Elson,
I think you're being a little harsh here. Herbert's not trying to get all
highfalutin on people who operate in other ways; he's limiting himself to a
kind of constraint-based system (cf. Oulipo, Dogme95) as a means of escaping
certain technological traps (eg, the ease of using presets) and also as an
ideological choice, privileging the "mistake" (á la John Cage) as a
resistance to the fetish of technological perfection which pretty much
defines late capitalism...
I realize this is shorthand, but mainly I'd encourage you not to be so quick
to slam him for incorporating a theoretical strategy with his music-making.
Having spoken at length with him, I believe that he's neither being coy nor
snotty. If you're interested in reading further, he elaborates quite a bit
in the recent article I did for XLR8R.
Cheers
Philip
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Elson Trinidad [mailto:elson@westworld.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 2:06 PM
> To: Shane Schaetz; acid-jazz@ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: PERSONAL CONTRACT FOR THE COMPOSITION OF MUSIC (PCCOM)
>
>
> At 11:09 AM 4/29/01 -0700, Shane Schaetz wrote:
> >interesting stuff from www.matthewherbert.com
>
> WTF?
>
>
> >1. The use of sounds that exist already, subject to article 2, is not
> >allowed. In particular:
> >
> > 1.. No drum machines.
>
> Oh come on, no one uses drum machines anymore! It's all
> sequenced drum hits
> now...
>
> > 2.. All keyboard sounds must be edited in some way: no
> factory presets or
> >pre programmed patches are allowed.
>
> "Gasp! You used patch A62 on the Roland JP-8000! You should
> be sentenced to
> death for that!"
>
>
> >2. Only sounds that are gernerated at the start of the
> compositional process
> >or taken from the artist's own prevously unused archive are
> available for
> >sampling. The use of, ordering and manipulation of
> noise-sound/found-sound
> >is to be held as the highest priority in composition.
>
> Okay, I'll admit, sampling yourself is a cool idea.
>
> >3. The sampling of other people's music is strictly forbidden.
>
> "Uh! Hitmeh! Yeahboyyyee! I know yo gonna dig this!"
>
> >4. No replication of traditional acoustic instruments is
> allowed where the
> >financial and physical possibility of using the real ones exists.
>
> But if the financial and physical possibility DOESN'T exist...
>
>
> >7. All fx settings must be edited: no factory preset or
> pre-programmed
> >patches are allowed.
>
> "Oh no!! Not that Lexicon "Hall Reverb 3"! Anything but that!"
>
> >8. Samples themselves are not to be truncated from the rear
> since extra
> >audio and recording information is often heard at the end.
>
> <click! pop!>
>
> Well, I guess he doesn't do 2-step garage then.
>
> >9. A notation of every sound, its source and a full
> description of all
> >technical equipment used per track to be taken and made
> available at a
> >future date.
>
> So where can we see this?
>
>
> >10. Remixes must be completed using only the sounds provided
> by the original
> >artist including any packaging the media was provided in.
>
>
> And the horse they rode in on.
>
>
> Elson / e:trinity
> Hey, I've never used an "Amen" break on any of my recordings.
> Should I put
> that in writing too?
>
>
>
> - 30 -
> : . elson trinidad, los angeles, california, usa
> : . elson@westworld.com : www.westworld.com/~elson
> : . groove to the futurethnic beats of e:trinity at
www.e-trinity.org and
www.mp3.com/etrinity
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