The Lament of Virgin #008000, Episode 1

Sup boys and girls.

This is an experimental piece of process music.

Can you imagine a performance of this piece?

lament.pdf

lol

I am currently playing this piece.

I'm having a bit difficulty understanding the rhythm.

haha... i love the comment in tiny font: "Take it all very seriously. This is the real music!"

There's a barely legible loophole, though: "Feel free to violate any or all instructions contained in this page if it makes for a better performance."

If you think that's the only loophole...

Hilarious.

Nice polemic against the art for arts sake.

As for a performance of course its possible ... with good audiovisual/computer equipment you'd have the perfect perfomance!

I never really intended it to be "against" anything in particular, I just wrote it. What people make of it, well, that's something else now is it?

Do not perform clapping motion.

Do not perform eating motion.

Do not perform dying motion.

C# sucks. You fail!

You should have written a D.

P.S. I like it.

M'kay.

"The performance is everything. We are nothing." <-- That startled me.

I don't like it, so it's not good.

It won't stand the test of time.

Honestly, because of how silly it is, it comes off as a polemic. If the sarcasm were dropped, it wouldn't be from you though :)

I think I'm going to make a piece called "TEST OF TIME" in form of a quiz for other compositions, to see if they pass it.

Why, I have half a mind to presume you are being facetious!

I also just have half a mind in general.

It is interesting, though, as you're usually the one to rush to the defense of any abstract art music on this forum when most other people attack it with "that's not music that's colored squares!"

and yet here you make fun of it.

Not really making fun of anything here.

That's just one possible interpretation, but not intended.

So why are some of the instructions overlapped to the point of illegibility?

So why are some of the instructions overlapped to the point of illegibility?

I might as well explain what's going on, if it causes interest.

The thing was, I was wondering if "music" also counts when you're actually imagining a performance of something. IE, should your neural simulation of a performance/music and what your brain builds as a result also count as either a performance or as music?

So, to test that somehow, I figured A: I can't actually write "regular" music, instead I have give descriptions and B: these descriptions have to be imaginable yet absurd (or very impractical and contradicting.)

Considering the reactions I got were either "!?!" or "LOL," I got far enough that some people actually imagined it. There were also those who accepted it as music/art/? right away, but those maybe let that get in the way of the actual reaction (resignation and calling everything "art" can also do that.)

But there's also more involved, this piece was also key in a series of local events which I won't describe, but let's say that a lot of people got it and saw it (without my consent OR knowledge at the time,) which puts this piece also in the "hype art" territory, where it's specifically intended to be visually puzzling as well (and so it's also been perceived.)

Personally, I think that in the end if all we really recognize as "real" is just a model our brains build based on what rather limited input it gets from our senses, seeing art in that model and in our own inner simulation of it aren't as far apart as it seems. I think that's also one of the key mental mechanisms that composers always resort to: imagining of sound. What if a piece only exists in that imagination, but not in the "real" space outside of it?

A piece to which the only performance possible is one which happens each time anyone imagines what they read/see and maybe even hear. I think that we can reverse the concept of experiencing art so that instead of thinking that we "take in" art as something outside of our own mind, we can actually say this particular concept is only a trigger, but the real piece of art is what happens inside each person's mind. From the inside to the outside, so to speak.

This piece was an attempt at cracking that little question open. How do you create something to exploit that idea, etc. I'll keep trying, of course, so think of this as the first (rather awkward) step.

So yeah. A joke?

Not this time. ;)

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Ah I see. Well if this tidbit helps - we can create machines that move but they need the sattelite gps system to move in a straight line in any direction. As humans we do this extremely difficult process internally. Therfore what you are exploring is a similar complex process - where our perceptions create our reality - not that there is NO reality out there ( a 18 wheeler truck barreling towrd you at 90 km is going to change anyone's reality - that is they will be dead - even if they try beforehand not to perceive it).

As for the humor - I think it came across somewhat sarcastic because your musical instructions were soo absurd. I wonder if a more subtle approach with your directions would work.

Well precisely because the actual reality outside is objectively there, I want to shoot for the model we build of it in our brains, which as far as we know is less than 1% of what "reality" should look like if we were able to experience all frequencies/electromagnetic spectrum radiations, bla bla bla.

It's exactly the non-objective that draws my attention. This is why I tried to include many contrasts, so you could get sarcasm if you looked for it, you could get "deeper" meaning if you looked for it, you could get jokes, you could also get angry! ETC. Had to push buttons, y'see.

What a sad little person I must be. I don't get this at all.

I mean, I understand it - I see what's going on, and I can even imagine some of it - but I don't get it. I feel like I'm in a whole room full of people smiling that "knowing smile," and I'm the only one who doesn't get what they're smiling at.

Oh well, at least it didn't make me angry! There was a time not too long ago when it might have.

What a sad little person I must be. I don't get this at all.

I mean, I understand it - I see what's going on, and I can even imagine some of it - but I don't get it. I feel like I'm in a whole room full of people smiling that "knowing smile," and I'm the only one who doesn't get what they're smiling at.

Oh well, at least it didn't make me angry! There was a time not too long ago when it might have.

What's not to get though? I thought it was pretty simple...

Maybe I'm trying to read too much into it. Wouldn't be the first time.

It's just that in general, things like this in art just leave me in the dust. I think I'm a willing slave of my preconceived notions.

The thing was, I was wondering if "music" also counts when you're.........

This piece was an attempt at cracking that little question open. How do you create something to exploit that idea, etc. I'll keep trying, of course, so think of this as the first (rather awkward) step.

So yeah. A joke?

Not this time. ;)

Actually, my response was due to me thinking you were creating a joke intended to counter the various atonality/tonality threads and the entire debate of what 'is' music. That your idea was to gather inferences for theoretical purposes was the farthest thing from my mind.

Actually, my response was due to me thinking you were creating a joke intended to counter the various atonality/tonality threads and the entire debate of what 'is' music. That your idea was to gather inferences for theoretical purposes was the farthest thing from my mind.

Well I see where you could've gotten that idea, but this piece was written back in December for entirely different reasons. Though, a lot of the discussions on the forum inspired part of it, it's mostly my research in cognitive sciences and etc that made me want to try it out.