La Monte Young:The Second Dream of the HighTension Line Step

[nstan78]

well is it sadly so or is it great... it's like not knowing a language and listening to a song where you just don't get what the person is saying although you can hear it... while in fact the song can have wonderful passionate deep lyrics that with the the melody convey a very strong feeling of happiness or sadness... I don't know what to think of it... I guess education is essential in recognizing works of art...

[MatoSilverati]

when nothing is in your mind, or just neurotics feelings, minimalist downtown music will full u up..music is expresion, first of all.

[avafiery]

2 words: Acquired Taste

[RADIOKLOW]

Just splendid as a slow motion of light in high harmonic landscapes.

[keepcalmycarryon]

Does anyone have a copy of this live??? I would love to give that a listen. I hear he did a 85 minute version of Second Dream last year at BU.

[MrJihadjared]

Wow never heard of this guy before!! I once wrote a lady gaga song and now im addicted to heroin. This is a good song, does he have any albums? Going to tell the DJ at the club to play my gaga song and then this.

[emdotambient]

While the cultural and musicological background of a piece of music can be helpful in understanding where it comes from, it really doesn't take a technical or intellectual understanding to appreciate music like this. What's required, though, is that you forget your preconceived expectations of what music should be. You can't appreciate this music with a MP3 culture pop song mentality, just as you cannot appreciate a great dance track with a La Monte Young mentality. You have to learn to listen..

[emdotambient]

@emdotambient --cont--..in a whole new way. I think this piece was from something like 1962, a time when this was very radical and unexpected. And if you give it the time and attention you would to, say, reading a book rather than a comic book, uh, graphic novel, you might find something in it of value. Or maybe not. If not, try something more traditional like Japanese gagaku.

[LouigiVerona]

Beautiful piece.

[rockorsario]

yea it is god for being pioneer of drone

[Gmackematix]

Call me a Phillistine but this audio Zen for insomniacs seems to have little benefit to the worlds of music or science. Does this guy actually make a living from producing drones? Having tried the hum of a transformer has he tried anything more ambitious like the swoosh of a washing machine?

[aguador67]

@Gmackematix It's the same as consider a dash in a blank canvas as an "artwork". Or some irregular pieces mounted one above the other ("sculpture") and call this "The weight of days". Take example from Dalí. It's a surreal artist. Some of his works are nonsense. But try to paint a work as "La madona de Port Lligat". You can see effort, you can see mastery in drawing. And, of course, you can see genius.

[matttttt84]

@Gmackematix

the dude's made millions from all this obviously

[sudokuwkroku]

Dziwne to. :/

[Junmonsterr]

this gets my heart beating a little faster

[rago10]

....first i hated it.... then , thinking of a hot hot area , getting mad of the heed , i definitely agree with disturbing kind of atmosphere . ...no water, no food, just sand, the sun burning down like a hell fire, getting mad , snakes biting ..... death valleys calling ... aaaoooooooooooghhhhrrrmmmphhhh

[rago10]

....first i hated it.... then , thinking of a hot hot area , getting mad of the heed , i definitely agree with disturbing kind of atmosphere . ...no water, no food, just sand, the sun burning down like a hell fire, getting mad , snakes biting ..... death valleys calling ... aaaoooooooooooghhhhrrrmmmphhhh

[8bitsaur]

just awesome

[dahuka]

Sounds like the score to a Kubrick film.

[joss364]

Great!

[fuckmyburger]

i dont mean to be rude, and i respect everyones tastes and everythiong but i have to ask: what is thwe point of this? am i supposed to enjoy listening to this?

[Requiem77777]

This sounds more as a study of sounds... The problem of contemporary music is that it needs to be enjoyed with some sort of understanding of music, when you can analyse it and so on... At the firsts steps it sounds strange, but once you analyse it counciously, it may become a wonderfull work which you might appreciate a lot... Here for instance we hear a lot of dissonance but it becomes perfectly consonnant arount 1:45...

[Berliozboy]

@Requiem77777 i feel it requires no analysis, and neither does most modern music. It just sounds interesting, and sometimes extremely beautiful.

[DerangedRanger1]

@Berliozboy nice analysis.

[shangoyal]

@Berliozboy exactly the point.

[sinisterniik]

@Requiem77777 You're approaching music from entirely the wrong angle. The most important thing is the audible result, not the compositional method behind it. Yes, complex techniques can be intellectually satisfying, but even Schoenberg hated it when anyone focused more on his twelve-tone technique than the actual musical content of a piece.

You'll get more enjoyment out of contemporary works if you simply accept them for what they are without trying to impose 18th century sensibilities on them.

[maximumsatann]

@sinisterniik Perhaps a different angle, not the wrong one.

[bearsrider]

@Requiem77777 - I'm not completely agree. The terms "dissonance" and "consonance" are related to Tonal Music. You have to be completely estranged from the old forms, structures and rules of Tonal Music to understand, appreciate and describe Atonal Music.

Apart from that, you pinpointed the heart of the matter.

[normloman]

@Requiem77777

I don't understand shit about music.

Just listen to the sounds

and let them take you somewhere.

Contemporary music ain't got a problem.

[5191263]

@Requiem77777

unfortunately, this is the problem of all music...

i prefer the term "listening" to "analysis"

this is no more difficult to understand than a summer's night on a lake

[TallFastLoud]

@5191263 listening and analysis are inseparable. when you "listen" to music without analyzing, either your brain is not fully coding the input or you're analyzing it subconsciously without realizing it. the distinction between conceptual art and non-conceptual art is a false dichotomy.

[pood2thenoobie]

@TallFastLoud again...really not sure if you know what any of this means...

[jackstein104]

@5191263 ya but one must first learn to listen to certain music genres such as this and that usually requires analysis...

[pood2thenoobie]

@Requiem77777

I'm not sure you know what any of what you're saying means...

[mrzombiepants]

i wonder why you can't enjoy it?

[saladshootavvv]

well....yes

You have to ask yourself, why don't you like listening to this? Really, it's important to ask that.

This work deals with slow transitions and interactions between intervals, whether they be microtonal or equal tempered. I find it intense, insanely profound, and just plain gorgeous! The construction of sound is just genius. Have you ever tried to sustain sound like this? It's hard to keep it interesting, but he does it! Try composing and maybe you'll understand a little more :)

[herma57]

Nice photo, this was when he played his 9 hour, "Well-Tuned piano" in New York City;just intonation piano, needs tuning evety few hours after playing;

[bonjourmyfriends]

A gasm of the ear.

[gasho333]

how very eargasmic

[retrocareermelted]

thank you guys for not commenting "eargasm" i hate that term

[Jambozal]

To give this it's full name: The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer

[GreatBigSlide]

Ahhh, the joy you can get from a simple drone. Yet it says so much to those who enjoy it.

People who say it's just repetitive, PSH to them!

[musicalidea]

It's by no means simple! Or repetitive!

[fissionmail3d]

Of course it's repetitive. That's the point.

[emilygclarinet]

This is very relaxing.

[TerrierBram]

Any wondering about consciousness is a sign of consciousness.

[Computerrorist]

@TerrierBram

cogito ergo sum ;)

[bobbycormier]

wow it's so great to hear lamonte young after so many years. - bobby cormier

[dmtsymphony]

Everything comes from thought and the senses?

What a horribly depressing viewpoint. Pure consciousness is untainted by the duality of thought and judgement. Senses aid consumption. Senses sell product. Consciousness is the unified field, the One. The Godhead. The mind is merely a prison, the ego is a blockade to your higher being. Do not be a slave to your conditioning. Do some meditating and connect with the Now.If this music assists you in that, then perhaps it will help to evolve your "senses

[TerrierBram]

If you really would be that conscious as you pretend here than you also would know that it doesn't matter at all if somebody has a view on consciousness through the senses.Because you would know that yours isn't better,it is the balance that counts.

[defdeezy]

you are a slave to the metaphysical. which doesn't exist. learn to love life for what it is, and for your own horribly crippled sense perception, and don't let yourself get caught up in bullshit word games. i mean, really, the godhead??? stfu. indeed senses aid consumption--that's all humans really do, besides language (art). you strike me as someone who doesn't know what you're talking about. and if a viewpt.'s validity comes from how depressing it is, you must hate much philosophy.

[echoplus2020]

youtube is not the place for philosophy of consciousness debates. You can take classes for that.

[defdeezy]

the educational system is an indoctrinational one. if youtube isn't the place to disseminate opinion and discourse then i don't know what is. fuck you.

[Diosade]

Youtube is whatever you want it to be

[herma57]

gret stuff, cant find this anywheres;

[tokyohalogen]

black bile muzak from uranus

[Metamorphines]

Intuition is not instinct per se.

[mascolores]

oh, thanks!

[25Hz]

Good music. The true foundation of the droneology movement.

[singana1]

haha droneology movement. i've never heard that one before. i like it.

[GodinSDXTguitars]

Very strange, but good music in it's own, very unaccessible way, I enjoy it.

[FIPITYFLIP]

Brilliant. Sounds like the voice of conciousness. A constant tone with armonic an disonant thoughts that changes in time but still go back to the basic tone ( thought).

[tegestologist]

Um.."the voice of consciousness?" Consciousness has a voice and it is the noise that emanates from your vocal chords and the words that you write on paper. And how does the "basic tone" equal thought? Thinking is by nature an active process that necessarily involves content. Please explain to me how a basic tone with little musical content can be used as an analogy for thoughts and consciousness.

Consciousness and thought are different things.

[bragergutten]

Hello., You see your consciousness has to make a trip from thought to vocal chords, and that is a perilious journey. This is where society and culture and history distubes your consciousness, and so it is not "pure" any more if you like. You see?

[tegestologist]

I think you are trying to say that consciousness is like this space where thought, feelings, sensations, etc. takes place. This song, with the consonant harmony, immobile drones, etc, reminds you of that space (consciousness). The harmonic and dissonant sounds are the thoughts that take place against the background of the constant tone (consciousness).

Now that you got me thinking about it, its a good analogy. Great job.

[defdeezy]

consciousness and thought are the same thing. we cannot separate thought as a self-executing and recursive mode without the world around us. all of our knowledge comes from sense experience.

[joznick1]

everything comes from sense experience

[defdeezy]

for a human.

[mikrokosmik]

what about the knowledge a newborn has to start breathing?

[Metamorphines]

Are images thought? You say all of our knowledge comes from sense experience what about intuition and feeling?

[defdeezy]

when have you ever met a disembodied brain wave, which did all of its thinking without any reference to the real world? intuition, that is, instinct, is one of the crucial aspects of understanding reality for non-human animals. feeling's an extension of that. so, yes, the two come from sensory experience, in my opinion.

[FIPITYFLIP]

Yeah, that´s what I meant. You expressed it better than me though. : )

[hellmuth26]

good background music for getting stoned to, but other than that?

[singana1]

try listening to it on loud speakers and walking around a room

[timothymorton303]

What genius put this here? Wow.

[Animalll2003lll]

and if you want to compare your answers with other's just email me I'll send you the most common things people see in the music so you know if you're off the track or not.

cheers, and thanks for your help!!!!

[Animalll2003lll]

I also need impressions for this piece, The Second Dream Of The High Tension Line Step by La Monte Young. so please send a 2nd questionnaire with your impressions about Young's piece written in any of the boxes---just make sure to write "Young/Second Dream" before starting to write so that I know it's not for one of the 3 other pieces that the questionnaire is designed for.

Thanks. just listen to the music and give your impressions/ free association comments. it's actually pretty fun.

[Animalll2003lll]

Hi! Would you like to help on a study to better understand cultural evolution, memetics, trends, and the influence of zeitgeists on music and human activities in general? If so please fill in this questionnaire--it's quick and fun. You just have to give your impressions on 3 pieces of music.

Here's the form (add dot and remove space!):

fd2.formdesk(dot)com/tagg/Chau sseauMinimal

If you are interested by the research/ results, email me !

[dragonguyver]

I'm interested but this link doesn't seam to work.

there's a space there that seems like it must not be right.

[liberation2008]

reminds me of hesse's siddhartha

could be the sound of truth

[HagiaSophia]

"I have my own definition of minimalism, which is that which is created with a minimum of means." - La Monte Young

[tylernoreika]

Brilliant.

[hazzza350]

soooo boring

[gaggOLF]

Yep. But it's still a very good message.

[otacon451]

like alot of things in life, it might grow on you

[Rick02115]

that's not enough?!

[bezmolvie]

minimalist music is the only thing that does not suck about modernist and postmodernist art.

[monsterjazzlicks]

AWESOME !! i have NEVER heard anything of Young before, but i have read about him in various 'Minimilist' books. This guy is up there with the hippest (Reich, Riley, Glass).

[skutari]

my brain hurts

[HotBadgerDeluxe]

Brilliant! I had a recording of this, but it died in a major hardware failure. Must try and find a copy...