Music As a Visual Art

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In the late 20th century, (post-1965) pop music gradually became more of a collage art, with appropriated pieces quickly assembled and placed in ironic contexts and juxtapositions (techniques borrowed from the visual arts). Whereas craft was more of a cornerstone of the creation of works of art, someone got the idea that art should also have cleverness, or what I have sometimes referred to as the "fourth dimension" of art, i.e. the ideas suffused in the art, but not always reflected in the surface. 

Today, the quintessential definition of a true composer of music is one who can collage together loops, sound samples and readymade textures, not melodies, chords and rhythms. The true suffering for one's art is not by these noble means, but rather by prefabbed concoctions, or found sounds snatched by license set forth by the Creative Commons. While it is a nice idea that we can share-alike, the upshot is that the average listener attributes what they hear as being created by one person (f/k/a The Composer), when in fact it is a collage like one would make from magazine clippings, or paintings made in under an hour. Some artists actually make brilliant work very quickly. If all you do is make art quickly, people will tire of it. It needs continual contextualization. 

10/27/2007
 
10/2026: AI music is the next step in the evolution of music made as a form of collage, but the elements are not being chosen by the composer (content creator), but the results are still interesting. For the artist who has been making things for decades, AI is another medium to experiment with. Tony Visconti recently said David Bowie would have probably experimented with it as a form of cut-up a la William Burroughs. Even Burroughs would have been interested. You cant be cutting edge if you're not willing to walk it. I have always been willing to experiment with the latest technologies, while keeping the other traditional things going. It's a different "department", with AI music the current form of the readymade. But readymades have to be made by knowing what the philosophical implications are. For example, if you want to spoof a readymade by thinking anyone make them it won't work as a readymade. AI songs are collages made by menu, and the food is actually good in many cases. Sometimes you want the "take-out", other times you want to cook from scratch.

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