If you're digging me down because you don't care, fine. But if you don't believe me, ask a luthier or a guitar tech. Or just play around with an online fret placement calculator. The instrument he built CAN NOT POSSIBLY play in tune. The bridge is much too close to the fretboard. This will make all of the fretted notes too sharp, and it will get progressively worse as you go farther up the fretboard.
That aside, just out of curiosity, you have heard of "tuneless" music right? I don't mean "bad" music, I mean music that "just works".
You know, not very long ago, "art" was defined and limited to only paintings of portraits or realistic depictions of important people and/or events. The world was baffled when people started painting "meaningless subjects" such as ordinary objects or body parts. That was very "out of tune".
Then the whole world changed when abstract and surrealist art came along. It was hard (and it still is) but people opened up their minds a little bit. But mostly negative of course. Most people looked at Picasso and said: "Hey, anyone can do that!"
They missed the point. And this is why a lot of people today call themselves artists.
I have a degree in music composition. I've studied the works of the masters, both ancient and modern, and I've written a fair amount of atonal and microtonal music myself. I have also designed and built musical instruments. And what he did with the bass guitar neck is utterly pointless.
First of all, I don't believe he was deliberately trying to create "tuneless" music. On the contrary, he seems to have picked out a few notes that sounded reasonably close to a modal scale, and based the composition around them. This is consistent with the rest of his output... Even when he's playing a tree, or sand, he still winds up writing music that is essentially tonal/modal.
But that's beside the point. Suppose you're right, and he is deliberately eschewing equal temperament. In that case, what is the point of using a fretboard from an equal-tempered instrument? He could have used a 2x4 and gotten similar results, if not better.
As for the keyboard, about half of the keys are redundant -- clusters of 2 or 3 keys next to each other all play the exact same note. And the keys do not correspond in any way to the actual notes or intervals that a keyboard would seem to indicate. So what is the point of using a piano keyboard? He could have simply used his fingers or a piece of dowel and gotten the exact same sound.
This actually reminds me of a Rube Goldberg machine -- a contraption that performs a very simple task in a ludicrously complicated fashion. It's designed primarily to *look* cool, without actually *doing* anything terribly impressive.
See, this is the problem. You're too qualified, too serious and possibly too limited by your background knowledge to accept this kind of music or instrument. See, I work in the film industry and after coming out of film school, watching films was never the same again. Maybe this is what's happening here.
"...what he did with the bass guitar neck is utterly pointless."
Really? Do you really mean that?
You know what, perhaps you're right. Pointlessness is in fact what may have driven him to achieve what he achieved. And that, is what doesn't work for you.
While you're purposefully writing atonal music and engineering "actual" instruments, he comes along, grabs his broken keyboard that was sitting on his backyard (from his burnt piano from an earlier installation, I think), takes a neck from his broken bass which he was using as a cabinet handle, an old chimney cap and thinks, hmm what can I do with these?
And bam, he's all over the internet.
As far as I know, it's not in his intent to make atonal music, nor is he trying to make an accurate instrument. Thus why he can't write down a manual to help others build the same thing. He built it spontaneously and experimentally.
I like the fact that you mentioned the Rube Goldberg machine. Yes you can say that it is primarily made to "look cool", but I don't agree that it "doesn't do anything terribly impressive".
In my opinion, it is entirely impressive and that's all it does. I guess this is like saying "it's not the destination, it's the journey".
I guess you're trying to define what music is, but this is like trying to define the word "art".
While a classical painter with a lifetime of experience uses his techniques of shading and correct proportions of the human anatomy, painting one single image to perfection for years, an inexperienced "artist" comes along and effortlessly splatters some paint on some old canvas and sells it for millions.
The classical painter is revolted. And this leaves us asking, what is art?
Bad or not (depending on taste), the guy from the video undeniably made some music. Musically accurate or not, he also made an instrument out of things that the most of us would call trash. For that reason alone, the guys deserves respect. Could he have achieved the same sound doing less? Most likely, but then I ask, why do we bother going to concerts when the CD sounds better anyway?
Maybe the real problem is your reading comprehension. You seem to have gotten it into your head that I am criticizing the video because I'm some kind of philistine, with a definition of "music" that's too narrow to appreciate what he's doing. Initially, it was because you assumed I was too ignorant, but now it's because I'm too educated. It's clear that you won't be dissuaded from this prejudice.
But I would like to point out, since it has escaped your notice, that I haven't said a single word criticizing his music. I'm not even criticizing the IDEA of combining a piano keyboard with a bass guitar. I am criticizing one specific thing: the IMPLEMENTATION of that idea, which was lazy at best, incompetent at worst.
Again, your reading comprehension is apparently the problem. I did not state my qualifications "in advance," I stated them (in my fourth comment) because YOU ASKED if I was familiar with "tuneless" music. And then you presumed to lecture me on the history of modernism, which revealed that you had already assumed the wrong answer.
Yes, I described the music as "badly out of tune" because it was obviously intended to be tonal/modal. I have already explained this, and don't want to repeat myself. I would not have made that criticism if the music seemed clearly and deliberately "tuneless." If someone plays Debussy on an out of tune piano, it's going to sound like crap. That is a criticism of the piano, not Debussy. You seem to have a hard time separating the two concepts in this case.
I don't have an "irrational hatred" for the piece, I simply would like it better if the instrument had been in tune. You probably would, too. What's more, I believe he *meant* for the instrument to play in tune, but he failed due to his lack of familiarity with how fretted instruments work. That has been my point from the beginning, and it is really the only relevant point on which we disagree. The rest is just you making ridiculous assumptions about me, which have now descended into insults.
I've gotta vote with this being kinda lame. I'm impressed by the creativity but not the completeness of the instrument. It is now incapable of producing any chords. It also seems like it could use some serious adjusting to eliminate fret buzz. Why not have the current row of keys be specific to one string then introduce additional levels for the other strings... oh wait - then you've just got something like slap and pop without the pop.
It's the whole thing. That's what I've been trying to tell you. Of course it's self-promotion. He's showing off his creativity on many levels. And yes, it is about the music too. If the music was crap (which you obviously think so) I wouldn't have dugg his video, because then it would've been just as you say. Completely pointless. But that's not the case at all.
The guy is all about making music (and promoting himself WITH it) with anything. A tree, sand and most importantly, recycled trash lying around the house. And yes, you did comment on his music: "...sounds so badly out of tune." I, and thousands of others obviously think it sounds "awesomely out of tune".
You're mistaken if you think the reason why the video was spread out is solely because of the IDEA of the instrument, the showmanship and not the instrument + music themselves. Check out vimeo.com, where the most mediocre things are edited and presented beautifully for the sole purpose of showing off editing skills. They don't get many views, I can assure you that. This isn't the case at all with this video. As I said, if he couldn't have delivered a cool song in the end, he would've failed.
The fact that I've downloaded the song from his website, included it in my playlist, shared it with friends and I have often listened to it, separated from the youtube video, proves that it was in fact about the music, because it works as a song on it's own. And you say it's pointless?
Getting all touchy, saying that the guy's choices are lazy and incompetent, pointing out an aesthetic choice as a design flaw is completely missing the point, as I said earlier.
This is all about making something great (the instrument AND the song) with the junk that he's got lying around. That is the very opposite of laziness and incompetence.
Yes, he does know a lot about making instruments. Musical instruments were made and successfully used thousands of years before the concept of tuned music was ever standardized.
Your extensive education is the only pointless thing in here.
"Studying the works of the masters" should have taught you a lot more. You are arrogant and very insecure (having to state all of your qualifications in advance is weak and pathetic).
I'm curious to see the instruments you have built, along with your atonal work. Judging by your insecurity and irrational hatred (or "criticism"), it must be very weak or incredibly ordinary.
xaquaticsJun 26, 2010Buried
Now if he would just mod it so that it was wearable and took it to the street... pure gold.
garywooJun 26, 2010Buried
People who make their own instruments are the true musicians of this age.
llanowarJun 26, 2010Buried
It sounded horrible (to me), but I'm still impressed.
Would be awesome if he made some actual good music with that.
kestermatsumotoJun 27, 2010Buried
Pat Metheny and his musical robots.
quisphJun 27, 2010Buried
If you're digging me down because you don't care, fine. But if you don't believe me, ask a luthier or a guitar tech. Or just play around with an online fret placement calculator. The instrument he built CAN NOT POSSIBLY play in tune. The bridge is much too close to the fretboard. This will make all of the fretted notes too sharp, and it will get progressively worse as you go farther up the fretboard.
quisphJul 6, 2010Buried
Enlighten me, then. Because from where I sit, HE missed the point.
momentJul 6, 2010Buried
Check out his videos at his website: http://diegostocco.com/
Also, read a bit about what he says.
That aside, just out of curiosity, you have heard of "tuneless" music right? I don't mean "bad" music, I mean music that "just works".
You know, not very long ago, "art" was defined and limited to only paintings of portraits or realistic depictions of important people and/or events. The world was baffled when people started painting "meaningless subjects" such as ordinary objects or body parts. That was very "out of tune".
Then the whole world changed when abstract and surrealist art came along. It was hard (and it still is) but people opened up their minds a little bit. But mostly negative of course. Most people looked at Picasso and said: "Hey, anyone can do that!"
They missed the point. And this is why a lot of people today call themselves artists.
quisphJul 7, 2010Buried
I have a degree in music composition. I've studied the works of the masters, both ancient and modern, and I've written a fair amount of atonal and microtonal music myself. I have also designed and built musical instruments. And what he did with the bass guitar neck is utterly pointless.
First of all, I don't believe he was deliberately trying to create "tuneless" music. On the contrary, he seems to have picked out a few notes that sounded reasonably close to a modal scale, and based the composition around them. This is consistent with the rest of his output... Even when he's playing a tree, or sand, he still winds up writing music that is essentially tonal/modal.
But that's beside the point. Suppose you're right, and he is deliberately eschewing equal temperament. In that case, what is the point of using a fretboard from an equal-tempered instrument? He could have used a 2x4 and gotten similar results, if not better.
As for the keyboard, about half of the keys are redundant -- clusters of 2 or 3 keys next to each other all play the exact same note. And the keys do not correspond in any way to the actual notes or intervals that a keyboard would seem to indicate. So what is the point of using a piano keyboard? He could have simply used his fingers or a piece of dowel and gotten the exact same sound.
This actually reminds me of a Rube Goldberg machine -- a contraption that performs a very simple task in a ludicrously complicated fashion. It's designed primarily to *look* cool, without actually *doing* anything terribly impressive.
momentJul 7, 2010Buried
See, this is the problem. You're too qualified, too serious and possibly too limited by your background knowledge to accept this kind of music or instrument. See, I work in the film industry and after coming out of film school, watching films was never the same again. Maybe this is what's happening here.
"...what he did with the bass guitar neck is utterly pointless."
Really? Do you really mean that?
You know what, perhaps you're right. Pointlessness is in fact what may have driven him to achieve what he achieved. And that, is what doesn't work for you.
While you're purposefully writing atonal music and engineering "actual" instruments, he comes along, grabs his broken keyboard that was sitting on his backyard (from his burnt piano from an earlier installation, I think), takes a neck from his broken bass which he was using as a cabinet handle, an old chimney cap and thinks, hmm what can I do with these?
And bam, he's all over the internet.
As far as I know, it's not in his intent to make atonal music, nor is he trying to make an accurate instrument. Thus why he can't write down a manual to help others build the same thing. He built it spontaneously and experimentally.
I like the fact that you mentioned the Rube Goldberg machine. Yes you can say that it is primarily made to "look cool", but I don't agree that it "doesn't do anything terribly impressive".
In my opinion, it is entirely impressive and that's all it does. I guess this is like saying "it's not the destination, it's the journey".
I guess you're trying to define what music is, but this is like trying to define the word "art".
While a classical painter with a lifetime of experience uses his techniques of shading and correct proportions of the human anatomy, painting one single image to perfection for years, an inexperienced "artist" comes along and effortlessly splatters some paint on some old canvas and sells it for millions.
The classical painter is revolted. And this leaves us asking, what is art?
Bad or not (depending on taste), the guy from the video undeniably made some music. Musically accurate or not, he also made an instrument out of things that the most of us would call trash. For that reason alone, the guys deserves respect. Could he have achieved the same sound doing less? Most likely, but then I ask, why do we bother going to concerts when the CD sounds better anyway?
quisphJul 10, 2010Buried
Maybe the real problem is your reading comprehension. You seem to have gotten it into your head that I am criticizing the video because I'm some kind of philistine, with a definition of "music" that's too narrow to appreciate what he's doing. Initially, it was because you assumed I was too ignorant, but now it's because I'm too educated. It's clear that you won't be dissuaded from this prejudice.
But I would like to point out, since it has escaped your notice, that I haven't said a single word criticizing his music. I'm not even criticizing the IDEA of combining a piano keyboard with a bass guitar. I am criticizing one specific thing: the IMPLEMENTATION of that idea, which was lazy at best, incompetent at worst.
Since he brags about building instruments in his resumé, I think it's fair to point out that he doesn't actually seem to know what he's doing. There is at least no *musical* purpose for many of his decisions, which would lead one to suspect that his primary goal in making this video was not the creation of music, but rather self-promotion. I give him all due props for the editing, the presentation, the audio post-production, and the showmanship. Those are the elements that made this video spread "all over the internet." It's the IDEA of the instrument, not the instrument itself, that is interesting.
quisphAug 23, 2010Buried
Again, your reading comprehension is apparently the problem. I did not state my qualifications "in advance," I stated them (in my fourth comment) because YOU ASKED if I was familiar with "tuneless" music. And then you presumed to lecture me on the history of modernism, which revealed that you had already assumed the wrong answer.
Yes, I described the music as "badly out of tune" because it was obviously intended to be tonal/modal. I have already explained this, and don't want to repeat myself. I would not have made that criticism if the music seemed clearly and deliberately "tuneless." If someone plays Debussy on an out of tune piano, it's going to sound like crap. That is a criticism of the piano, not Debussy. You seem to have a hard time separating the two concepts in this case.
I don't have an "irrational hatred" for the piece, I simply would like it better if the instrument had been in tune. You probably would, too. What's more, I believe he *meant* for the instrument to play in tune, but he failed due to his lack of familiarity with how fretted instruments work. That has been my point from the beginning, and it is really the only relevant point on which we disagree. The rest is just you making ridiculous assumptions about me, which have now descended into insults.
sjr09Jun 26, 2010Buried
You f**king son of a bitch... I've been RR free for the entire year up to now. Well played...
tyraxusJun 27, 2010Buried
I've gotta vote with this being kinda lame. I'm impressed by the creativity but not the completeness of the instrument. It is now incapable of producing any chords. It also seems like it could use some serious adjusting to eliminate fret buzz. Why not have the current row of keys be specific to one string then introduce additional levels for the other strings... oh wait - then you've just got something like slap and pop without the pop.
mentolJun 27, 2010Buried
omg, this looks so cool
matteltonJun 30, 2010Buried
They should sign this guy up for the next Red Dead soundtrack!
momentJul 11, 2010Buried
It's the whole thing. That's what I've been trying to tell you. Of course it's self-promotion. He's showing off his creativity on many levels. And yes, it is about the music too. If the music was crap (which you obviously think so) I wouldn't have dugg his video, because then it would've been just as you say. Completely pointless. But that's not the case at all.
The guy is all about making music (and promoting himself WITH it) with anything. A tree, sand and most importantly, recycled trash lying around the house. And yes, you did comment on his music: "...sounds so badly out of tune." I, and thousands of others obviously think it sounds "awesomely out of tune".
You're mistaken if you think the reason why the video was spread out is solely because of the IDEA of the instrument, the showmanship and not the instrument + music themselves. Check out vimeo.com, where the most mediocre things are edited and presented beautifully for the sole purpose of showing off editing skills. They don't get many views, I can assure you that. This isn't the case at all with this video. As I said, if he couldn't have delivered a cool song in the end, he would've failed.
The fact that I've downloaded the song from his website, included it in my playlist, shared it with friends and I have often listened to it, separated from the youtube video, proves that it was in fact about the music, because it works as a song on it's own. And you say it's pointless?
Getting all touchy, saying that the guy's choices are lazy and incompetent, pointing out an aesthetic choice as a design flaw is completely missing the point, as I said earlier.
This is all about making something great (the instrument AND the song) with the junk that he's got lying around. That is the very opposite of laziness and incompetence.
Yes, he does know a lot about making instruments. Musical instruments were made and successfully used thousands of years before the concept of tuned music was ever standardized.
Your extensive education is the only pointless thing in here.
"Studying the works of the masters" should have taught you a lot more. You are arrogant and very insecure (having to state all of your qualifications in advance is weak and pathetic).
I'm curious to see the instruments you have built, along with your atonal work. Judging by your insecurity and irrational hatred (or "criticism"), it must be very weak or incredibly ordinary.
Regards!
microwavAug 2, 2010Buried
PIANO LESSON, Find your way to be a great pianist,, :)
http://qzmart.tk/piano-lessons
j2t645Mar 28, 2011Buried
sounds like Marylin Manson
durrantmarketinFeb 10, 2012Buried
this is amazing music creativity
momentJul 6, 2010Buried
You completely missed the point, quisph.