Drones

I listened to In Tune last week as I normally do, driving home from work. The live guest for the day was the medieval music group - Mediva - a spelling which gave me trouble when looking for their web-site. Their music is exquisite, a rareified mix of voices and those many 'interesting' ancient instruments which make a sound, a modern musician could never hope to match for all his technology. So much Medieval music use drones to fill out the sound. Modern music, even religious music seems to think that the melody will carry everything when the real world looks for continuation and repeat rather than the full set of variation. I often feel that this is why the thump-thump of most dance music appeals to most people at a young age. As I get older and my tinnitus removes the top-end of music, I feel less inclined towards the Bass and Drums and more drawn towards drones and defined sounds. There is so much scope for music. You remember those kiljoys who come out with a list of all the possible permutations of the twelve notes and then say that all possible musics have been written. That ignores the major part of music, the sound itself. Then there is the infinite range of playing styles from my clunky sub-Dave-Brubeck block chords to the delicate flowers of the most accomplished Classical musician to the subtle yet fast hammering of the Kotekan. Kotekan is breath-taking. It is like that mid-eighties effect of interlocking melody in different channels of the stereo like in 'Love and Dancing' by The Human League. However Kotekan is an infinitely variable thing rather than a sledge-hammer repeat using dub-techniques. You could say it is like two virtuoso pianists improvising with each other at double speed. Kebyar music, of which Kotekan is an integral part is like rock music and indeed is not much older than it. This has made me think of another variation which buries the myth of all possible musics, that of the scale. Balinese and other Indonesian music uses scales different to our twelve notes. Indeed, older Western Classical music used scales slightly different to modern ones. Taking the 40Hz concert pitch and deciding on the other notes based on the Pythagorean description may result is something harmonious but is it right all the time. So much rock music is detuned to create the effects. Want exactness? Use a sine wave generator or a Stylophone though of course at the time they first came out I wanted one and now, thanks to the Palm, I have one, yet another way to annoy your friends.

The world is so much better with a sound-track. If your name is Gareth and you have or had a copy of the book - Godel, Escher, Bach then email me at RdeWeyden@hotmail.com with the answer to this question - Where did you go that day when you didn't come into work and we went round to see if you were OK?

I did of course mean Planned Obsolescence. Bye.