[HN Gopher] In B-Flat (2009)
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       In B-Flat (2009)
        
       Author : Keegs
       Score  : 167 points
       Date   : 2024-03-25 21:49 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.inbflat.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.inbflat.net)
        
       | ziofill wrote:
       | <3
        
       | seanhunter wrote:
       | Really lovely idea and brilliant execution.
       | 
       | For people who don't get the reference, one of the defining
       | pieces of the Minimalist movement in 20th century music[1] was
       | "In C" by Terry Riley[2]. Minimalist pieces often (but don't
       | always) include elements of non-determinsm like in this.
       | 
       | [1] Minimalism here doesn't mean "not many notes" it means
       | deliberately restricting the range of harmonic and rhythmic
       | materials available to the composer. Steve Reich, Philip Glass,
       | John Adams, and Arvo Part represent well-known composers with
       | very different takes on the style if you want to check out more.
       | 
       | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_C to read about "In C" or
       | try
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbTn79x-mrI&pp=ygUQaW4gYyB0Z...
       | as an example performance.
        
         | croisillon wrote:
         | that reminds me Nyman's "In Re Don Giovanni"
        
         | jahnu wrote:
         | Agreed! Such a lovely simple effective idea.
         | 
         | Also reminds me of
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po%C3%A8me_symphonique
        
         | gnulinux wrote:
         | > Minimalism here doesn't mean "not many notes" it means
         | deliberately restricting the range of harmonic and rhythmic
         | materials available to the composer
         | 
         | This is not necessarily what minimalism means. Minimalism is
         | just an abstraction for certain kinds of art, possibly with
         | various incompatible techniques. For some artists (not just
         | musicians, but also painters, poets etc) minimalism means
         | "repetition"-ism i.e. art with excessive amount of repetition
         | to the point that you'd normally expect it to be "boring" but
         | it somehow uses it to its favor with rhythmic, harmonic, or
         | formal techniques. Philip Glass is the pioneer of this idea in
         | music, and I personally consider him one of the most creative
         | and groundbreaking artists ever lived. His music is very tonal,
         | "simple" and repetitive in his oeuvre (i.e. repetition not just
         | in one work, but repetition among his body of works like
         | minimalist painters Mondrian and Rothko) which makes him a very
         | _very_ controversial musician, some critics considering him a
         | charlatan. To me, he 's a Schoenbergian figure who is making a
         | bombastic and over-the-top artistic statement by going against
         | the current of his artistic tradition while remaining firmly in
         | it. Similarly, Schoenberg was also considered a charlatan
         | during his life, especially early on.
         | 
         | For those interested, I recommend this composition:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKJoQ8BfQhw (full on spotify,
         | sorry)
         | 
         | Oh also if you ever think "classical music doesn't have a
         | cultural force anymore" please pay attention to contemporary
         | film music that's not neo-romanticist. You'll see that there is
         | tons of minimalist influence from Glass, Reich, Andriessen,
         | Richter etc...
        
           | BeFlatXIII wrote:
           | > Oh also if you ever think "classical music doesn't have a
           | cultural force anymore" please pay attention to contemporary
           | film music that's not neo-romanticist. You'll see that there
           | is tons of minimalist influence from Glass, Reich,
           | Andriessen, Richter etc...
           | 
           | And music from horror movies and battle scenes if you want to
           | hear the contemporary influence of serialism and new
           | complexity.
        
       | gnrlst wrote:
       | This was a delightful experience
        
       | zote wrote:
       | Best thing I've seen on the internet this year
        
       | nickradford wrote:
       | This brought a smile to my face :D
        
       | epiccoleman wrote:
       | God, I love this kind of thing. Beautiful!
        
       | gryfft wrote:
       | I remember showing this to a roommate's mom over a decade ago.
       | She wondered aloud if it was like The Emperor's New Clothes or if
       | we simply didn't understand music well enough to know why we
       | shouldn't enjoy this.
       | 
       | I still like it, whatever it says about me.
        
         | npinsker wrote:
         | I like it too. It's an experiment in musical texture -- not to
         | downplay the curation involved in getting a nice mix of
         | instruments, which I'm sure took some skill.
         | 
         | To me, it's a bit similar to Skrillex or Rite of Spring, both
         | of which I like almost completely because of their texture. If
         | you like it, if you don't, that's fine -- no need to be
         | prescriptivist about it. At the end of the day it's all just
         | vibrations.
        
         | timvdalen wrote:
         | What suggests that you shouldn't like it?
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _In B-Flat_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15941838 -
       | Dec 2017 (43 comments)
        
       | nerdponx wrote:
       | I really enjoyed these 3 together:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSfM2V8EkI
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB7NxVpskI0
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmKWkiDAm5k
       | 
       | Great atmosphere. Makes me think of a good video game soundtrack.
       | Interestingly they don't sound good if you only play 2 of them,
       | you need all 3 to pull the harmony together.
        
       | AlecSchueler wrote:
       | Doesn't run on mobile, which is fine not everything has to. But
       | could someone describe the page for those of us who can't right
       | now?
        
         | saurik wrote:
         | It is a grid of embedded YouTube videos, each one of which
         | including "in B-flat" or "in Bb" in the title (and so are
         | pretty much all someone playing some random song on some random
         | instrument... in B-flat).
        
         | InitialLastName wrote:
         | On my Pixel 6A + Firefox it says it doesn't run but runs fine
         | if I click through the dialog.
         | 
         | It's a grid of youtube embeds linking videos of people playing
         | simple, improvised sequences in Bb on different instruments.
         | They can be played in different orders, combinations and
         | overlaps to create different textures.
        
         | skywhopper wrote:
         | It's a grid of Youtube videos, each of someone playing a
         | musical instrument of various sorts (electric guitar, piano,
         | clarinet, marimba, muted trumpet, voice, KAOSS synth pad, a
         | Nintendo DS), making music in the key of B-flat major. The
         | instructions are to start the videos at any time and in any
         | order. By doing so, the audio of each overlays each other and
         | since they are all in tune with each other, it all sounds like
         | the timing could have been intentional. Each video is about 90
         | seconds long and you can press play again on each to repeat it
         | if you like.
         | 
         | It reminds me (presumably intentionally) of Terry Riley's "In
         | C" in which any number of musicians on any instruments perform
         | together on stage. All following the same tempo, they each have
         | a set of music giving several dozen short sequences of notes.
         | They each, individually, decide when to come in, how many times
         | to repeat each sequence, and when to move on to the next
         | sequence. As the piece continues, the soundscape is constantly
         | evolving in an unpredictable way, but always in tune with each
         | other and pleasant in its harmony. Each time it's performed,
         | even by all the same musicians, then, it sounds different, yet
         | the same. It's a really fascinating piece and if you get the
         | chance to see it performed live, I highly recommend it, because
         | it's a lot of fun to watch the musicians themselves experience
         | the performance and feed off each other.
         | 
         | Check out this YouTube search for a variety of live
         | performances:
         | https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=in+c+live
        
           | AlecSchueler wrote:
           | Thanks for your insightful answer. I've long been a fan of In
           | C and various performances so I'll certainly be looking
           | forward to experiencing this tonight.
        
       | betweenness wrote:
       | I enjoyed playing with this. On a different note, do you gather
       | data about the different ways visitors play the videos?
        
       | cglendenning wrote:
       | I am deeply offended by the key of Bb. </dryhumor>
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | If you get one more note wrong, we'll all be flat
        
       | ta988 wrote:
       | Getting some Godspeed you Black Emperor vibes
        
       | recursive wrote:
       | > In Bb doesn't run properly on mobile devices. Please use a
       | laptop/desktop. If you'd like to try anyway please click OK.
       | 
       | But I am running this on a laptop.
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-26 23:00 UTC)