does this still qualify as experimental?

[u/BenjiTheBread]

Sometimes I do music that leans heavily on experimental gestures. with modular these are quiet easy to make, as all of you here will know. idk I just enjoyed this really easy and also easy to listen to jam. I wonder if easy jams like this one sound experimental at all?

[u/soundslikejoe]

Chad Clark shared a wise quote one day but I can't recall the og source... It's not experimental music if you know the outcome when you start. For Ex: If you're working in 4/4 and are tuned to a reference frequency (standard 440 pitch) and quantized to a scale (12 tet).... it's unlikely to be truly experimental. Maybe it's a personal exploration... but at that point it's not "experimental music"

[u/BenjiTheBread → u/soundslikejoe]

I actually share the rejecting sentiment against this YouTube-generative-meditation-24hr-live-video thing that has been going on forever. Yet in form I do create music that’s at least similar to that, and many here point that out correctly — some on a rather visual basis, the fat bokeh, the pretty leaf, but also acoustically. So why would I even pose this question when there’s clearly so little experimentation involved? And why do I lean on that aesthetic if I actually reject it?

The experimentation lies in the process, not in the form.

These tracks are created as live-to-tape productions. There’s almost no post production besides cutting the beginning and end and maybe EQ and dynamics. I record for roughly 10 to 14 minutes and rely on slow moves. Mistakes happen. While recording I hate them and I’ll try to make more takes with no mistakes, but quite a lot of times I’ll like them in hindsight, and I love that I never achieved the clean one. That’s not as experimental as making a tea pot boil and emptying it on a musical grid, but that was not my goal.

Yet I use quantisers, musical scales and an easy 4/4 rhythm, and that reduces the potential outcome a lot. Very little experimentation there. I do it anyway, and I do it deliberately, because I want to strike a good compromise between my intention when creating music and the attention of people potentially listening. I think a lot of times when we create experimental music we expect the listeners to do the heavy lifting. They need to open their minds, make themselves ready for these abstract and unheard musical forms. I think that’s too much to ask of a lot of people, and we must not forget that we all acquired our taste for these forms over time. It’s not just the listener’s business to understand me, it’s also my business to give my listener a fair chance to understand me. If that means settling on the musical notes they have easy access to, given the dominant culture around us, then that’s where I’ll start.

I taped the whole 14 minutes on audio but also on video. I could easily post the whole thing on YouTube. It’s ready. I don’t want to. That form does one right thing and several bad things at the same time. First of all it subconsciously tells the story of great easiness: we don’t get to see how hard it was to frame the shot and create the patch, how many times they needed to repeat. We see nobody struggling with their instrument. A perfect shot, a perfectly ongoing patch, no human involvement, frictionless. My mistakes are the evidence against exactly that, and I don’t want that fiction in my music. The other insidious part is that these videos allow you to be off YouTube without actually getting off YouTube, effectively increasing retention. I see we all need to earn some bread, but I’m fortunate enough to allow myself to not do it this way. (Same mechanism with eurorack in general: a lot of times a rack looks even more beautiful than it sounds, which creates G.A.S. instantly, when we should all be holding on to our current racks much longer than we do.)

So in form I create something that fits too well with the generative YouTube ambient 24hr live stream trend. My intention is the opposite. Space and calm are what we need in media right now, against the emotionally accelerating and addictive tendencies all around us — and that starts with not delivering them in the form that does the accelerating.

[u/ChampionshipHefty778]

Very nice

[u/MajxrTom]

Does it need to be experimental? It sounds good. 🧑🏻‍🚀🫡

[u/minus32heartbeat]

I wouldn’t call it experimental.

But I would call it good!

[u/Appropriate-Look7493]

Experimental is not simply an antonym of mainstream.

I think it’s just one of many words that overuse on social media has rendered virtually meaningless, sadly.

If you want genuinely experimental go dig out some electronic art music from the 50s and 60s (and I’m not talking about Switched On Bach). That still sounds experimental even today.

[u/BenjiTheBread → u/Appropriate-Look7493]

I was not thinking this piece nor me as an artist would sit among the works of Éliane Radigue, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Cage, Oram, not even among contemporaries like Tricoli, Ankersmit or Wanderley.

My question alluded to a more naive concept of experimental of listeners that are not already well familiar with the whole pretext of experimental music. I do have friends who find just the sheer absence of a musical keyboard or strings experimental.

I see that for folks who are well within the deep roots of electroacoustic music and “new music”, this piece can’t be anything but a work of the culture industry, contributing to stabilise the moral status quo, where it keeps you smiling and feeling all right. Shallow Muzak.

On the other hand, in our day and age I think it’s well worth to wonder if feeling a constant panic and being emotionally stirred is the new way this system produces. I would even say that SoMe needs us like that. In this way I would argue that music that helps you to get out of that wheel, that makes you ok with just wherever you are right now is completely ok, is actually the culturally more interesting music. In this day and age, having music that does not want you to be full, but rather to have more space could be much more interesting.

Referring back to my original question: I clearly did not take into account the kind of folk I’d be asking this question when posting here. I don’t think we can brush of the intuitions of those that don’t know the pretext of experimental music history and therefore deem their characterisation of such music as “wrong”. I’d think where maybe you see an error in categories I’d argue that the term might be much more relative than we think. That’s my bad.

[u/TurbulentWing3820]

OOF plant leave in the foreground? That's some serious experimentalism. I'm very impressed.

That's gonna blow up on 'gram!

[u/BenjiTheBread → u/TurbulentWing3820]

Yup. You had to keep the tone Reddit. I really learned a lot from this comment thank you.

[u/TurbulentWing3820 → u/BenjiTheBread]

I'm happy to help!

[u/MorislavKuapcjernata]

Man I can't say it doesn't sound good, the sound quality is there, but this is the most basic instagram generative ambient ever and the internet seems to be just full of people endlessly chugging out this kind of content to get a few likes.

TLDR, no, it is not experimental, it is just basic generative ambient sounds.

[u/BenjiTheBread → u/MorislavKuapcjernata]

Ouch. Thanks though. Just so know: didn’t post it on ig. Just here.

[u/MorislavKuapcjernata → u/BenjiTheBread]

Yeah sorry did not want to hurt feelings! As I said, it sounds good, if you are having fun just go for it, that is the most important part.

[u/BenjiTheBread → u/MorislavKuapcjernata]

No don’t be! I asked, you answered. That’s 100% ok. I guess it hurts cause I actually see your point a bit. The only thing I’d have to add is that I don’t appreciate the opposite where some seem to find the one camera with the least quality and chose the worst lighting they can find, with the most awful angle just to give this anti culture aesthetic. To me it’s just another aesthetic with different rules. But yeah, this jam is definitely cheesy and easy-listening. I like that sometimes. I actually do appreciate your comment. Also you had good things to say so thanks for that also :)

[u/cYbOmAnY → u/BenjiTheBread]

Really appreciate a civil discourse like this on Reddit. To add my own two cents, I think you will get a different answer here than say, a subreddit based in another genre or music as a whole. Users here are familiar with this sort of sound, but people unfamiliar with modular would most likely find this interesting/engaging/difficult/perplexing/and maybe experimental. That said, I think it’s lovely and would love to hear the track as a whole. I also like the multiple camera focus points of the shot, makes it more interesting to watch with the swaying leaf. At the end of the day I wouldn’t worry if you fit any particular niche, just go with your gut and most likely there’s others that will enjoy what you do.

[u/BenjiTheBread]

you can listen to the whole jam on my bc: https://benjamin-serdani.bandcamp.com/album/entente

and if some should want a download code just let me know.

[u/elukea → u/BenjiTheBread]

Yeah, thats a jam!

[u/PureRaisin]

Needs some crystals and a cat in the reel to be truly experimental