Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

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wouterdewitte
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Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

Post by wouterdewitte »

Detroit Techno: The Aesthetics of Music without Stage and Performance
by Ekkehard Windrich
here

at points a bit dry but still interesting read..
"People who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music"
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jacksonick
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

Post by jacksonick »

Thanks for posting this.

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wouterdewitte
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

Post by wouterdewitte »

your welcome!
What did you think of it?
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Hades
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

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I'm currently reading it (only at page 15 or so).
He raises some very interestig points,
but damn such dry language.
Why do academic pieces always have to be written in such a way ?
As if the content wouldn't be able to hold some truth if the lingo wasn't dry enough...

Such a niece idea to write a thesis about this, and then it gets so much destroyed by the dryness of the language.
In a way it makes you feel as if instead of going to a rave, you have to sit down on the couch and watch someone talk about great tracks all night but without ever getting to listen to a single piece of music.

Also, I sometimes feel like he's almost "flying all over the place". He mentions a certain artist and his way of performing in one sentence, and instead of spending a few more lines on him/her, he already moves on to another artist or way of performing. He moves too fast, in my opinion. So you sometimes miss more indepth discussion of some of the points he makes.
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wouterdewitte
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

Post by wouterdewitte »

Hades wrote: In a way it makes you feel as if instead of going to a rave, you have to sit down on the couch and watch someone talk about great tracks all night but without ever getting to listen to a single piece of music.
Spot on!
Hades wrote: Also, I sometimes feel like he's almost "flying all over the place". He mentions a certain artist and his way of performing in one sentence, and instead of spending a few more lines on him/her, he already moves on to another artist or way of performing. He moves too fast, in my opinion. So you sometimes miss more indepth discussion of some of the points he makes.
Yeah the intro you read goes very fast and just picks out a couple of examples to make a point or raise a question..
It gets interesting in chapter 2. This is were the focus shifts to how techno communicates (involuntary at points) and is seen as the carrier for the interaction between dj and dancer.

And yeah, it seems to be inherent. Expensive words and expensive education.. ;)
"People who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music"
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

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One of my best friends was once interested at studying there at the sonology department after we were finished with our studies.
He went there on one of the info days, and told me how next to the decan's office there was a framed newspaper article of how the family of John Cage wanted to sue some other artist for using too much "silence" in his piece....
Sure folks, let's try to patent "silence" !!!
I always found that a priceless detail... :D

He eventually decided not to do the studies, and I'm still pretty sure he made a better choice.
I considered it as well, but really didn't feel like leaving all my friends and my life in Belgium behind.

I suppose you know a few people that studied there ? What was it like ?
Is it really worth it, or are you better off putting in the hours yourself ?

I mean, for example, a thesis like this : what does it all mean in the end ?
I'll try reading on (somewhere around page 20 now), inbetween other stuff at work,
but after a while I always gradually lose interest (and I'm a big reader so it ain't that I simply can't be bothered to read).
I have always felt it is like that with 95% of all thesises ever written : who the hell reads these things ?
People spend months or even years writing these things and for what ? For maximum 10 people reading it ?
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wouterdewitte
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

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Well Tom to be honest i life in The Hague for just 4 years and haven't made any friends yet that went to sonology so i have no info about how it is like or if it is worth it..
The majority of the names in the downloadable section ([url=http://www.sonology.org/NL/downloads.html]here[\url]) are unfamiliar to me. I know about the department because i visit the concerts sometimes.

It is hard reading for me, i am not much of a reader, took me a couple of days to wrestle myself through this one. Just about to start Jeroen Liebregts's bachelor paper.. Only because i know him from the release i have from him..

I think not a lot of people read them and the majority also don't relate to the people.. a bit to scientific or far fetched for the average person. More suited for the music theorists i suppose.

John Cage was the avant-garde guy right? With the deliberate silence in his '4"33 piece.. I heard about that, need to check google for it though. What americans will sue for :)
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

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wouterdewitte wrote:John Cage was the avant-garde guy right? With the deliberate silence in his '4"33 piece.. I heard about that, need to check google for it though. What americans will sue for :)
yep,
when I was 15, my music history teacher (AMC = Algemene Muziek Cultuur, was the Dutch word for the course), played it in our classroom. It was really hilarious how he was just sitting behind the piano and didn't play anything.
We were really far too young to understand the concept...

The thing is : the silence isn't the point, the point is that the content of the piece depends on the background noises that happen during those 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Someone coughing, someone moving his chair, the sound of a car passing in the street,...
So there is absolutely no way they could sue someone for the "silence" part. :lol:
I'm pretty damn sure even John Cage would have been turning in his grave if he knew about what his family tried to do...


I've never been a big fan of all that avant-garde stuff, so I don't know that much of John Cage either.
I love playing "In a landscape" on the piano though. Perfect piece for when you're semi-drunk. Very dreamy, impressionistic, almost Satie-like, and if you play a few notes more or less it doesn't matter. :lol:

Klara, the classical music radio station here in Belgium, once asked as many owners of different kinds of instruments to come together to perform '4"33.
Now that I found absolutely ridiculous, cause since the players weren't gonna touch their instruments anyway, it didn't matter which exotic instruments they had with them.
That's the typical arty-farty bullshit I really hate. :roll:
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

Post by willemb »

I quite like this performance of 4'33'' as shown on BBC, if you take the time to listen to it....

youtu.be/zY7UK-6aaNA

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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

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willemb wrote:I quite like this performance of 4'33'' as shown on BBC, if you take the time to listen to it....

youtu.be/zY7UK-6aaNA

gotta love how the conductor wipes his forehead after the 1st movement ! :mrgreen:

there were a lot of patches to be found on the net for my K5000 additive synth.
One of them had something like the following description :
"the exact sound you hear when floating in outer space"
It came with a few breathtaking ambient sounds, one of them even called "mothership" which was just one hell of a sound.
So I loaded it into my synth, pressed a key, then another, then pressed more keys, then turned knobs,...
thinking "why the fuck don't I hear anything",
and then you look at the title of the patch : "vacuum"
and then you remember Alien : "in space no one can hear you scream..." :lol:

we are so misformed by all these series like Battlestar Galactica or Star Wars where you always hear these spaceships make sounds,
while in reality there would be no sound to be heard at all.

I love that kind of humour though...
The guy who made that patch had me at least scratch my head for a good 2 minutes before I realized the joke.
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wouterdewitte
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

Post by wouterdewitte »

ghehe funny patch maker..
thanks for the vid willem.. interesting to watch and to here the commentators in the end talking about the tension building up and stuff.

Interesting track for a remix competition though :)
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

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I can guarantee you there is tension when this "piece" gets "performed".
no group of people is comfortable with long silences.

I still remember that tension-feeling from the time my music teacher performed the piece on piano, and that's pretty much 20 years ago by now...
but of course, we didn't know what the piece was like, we were only teenagers.
all those adults knew exactly what to expect, and yet there was still tension...
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Re: Interesting master thesis by Ekkehard Windrich

Post by Críoch »

Still, slowly getting through that paper.. Interesting stuff.
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