I know these questions may seem kinda silly.

1- Is applying the adjective and property of meaningful to some music that we like and aimless or random to other ones that we don't like appropriate? For me Jazz is the end of randomness.

This sentence is from @MMJ2017
lets contrast those randomly generated music with music that was made on purpose to express emotion where every note picked every drum hit every inflection chosen has intent to express something ON PURPOSE with meaning behind it.

2- Most composers have done lots of improvisations to create some pieces. Why doesn't anybody impute randomness to their works?

3- Is randomness a bad thing?

4- What does randomness mean exactly?

5- One of my problems is "not finishing my works" and the reason behind that is having more experimentations with the vast amount of possibilities. Does trying to finish a song mean "keep moving in the target line"?

6- How many music nowadays are being created with purpose in mind and how many randomly?
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And anything you like to say about randomness. Thank you.

 

Hmm.. Randomless has no purpose unless its the purpose by itself. And i think it still needs some rules to be understandible if used in music. Being creative and improvise is in a way randomly trying notes but from our own minds since you have a feeling and idea of what you wanna create. But randolmy sit and hit the keys or picking the guitar will barely lead to anything good, or etleast not something people can relate to. Noise/sound is just noise/sound its not music. It becomes music when notes are combined in a way that sounds good. But this is just my opinion but i think it has some bearing for many people that actually play instruments.

And if you feel limited by options then maybe its your skill lvl or that you simply arnt that musical. Sure "all" has been done but there is always a way to do it diffrently and that is where you can put your randomness into work. But if you had skills on lets say guitar (i know you dont like it but..) you could create wonderfull things with both feelings and meaning.. oh,, i forgot you wanted randomness.. bummer,, i cant help you..

 

less is more.

 

"For me Jazz is the end of randomness."

strange ,because jazz is the exact OPPOSITE of random. jazz is the most advanced aspects of the language of music, put together by the player of jazz using intent to make a decision using their free will to express emotion through the language called music.

there was a time before i knew anything at all about jazz, and i had only been exposed to radio type music it seemed "random" to me and confusing. the reason for that is it was like when i was 3 years old and with my spoken language complex sentences seemed "random" and confusing to my mind, i didnt have the knowledge yet of the symbols what they express what words express what meaning, the same with jazz, when i finally heard my first piece i felt was amazing and wondered how they able to do that, i started by gong through the entire history of jazz from the 1800's and earlier with African music onward when i studied the history of jazz and how the concepts developed what the symbols where being expressed and how they can be put together to express intent by musician , and studied the music theory behind jazz later when i heard the complex expressions of jazz improvisation i was the opposite of random now, just like when i was 3 complex sentences seemed "random" to me by once i got old and understood what complicated sentences can express what the symbols of words mean, the complex sentences actually express MORE meaning than simplistic sentences ( when a deeper meaning is there)_

"I know these questions may seem kinda silly."

I think, they seem to silly to you because you don't understand what it all means. hence why you wrote the comment box content you chose to do.



"2- Most composers have done lots of improvisations to create some pieces. Why doesn't anybody impute randomness to their works?"

because improvisation is the OPPOSITE of randomness. so it would be bizarre to look at the opposite of random , then proceed to call it random.


improvisation is a technique where you take the knowledge of music theory ( the way the language works) and from every available option to you, you on the fly create an expression create music that express your' deepest feelings or experiences.
the equivalent in your spoken language is imagine your sitting there and you start feeling a horrible pain, you immediately shout out to the person next to you describing what it feels like for you to experience with no prior selection of what words and which order it just "comes to you" while at the same time being perfectly aligned with the laws of grammar which words fit together which emphasis you say louder and softer which tones each word is spoken with etc. you focused on the MEANING and INTENT, and the sentence came out a perfect expression of a deeper experience of pain and suffering( this was possible at all, because you had prior knowledge of words and how they fit together in your spoken language how slang works all of it.) the sentence containing the words and their order the emphasis punctuation ,was all a vehicle a symbolic TOOL to express a deeper meaning of your experience.

"4- What does randomness mean exactly?"

it means, "not on purpose" , or " not with intent" , or "on accident"

music is a language.
the way a language works is to use symbols to express a deeper meaning.
compare your spoken language, imagine a sentence spoken by a person where the reason of the sentence is to practice speaking sentences. that is the meaning of saying the sentence as opposed to being silent.
now contrast that with the same person speaking a sentence, where the purpose of the sentence is to express deep emotions, feelings or what it is like to be them.
now look at the language of music with same example.
imagine a person is "making a song" just to make a song.no deeper purpose or meaning or expression.
compared to that same exact person making a song, to express their deepest love or suffering
where every descision they make , each drum hit, each accented note, which notes, from which key from which interval and whether the note is shaken stretched or soft all expresses the intent of their deepest love or suffering.
in the latter example the REASON and PURPOSE of making the song , is to express something more important than the language of music , to express the intent the meaning and purpose of what it is like through this person's perspective of their deepest suffering or love what it felt like what impact it has. compare this to the song written "randomly" which is to say the song is "just to make a song" there is no emotion being expressed no intent to purpose for the song to exist other than to practice making a song.

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2017

here is a 20 year old song i made. the MEANING and PURPOSE behind it was to express the pain and suffering of my mothers drug addiction that was killing her. at the time i really didn't have much understanding of music theory so what i did was just use sounds and what i learned JUST from listening to music up to that point in my life.
see if you can see the deeper meaning that was supposed to be expressed at the time , even though i had no real knowledge of music theory or recording but i had just learned to play all the instruments at the time and just started learning how to record music with tape decks .

https://www.dropbox.com/home/Public/MMJ 20 year old somgs?preview=07+-+JACQ+-+PULL+TOGETHER.mp3

I would argue , looking back on it now.this song , the only thing it has going for it is some of that meaning comes though even though i didn't have much knowledge of music yet, there is still something coming through because it had meaning behind it at the time.
the lyrics hard to hear ,here are the words.

1. fading away,
2.your life is slipping away.
3.fading away,
4. your life is slipping away.
REPEAT
5. fading away,
6. the thought of you fading away......
7. now your DEAD.
chorus.
I....I, I.... I....I ..I I,I,I..I..I..

"....I could, make it all better.
"I could PULL it all TOGETHER,
"I could fix everything"
"just a thought.... "I believe..." was not there"............. .suffocating
repeat.


At the time, the concept was to have the meaning hidden but where you COULD find it.
the chorus is odd arrangment of words i wanted to fit lot of meaning in shortest amount of words.
it supposed to represent that my mother COULD get better, COULD pull herself together, BUT because she didn't BELIEVE in herself , she never did.
some years later (around 9 years after i wrote this song)she just got worse got cancer and died Christmas eve in the middle of the night in, her sleep .( she had for the first time stopped the drugs cold turkey and it was too much for her system the cancer had been attacking her lungs and she died in her sleep because of the withdrawal.
the whole MEANING and PURPOSE of this entire comment, is for me these parts of my life that impact and effect me so much this is what I put into making music the music is a vehicle for my deepest experience feelings love and suffering.
we can objectively hear that this old song is not good regarding music theory, it not good recording or mix, nothing of it is good in anyway except it does portray a small amount of meaning of what it is like for a person to suffer a tiny bit of that shines through



Whoever is the one making songs, making music, the BEST they can ever do is to have a deep meaning and intent that is the reason why they ever start a song or make any choices during the process, that each choice they make is to bring their vision to life to create art with sound through the language of music, the most successful artists bands and songwriters of all time do this better than anyone, its the only reason why some songs are good and some shit, why some songs have billions of fans and why others everyone hates. we all have to use music as a language to express what it is like for our personal experience to be a human being.

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2017

MMJ what do you think about songs that are made purely for dancing/clubbing? Where, one could argue!, the emotion put in them is "less" compared to other kind of styles?

 

it def comes through when the person that wrote it had a deeper meaning and experience driving where they used the song as a way to express it ,inform how they went about making it, even when the listener has no way to know what that meaning is , it has to do with the softer or louder notes how the beat may skip the speed of it , it just comes together naturally on a vision , but say the person writes a song like that a dance song,and it has no deeper meaning , all the tiny choices wont converge together as one, some small things will be out of whack , it is all a psychological thing related to when our mind is working toward a image of experience and emotion in our mind , every little adjustment converges to express that feeling of emotion. when a song is made without that intent or experience behind it, the accents of the drums or speed or spacing tiny details seem like that don't all come together somehow to the listener because when the tiny adjustments where made to all the sounds and the choices made it wasn't with a vision in mind.
here some examples say you portray a feeling of deepest love and you writing a song a simple dance song based on it, tiny things like the way the sounds are you will have in your mind a thought " does that sound like "love" to me?" or how fast or slow where the accents are , for example a grimy dirty sound in there might not feel like love to you all the tiny parts and adjustments have to represent what you think it should for the feeling or experience. imagine a snare drum that is thick and fat and deep that rings out versus a short duration high pitch clap, which one might express "that deepest love" that they have their vision for? well it depends right? on what their other choices are what the baseline is like what the tempo is all these but as long as the choices are all made with the focus on the intent they WILL mesh right.
now we can see all those choices and details when not written for some deeper reason or meaning,. there are going to be things choices made that clash or seem like they not right with the listener, maybe a accent of the kick drum that seems off maybe too much low end maybe a scratchy sound in the synth part.


to be clear, my position is now matter how fast or slow, no matter how detailed or simple, no matter how musically educated on theory or not, it does not effect how much emotion or feeling or meaning can come through in the song,
BUT like with our spoken language, some sentences actually have to be more complex words etc, to express the actual meaning of something, and with music it si the same . you MIGHT have a feeling or experience to express that is only possible with more advanced things happening.

if your meaning and intent of your feelings and experience only requires simple song to come through with few sounds little music theory etc. than you perfectly capable of making a song shine 100 percent with meaning, BUT if what you are trying to express requires more , but you try to force it out in a simple song it wont shine as much.this is why i have focused on learning as much about every aspect of music theory and history playing instruments producing engineering al these things, because i had found many years ago, some of the meaning i need to write songs about need more than the simplest songs. I would say at least half of the meaning i need to put in songs doe snot need anything complex though.

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2017

that is a very well put answer and i really love it
thanks for sharing your precious insights

 

A QUICK GUIDE, HOW TO PUT MEANING IN MUSIC>
-----------------------------------------------------------

we go to write a song, even the most simple song. there are many individual choices involved with all the tiny details and adjustments.
How do we have all that come together to feel like it is ONE thing? to make an experience for the listener that THEY feel is cohesive, AND they wouldn't change a thing about it?
we start off the process, not writing a song just to write song, instead write a song because something more important is inside of you trying to get out, a vision , an experience, a feeling something important and very powerful to you. you take this vision and make it the focus. every choice you make is about the vision. ask yourself " does so and so choice say for instance does this tempo represent my "feeling, or vision"? does this type of kick drum express my intent? does this change from verse to chorus express my experience of my vision to me?
that is it.
the only other thing that is important is the more knowledge you have about how to make music choices gives you a larger spectrum of choices that is opportunity to pick what will work best to suit your vision, if your knowledge say of how keys works is limited you might not realize that F# changing to C major and all the chords both have for instance would portray your "vision" better, than say if you had not known about that knowledge of keys so you stuck with only c MAJOR the whole time.

think carefully about how important for YOU, it is to have the ability to choose from a variety of options. to pick the thing that will work the best to express your vision in that moment of time when you make a choice writing, compared to not having the knowledge and not knowing the thing that exists for you to choose when you need to.

If you feel that you would like to maximize your musical choices in that moment your deciding what fits your meaning the best, what options are there for you, here is a full and free youtube music theory school all in videos for free you can choose at your own pace this is the language of music and give you the most options when you need them to get your own personal meaning to come out in the songs you make.take your time go at your own pace only move on to next video when you feel comfortable understanding what is being taught about music theory to you.
here is a something make it easier to learn this, just start off watching it not focusing hard on learning it just to hear what is being talked about let your brain figure out what is being discussed natural without putting pressure on yourself to focus hard on it, you be surprised how quick you will learn that way, giving you every available option when writing music with real meaning behind it.

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2017

I guess it depends on how you define 'random'. Which is a huge subject.

Can you have a completely random melody that someone can hum ? Every tried humming back or singing 16 bars (With a random number of beats per bar) of atonal music ? Philosophically I would've thought not ! You could generate it randomly and see if it had any ideas you liked. Is 'you' really random or do you have bias ?

However, can you phrase a melody with random inflections ? Possibly. But are they random if they are at a pickup beat or end of a specific phrase ?

Rhythmically can you really be random ? A truly random rhythm would be impossible to dance to. Even Indian rhythms which are very free and complex follow some similar traits and are passed down the generations. Music is very time orientated. I bet it would be very difficult to randomly think time. I guess that's why the avant-garde of the 1930s were doing things like making sound with dripping water.

https://news.mit.edu/2017/how-brain-perceives-rhythm-1205
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_rhythm

You might like the link below. Only just found it while looking for something else but it looks/sounds really cool.

http://www.petervandernoord.nl/polyrhythm/

Harmonically ? Can you be random within a given temprament ? I guess so. But do you account the randomness for how the intervals of the harmony are built. Do you favor tertian harmony ? There is probably a mixture of the Atonal thing in here. Music likes patterns.

If you're truly interested in algorithmic composition you should check this out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_C

And this cool interactive web page... explaining it in much more detail

http://teropa.info/blog/2017/01/23/terry-rileys-in-c.html

FWIW despite my comments. I'm fully with MMJ2017

And, "Lets contrast those randomly generated music with music that was made on purpose to express emotion where every note picked every drum hit every inflection chosen has intent to express something ON PURPOSE with meaning behind it."

I think people are scared of things that will really move them, in any art form. But particularly music. It's easier to view a car and think it's beautiful or look at a pretty painting or something controversial like The Scream.

To open up your mind means opening up a vulnerability to an idea or emotion requires an element of bravery.

 

@MMJ2017 sorry to say this but you're wrong. Substantially and intrinsically nothing has any meaning accredited to it. We as human assign some meanings to them and they can be changed according to our new perceptions.

I don't want to study to be able to create something, because music is not a science. Study is for people that don't know how to create sth. If you're interested in studying hard, OK no problem, it's your own way of looking into the music but for me no. Studying has never helped me. It's just a big barrier to restrain you from producing.

I love my way of producing, if you don't like my music, don't listen. It's so simple. From today on I will never search for any meaning for anything. I will just produce.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 14, 2017

@foster911 As you can see people don't agree with your post including me but all these people are trying to help you! of course you can do whatever you want noone is forcing you to do something you don't want to! But MMJ2017 Just gave you the perfect answer and i/we agree. It's up to you now... Cheers

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2017

@MMJ2017 is anti producing. That's it. He's spending his time for discoveries of why other people did this or that. He also complicates the simple things.

I really love him and don't want to say he's a beaten or fizzled out musician but his interests for making music have declined horrendously just because of .....His biggest battle in his musical life is fighting against simplicity but the means he usually uses are wrinkled and retired.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 14, 2017

I have received lots of them and my right ear is totally deaf now.

 

Hehs. Foster, giving good song title as ever. Did you mean the beginning?

True randomness is impossible to "make", it's one of those things that computers cannot rly do w/o human interaction. I mean, assuming that u meant that composers add in random machine stuff into their work?

I'd be quite interested in the whole topic. Scale randomisator? Throw that @ me if anyone has something liek it? That lucytunings thing is such a pain to navigate...

In terms of music (criticism of you =) I think it refers to that whole sorta Metroidy arp thing u do, seemingly made of random notes. I kinda recognise it as a foster signature identity thing!

I think ppl liek songs to tell a story. With moar chaotic styles, it can be comforting to see some rules @ work?

Hehs. That's above my (everyone's?) pay grade, defo.

Well, I'm not sure it's that far from it. To be spontaneous and unexpected and subconcious? That's a lil random, isn't it? The musicality comes in repetition, maybe? Or making that "random" string of notes into something that sounds moar fluent in context?

 

Much of what is written including the title makes little sense or you have simply highlighted some personal perspectives and asked questions that nobody can meaningfully hope to answer?

Good Other individuals most likely will disagree with you here

Why not give some examples? By most do you mean well over fifty percent? How do you know this to be the case and did they tell you themselves? How could anyone reliably answer such a question?

Why ask if something is "bad" before collecting ideas regarding definition of the word itself?
Possibly it might be more logical to firstly consider the meaning of a word before asking whether the said word itself can be considered "bad" or "indecent" under certain relevant criteria?

Again this makes little sense outside your own personal ramblings about why you think don't finish your masterpieces It's quite possible that the correct reason is somewhat different to that which you have stated?

and what you have written makes no sense

How can anyone possibly answer such a question truthfully and who really cares?

 

I'm honored to be a character in your imagination storytelling in your thought process .
it is just that I would more value the me that actually exists (being talked about)

I LOVE simplicity!, give me an example of it existing in reality , and I will tell you if i like it or love it or hate it.

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2017

And complexity