I was listening to the latest Boulez album and thinking about IRCAM ...why is America so far behind?!! What about our culture looks at the pursuance and advancement of the arts and says "Ugh"? Millions upon millions of francs were put into the IRCAM organization. Why? Presumably because they have an understanding that all that will be left in 10,000 years is CULTURAL evidence not how much money you made or what the color of your money is. Instead of spending money on things that are made to disintegrate themselves and other things it seems somewhat more logical to fund creation. Then again the French are still testing nuclear weaponry so I guess the shift is a little more subtle than the previous gross simplification. And oddly enough Boulez disagrees "History as it is made by great composers is not a history of conservation but of destruction -- even while cherishing what is being destroyed." I don't think he was referring to destroying the physical however. In any case this particular CD (Boulez-Sur Incises) got me thinking about how the use of computer interaction and more importantly the interuption of normal perception of sound/reconstuction of sound evidence is something so few composers are doing. I guess this may sound a little vague but I think that to really be drawn in you have to have a certain degree of subtelty as in the Anthèmes 2 or the previous albums clarinet piece Dialogue de l’Ombre Double...I think that l'Ombre Double is a little more disconcerting simply because the computer manipulation is more about perception of the clarinet than the Anthèmes 2 where the violin is used more as source for extended computer manipulation. The other piece that got me thinking about this was on by Maryanne Amacher on her album on Tzadilk (Sound Charachters) I can't remember what it is called but basically it created drones that when you sat with a good stereo field your head would create harmonics from the combination of the two sounds thereby making a composition that only existed in your head through the interaction of your physical body with the sound....oh Jesu. What a strange experience!

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