Autechre Autechre class

  On 10/27/2010 at 12:05 AM, xxx said:

I'm troubled that if tuition at UB is nearly $5,000 a year without books, fees or keeping yourself clothed, sheltered and fed, then a single 3.0 credit hour semester long class like this should hover around the $400 mark without materials.

 

Students could have bought Autechre's entire catalog including tracks on compilations and remixes for well under $200 on iTunes, grabbed a used copy of "Generation Ecstasy" by Simon Reynolds and gotten up to speed on basically everything related to the inception and development of Autechre. They would still have plenty left over to get some Stockhausen, David Tudor, Iannis Xenakis and really dig into it. All the Autechre I own (which is everything--remixes, live sets, JP exclusives and even WATMM fakes lol) is 2 days and 14 hours of listening. Taking 16 weeks to analyze it--even pulling on the predecessors and contemporaries of Autechre--seem s like a stretch.

 

Good for you for offering this class and it would be fun to take but it's symptomatic of larger problems of American university. If we got partially or wholly subsidized like most of the Europeans on this board, then it would be a non-issue. But the American kid, barring grants and scholarships, is running the tab of a lifetime. I'm afraid that since tuition has increased by 458% since the 90's while wages have either stayed flat or dropped dramatically and unemployment clinging to 10% and higher in some areas, an 18 year-old-kid is ill-informed as to what the best things are to order on the menu when they know the bill will be 20,000 or more. In the case of University of Buffalo, you could be staring down $70,000 for a 4 year degree.

 

As a liberal arts graduate, I never thought I would say this but go to Tulsa Welding School or get a $6,000 Associates in nursing, ultrasonography or network administration and bust $30K minimum a year the minute you walk out of the doors and rise steadily from there--the seniors in my nursing program have a job waiting for them upon graduation. Buy all the Autechre you want including the hardware and software to make music just like it. There's a reason why I have a Ph.D English professor in my nursing school cohort. She's there for the same reasons I am...no one is tending the light at the end of the lib. arts tunnel unless you can get in on the actual racket itself.

ab-so-fucking lutely man. that's why i dropped out. there are benefits but you have to be doing the right thing.

Really cool, man! I had two thoughts:

Is the Prefuse track the only example of hip-hop's use of sampling you assign? I know you're leaning toward ae's links to experimental electronic music, but it does seem fair to say that understanding the rhythm & composition of classic hip-hop tunes helps a lot in learning to hear the music expression/content of many ae tunes.

Second, I didn't understand "(no value judgments!)" -- well, I took you to mean that they can't just write "It sucked lol", but you could say this more concretely by saying something like, 'Try to use more descriptive than evaluative language -- write what you hear, before you make any judgments about whether or not you believe it is musically good or bad,' or whatever.

I hope the class is going well! You should post some of your students' papers here (removing names if you feel that's fair ;) ).

play some erik b and rakim.

lol.

  On 11/3/2010 at 9:46 PM, vamos scorcho said:

yooo... jacob gotlib. did you go to oberlin? i did a summer camp there a while back and i swear you played us something off of untilted during a listening session

I did! Were you in my class in Summer '06? I remember doing a lesson on "Bine" for you guys, maybe a couple others as well. Small world...

  On 11/3/2010 at 9:53 PM, encey said:

Really cool, man! I had two thoughts:

 

Is the Prefuse track the only example of hip-hop's use of sampling you assign? I know you're leaning toward ae's links to experimental electronic music, but it does seem fair to say that understanding the rhythm & composition of classic hip-hop tunes helps a lot in learning to hear the music expression/content of many ae tunes.

 

Second, I didn't understand "(no value judgments!)" -- well, I took you to mean that they can't just write "It sucked lol", but you could say this more concretely by saying something like, 'Try to use more descriptive than evaluative language -- write what you hear, before you make any judgments about whether or not you believe it is musically good or bad,' or whatever.

 

I hope the class is going well! You should post some of your students' papers here (removing names if you feel that's fair ;) ).

The Prefuse has to do with a discussion on performance in electronic music. I found video clips of them performing "Radio Attack," and I wanted them to listen to it without the video so they can think about how it might have been performed. Then we watched it and talked about whether it corresponded to what they imagined. Afterwards, I played them a portion of an Autechre live set in complete darkness, and THAT yielded some interesting discussion!

I think if I do the class again I want to touch more on hip-hop since it is a big influence, and maybe I'll reconsider Prefuse in that context. I wish I could post some of their papers for you all to read, but unfortunately that would be against the law (FERPA) even if I did remove names...

Also, good point about the "value judgments" thing -- I'll try to word it in that way next time. But the way I explained it to them was exactly the way you said it -- that we're not here to judge music, we're here to think about it.

  On 11/4/2010 at 5:12 PM, jacobg said:

  On 11/3/2010 at 9:46 PM, vamos scorcho said:

yooo... jacob gotlib. did you go to oberlin? i did a summer camp there a while back and i swear you played us something off of untilted during a listening session

 

I did! Were you in my class in Summer '06? I remember doing a lesson on "Bine" for you guys, maybe a couple others as well. Small world...

 

  On 11/3/2010 at 9:53 PM, encey said:

Really cool, man! I had two thoughts:

 

Is the Prefuse track the only example of hip-hop's use of sampling you assign? I know you're leaning toward ae's links to experimental electronic music, but it does seem fair to say that understanding the rhythm & composition of classic hip-hop tunes helps a lot in learning to hear the music expression/content of many ae tunes.

 

Second, I didn't understand "(no value judgments!)" -- well, I took you to mean that they can't just write "It sucked lol", but you could say this more concretely by saying something like, 'Try to use more descriptive than evaluative language -- write what you hear, before you make any judgments about whether or not you believe it is musically good or bad,' or whatever.

 

I hope the class is going well! You should post some of your students' papers here (removing names if you feel that's fair ;) ).

 

The Prefuse has to do with a discussion on performance in electronic music. I found video clips of them performing "Radio Attack," and I wanted them to listen to it without the video so they can think about how it might have been performed. Then we watched it and talked about whether it corresponded to what they imagined. Afterwards, I played them a portion of an Autechre live set in complete darkness, and THAT yielded some interesting discussion!

 

I think if I do the class again I want to touch more on hip-hop since it is a big influence, and maybe I'll reconsider Prefuse in that context. I wish I could post some of their papers for you all to read, but unfortunately that would be against the law (FERPA) even if I did remove names...

  On 10/31/2010 at 7:22 PM, Awepittance said:

add morton subotnick and aphex twin to that list as well (yes autechre was inspired by aphex twin, sorry)

haha just like Meshuggah were really into old Metallica but I can't stand any of that shit despite being pretty damn obsessed with Meshuggah

Cool dude, well wicked sounding class!