What constitutes good noise/experimental music?
 

How do you judge it?

When I'm screwing around making noise, I can make something cool with relative ease. But how does one judge if it is good?

I know this extends to art in general. I have a hard time answering the question myself. I personally like stuff that speaks to me.

yeah i mean, there has to be something captivating about it. it can be just a bunch of feedback, but sometimes there is that magic IT about it. there is no way to be theoritical or formulaic about it. a pop song with tons of "hooks" can be just as boring or good as droning fucked up sound and vice versa. it just works or it doesn't. in my opinion of course. so yes, i agree, it has to be something that "speaks" to you.

I look for innovation in how it was created.

Talent?

Is it mediocre? Is it boring? If so, ecstatic peace will put it out.

sounding good would help

I just give it a listen or two. and find out if it's good or if it's crap. The same as with indie, jazz, classical, porn soundracks or Sugarbabes.

Good noise and good experimental are totally different things.

Along the lines of Nick Cave's famous "The only good cop is a dead cop" t-shirt, the only good noise music is noise music that never reaches my ears. That's my definition anyway.

Good experimental music is music that has a worthwhile creative reason for its existence.

I don't know. Sometimes on the first few listens music doesn't hit me. Like I'm not ready for it.

you don't rationalize it, you just feel it; sometimes a dude is doing 70000 things at once and it's completely unengaging, sometimes a guy might be doing a very minimal drone with a laptop, but the sounds, the way they are arranged or whatever, they sound like right there and they feel good, even though the vibe might be dark.

mostly, i'm interested in the end result; could care less of the methods used to create sounds.

Talent suggests Phish/ Grateful Dead/ Zappa. All exceptionally talented musicians. All unmitigated turd. Throw fucking Patton in there for good measure.

I think a fairly singular and inescapable presence (how vague?) is good for 'experimental' types; as we all know, there's as many, if not more, ten-a-penny 'experimental' bands. There's also the thing of not particularly caring about describing yourself as 'experimental' - like that idiot-savant-retard principle that follows the likes of Jandek. At this point, you can't imagine Jandek ever doing anything other than do Jandek. Haino has a similar thing - it's not 'experimental' in the sense of being opposed to the conventional - it's the nearest term to describe someone who doesn't quite fit in the world.

As ever, I'll return to the notion of context within genre - Sonic Youth or Branca aren't 'experimental' in the general sense of music in total, but they are within the 'rock' context, to which they both inescapably belong.

Noise, at this point, has fluid but distinct qualias and semiotics. They're often as vague and ineffable in the same way Pantera or Maiden 'rock' while someone else (name at random) merely sucks or is lame. I'm of the opinion that the semiotics introduced to musique concrete or the 1950s 'New school' (Cage, Feldman et all) are generally adequate to describe noise, less volume or density.

Ah, more overblown, but correct, rhetoric. Happy days.

it is all personal preference

I don;t think structurelesssounds are noise music. . i find that to be just literally noise, not noise music.
good noise music has progression, some sort of dynamic range, some sort of structure, however loose to carry the listener through the "song" (think fo the second half of mote, or the 10 minutes of "free form" skronk in the long Diamond Sea. )

just random crap playing cacophonic is boring as fuck. most noise releases are just that. noise wankery..

Good point. It worries me when you get people who play music and the first question that they get asked is: ''So, what did you use to play that?''.
It is a question that I can imagine a musician asking another musician, but I find it more worrying when the record collector or the listener starts pondering too much about those things and ends up negleting the finished product a little too much. I get the impression that some people do that to kind of turn their listening experience into something more difficult and tortuous.

I don't like harsh noise. Can noise artists really pick out there pieces in a line-up? When I make noise I try to incoorporate something into it, a theme maybe?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Everyneurotic

mostly, i'm interested in the end result; could care less of the methods used to create sounds.



Yes, that's also the problem I'm usually challenging myself when doing music. I put tens of useless layers and sounds into my tracks, then listen to it and am all like "this is just not right" and I start deleting. And I usually come to the core which is when I usually get satisfied.

Could the twat who produced the post above tell me what constitutes talent for him? Just out of curiosity.

i have two cases i had that happened in shows last year.

first one was fennesz, dude played an obliteratingly blissful set of abadon and structure as he improvised plenty but also incorporated songs from his releases in an seemingly endless stream of music. i run into a guy who runs an electro-acoustic/improv/drone netlabel and who himself makes some music, i asked him how he saw christian's set and he goes "i don't know, he seemed to be trying too hard", fennesz spent the whole time with a guitar strapped with a tabletop full of pedals, mixers and laptops and, instead of sampling and triggering, the guy was doing all in real time, twisting knobs, playing guitar chords, pushing faders, clicking on computer patches. and this guy, this friend, didn't think he was all that because he was trying too hard, even though he's probably the only person who can, as a one man band, redo drone pieces he laid down ten years ago in real time.

a couple of days later, i go see francisco lopez, dude hands over blindfolds for people and his hold set up is covered in a huge black blanket, before he plays he says that his music should be heard and hot seen, that's why he covers his gear up and why we shouldn't see him do his shit, but that the blindfold is optional; francisco plays something like 40 minutes of music that goes from quietly intuitive to devastatingly heavy, an amazing experience. i ran into the same guy i ran into the fennesz show, "how did you like francisco lopez", his response "he was great, i went over to see his gear and he's amazing because his set up is so minimal!"

i thought that was incredibly stupid of his part.

it should excite you, it should make you feel, it should effect you the way all good music does, if it doesnt then its shite. john zorn solo makes me bliss outta my head, like my thoughts and emotions become one especially if im tired and driving, and zorn with naked city made me wana jump around the room hitting my head against the wall saying thats AWESOMMMEME! so because of this, john zorn is a good noise/experimental musician, his music effects me. this shouldnt even be up for debate, good music is good music, its all a matter of what you dig and has fuck all to do with what scene/genre you hold your allegiance to.

Could you just prick off you insolent cunt?

Or, alternately, yes, you're right - there's an intuitive talent and there's an explicit talent. Most shredders, and nearly all classical musicians, shit on rock musicians on a technical level, or, seeing as you're cloth-eyed, are objectively more talented on a technical level. Talent is a hydra of confusion, perhaps.

I can't say I could consider Feldman noise.

Nah, you prick off, you pompous twat. Yeah.

I like the hydra of of confusion explanation more. I might be totally and utterly wrong on this but I have always imagined that the best artists have a way of organising their subconscious in an artistically productive way. I am also very aware that this is more the case with visual and aural artists, rather than, say, writers.

I tell you what - why don't you prick off, you garish windowlicker?

No, well done there. It's all about texture and duration rather than melodic content. Oh look, that's a lot like noise. Well I never.

What a line.

I'm not really sure what it meants, however, it sounds superb.

I was reading an article about Feldman where it goes on about how he was interested more in the space between the notes than the notes themselves. I just can't imagine a noise artist being more interested in the absence of sound than the sound it's self.

You so hurt me I might skip dinner, tonight. Totally and utterly devastated.

Huzzah! I'm off for a victorywank.

Look at you.

What a twat you are. It doesn't take much to send you in a victorious frenzy, or does it? Such a helium-brained shitface you are. Twat.

Don't hurt your prick.

"victorywank" hahahahahaha.

have you heard hios solo album? it is HORRID!!
in between songs there is this "spooky" howling wind effect.

so dumb.

sarramkrop-"I might be totally and utterly wrong on this but I have always imagined that the best artists have a way of organise their subconscious in an artistically productive way. I am also very aware that this is more the case with visual and aural artists, rather than, say, writers."


i think you are right on this. i would also say that the way they organize their consciousness as well has a huge effect.

pauline oliveros is a perfect example of this. her compostions tend to be attention strategies rather than say a collection of notes or textures written out before hand.

i would also say that the conscious and subconscious of the listener plays and equal role in the experience.

thank you

Good experimental music should be something more than noise. Good noise should either get you off, make you forget your identity, or some combination of both.

you know what most noise, like most modern art is shit but ocassionally you will find an ooto dix or kandinsky or cage. noise is not something to go and see live, it is to go and experience, which is more akin to hanging a work of art on a wall. I myself much prefer to hear noise within the context of an installation than as someone playing noise. also as Rob Instigator said the noise needs progession and dynamics. Noise for noise sake is boring as shit, noise that has been thought about on a richer level is far more interesting.

give me free improv over noise.......

Notes? What the fuck are 'notes'? :)

The same thing that constitutes good music, period.

Notes are sounds of indeterminate length.

Aw, thanks. Hold my hand and let's go victorywanking together, all in the knowledge that Glice is a complete and utter twat.

Small doses.

how nice...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbhZIkUlu1Y