making music without hearing it

Beethoven has pulled this off 200 years ago

Have you ever tried making music without listening to it in the process?

https://cytoplantastic.bandcamp.com/album/tribute-to-wearing-headphones-without-listening-to-anything

I think a few of the tracks on here where made using that approach right? I know mine was (edit: although if I recall correctly I did listen in for the vocal mangling)

it's called deafcore

yeah this is my main shit tbh. I like to process using some form of pattern based thing in my head for a good 5hrs and then find out what it sounds like.

there was a watmm compilation based around this concept like ten years ago or something

Yes. I actually used to compose in front of students while they were working on projects. I taught an audio class ages ago.

Here is one of those tracks:

https://soundcloud.com/colin-dyer/exercise468

The first computer I ever recorded on was the one Mac my school owned back in the early 90s (they had a couple PCs but those didn't have audio cards).

This was back when FULL DUPLEX SOUND was SERIOUS, so it didn't have that.  You could record or play back, but not at the same time, so at lunch a couple friends and I would get together and multitrack on it in Sound Edit 16 without being able to monitor what we had already recorded.  Plus I don't know what the record latency was, but you'd definitely have to measure it in seconds not milliseconds, so there was really no chance of having any control of how things lined up.

Other than that I only really do it if I'm recording stuff that I'll sample from later. Record something, do some blind overdubs, and then just plumb it for parts that are worth sampling.  I've done that two or three times in the last week alone.

  On 4/3/2019 at 7:25 PM, darreichungsform said:

Beethoven has pulled this off 200 years ago

Have you ever tried making music without listening to it in the process?

He heard it in his head, he knew howd a cello or piano sound on d minor. Try to predict how will a granular or fm synth sound in d minor, legato... you mabye could but why would you? I doubt beethoven was happy with his illness

  On 4/5/2019 at 12:58 PM, xox said:

 

  On 4/3/2019 at 7:25 PM, darreichungsform said:

Beethoven has pulled this off 200 years ago

Have you ever tried making music without listening to it in the process?

He heard it in his head, he knew howd a cello or piano sound on d minor. Try to predict how will a granular or fm synth sound in d minor, legato... you mabye could but why would you? I doubt beethoven was happy with his illness

 

  On 4/5/2019 at 12:58 PM, xox said:

 

  On 4/3/2019 at 7:25 PM, darreichungsform said:

Beethoven has pulled this off 200 years ago

Have you ever tried making music without listening to it in the process?

He heard it in his head, he knew howd a cello or piano sound on d minor. Try to predict how will a granular or fm synth sound in d minor, legato... you mabye could but why would you? I doubt beethoven was happy with his illness

 

Apparently, Beethoven also used bone conduction to 'hear' his piano by biting down on a rod that was connected to it. You can try it out by biting down on the head of an unplugged electric guitar, it's pretty amazing.

  On 4/5/2019 at 2:13 PM, darreichungsform said:

 

  On 4/5/2019 at 12:58 PM, xox said:

 

  On 4/3/2019 at 7:25 PM, darreichungsform said:

Beethoven has pulled this off 200 years ago

Have you ever tried making music without listening to it in the process?

He heard it in his head, he knew howd a cello or piano sound on d minor. Try to predict how will a granular or fm synth sound in d minor, legato... you mabye could but why would you? I doubt beethoven was happy with his illness

I think in the end the appeal is that something that sounds completely different from what you imagined would be the outcome

Now i understand your music much better ;)

  On 4/5/2019 at 12:58 PM, xox said:

 

  On 4/3/2019 at 7:25 PM, darreichungsform said:

Beethoven has pulled this off 200 years ago

Have you ever tried making music without listening to it in the process?

He heard it in his head, he knew howd a cello or piano sound on d minor. Try to predict how will a granular or fm synth sound in d minor, legato... you mabye could but why would you? I doubt beethoven was happy with his illness

 

That's because he'd spent his life learning the sounds of the orchestra. 

Dedicate the first 30 years of your life to intensely studying and manipulating granular and fm synths and there's no reason why you couldn't do the same.

  On 4/5/2019 at 4:48 PM, Brian Dance said:

 

  On 4/5/2019 at 12:58 PM, xox said:

 

  On 4/3/2019 at 7:25 PM, darreichungsform said:

Beethoven has pulled this off 200 years ago

Have you ever tried making music without listening to it in the process?

He heard it in his head, he knew howd a cello or piano sound on d minor. Try to predict how will a granular or fm synth sound in d minor, legato... you mabye could but why would you? I doubt beethoven was happy with his illness

That's because he'd spent his life learning the sounds of the orchestra.

 

Dedicate the first 30 years of your life to intensely studying and manipulating granular and fm synths and there's no reason why you couldn't do the same.

Second part im not sure is the same as knowing the orchestra bc tou dont have standardized synths of any kind especially not granular and fm ones and they’re much more unpredictable than a piano or chello where timber is much less important in classical music vs el music. Sure it’s possible but also quite different imo

Edit: also, in ‘classical’ music you have conductors and musicians which have am excellent hearing and knowledge of music (...theory) and they can interpret the score to he even better than what was written

I've only done it as a novelty at this point so far, like drawing or writing stuff that shows up in a stereogram. I think i'd prefer the inverse, where I have to listen but can't see anything, like Stevie Wonder.

on the beak we had each person provide samples to each other and make a track without previewing the samples or listening to the work until it was done. here was fred's track: