Things that make one go hmmmmm.

I've isolated an old sound sketch that I had been working on and completely forgot about.  I had started it before the last semester I graduated and it had been tucked away since then.  It is remininscent of early 70's psychodelic mood pieces.  It has an interesting Moog like lead riff that repeats with variations and I am really in need of working on this.  

Up until I had graduated most of what I had been working on was formless in the sense that they were more like soundscapes (environments) or montages to an extent.  As time went on, I wanted more to make them more musically oriented.  Electronica has incredible potential, however I often hear certain things happening in Electronica these days that directly reflect both the incredible power at our hands due to technological advances and also the wide availability of this technology to an ever increasing amount of people.   Now these are both wonderful things as well as not such wonderful things.  The wonderful things need no further comment.  The not so wonderful thing is that when it comes to commercial application (read popular music), everything sounds the same.  It may be the sound usage, or the production style, or the mixing and mastering.  It may be a mix of those things or all of those things together, but everything begins to sound the same.  It begins to sound more about "hey look with this VST does now"! Or this trend in major over compression or or or... 

Much of the way I try to use technology is to make it somewhat transparent, while at the same time not forcing it to emulate or sound like real instruments. This almost the same way I approach digital imagery (photographic) - I wanted my work to look as if it was processed traditionally - not as if it were created in photoshop.  The same doesn't apply exactly with Electronica, because electronica is, well.... Electronica.  However, it is a palette in itself and their comes a fine line between a piece becoming about blips and bleeps only, or a concept.  We all straddle that line.   I want to develop more into using Electronica not so much about complex technological processes, but creating interesting musical pieces (musical or otherwise - have I confused you yet?).  Although I may use familiar sounding instrumentations that may remind one of a piano or an violin or flute, I am not necessarily striving or concerned that it mimic the actual instruments.  For that it would be prudent to have someone who plays those instruments do just that.  Also, I am not at all interested in playing these things like traditional instruments - pianos, guitars, etc.  Much like digital photography and traditional photography, computer music and analog music are two very different mediums.  Rather than argue about which is better, most real, less important etc., I look at both as apples and oranges or two different mediums.

Most often I straddle fine lines between these worlds.  Each piece dictates it's end result.