hars_medium001.pdf

8/10/2019 hars_medium001.pdf

1/5

13/08/13 The incommensurable magnitude of Wikipedias recent changes World of Music Medium

https://medium.com/world-of-music/6d56dfad1700 1/5

Heard/Read/Seen in World of Music

The incommensurablemagnitude ofWikipedias recent

changesA (first) note on very, very, very long pieces ofmusic

3 min read

I love infinity.

One of the truly revolutionary contributions of the websdigital machinery to the arts is that it has made the

infinite potentially accessible. There are no longer any

MASH OF INCOMMENSURABLE MAGNITUDES COVER & SCREENSHOT OF WIKIPEDIA CHANGES SONIFICATION

Remove from Collection Edit


2/5



practical objections to conceiving of a piece of music

that, in theory, will continue to develop and sound

forever. Infinite compositions are algorithmic: their

description (the score) is of finite length. They are tiny

machines which continue to play until we no longer are

able to provide the power needed to keep them going.

The objection that a single human being will only be able

to hear an insignificant, an almost-nothing, part, of an

infinite composition, and that such a thing therefore can

not be called music, is interesting, but philosophical.

In practice,accessible infinity will remain highlylimited. Along with the rest of you, I would not put my

stakes on a bet that there is even onething in this

universe that takes forever and ever; something that

maybe once had a beginning, but that is without an end.

In view of the little time that we are given: very, very,

very long for us mortals counts as a good enoughapproximation.

As there is little reason to believe that the growth and

modification of our favorite online encyclopedia will

soon come to a grinding halt, the sonification-in-real-

time of Wikipedias recent changes is a good example of a

potentially infinite piece of music. Sonifying the 24/7

world wide editing processes of Wikipedia is also an

interesting idea: one might be able to fine tune it to

convey useful information, like signaling edit wars over

debated and controversial topics. So far, however, it

makes for a lousy piece of music. The endless stream of

MIDI bells and strings sounds as stale as the soundtracksin the corridors and hallways of a New Age & Wellness

center. Id imagine the industrious sculpting, molding,


3/5



writing, re-writing and re-re-writing of our worlds

collective knowledge to emanate a music quite a bit

more uplifting and energetic.

Infinitely less infinite, but still very, very, very long is

the 24 hour music format, which continues to gain in

popularity. Over the past couple of days I managed to

hear almost all of Incommensurable Magnitudes

(CCC), a newly released 24

hour album by Andrew Liles, who, among other things,

is known as a sometime member of Nurse With Wound.

The mention (on Twitter and elsewhere) ofIncommensurable Magnitudeshad me fantasize about a

lot of different things. They all sounded fast n bulbous.

But already after less than a mere couple of hours I

realized that but little of Liless Incommensurable

Magnitudeswould be fast. And that even littler would

turn out to be bulbous. Like almost all of the very, very,very long pieces of music that I know, also these 24

hours consist in lng slow stretches of ambient

droning, with lots of looping, with little variation and

with a lot of repetitions. Its sole real difference, like in

Tangerine DreamsAlpha Centauri from 1971 (which

back then seemed to go on forever, though

h, h

it

lasts but a little over 20 minutes), is the sudden

appearance, like a deus-ex-machina, of a reciting voice

about halfway the 22nd track (20:00).

But why? Is there one good reason why a very, very, very

long piece of music should be of the slow and ambient

droning kind? (Except for the obvious, psychological,reason; which I do not consider a valid one. I will come

back to this in a next note on very, very, very long pieces


4/5



ALSO FOUND IN WRITING OUT LOUD POP OF CULTURE

of music.)

Originally it was little more than childish mischief that

earlier today made Wikipedias Recent Changes blast from

my speakers at the same time as Liless Incommensurable

Magnitudes (around its 11th hour).But in these mashed

streams, the self-similarity of Wikipedias random bells

and strings functions as a unifierfor Liless collection of

26 long ambient drones. It provides all parts of this 24

hours album not only with a single sonic horizon but

also with a firm, relaxed but steady, pace. This makes of

Wikipedias Incommensurable Magnitudes a very coherentmash. Bigger than the sum of its parts.

Go on now!

Give it a try!

If not for the full 24, then at least for a couple of hours

Suggest further reading

Recommend

Heard/Read/Seen

The SoundBlog's log of

things read, heard, seen; by

Harold Schellinx. (Dutch

tweets & following you

@hefferman). Archive:

http://t.co/QaR8mSLt...

Updated

August 13, 2013


5/5



A new model for the musician-

Elliot Jay Stocks in The Future of

Publishing

The Art of Music Discovery

Tyler Hayes in World of Music

The day I sold books to Johnny Cash

My family owns a large used bookstore in Nashville, not farfrom Music Row. Continue reading

R E A D N E X T

Jeff Elder in I met someone world-famous

hars_medium001.pdf

Documents

Transcript of hars_medium001.pdf