so, the mix is finalized, i'm just fighting with the sampler.
it's different every time i play it. and it's bluntly driving me bonkers. i think this is probably by design to make it sound "more real", as nobody plays the same thing the same way twice. but, they seem to have picked rather annoying variables to modulate in order to create this effect, and i can't figure out how to turn it off.
i'll have to adjust in the future by rendering guitar outs to wave essentially immediately. it's going to kill a little bit of flexibility, but at least i'll have control over the sound.
for right now, to get this mix out, i'm forced to keep experimenting with the render until it comes out right. it can't possibly take more than a few more hours to do this...
Thursday, December 25, 2014
this is a softer argument that i think i ought to try first and foremost, and continue moving back to...
the fact is that i went in to see the doctor in the first place because i wanted to discuss factors that were disabling me from finding employment. i went through a long process from that point, but the essential premise has remained in stasis. i remain in need of that discussion about factors that are disabling me from finding employment. that needs to be a basic step forwards, and it's unlikely to resolve itself in a period of three months. so, if you're not going to diagnose me on the spot then you need to put the things in motion to have me have that discussion relatively quickly, so i can get another year or two to either be diagnosed more rigorously or to try and carry out any recommendations.
the fact is that i went in to see the doctor in the first place because i wanted to discuss factors that were disabling me from finding employment. i went through a long process from that point, but the essential premise has remained in stasis. i remain in need of that discussion about factors that are disabling me from finding employment. that needs to be a basic step forwards, and it's unlikely to resolve itself in a period of three months. so, if you're not going to diagnose me on the spot then you need to put the things in motion to have me have that discussion relatively quickly, so i can get another year or two to either be diagnosed more rigorously or to try and carry out any recommendations.
it's funny how you meet these people that think they can conquer any odds. it defies the entire concept of odds to think you can conquer all odds. so, there's an implicit misunderstanding of the concept inherent in this perspective. so, to me, the more interesting question is how such absurdity can arise?
i think there's a simple psychological explanation that essentially renders the concept as relative - despite all arguments to the contrary. it's ultimately just not carefully thought through, of course. but, i think the way it works is basically this - if you've never put yourself up against serious odds, if all of your challenges in life are things that you're more likely to succeed at than fail at, then you might gather the perception that odds aren't important. if you've always been favoured, and you've always won, it's possible to delude yourself into thinking you'll always win. see, that's the odds working, though. kind of comically.
so, you get these situations where people are faced with 100:1 odds and they approach it with the attitude that the situation is inevitably going to unfold in their favour, like every other situation always has. which is the comfort of modern existence, i suppose.
i think there's a simple psychological explanation that essentially renders the concept as relative - despite all arguments to the contrary. it's ultimately just not carefully thought through, of course. but, i think the way it works is basically this - if you've never put yourself up against serious odds, if all of your challenges in life are things that you're more likely to succeed at than fail at, then you might gather the perception that odds aren't important. if you've always been favoured, and you've always won, it's possible to delude yourself into thinking you'll always win. see, that's the odds working, though. kind of comically.
so, you get these situations where people are faced with 100:1 odds and they approach it with the attitude that the situation is inevitably going to unfold in their favour, like every other situation always has. which is the comfort of modern existence, i suppose.
hey, google..
do you think people might enjoy being notified when somebody they subscribe to changes their lead video? i know i'm abusing your system, but i think it's an abuse that could be expanded into a functionality. but, i'm not sure. part of me thinks it's invasive, part of me thinks it's a good idea.
at least the way i'm thinking about using it is a good idea. see, i'm running through my discography in a one-to-one relationship with the time it took to create it. what that means is that my lead track is consistently about 18.5 years ago, which means when i change it is an interesting idea for a long term feed to follow, as you're following a relatively unusual life. it's a character to follow. slowly. i'll probably actually set up my own rss for this when i get around to doing a number of things that are like this. but i still like the idea of using youtube for it directly. put another way, i'm a musician, so the storyline of the "channel" requires a slightly different set of tools to set up to follow.
but, it could be used for pure evil, too. this is a privilege that requires careful checks and balances, and it might be impossible to keep it in line.
so, i dunno. maybe notifications on the lead video change aren't the best idea. but i think that the ability to set up specific feeds to subscribe to kind of really is a good idea.
i know i can set up a playlist and use rss feeds on the playlist adds, but there's no social front-end to this besides facebook, which i'm trying to get away from. and if i'm going to update an appspot site, i don't need an rss feed for it so it's kind of a non-answer.
it's something that would be much better to present inside of youtube...
hell, i'll build it for you if you want to let me hang out in california for a few months.
:).
put simply, it's just the idea of channels having multiple feeds that subscribers can subscribe independently to.
do you think people might enjoy being notified when somebody they subscribe to changes their lead video? i know i'm abusing your system, but i think it's an abuse that could be expanded into a functionality. but, i'm not sure. part of me thinks it's invasive, part of me thinks it's a good idea.
at least the way i'm thinking about using it is a good idea. see, i'm running through my discography in a one-to-one relationship with the time it took to create it. what that means is that my lead track is consistently about 18.5 years ago, which means when i change it is an interesting idea for a long term feed to follow, as you're following a relatively unusual life. it's a character to follow. slowly. i'll probably actually set up my own rss for this when i get around to doing a number of things that are like this. but i still like the idea of using youtube for it directly. put another way, i'm a musician, so the storyline of the "channel" requires a slightly different set of tools to set up to follow.
but, it could be used for pure evil, too. this is a privilege that requires careful checks and balances, and it might be impossible to keep it in line.
so, i dunno. maybe notifications on the lead video change aren't the best idea. but i think that the ability to set up specific feeds to subscribe to kind of really is a good idea.
i know i can set up a playlist and use rss feeds on the playlist adds, but there's no social front-end to this besides facebook, which i'm trying to get away from. and if i'm going to update an appspot site, i don't need an rss feed for it so it's kind of a non-answer.
it's something that would be much better to present inside of youtube...
hell, i'll build it for you if you want to let me hang out in california for a few months.
:).
put simply, it's just the idea of channels having multiple feeds that subscribers can subscribe independently to.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
obligatory influential on the track of the week post.
sunday bloody sunday. could i be more iconic? well, it's sort of the point. that martial drum beat exists in many places (before and after 1983) but is likely forever attached to this specific track.
(relevant tracks: idiotic, others)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQZLPV6xcHI
obligatory influential on the track of the week post...
it's right about the point in time where my concept of sound and music was being entirely reshaped by this band. i'm pulling out riverz end, specifically, though, because the track was removed of samples in the final version.
(relevant tracks: idiotic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84fvBST9o0w
sunday bloody sunday. could i be more iconic? well, it's sort of the point. that martial drum beat exists in many places (before and after 1983) but is likely forever attached to this specific track.
(relevant tracks: idiotic, others)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQZLPV6xcHI
obligatory influential on the track of the week post...
it's right about the point in time where my concept of sound and music was being entirely reshaped by this band. i'm pulling out riverz end, specifically, though, because the track was removed of samples in the final version.
(relevant tracks: idiotic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84fvBST9o0w
but there are rationalistic explanations for morality, and focusing on supernatural explanations in the form of universals is missing out on an opportunity to study something in detail.
when you're dealing with questions of biology, and the key point to get across is that it is a question of biology, the kinds of laws you see in physics are usually not applicable - because we're experiencing things at the micro level. you zoom out enough, you'll see those laws start to work. but that doesn't mean that what we're observing is universally "true" in some sense. it just means that things begin to demonstrate an order when you view them from a far enough distance of abstraction. which is basically a tautology, and doesn't imply anything of any value.
so, when you're looking at the moral systems of individual cultures this universalizing approach is completely backwards. those universals are just aggregate data. rather, each culture is going to develop an entirely individualized set of moral codes and ethics that apply uniquely to their environments. in other words, it's a question of evolutionary biology.
so, a culture with more scarce or less developed resources might have a tendency towards competition, whereas a culture with more developed resources might have a tendency towards a more social distribution. these things can get crossed when cultural values change slower than the technology does, which is essentially the situation we're in right now. when you look at specific examples of the way that settled people constructed moral systems vs. the way that nomadic peoples did, you see these kinds of differences come out starkly.
i just remember getting into this debate with profs into law or philosophy, and feeling like i was talking to somebody stuck on the other side of an epiphany that should really be old news by now. our morals don't come from a higher being. there's nothing universal about the way they operate. they don't exist in some cloud somewhere; they can't be revealed through mathematics, logic or empirical discovery. rather, they're attempts to ensure our own survival (some failed) that can be understood relatively well when looked at in an evolutionary perspective. nor are they entirely unique to humans in anything but their reflective complexity.
when you're dealing with questions of biology, and the key point to get across is that it is a question of biology, the kinds of laws you see in physics are usually not applicable - because we're experiencing things at the micro level. you zoom out enough, you'll see those laws start to work. but that doesn't mean that what we're observing is universally "true" in some sense. it just means that things begin to demonstrate an order when you view them from a far enough distance of abstraction. which is basically a tautology, and doesn't imply anything of any value.
so, when you're looking at the moral systems of individual cultures this universalizing approach is completely backwards. those universals are just aggregate data. rather, each culture is going to develop an entirely individualized set of moral codes and ethics that apply uniquely to their environments. in other words, it's a question of evolutionary biology.
so, a culture with more scarce or less developed resources might have a tendency towards competition, whereas a culture with more developed resources might have a tendency towards a more social distribution. these things can get crossed when cultural values change slower than the technology does, which is essentially the situation we're in right now. when you look at specific examples of the way that settled people constructed moral systems vs. the way that nomadic peoples did, you see these kinds of differences come out starkly.
i just remember getting into this debate with profs into law or philosophy, and feeling like i was talking to somebody stuck on the other side of an epiphany that should really be old news by now. our morals don't come from a higher being. there's nothing universal about the way they operate. they don't exist in some cloud somewhere; they can't be revealed through mathematics, logic or empirical discovery. rather, they're attempts to ensure our own survival (some failed) that can be understood relatively well when looked at in an evolutionary perspective. nor are they entirely unique to humans in anything but their reflective complexity.
i've got a new lead track up, but i'm going to hold up on the ritual until i'm done mixing what i'm mixing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP2oGdZxFl4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP2oGdZxFl4
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
if you really want to entertain the notion, breaking the cycle would necessarily mean erasing yourself entirely from history. there's interesting consequences of that (as history would take a different path without you, however miniscule), but it's not what i was thinking about at first.
what that means is we could never know of anybody that's actually succeeded, because all trace of them would cease to exist.
it follows that all claims of enlightenment through this process are necessarily false.
but, frustratingly, it doesn't eliminate the possibility. it even opens up explanations as to why the event seems so rare - we can only remember the fakes.
it's remarkable how these ideas can reinforce themselves through seeming absurdities.
what that means is we could never know of anybody that's actually succeeded, because all trace of them would cease to exist.
it follows that all claims of enlightenment through this process are necessarily false.
but, frustratingly, it doesn't eliminate the possibility. it even opens up explanations as to why the event seems so rare - we can only remember the fakes.
it's remarkable how these ideas can reinforce themselves through seeming absurdities.
do dogs understand that they're being used for nefarious purposes?
like a drug sniffing dog for example. do they have enough awareness and empathy to say "yeah, i smell it on this person, but they seem cool so i'm not going to draw attention to it.".
well, we know that dogs are very good at sensing personalities. they seem to react differently depending on your emotional state. so, it's not pure fantasy.
i don't think i'd want to be the one that tests that idea....
you have to wonder if wolves have similar capacities. i mean, they're pack animals. it makes sense that some kind of concept of emotion would develop out of that. but, i would think that contact with humans would be a driving force in evolving that trait. knowing which humans are cool and which humans are assholes is something a semi-wild dog needs to be able to do on a day-to-day basis in order to survive.
you can see something similar in elephants. apparently, they react negatively to people who speak certain languages, because they associate poaching behaviour with those languages. that's something of value to pass on to future generations, even if it's kind of racist.
but what i'm thinking of is pretty sneaky. i think dogs may need at least a few more centuries before they can do sneaky things like that...
like a drug sniffing dog for example. do they have enough awareness and empathy to say "yeah, i smell it on this person, but they seem cool so i'm not going to draw attention to it.".
well, we know that dogs are very good at sensing personalities. they seem to react differently depending on your emotional state. so, it's not pure fantasy.
i don't think i'd want to be the one that tests that idea....
you have to wonder if wolves have similar capacities. i mean, they're pack animals. it makes sense that some kind of concept of emotion would develop out of that. but, i would think that contact with humans would be a driving force in evolving that trait. knowing which humans are cool and which humans are assholes is something a semi-wild dog needs to be able to do on a day-to-day basis in order to survive.
you can see something similar in elephants. apparently, they react negatively to people who speak certain languages, because they associate poaching behaviour with those languages. that's something of value to pass on to future generations, even if it's kind of racist.
but what i'm thinking of is pretty sneaky. i think dogs may need at least a few more centuries before they can do sneaky things like that...
i'd love to come across a file of mine deep in the state (i think i'm getting my psychiatric evaluation, just from a distance) somewhere that has this broad stamp of deduction on it, in startling blunt clarity. like, a file marked BONKERS in red stamp. presented as a medical diagnosis...
our evaluation of this suspect is that she is simply bonkers.
....signed off for by a doctor, illegibly, but with credentials typed in boldface. to scream it's legitimacy.
our evaluation of this suspect is that she is simply bonkers.
....signed off for by a doctor, illegibly, but with credentials typed in boldface. to scream it's legitimacy.
yeah. this guitar sampler has consistency problems, overall. the idea that i could have created this ideal sound by mixing several streams together isn't sustainable. no two renders sound exactly alike.
in fact, i've had to mix a few of the guitar parts down to lock them in place, then add some filters and eqs. i was trying to find stasis in flux and becoming confused by it. i may have to lock a few more down. so, it's looking like it may be a tomorrow upload.
in fact, i've had to mix a few of the guitar parts down to lock them in place, then add some filters and eqs. i was trying to find stasis in flux and becoming confused by it. i may have to lock a few more down. so, it's looking like it may be a tomorrow upload.
it turns out i have an email list...
so, i just randomly checked my bandcamp settings and out of the blue realized i have a small email list. i've never asked you for your email addresses, because i kind of didn't plan on doing this. but given that you seem to have gone out of your way to provide me with your email addresses, i'm going to oblige the request.
i've been releasing a lot of singles lately, and i'm not generally going to send out an email update when i do. part of the reason i didn't want to do this is that, as a consumer, i find the email update route a little invasive, but i can't tell you how to interact with things and people and ideas, so hey, whatever, man. it does mean i'm going to reserve these messages for major updates. so, email updates will happen only when official records are finished. that's my own rules and bounds for this.
i'm in the final stages of finishing the material i wrote during a "serious music" phase i went through from roughly 2000-2002. putting the singles aside, i'm going to get two official full length records and a number of lps that are not official records out of this. so, this is the update:
1) i finished my fifth disc back in october, which is this one:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
it's comprised of material written mostly over 2001 and recorded between 2001 and 2014. it's heavily oriented towards the idea of music as a written form.
2) i'm putting the finishing touches on my sixth record over the next few weeks, which is this one:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2
this record also has a lot of written ideas, but integrates more fluid writing as well. it was written mostly over 2001 and 2002 and finished mostly over 2014.
3) there are two lps of rabit is wolf material from this period, but they are not official releases in my album chronology.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-wave
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-is-wolf
4) there will be a double-cd concept record housing the written music written over this period. the first disc will feature the tracks played through a 1990s soundblaster card. these versions are what the songs sounded like as i was writing them, and there's an interesting quality to the sound produced. the second cd will be a mirror image of this, but updated to include more modern vst-synth arrangements. it will exist here:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/thru
so, that concludes this update. until we meet again....
j
i've been releasing a lot of singles lately, and i'm not generally going to send out an email update when i do. part of the reason i didn't want to do this is that, as a consumer, i find the email update route a little invasive, but i can't tell you how to interact with things and people and ideas, so hey, whatever, man. it does mean i'm going to reserve these messages for major updates. so, email updates will happen only when official records are finished. that's my own rules and bounds for this.
i'm in the final stages of finishing the material i wrote during a "serious music" phase i went through from roughly 2000-2002. putting the singles aside, i'm going to get two official full length records and a number of lps that are not official records out of this. so, this is the update:
1) i finished my fifth disc back in october, which is this one:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
it's comprised of material written mostly over 2001 and recorded between 2001 and 2014. it's heavily oriented towards the idea of music as a written form.
2) i'm putting the finishing touches on my sixth record over the next few weeks, which is this one:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2
this record also has a lot of written ideas, but integrates more fluid writing as well. it was written mostly over 2001 and 2002 and finished mostly over 2014.
3) there are two lps of rabit is wolf material from this period, but they are not official releases in my album chronology.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-wave
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-is-wolf
4) there will be a double-cd concept record housing the written music written over this period. the first disc will feature the tracks played through a 1990s soundblaster card. these versions are what the songs sounded like as i was writing them, and there's an interesting quality to the sound produced. the second cd will be a mirror image of this, but updated to include more modern vst-synth arrangements. it will exist here:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/thru
so, that concludes this update. until we meet again....
j
Monday, December 22, 2014
so, i'm going to do that vst record after all - as a mirror image of the midi disc, to prevent it from seeming superfluous. so, i'm going to release it as a double. hey, it's a neat concept to have the thing flipped over like that, to demonstrate the changes in technology (available to me) that occurred between when the songs were written and when they were finalized.
i guess it turns out that there's more than one way to coherently present this material. rather than fight against that, i'd rather present multiple options.
so, there will be the two proper jjjjjjjjjj discs that have mixes of sequenced music and non-sequenced music. records 5 and 6. then there will be the flip of the midi disc, which has just purely sequenced vst versions of some of the material on the two proper jjjjjjjjj discs. then, there's the collection of singles that have all the versions of each specific track.
i guess it turns out that there's more than one way to coherently present this material. rather than fight against that, i'd rather present multiple options.
so, there will be the two proper jjjjjjjjjj discs that have mixes of sequenced music and non-sequenced music. records 5 and 6. then there will be the flip of the midi disc, which has just purely sequenced vst versions of some of the material on the two proper jjjjjjjjj discs. then, there's the collection of singles that have all the versions of each specific track.
i'm also glad the days are getting longer, again.
i think i'm pretty much used to that hour difference, now. it's from moving from one end of the same time zone to the other end. i'm used to the sun being up by 6:30 pretty much the entire year - and becoming visible not longer after 4:00 during the summer. here, it's quite often not up until well after 7:00. even at the peak of the summer, you're pushing 6:00, which kind of makes it feel like spring the whole year. i made it home in the dark from a compost-drop at 7:45 the other day.
the flip of that is that the sun is still up at 5:30 for pretty much the whole year. which has got me feeling like fall never ended, because i never got the cue of night time at 4:00 on a cloudy day.
i've actually tried switching to central time to recapture the difference, but i just found myself constantly converting in my head. it was just reminding me of it, rather than helping me forget it.
so, i think i'm used to it. but i'd still be nice to get the sun up a bit earlier...
you know, i was going to say something about how people have to go to work in the dark here.
but i guess it's also true that people have to go home in the dark in ottawa. i can remember getting off work in the dark quite frequently.
i think it's kind of better to get off work in the dark, because it just plunges you directly into the night, which is where you want to be when you're working during the day, anyways. but that's just a perception.
i think the more valid reflection is that you're stuck with one way or the other up to a relatively high longitude.
i think i'm pretty much used to that hour difference, now. it's from moving from one end of the same time zone to the other end. i'm used to the sun being up by 6:30 pretty much the entire year - and becoming visible not longer after 4:00 during the summer. here, it's quite often not up until well after 7:00. even at the peak of the summer, you're pushing 6:00, which kind of makes it feel like spring the whole year. i made it home in the dark from a compost-drop at 7:45 the other day.
the flip of that is that the sun is still up at 5:30 for pretty much the whole year. which has got me feeling like fall never ended, because i never got the cue of night time at 4:00 on a cloudy day.
i've actually tried switching to central time to recapture the difference, but i just found myself constantly converting in my head. it was just reminding me of it, rather than helping me forget it.
so, i think i'm used to it. but i'd still be nice to get the sun up a bit earlier...
you know, i was going to say something about how people have to go to work in the dark here.
but i guess it's also true that people have to go home in the dark in ottawa. i can remember getting off work in the dark quite frequently.
i think it's kind of better to get off work in the dark, because it just plunges you directly into the night, which is where you want to be when you're working during the day, anyways. but that's just a perception.
i think the more valid reflection is that you're stuck with one way or the other up to a relatively high longitude.
you know, it's true - cats really are always plotting to eat us. like, that cat that's been following me around..
see, i always knew that the cat was really stalking me as a possible prey item, but i was trying to rationalize ways around that obvious deduction, because it's not something you really want to come to terms with. that cat is following me around because it would like to eat me. how pleasant.
i think if it was a really serious concern to me, i'd of course react differently. but it's a cute, black and white furry cat with a bit of a swagger in it's steps. it doesn't really strike me as ominous, even if i know what it's really thinking.
when it comes down to it, though, do i really want to get into a fight with a cat? they seem cute and harmless. but, they're very agile and absolutely capable of catching you by surprise. we have a weak spot - our necks. and, cats are entirely aware of that weak spot. it doesn't take much to take you out through your neck. a smart cat would be able to exploit this.
you think past it, though. it's just a cute cat.
a cute cat that sees you as a possible prey item, if it can just get the right opportunity.
see, i always knew that the cat was really stalking me as a possible prey item, but i was trying to rationalize ways around that obvious deduction, because it's not something you really want to come to terms with. that cat is following me around because it would like to eat me. how pleasant.
i think if it was a really serious concern to me, i'd of course react differently. but it's a cute, black and white furry cat with a bit of a swagger in it's steps. it doesn't really strike me as ominous, even if i know what it's really thinking.
when it comes down to it, though, do i really want to get into a fight with a cat? they seem cute and harmless. but, they're very agile and absolutely capable of catching you by surprise. we have a weak spot - our necks. and, cats are entirely aware of that weak spot. it doesn't take much to take you out through your neck. a smart cat would be able to exploit this.
you think past it, though. it's just a cute cat.
a cute cat that sees you as a possible prey item, if it can just get the right opportunity.
i think these studies that suggest that people that listen to specific types of music are more intelligent because they listen to that music are getting the causality backwards.
first, if you're focusing on a specific genre, you're doing this wrong. if the idea is the abstraction in the music, no specific genre has a monopoly on that. you may get different correlations, depending on personality. debussy is going to appeal to a different type of person than mozart does. and skinny puppy is going to appeal to a different type of person than genesis does. but, it's all abstract music and it should all have basically the same effect, if the factor is the abstraction in the music.
focusing specifically on "classical" music is going to mostly simply produce class differences, which are well understood as having an effect on test scores. it's a situation where x is correlated with y, y is correlated with z and a fallacious conclusion is being drawn that z is therefore caused by y - when it could very well be that x and z are where the causal relationship is occurring.
but the point of this shouldn't be to isolate "intelligent people". "intelligent people" is a pretty broad category, that encompasses humans with a wide variety of tastes. rather, the useful conclusion is something like as follows:
"if you actually legitimately enjoy mainstream pop music, it is probably because you are not of above average intelligence."
but you don't need a study to understand that.
even that's maybe a little unfair, as it's not impossible that you could be into abstract music and still like pop.
maybe something like...
"if you *only* listen to pop music, then chances are high that you're not that bright."
i think the key thing that bugs me about the studies is that they tend to focus so much on mozart. mozart was not the most abstract, creative or interesting writer of his era from any perspective. even people that really like mozart will acknowledge how prodding he could be from time to time. if the studies were based on something a bit more difficult....
i'd expect that if they did a direct comparison between kids that listen to mozart specifically and kids that listen to a spectrum of other "classical" composers, mozart would actually rank near the bottom in terms of test results.
i entirely agree that things are constantly in flux, and the causal model has problems at the micro level. i think the intuitive understanding is that things are happening too quickly for causality to apply. i say intuitive, but that's a tricky thing to understand if you try to break it down, despite it being the intuitive way to kind of understand it.
i think you can try and put some kind of conceptual bounds around it, though. every causal reaction requires a finite amount of time. if there's so much energy in a system that it pushes the cause through faster than a reaction can occur in, then you'd see causality seem like it's not working. you could think of it like a censor failing, by missing a signal because it's too fast - or in some cases like a censor exploding by taking in a signal that zaps it like a laser.
depending on the scale of the subject, the micro might be very perceptible to us. so, the question of how music affects intelligence is micro on this scale - it's reinforcing each other, because it's happening at a time scale that is shorter than a reaction can develop in.
but i think you can still pull out patterns, and the patterns are still meaningful, even if they require some careful analysis.
first, if you're focusing on a specific genre, you're doing this wrong. if the idea is the abstraction in the music, no specific genre has a monopoly on that. you may get different correlations, depending on personality. debussy is going to appeal to a different type of person than mozart does. and skinny puppy is going to appeal to a different type of person than genesis does. but, it's all abstract music and it should all have basically the same effect, if the factor is the abstraction in the music.
focusing specifically on "classical" music is going to mostly simply produce class differences, which are well understood as having an effect on test scores. it's a situation where x is correlated with y, y is correlated with z and a fallacious conclusion is being drawn that z is therefore caused by y - when it could very well be that x and z are where the causal relationship is occurring.
but the point of this shouldn't be to isolate "intelligent people". "intelligent people" is a pretty broad category, that encompasses humans with a wide variety of tastes. rather, the useful conclusion is something like as follows:
"if you actually legitimately enjoy mainstream pop music, it is probably because you are not of above average intelligence."
but you don't need a study to understand that.
even that's maybe a little unfair, as it's not impossible that you could be into abstract music and still like pop.
maybe something like...
"if you *only* listen to pop music, then chances are high that you're not that bright."
i think the key thing that bugs me about the studies is that they tend to focus so much on mozart. mozart was not the most abstract, creative or interesting writer of his era from any perspective. even people that really like mozart will acknowledge how prodding he could be from time to time. if the studies were based on something a bit more difficult....
i'd expect that if they did a direct comparison between kids that listen to mozart specifically and kids that listen to a spectrum of other "classical" composers, mozart would actually rank near the bottom in terms of test results.
i entirely agree that things are constantly in flux, and the causal model has problems at the micro level. i think the intuitive understanding is that things are happening too quickly for causality to apply. i say intuitive, but that's a tricky thing to understand if you try to break it down, despite it being the intuitive way to kind of understand it.
i think you can try and put some kind of conceptual bounds around it, though. every causal reaction requires a finite amount of time. if there's so much energy in a system that it pushes the cause through faster than a reaction can occur in, then you'd see causality seem like it's not working. you could think of it like a censor failing, by missing a signal because it's too fast - or in some cases like a censor exploding by taking in a signal that zaps it like a laser.
depending on the scale of the subject, the micro might be very perceptible to us. so, the question of how music affects intelligence is micro on this scale - it's reinforcing each other, because it's happening at a time scale that is shorter than a reaction can develop in.
but i think you can still pull out patterns, and the patterns are still meaningful, even if they require some careful analysis.
so, there's two ways to finish a mix.
the first is to fuck with it until you get it right. the second is to fuck with it until you numb yourself to it, and what you've been listening to starts to sound right. the second approach is not inferior, as it reflects the way you've changed your idea of what it should sound like as you've brought it into reality.
this wasn't supposed to take this long; i didn't spend a lot of time setting the guitar modelling in the first place, i just got lost in it because something changed without me controlling it. so, i got lost in finding a "lost ideal". i need to acknowledge that and just move forwards with it.
the first is to fuck with it until you get it right. the second is to fuck with it until you numb yourself to it, and what you've been listening to starts to sound right. the second approach is not inferior, as it reflects the way you've changed your idea of what it should sound like as you've brought it into reality.
this wasn't supposed to take this long; i didn't spend a lot of time setting the guitar modelling in the first place, i just got lost in it because something changed without me controlling it. so, i got lost in finding a "lost ideal". i need to acknowledge that and just move forwards with it.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
yeah, so i *did* have to reinstall my guitar sampler. and, what's annoying is that the first part very quickly fell back to where it ought to be. that is, it didn't sound right because the samples were corrupting...and i lost a full week on this....
at least it's evidence that i'm hearing what i am, rather than what i wish i was. what a piss off, though. i think the second half should now finish itself up quickly - maybe even by the end of the night.
at least it's evidence that i'm hearing what i am, rather than what i wish i was. what a piss off, though. i think the second half should now finish itself up quickly - maybe even by the end of the night.
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