Stockhausen on Aphex Twin, Plastikman, Scanner...

Influence does not require 'direct' contact with an artist or his works.

But if we're gonna follow this logic, surely Pierre Schaeffer deserves far more credit than Stockhausen for 'influencing' modern sample-based music?

Yeah sure. And many others deserve credit as well. Pierre Henry (maybe more so than Schaeffer), Varese, Berio, Cage, Ussachevsky and Luening, Maderna, Le Caine...

Influence does not require 'direct' contact with an artist or his works.

But if we're gonna follow this logic, surely Pierre Schaeffer deserves far more credit than Stockhausen for 'influencing' modern sample-based music?

Yeah sure. And many others deserve credit as well. Pierre Henry (maybe more so than Schaeffer), Varese, Berio, Cage, Ussachevsky and Luening, Maderna, Le Caine...

... Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mozart... anonymous-caveman-wth-a-stick the list goes on

Read the first few lines then stopped. There is a precise reason for repetition. Repetition changes consciousness. Not all music does that.

i dont agree with that at all, as much as i love repetative music

I should really of said "Repetition CAN change consciousness".

Wheather anyone believes a change in consciousness (from normal day-to-day consciousness) occurs is impossible to verify. As we cannot measure consciousness.

I'm not going to go into how/why it may occur. Because it is a boring subject (imo). Loads of shit about it on the web (if interested).

But it (seems) have its origins in some cultures of shamanism.

Influence does not require 'direct' contact with an artist or his works.

But if we're gonna follow this logic, surely Pierre Schaeffer deserves far more credit than Stockhausen for 'influencing' modern sample-based music?

Yeah sure. And many others deserve credit as well. Pierre Henry (maybe more so than Schaeffer), Varese, Berio, Cage, Ussachevsky and Luening, Maderna, Le Caine...

... Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mozart... anonymous-caveman-wth-a-stick the list goes on

Is there actually a thing as an original idea?

i see that more as the evolution of music rather than musical influence itself

ok that's a simpler way of putting it

my point really was how can it be seen as influence if its unconsiouslly happening

Influence does not require 'direct' contact with an artist or his works.

But if we're gonna follow this logic, surely Pierre Schaeffer deserves far more credit than Stockhausen for 'influencing' modern sample-based music?

Yeah sure. And many others deserve credit as well. Pierre Henry (maybe more so than Schaeffer), Varese, Berio, Cage, Ussachevsky and Luening, Maderna, Le Caine...

... Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mozart... anonymous-caveman-wth-a-stick the list goes on

Not quite. Admittedly Im not as ironclad on this as I shuld be, but there is a distinct break in the forms of Western music starting in the late 1800s with the impressionists and the modernists. Everything from Schoenberg and Bartok to Debussy and Poulenc, and - as you mention - Stravinsky.

But Mozart was an 'influence' on Stravinsky, no?

Much like, say, Chaucer was an influence on Raymond Chandler?

Also, he might deserve a bit of slack by virtue of the fact that he was a true pioneer of electronic music who was 'sampling' half a century ago...

Also, you have to take his statements in context:

KS is being asked — as a pioneer in electronic music (and modern composition) — his opinion on recent music in the genre. His context is an experimental one, what new sounds, new forms are being created. From that basis his comments are perfectly valid... They have some interesting ideas but then, instead of taking them further, they stop and just repeat them. Or else the ideas aren't really new but were basically what KS and others were doing 50 years ago.

Of course their music serves a different function, but that doesn't interest KS. He's listening to the music in a different way and that makes his comments interesting I think.

But it's debatable how relevant comments on the failure of music to function in a different context are. Which is kind of why the Aphex Twin response is so OTM. It's like saying that a Ferrari is rubbish because you can't brush your teeth with it.

Also, I thought that for KS, his is pretty much the only valid context - isn't he tied into the whole Adorno / Frankfurt way of thinking that says that dance music (originally jazz) is just a way of keeping the masses in line while letting them think they have a free choice of what they do, and the only music that is socially positive is difficult, challenging experimental music that is entirely free from the taint of being a consumerist entertainment option, (even though it's clearly as much a consumerist entertainment option as a Kylie single)? Hence the comments about serving existing demands that got me so riled up earlier.

But Mozart was an 'influence' on Stravinsky, no?

Much like, say, Chaucer was an influence on Raymond Chandler?

Nope - Stravinsky would have been more than aware of Mozart. Thats not an example of indirect influence.

[Statto]

But it's debatable how relevant comments on the failure of music to function in a different context are. Which is kind of why the Aphex Twin response is so OTM. It's like saying that a Ferrari is rubbish because you can't brush your teeth with it.

it's just stockhausen's perspective

Also, I thought that for KS, his is pretty much the only valid context - isn't he tied into the whole Adorno / Frankfurt way of thinking that says that dance music (originally jazz) is just a way of keeping the masses in line while letting them think they have a free choice of what they do, and the only music that is socially positive is difficult, challenging experimental music that is entirely free from the taint of being a consumerist entertainment option, (even though it's clearly as much a consumerist entertainment option as a Kylie single)? Hence the comments about serving existing demands that got me so riled up earlier.

everything is a consumerist entertaiment option if a consumer decides to use it in that way
that doesn't mean it was intended as entertainment

Not quite. Admittedly Im not as ironclad on this as I shuld be, but there is a distinct break in the forms of Western music starting in the late 1800s with the impressionists and the modernists. Everything from Schoenberg and Bartok to Debussy and Poulenc, and - as you mention - Stravinsky.

I'm never entirely sure on that - there always seems to be a distinct thread running through late romantics like Wagner and Mahler to the Second Viennese School - even if there are stylistic jumps (and even they seem to flow more naturally than you'd expect eg increasing chromaticism undermining the concept of tonality leading to the formalization of atonality and serialism) there's a definite philosophical continuity - the 2nd Viennese school were very much continuing the same project as Wagner. Arguably it's not until minimalism / aleatory music that you get a real rupture in the tradition.

Nope - Stravinsky would have been more than aware of Mozart. Thats not an example of indirect influence.

As I said, Mozart was an 'influence' on Stravinsky.

i share the same view that aphex had about his comments. it's very interesting in a sense to hear a guy like him voice his views on contemporary 'techno' artist's music but in the end what he said is very very disappointing and predictable.

regardless of the degree of musicality (or involvement with music) or genius or whatever, there's so much of this 'repetition is stupid' attitude among people and the repetition is seen as a shortcoming of musicality and ideas rather than a fundamental to the style and function of the music in question. This whole intelligence in music argument is ages old and fucking boring to be honest. "hey my piece has 750 different themes on all possible scales and is fucking impossible to comprehend, i have to be a fucking genius!"

and i dont get the argument against functionality in music. the guy comes across like a total idiot instead of an insightful musical genius.

what age was he when this was written?

edit:

ill elaborate, it would be interesting to see if he had the same views when he was a younger man and only just starting to discover all he came to know about music

in some ways too much knowledge can make your decisions clouded with bullshit IMO
.

I got over my fear of repetition when I was about 10.

Not quite. Admittedly Im not as ironclad on this as I shuld be, but there is a distinct break in the forms of Western music starting in the late 1800s with the impressionists and the modernists. Everything from Schoenberg and Bartok to Debussy and Poulenc, and - as you mention - Stravinsky.

Arguably it's not until minimalism / aleatory music that you get a real rupture in the tradition.

Yeah - Id kind of go with that - and not only because my knowledge of pre-modernist 'classical' music is sketchy to say the least.

Nope - Stravinsky would have been more than aware of Mozart. Thats not an example of indirect influence.

As I said, Mozart was an 'influence' on Stravinsky.

Sure. The same way that Bad Company and the Usual Suspects are an influence on your music.
.

and i dont get the argument against functionality in music. the guy comes across like a total idiot instead of an insightful musical genius.

I don't get it either but I'm prepared to accept that there can be an argument to be made for it.

However, seeing as the majority of us here take our music pretty seriously - and as most of us are rooted in repetitive music forms, I guess Stockhausen's dismissal of us as mindlessly consuming zombies is always gonna cause some offence

Sure. The same way that Bad Company and the Usual are an influence on your music.

Correct!


So: Stockhausen: shite, no?

just a bit up himself maybe

which would make a lot of sense to some people on this forum i guess


nothing but japes meant by that

TBH - Im not even that much of a Stockhausen fan... I just dont like it when brainwashed idiot subhumans start dissing their obvious betters...

Right.. like you weren't getting off on the repetition when this pic was taken of you at your first Rave

everything is a consumerist entertainment option if a consumer decides to use it in that way
that doesn't mean it was intended as entertainment

I think it does, tbh - it's just that Stockhausen's brand of consumerism was dressed up in black rollnecks rather than fashionable hats so he (and his supporters) could view it as somehow different to the consumerism that the masses were doing.

I'm not dissing his art or his technical innovations, I just don't think he's on a different plane of creation from the people he's talking about here, which I think he would suggest he is and which is why he discusses them in terms of his context rather than theirs.

I also suspect that there are other problems with his criticisms to do with his emphasis on developing themes, variation, intellectual complexity and so on, but I can't really put my finger on them.

I'm not dissing his art or his technical innovations, I just don't think he's on a different plane of creation from the people he's talking about here, which I think he would suggest he is and which is why he discusses them in terms of his context rather than theirs.

Well I'm sure that whatever he tends to get credited with, humility probably doesn't feature in there very much


Not that I'd care if I liked his music though