May 22nds

5/22/1998

Constraints when composing music are necessary only to the point that the breaking of rules is necessary to finish the task. 

[5/22/2025: When I studied with jazz composer Bill Russo, one of the rules was we couldn’t use dots or ties. I suppose you could start with those constraints but I couldn’t imagine a music that didn’t have syncopation. We couldn’t have jazz or rock’n’ roll without it so it was always ironic for me. There’s also the idea of “rule drift” where you build in that eventuality. Making something involves steering it to a conclusion, or is a process of “fixing” things that don’t work and rules don’t allow for that, so you “jailbreak” it].       

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The concept of "evil" manifests itself through art in many ways. Think of all the ways in which evil is depicted art through human history, then think how that look of evil would sound.

Manipulation of sound, especially through electronic media, is a way to express those same emotions. When we see or hear things that interfere with our expectations of beauty, then it's evil or alien.

Prior to electronics, "evil" had to be depicted with combinations of traditional instruments. Playing instruments in an unconventional way is a way of making something evil and creepy. An example is making siren sounds on stringed instruments, when all it involves is moving your finger up and down a string. Lower strings playing dissonant intervals also sound evil when that's all it is an interval. So playing something backwards is just playing something backwards.

Since our brains are wired to recognize patterns, good versus evil is one of the primary ones that we recognize and is now burned in our ancient wiring. So, artists can play in that space. Alfred Hitchcock said he "played the audience like an organ."

May 22, 2015

Look of Evil by meta4s

From Broken Cello (Siren Sounds):