminds me of the time when the Japanese pursued their own profile in the hi-fi scene. I experienced all these times and went with them.

Line-Magnetic-summer 2022.jpg
 
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computer-audiophile

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Guitar is a chordal instrument. If you remove the frets you end up with a melodic string instrument with a fingerboard and there are better ways to design such a thing. For example, the violin, viola and cello. Or if you want to pluck then the oud, which I also play but extremely badly.
Or the Shamisen, which I have listened too very often.

 

computer-audiophile

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But in my working life I wrote about popular music for a newspaper, mainly americana and country, two types of music to which I now seldom listen anymore.
So you are a Journalist (?)
From Wikipedia: Americana (also known as American roots music) is an amalgam of American music formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the musical ethos of the United States, specifically those sounds that are emerged from the Southern United States such as folk, gospel, blues, country, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, bluegrass, and other external influences.

Americana - Now I've learned another new generic term that I didn't know yet, thank you. I'll have to remember that.

I can hardly find anything there that appeals to me. Only exceptions like Eva Cassidy, who gets to my heart with her singing and of course with her sad biography.

@Shorty
What do you like listening to most today?

 

Gorgonzola

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I haven't been following this thread very carefully at all, but I thought I would pop in to say that, yes, I do sometimes listen to contemporary classical music. It's not my daily fare by any means however.

One of my favorites composers in that genre is the American composer, Elliott Carter, (1908-2012). This YouTube is his String Quartet No.3 -- yes, it's about as "atonal" as they come, but consider that it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1973 ...

 

Gorgonzola

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Another contemporary composer I like to listen to once-in-a-while is the American composer, George Crumb, (1929-2022). One of his works in particular that I like is Black Angels, for string quartet (basically); it so happens that I have several versions of the work. Most people will find it a bit, (not necessarily a lot), more accessible than the Elliott Carter work I mention in my earlier post.

 

Multicore

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Americana - Now I've learned another new generic term that I didn't know yet, thank you. I'll have to remember that.

I can hardly find anything there that appeals to me.
Yesterday I found this video of Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway playing a song called Crooked Tree. I almost cried it's so good. Consider how much of this music is composed and collectively understood by the band and how much is not. Then consider how tight the band plays: every gesture supports the whole, sometimes embellishing it. The solos are short, get to their point and end without heroics. And it's a nice simple evocative song, poetic enough to allow you to make of it what you will.

EDIT: woops. forgot the youtube link

 
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Multicore

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I'm getting slowly used to your mocking comments. :);)

While I'm scientifically inclined and have developed sensitive physical (non-audio) measuring instruments, I don't share ASR's philosophy that everything sounds the same if measured well enough. I've also heard small differences in the topping and SMSL DACs in A/B/C comparisons. But I find it boring to argue about it. We don't all have the same knowledge and experience. I just wanted to give my opinion.

I am also fascinated by certain developments. Innovation never stops and also not my curiosity. Also DACs develop further.

Besides digital electronics, you can now also get nice tube amps from China that are comparatively cheap and well made. For example from Line Magnetic. I show here a LM setup in my house which I used last summer for a while. I prefer to use my own designs, but I also really like Line Magnetic's stuff. This development reminds me of the time when the Japanese pursued their own profile in the hi-fi scene. I experienced all these times and went with them.

View attachment 262169
Whatever floats your boat. I like ASR because it offers me a way of choosing equipment that will serve my purposes: which is to not intrude in my listening.

There's a lot of dust and dog hairs in our home so your stuff would be less practical. And ever since I went to a HiFi exhibition in Edinburgh some time in the mid 80s (I remember Thorens was showing active speakers with sense coils in the drivers for feedback control, that might narrow down the date) I steer clear of the HiFi lifestyle and aesthetics. This is another way in which I find ASR helpful. I don't need to deal with HiFi dealers and their exquisite salesmanship.

The only thing that interests me in the picture below enough to brag about is how turntables have lost the useful features like we fidn on this Dual CS-5000. Functionally, it's the perfect design. Audiophile belt-drive TTs that follow the British school have all the conveniences removed and lots of inconveniences built in. Sometimes they don't even have a lid, ffs.

20230204_090434.jpg


If you (any of you) were visiting our home then almost everything in the image below is more interesting that the audio gear. More worth a conversation and maybe a brag. Not all the ceramics on display were made by my wife.

20230204_090358.jpg
 
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ahofer

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