Gonna repost this here Adam! I think you’ll appreciate it. You know what’s a fine illusion that is fairly conventionally musical? Third matrices - circle-of-thirds compositions. The most famous & pioneering ones are of course by John Coltrane: “Giant Steps” (tonal center continuously descending in major thirds from B to G to Eb and again), and “Central Park West” (tonal centers in minor third relation to one another, including a modulation by tritone - B to D to Ab to F and again). “Giant Steps” especially feels as though it is both ascending and descending in key infinitely, and the changing tonic simultaneously acts as a changing home base as much as it acts as a pivot to the next key. There is also a completely under-discussed example: “Knights of Cydonia”, a fairly popular song by Muse, cycles in descending major thirds through the same guitar & vocal motif performed in E minor -> C minor, then C minor -> G# minor, then G# minor -> E minor. And interestingly about this song, the melodic motion is upward as it modulates, yet the keys are most easily understood as being in plagal, *down-leading* relation to the key before. To me the song repeatedly feels like it’s rising to the heavens as much as it’s surrendering itself to the dirt. Exploiting the cycle of keys gives the impression of a new key in fractal-like relation to the last one, even though it is harmonically identical to the key played one cycle before. One might want to say that that key is completely new. For instance, B major might actually feel like C-flat major due to continuously descending in thirds. E minor becomes “F-flat minor” if G# minor is read as Ab minor instead, even though Ab minor is more coherently modulated to from a key like C minor as it is a major third down instead of a diminished fourth down. A move from D major to the key a tritone away can be read as Ab major or G# major, which recontextualizes the key a minor third above as Cb major as well as it could B major. One could read it also as though it were indeed that same key being played again, or as though the song is continuously progressing to a key that truly resolves it. And all of these interpretations would be simultaneously correct and incorrect because the notes relate harmoniously, but the tonics are dissonant to one another such that the roots of each tonic would become ambiguous - “perfectly dissonant”? - if put together as a chord (an augmented or diminished seventh chord), though harmonious - imperfectly consonant - if the chord resulting were separated into dyads (major or minor thirds). A modulation by major third, diminished fourth, minor sixth, or augmented fifth can be sensorily interpreted from the same modulation... and namely, when modulating by a tritone like occurs in “Central Park West”, the relation by augmented fourth or diminished fifth is ambiguous and becomes simultaneously upward and quintal in movement as much as downward and plagal in movement. Like the Shepard tone, it’s a musical Penrose stairs. Up morphs into down, down morphs into up, consonance quickly becomes read as dissonance and vice-versa, yet the structure itself is cyclical and unchanging.
And indeed, you can make a dissonant interval sound consonant through chordal extension. A sharp eleven and a sharp fifteen are both fairly common in music (namely the former), even though they both create dissonance with the root and fifth of the chord. And even a major seventh becomes dissonant the moment that it is inverted, as it creates minor ninth dissonance. But if thirds are stacked in an alternating pattern of major and minor, they become consonant by being quintally related to one another. This is illusory consonance because the chord as a whole has dissonances that can be brought out of it.
On the subject of negative space, there's an auditory illusion called the Zwicker Tone where a listener is played white noise that contains a spectral gap. When the noise is switched off, listeners perceive a single tone ringing in their ear which fills the spectral gap. Theoretically, you could create a melody using white noise samples with differently spectral gaps, corresponding to the notes of a scale. It would probably be a bit irritating to listen to... a burst of white noise followed by "tuned tinnitus", then another burst of white noise!
@@DBruce the solution is to use some of the popular forms, the drums kit, electric bass, accessible tonal melodies, and then use these various devices with or without additional instrumentation which could be anything, string sections, bass sections, synthesizers
Mandelbrot was a formidably creative figure whom I was honored to interview in the eighties. My article in the College Math Journal and the interview from "Mathematical People" are both available for free online to anyone who's curious.
And you ended the video with the same piece. The fast never ending pattern encapsuled the whole video pretty nicely. Easy to come up with but one still gets a nice feeling out of it.
Although not exactly an illusion, it's worth checking out Alvin Luciers "I Am Sitting In A Room", where Lucier records himself speaking a short sentence ("I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now...") plays it, records the playback, then repeats the process over and over again. Each "re-re-recording" imperceptibly adds overtones, so that by the 10-minute mark the speech starts to become indistinct, and it eventually turns into nothing but "musical" notes. I find it quite fascinating.
It's actually a gradual creation of reverberation formed by the acoustics of the space in which the piece is recorded. That's the critical component of the piece. The gradual accretion of the individual parts describes the physical acoustical space in which the speaker is speaking, in much the same way that a series of photons shot from different positions in different directions bouncing around a three dimensional reflective space would result in the visible manifestation of that space.
@@PabloPerroPerro ha! exactly. that upward shepard scale built up so much anticipation, it made me run for much longer than i would have without it i guess. well. at least one did not have to walk the same distance down again to get out :D
I have a modern auditory illusion for you. Its by a contemporary artist, Nine Inch Nails. A song called The Background World on the Add Violence album. Please don't let the title scare you away, its quite brilliant. The track ends on a phrase that ends not on a full measure but is very clear. Slowly he introduces distortion over many bars. At the end the sound is mangled beyond recognition to straight white noise. Jump to the end and listen, but if you listen to the whole section, you can still hear the musical phase in the noise. Amazing! Especially when you consider the title of the track.
Electronica giants Autechre’s track Fold4, Wrap5 always reminds me of the Shepard’s tone. Instead of a continuous change in pitch we get a continuous change in rhythm. The is achieved by slowing the tempo of a straight 4/4 rhythm to half it’s original speed over the course of two bars, but then double timing the latter half of the second bar, in effect adding an extra 2 beats, and landing the tempo right back where it was at the beginning of bar 1. For me, it produces the sensation of constantly falling. over backwards..
A worthwhile example of the constant change in tempo illusion is Autechre's fold4 wrap5 which continuously slows down while subtly introducing more rapid subdivisions to create a cycle, like a machine revving down.
I’m pretty sure from listening the illusion comes from 2 Risset processes that function in polymeter, so you lose the sense of phrasing. It’s the greatest rhythmic illusion I’ve heard, although unfortunately kind of a boring piece of music
I love that track, and I came here to comment about it, too. A couple of years ago, Second Woman made an entire album around this concept, undoubtedly inspired by fold4 wrap5, it's called S/W, and it's dealing with the illusion on a much faster rate, right where rhythm becomes low tones. It's pretty great. ruclips.net/video/xYtWu1uPfa8/видео.html
Isaac Dweck ? What a silly and foolish thing to say. Being a good musician (composer, performer, whatever) does not mean you need to be good at “getting” or not getting one composer’s style and music easily. Also, it’s sounds like you used “basic music” as an insult. What wrong with basic. Is complexity better music? No. Listening to a piece with 128 independent voices playing at once doesn’t mean that piece is better than say, a Bach fugue, with usually 2-4 voices. Listening to a piece with complex, ever changing 20 note chord harmonies is not automatically better than one of Satie’s Gymnopedies, which consist of simple (mostly) harmony. Up next, “basic math”. All music is pretty much math. Rhythms, math. Time signatures, math. Harmonies, math. The sound of notes, math. Additionally, math can be a tool, which Ligeti uses, but that does not mean it devalues a piece of music for using math as a device. Finally. is beauty in basic, simple music, as a composer could do so much, with let’s say, 4 pitches/sounds or a small motif. Several popular melodies of today only span an interval of a third or less. I mean hell, the ever popular 4 chord harmony in much of today’s modern music is incredibly popular and loved by many. Not understanding 1 composer for a little while doesn’t make you a bad musician, a piece of music being “basic math” doesn’t mean it’s bad music when music is based on math, and basic music does not bad music.
I think the question of "who's the Escher of music" is an individual perception. For me personally, it's not Ligeti, but Arvo Part. All of his music accomplishes, basically, all of these illusions: Time standing still, fractal-like shapes that are infinitely incrementing, etc.... not to mention, his music is much more accessible to the general public; the way Escher's drawings are.
Wow! What a wonderful homage to the composer who rocked my world when I was eleven in 1968 and changed the course of my musical life forever. Come to think of it, my whole life. Thank you, David.
👀 I never realised how clever vgm was until I started listening to The Consouls - they use the original tunes as jazz 'standards' and make great music which I highly recommend if you like jazz
For me, I don't "hear" the Ligeti illusions if I shut off my analytical part of my brain. The less engaged I am, the less prominent the illusion. Without some of your explanations, I wouldn't have perceived an illusion at all. This is quite the opposite from my experience with optical illusions, for which I have to thoroughly engage my brain in order to not fall for the illusion. Personally I think Bach is closer to Escher since even with my brain as disengaged as possible, I hear the self-similarity. This really could come down to a difference of familiarity. I grew up practicing Bach on the piano since I was a kid, I've only been exposed to Ligeti as an adult.
I agree, it makes more sense to call Bach the Escher of music than Ligeti. It's not necessarily fractals or the illusions that define Escher or Bach, but more so the combining of mathematics and art; creating meaningful mathematical art in which something relatable and recognizably human can be found, e.g. emotions or animals.
I'm glad I found somebody who mirrored by thoughts on this video. It just all seems very forced to me, like I have to lie about what I'm directly experiencing in order to pretentiously go along with these supposed illusions but, as you say, with optical illusions that is rarely an issue. I'm not very familiar with Bach yet though so I'll look into what he might add
@@brodjefferson3513 Illusion is not necessarily fundamental to Escher's art. Bach and Escher share an affinity towards the same kind of clever enigmatic structures that are both mathematical and relatable on a human level, that often leave people wondering how it works. And Bach does actually have his fair share of illusive tricks, e.g the infinitely modulating canon.
I think it’s really telling when he asks “why isn’t Ligeti as popular as Escher?” It’s his pet project of advocating for Ligeti. Ligeti may be fine, but these are not illusions.
I don't know why but David's videos on Illusion look very satisfying. I love his narration and editing as well as his compilation of information , honestly. Thank you, David for enlightening me with interesting techniques and music illusions for composition, etc. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 D I V A D A I V V I A D A V I D
You can do an illusion with keys as well. During a verse or section, you sneakily modulate down a semitone or two, then it sounds like the return to the start is jumping up a key. I've only found two examples: Pirate Jenny by Weill The Dona nobis pacem from Bernstein's Mass. I really admire both of these.
"Otoacoustic emission" seem like a good candidate for musical illusions too. Like, the stuff Maryanne Amacher was working on? It's not as "listening friendly" as Ligeti but it's definitely interesting.
That's the first Pink Floyd song I ever heard. When I was a kid, a neighbour was washing his car and had that song cranked on his ghetto blaster. The guitar sounds blew my mind. Up til that point, I'd never heard anything like that music.
When I saw the title of this video first composer who came to mind was Steve Reich and his "phasing." There's another minimalist who played similar "illusion" games... at least I think- but his name and title of pieces escape me at the moment so I can't even look them up to confirm if I'm remembering correctly. But this is great! I didn't know about many of these Ligeti pieces. Thank you!
David Bruce, you are a beautiful human being. Thank you for continuously creating some of the most inspiring and insightful content any musician or composer could ever ask for. You are a gem.
12:22 I always have a similar feeling when there is some constant noise outside, like a lawnmower for example. After some time it moves into my subconcious and i don't hear it conciously anymore. Only when that noise stops i realize again that it was actually there.
can you please release a video or soundcloud track of the risset rhythm you composed, its honestly one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've heard in a long time!
@ around 9:25- Tchaikovsky does something like this way earlier than any modern composers in his 6th symphony, I believe. He has a melody cross voicing between 1st and 2nd violins if memory serves. But in person, esp. if you're up close to the orchestra, since the 1st violins are on one side and seconds on the other, it creates this stereophonic affect like the melody is moving back and forth from one ear to the other.
David, could you do an analysis of Joe Hisaishi's music and other music from fairly similar composers? (i.e. RUclipsrs like Seycara). There's a certain "texture" to their music that is hard to pinpoint as it follows conventional rules but in a particular way that makes them specifically Joe Hisaishi. Thanks! Loved this vid btw
When I was in high school, I got to hear Atmospheres live by the NY Philharmonic (Ozawa, cond.) It was a little shocking, but I was more shocked at many people getting up and walking out.
This video made a lot of the things I already experienced by playing around with arpeggiators and scales but couldn't explain, fall into place for me. Thx for that.
What I've always admired about Ligeti is exactly what you mention at the end of the video: there's only one way to listen to his music, and that's to LISTEN to it. You can't just have it play in the background while you do household chores. It's music that really demands to be experienced live. And I can tell you from experience: learning his music well enough to perform it is like learning a new language.
great video about a great artist ..who will even more gain in recognition, since the reality around us has changed and is changing....so that his music will be understood by more and more people
Thanks for the great video. I discovered Ligeti in high school. I had an uncle who had the 2001:A Space Odyssey soundtrack. He bought it for the Strauss like everyone else, but I was entranced by the Ligeti. I made him make a tape for me and I listened to it regularly. I still enjoy his music and still have a CD of Le Grand Macabre somewhere. Best of luck in the project with Sequoia. I worked with him briefly here in Portland - nice guy and exceptional musician.
Starting to watch this, so if you don't mention the book Godel, Escher and Bach in this one, I'm going to be maaaaad! One of the most mind blowing book. If you did, never mind my comment lol.
Like the "multiple speed" illusion, I found a technique when overlaying loops of non-tempo-synced lengths where it becomes easy to make extremely long patterns, or indeed, ones that do not repeat on a macroscopic scale in any way. This was really easily done with electronic keyboards and guitars through pedals like the rc-2 looper pedal made by Boss as soon as I got my hand on more than one looper at once. Very fruitful way of making music, one year I managed to record a practically obscene number of things with that as one of the fundamental methods.
My favorite musical illusion is the one I heard in this video where somebody gets like a 100 cheap keyboards and bass them all play E at the same time. The resulting interferences between all the different E’s overtones seemed to create a canvas for its own piece. At some point I started hearing a melody in it and started following it and each time I’d play the video I’d hear a new one each time, so it really reminded me of that fractal space type concept.
Brilliantly informative video and the idea behind Patreon supporters getting to have their 1 minute compositions played by a professional pianist is such a great incentive! Great stuff. Cheers! :)
The bit about windows reminded me of H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Music of Erich Zann," which is in my opinion the greatest fictional work of music of all time. I once tried to make a recording of the music of Erich Zann with a friend of mine, but perhaps appropriately to the story, it has been lost.
Thank you for this wonderful introduction to Ligeti! I fell in love with Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna, and the Requiem excerpts from 2001 when I first heard them as a boy. My explorations into his wider work as an incomplete music major and later in life left me scratching my head but still determined to appreciate his oeuvre. Your explication has given me a new place to start from. Very exciting!
You know what’s a fine illusion that is fairly conventionally musical? Third matrices - circle-of-thirds compositions. The most famous & pioneering ones are of course by John Coltrane: “Giant Steps” (tonal center continuously descending in major thirds from Eb to B to G and again), and “Central Park West” (tonal centers in minor third relation to one another, including a modulation by tritone - B to D to Ab to F and again). “Giant Steps” especially feels as though it is both ascending and descending in key infinitely, and the changing tonic simultaneously acts as a changing home base as much as it acts as a pivot to the next key. There is also a completely under-discussed example: “Knights of Cydonia”, a fairly popular song by Muse, cycles in descending major thirds through the same guitar & vocal motif performed in E minor -> C minor, then C minor -> G# minor, then G# minor -> E minor. And interestingly about this song, the melodic motion is upward as it modulates, yet the keys are most easily understood as being in plagal, *down-leading* relation to the key before. To me the song repeatedly feels like it’s rising to the heavens as much as it’s surrendering itself to the dirt. Exploiting the cycle of keys gives the impression of a new key in fractal-like relation to the last one, even though it is harmonically identical to the key played one cycle before. One might want to say that that key is completely new. For instance, G# minor feeling like A-flat minor instead due to descending in thirds. E minor becomes “F-flat minor” if G# minor is read as Ab minor instead, even though Ab minor is more coherently modulated to from a key like C minor as it is a major third down instead of a diminished fourth down. A move from D major to the key a tritone away can be read as Ab major or G# major, which recontextualizes the key a minor third above as Cb major as well as it could B major. One could read it also as though it were indeed that same key being played again, or as though the song is continuously progressing to a key that truly resolves it. And all of these interpretations would be simultaneously correct and incorrect because the notes relate harmoniously, but the tonics are dissonant to one another such that the roots of each tonic would become ambiguous - “perfectly dissonant”? - if put together as a chord (an augmented or diminished seventh chord), though harmonious - imperfectly consonant - if the chord resulting were separated into dyads (major or minor thirds). A modulation by major third, diminished fourth, minor sixth, or augmented fifth can be sensorily interpreted from the same modulation... and namely, when modulating by a tritone like occurs in “Central Park West”, the relation by augmented fourth or diminished fifth is ambiguous and becomes simultaneously upward and quintal in movement as much as downward and plagal in movement. It’s a musical Penrose stairs. Up morphs into down, down morphs into up, consonance quickly becomes read as dissonance and vice-versa, yet the structure itself is cyclical and unchanging.
Gotta love fractal music. Pretty sure you will love the band GoGo Penguin. 'Branches Break', 'Atomized', 'To The Nth' and 'Hopopono' are some of my favorite formula's.
About the ending: it is not even that not everybody knows how to think about music in an abstract way, but that not everybody wants to. If one thinks about music as a language of emotions, Ligeti is not the way to go and in fact he comes across as disconnected, cold, and abrasive. If we take what is played in concert halls as an indicator, people seem to attend performances to be moved, not to solve complex puzzles. One may even opine that post-WWII wave of “conceptual” music was a fad with little lasting value. Excellent presentation, by the way.
GREAT VIDEO! I love Ligeti's work since the beginning of my career as a composer.... even wrote many pieces using these ideas (Clocks and Clouds is amazing and hard to find. I met Ligeti in person once too when he was here in LA right before he passed). I also realized how this also has become a part of how 1960's synthesizers developed with "sequencers" with patterns and evolving limits to the modular synth CV sequencers work and especially now with LIVE style loops. Ligeti changed everything like Pederecki and Lutoslawski too.
This was a delightful video. You are an excellent teacher, as was Ligeti. I know, because I had some composition lessons with Ligeti in Italy in 1985. He was inspirational. Thanks.
Escher is not looked down by the establishment. He's one of the most esteemed geometers of the 20th century, acknowledged by working mathematicians. On a personal note, he had a cordial relationship with HSM Coxeter, "the King of Geometry".
There are many familiar handles in Escher's work, not so in Ligeti's. But this is a fascinating expose and I am grateful to you for having taught me new things. Thank you.
A wonderful lecture. I've had considerable exposure to abstract art and contemporary classical music (or "serious music") and you've helped me to appreciate these subjects even more. Thanks!
Great video. I love how much Ligeti was mentioned. Someone who takes his ideas further, particularly from Ligeti's earlier music, is Georg Friedrich Haas. Many of his pieces have Shepard tones and a sense of stretched and pulled time. His In Vain and Limited Approximations are quite a trip.
When you're showcasing interesting pieces of music like these, please give us more than a three second sample before talking over it (I understand for some of the modern stuff there are probable copyright claims). But it becomes very hard to hear the musical illusions.
THIS! Also seems to me like the voice over is way louder than the music example. Remember: show don't tell. While your points are interesting, I am way more interested in hearing the music.
Without the video being twice as long idk if it makes sense? I'm very happy with the pacing , seeing as you can just go and listen to any length of any one of these pieces afterwards?? Or just,,,,,open another tab and pause this video???
@@probablyfinlay6101 These are work around that do offer solutions, however I feel the points above are about presentation. I also challenge your point that having a little longer music clips would actually double the length of the vid. It would increase the length, absolutely, but not a lot. Right?
Perhaps David prefers to keep his videos shorter and let us explore for ourselves. That said, I would happily listen to him for an hour. An in-depth look at one work could be great - like Discovering Music on BBC Radio 3.
Thank you for a really educational video on Ligeti and all this great paralells between art and music a most inspiering piece of work David Bruce, and while at it in general always nice to see your videos too! I wish there where some of the videos that could be a little longer(this one is actually comming around really a lot in the time-frame, fantastic!) and cotinue to examine whatever topic it is dealing with but where the music examples are a little longer sometimes and just that there where a chance to go on a little more than these short videos wich are the general concept on youtube often...(when things are interesting you want it to go on for ever) Thanks for a great channel!
what an instersting and inspiring video! as an aspiring visual artist this has brought me so much more curiosity to what the possibilities are with combining these more abstract audio pieces with visual art or even base visual pieces on this music.
Stumbled onto this video, really cool! I'm a bass guitar soloist, and have been working on a cool piece; a 6 note pattern repeated over another bass playing the 1st 5 notes of the same pattern. They eventually match up and that's where the next part comes in. It's too much fun especially adding delays, or harmonizing.
This is cool. I'd never heard of Shepard's tone before. 👍 I've heard it before, but I didn't think anything of it. Definitely a case of something that becomes way more impressive once you know it's there, and what's going on. Ty for the video!
What a brilliantly put together video! Lots of new concepts and associations to get my head around. Btw after watching the fractal image, I looked up at a clock on the wall and it seemed to be moving away from me...
Very interesting stuff, thank you! I'm an overtone singer and I like to play with two overtone melodies and also varying the basic note, leaving the unsuspecting listener to decide what to listen to. The same when I play the tanpura where I often play several melodies at the same time. It is not all that deliberate as I make it sound here though. It's more that I listen very intently to what presents itself. After a while I gain some control over this process and start my illusionist tricks. I love it.
Haas uses both the Shepard’s tone and the Risset rhythm. He just had a percussion work premiered based on a nonstop Risset rhythm that shifted moments of extreme action to extreme stasis
This is wonderful. Thank you so much David. I studied Ligeti back in the 80s at Uni and only discovered Le Grande Macabre last week. What a wonderful blow-out for the ears and mind after so much virus doom! :-)
Great stuff, Maestro Bruce. Ligeti immediately came mind as Escher-esque. The end of Pink Floyd's"Echoes" uses that endlessly rising,'Shepard tone' idea.
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Love the idea of the Risset rhythm! Great video man, love me some Ligeti
Are there many jazz composers influenced by Ligeti's techniques, Adam? 😊
Adam, I love your work.
Gonna repost this here Adam! I think you’ll appreciate it.
You know what’s a fine illusion that is fairly conventionally musical? Third matrices - circle-of-thirds compositions. The most famous & pioneering ones are of course by John Coltrane: “Giant Steps” (tonal center continuously descending in major thirds from B to G to Eb and again), and “Central Park West” (tonal centers in minor third relation to one another, including a modulation by tritone - B to D to Ab to F and again). “Giant Steps” especially feels as though it is both ascending and descending in key infinitely, and the changing tonic simultaneously acts as a changing home base as much as it acts as a pivot to the next key.
There is also a completely under-discussed example: “Knights of Cydonia”, a fairly popular song by Muse, cycles in descending major thirds through the same guitar & vocal motif performed in E minor -> C minor, then C minor -> G# minor, then G# minor -> E minor. And interestingly about this song, the melodic motion is upward as it modulates, yet the keys are most easily understood as being in plagal, *down-leading* relation to the key before. To me the song repeatedly feels like it’s rising to the heavens as much as it’s surrendering itself to the dirt.
Exploiting the cycle of keys gives the impression of a new key in fractal-like relation to the last one, even though it is harmonically identical to the key played one cycle before. One might want to say that that key is completely new. For instance, B major might actually feel like C-flat major due to continuously descending in thirds. E minor becomes “F-flat minor” if G# minor is read as Ab minor instead, even though Ab minor is more coherently modulated to from a key like C minor as it is a major third down instead of a diminished fourth down. A move from D major to the key a tritone away can be read as Ab major or G# major, which recontextualizes the key a minor third above as Cb major as well as it could B major. One could read it also as though it were indeed that same key being played again, or as though the song is continuously progressing to a key that truly resolves it. And all of these interpretations would be simultaneously correct and incorrect because the notes relate harmoniously, but the tonics are dissonant to one another such that the roots of each tonic would become ambiguous - “perfectly dissonant”? - if put together as a chord (an augmented or diminished seventh chord), though harmonious - imperfectly consonant - if the chord resulting were separated into dyads (major or minor thirds).
A modulation by major third, diminished fourth, minor sixth, or augmented fifth can be sensorily interpreted from the same modulation... and namely, when modulating by a tritone like occurs in “Central Park West”, the relation by augmented fourth or diminished fifth is ambiguous and becomes simultaneously upward and quintal in movement as much as downward and plagal in movement. Like the Shepard tone, it’s a musical Penrose stairs. Up morphs into down, down morphs into up, consonance quickly becomes read as dissonance and vice-versa, yet the structure itself is cyclical and unchanging.
And indeed, you can make a dissonant interval sound consonant through chordal extension. A sharp eleven and a sharp fifteen are both fairly common in music (namely the former), even though they both create dissonance with the root and fifth of the chord. And even a major seventh becomes dissonant the moment that it is inverted, as it creates minor ninth dissonance. But if thirds are stacked in an alternating pattern of major and minor, they become consonant by being quintally related to one another. This is illusory consonance because the chord as a whole has dissonances that can be brought out of it.
ruclips.net/video/dCjUdOUMaSQ/видео.html This trance track uses the Risset rhythm. The effect starts at 2:30
On the subject of negative space, there's an auditory illusion called the Zwicker Tone where a listener is played white noise that contains a spectral gap.
When the noise is switched off, listeners perceive a single tone ringing in their ear which fills the spectral gap.
Theoretically, you could create a melody using white noise samples with differently spectral gaps, corresponding to the notes of a scale. It would probably be a bit irritating to listen to... a burst of white noise followed by "tuned tinnitus", then another burst of white noise!
I have that constantly, I thought something was switched on. Can you get a remedy for the Earwicker Tone?
Google time, thank you!
this has been done before; I heard it years ago used in an electronic piece and ever since I've been desperately trying to find out what it was!
Really?? That's interesting! Gonna look into this 😬👌🏻
I imagine it would be something like Picture at an Exhibitions' Catacombs, but even more
Interesting. Would it be safe? As in: would it not induce (more) tinnitus in people who have (or are receptable ) to it?
I always loved the piece "Clocks & Clouds". The title is so great to and felt like a great metaphor for Liget's music.
definitely, right
Love that piece also! Named for the title of a Karl Popper essay.
Was surprised to see my recording of Ligeti's Désordre included! Thanks for the feature David!
Thank YOU Paul! I thought that performance of Désordre really gave the feeling of 'lift-off' Ligeti talks about - I'm sure he would have loved it !
That's most vividly visceral performance of that etude i've ever heard. Especially when it goes to the pentatonic middle section. Love it!
Congrats!! Sounds awesome!!
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@@DBruce the solution is to use some of the popular forms, the drums kit, electric bass, accessible tonal melodies,
and then use these various devices with or without additional instrumentation which could be anything, string sections, bass sections, synthesizers
Mandelbrot was a formidably creative figure whom I was honored to interview in the eighties. My article in the College Math Journal and the interview from "Mathematical People" are both available for free online to anyone who's curious.
Amazing! Fractals have always fascinated me.
Godel Escher Bach...love that book.
Was going to mention this one myself but 12 others got there first! :-)
Achilles and the tortoise approve this comment
haha was also about to mention that book. Such a terrific read.
yess
I am sadly not aware of this work, is it a analysis/comparison of their aestethics?
When I heard Ligeti's Ricercata No. 7 I got the whole vibe immediately. Great pick for the introduction!
And you ended the video with the same piece. The fast never ending pattern encapsuled the whole video pretty nicely. Easy to come up with but one still gets a nice feeling out of it.
Same with Ricercata No. 3
Brilliant video! 😊🎶
Although not exactly an illusion, it's worth checking out Alvin Luciers "I Am Sitting In A Room", where Lucier records himself speaking a short sentence ("I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now...") plays it, records the playback, then repeats the process over and over again. Each "re-re-recording" imperceptibly adds overtones, so that by the 10-minute mark the speech starts to become indistinct, and it eventually turns into nothing but "musical" notes. I find it quite fascinating.
It's actually a gradual creation of reverberation formed by the acoustics of the space in which the piece is recorded. That's the critical component of the piece. The gradual accretion of the individual parts describes the physical acoustical space in which the speaker is speaking, in much the same way that a series of photons shot from different positions in different directions bouncing around a three dimensional reflective space would result in the visible manifestation of that space.
anyone remember the Mario64 endless staircase with its unreachable door when you did not have enough stars yet?
I thought of the same too!
Here it is: ruclips.net/video/B-udfiFZcko/видео.html
@@PabloPerroPerro ha! exactly. that upward shepard scale built up so much anticipation, it made me run for much longer than i would have without it i guess. well. at least one did not have to walk the same distance down again to get out :D
I built one using command blocks in minecraft
Hahaha that was trippy 😂
I have a modern auditory illusion for you. Its by a contemporary artist, Nine Inch Nails. A song called The Background World on the Add Violence album. Please don't let the title scare you away, its quite brilliant. The track ends on a phrase that ends not on a full measure but is very clear. Slowly he introduces distortion over many bars. At the end the sound is mangled beyond recognition to straight white noise. Jump to the end and listen, but if you listen to the whole section, you can still hear the musical phase in the noise. Amazing! Especially when you consider the title of the track.
Brilliant. Really appreciate the amount of research and production that must have gone into this video.
"Oh it's been so long since a David Bruce Composer® video let's see if he has uploaded."
*2 seconds ago*
"Okay"
Electronica giants Autechre’s track Fold4, Wrap5 always reminds me of the Shepard’s tone. Instead of a continuous change in pitch we get a continuous change in rhythm. The is achieved by slowing the tempo of a straight 4/4 rhythm to half it’s original speed over the course of two bars, but then double timing the latter half of the second bar, in effect adding an extra 2 beats, and landing the tempo right back where it was at the beginning of bar 1. For me, it produces the sensation of constantly falling. over backwards..
A worthwhile example of the constant change in tempo illusion is Autechre's fold4 wrap5 which continuously slows down while subtly introducing more rapid subdivisions to create a cycle, like a machine revving down.
I’m pretty sure from listening the illusion comes from 2 Risset processes that function in polymeter, so you lose the sense of phrasing. It’s the greatest rhythmic illusion I’ve heard, although unfortunately kind of a boring piece of music
I love that track, and I came here to comment about it, too. A couple of years ago, Second Woman made an entire album around this concept, undoubtedly inspired by fold4 wrap5, it's called S/W, and it's dealing with the illusion on a much faster rate, right where rhythm becomes low tones. It's pretty great. ruclips.net/video/xYtWu1uPfa8/видео.html
I studied Ligeti in depth in grad school, and it took a little while to "get it". This video grasps the spirit quite well. Thank you!
Isaac Dweck ? What a silly and foolish thing to say. Being a good musician (composer, performer, whatever) does not mean you need to be good at “getting” or not getting one composer’s style and music easily.
Also, it’s sounds like you used “basic music” as an insult. What wrong with basic. Is complexity better music? No. Listening to a piece with 128 independent voices playing at once doesn’t mean that piece is better than say, a Bach fugue, with usually 2-4 voices. Listening to a piece with complex, ever changing 20 note chord harmonies is not automatically better than one of Satie’s Gymnopedies, which consist of simple (mostly) harmony.
Up next, “basic math”. All music is pretty much math. Rhythms, math. Time signatures, math. Harmonies, math. The sound of notes, math. Additionally, math can be a tool, which Ligeti uses, but that does not mean it devalues a piece of music for using math as a device.
Finally. is beauty in basic, simple music, as a composer could do so much, with let’s say, 4 pitches/sounds or a small motif. Several popular melodies of today only span an interval of a third or less. I mean hell, the ever popular 4 chord harmony in much of today’s modern music is incredibly popular and loved by many.
Not understanding 1 composer for a little while doesn’t make you a bad musician, a piece of music being “basic math” doesn’t mean it’s bad music when music is based on math, and basic music does not bad music.
I think the question of "who's the Escher of music" is an individual perception. For me personally, it's not Ligeti, but Arvo Part. All of his music accomplishes, basically, all of these illusions: Time standing still, fractal-like shapes that are infinitely incrementing, etc.... not to mention, his music is much more accessible to the general public; the way Escher's drawings are.
Wow! What a wonderful homage to the composer who rocked my world when I was eleven in 1968 and changed the course of my musical life forever. Come to think of it, my whole life. Thank you, David.
The Super Mario 64 staircase is also a shepard tone-like illusion where melody seems to ascend infinitely
👀 I never realised how clever vgm was until I started listening to The Consouls - they use the original tunes as jazz 'standards' and make great music which I highly recommend if you like jazz
For me, I don't "hear" the Ligeti illusions if I shut off my analytical part of my brain. The less engaged I am, the less prominent the illusion. Without some of your explanations, I wouldn't have perceived an illusion at all. This is quite the opposite from my experience with optical illusions, for which I have to thoroughly engage my brain in order to not fall for the illusion. Personally I think Bach is closer to Escher since even with my brain as disengaged as possible, I hear the self-similarity. This really could come down to a difference of familiarity. I grew up practicing Bach on the piano since I was a kid, I've only been exposed to Ligeti as an adult.
I agree, it makes more sense to call Bach the Escher of music than Ligeti.
It's not necessarily fractals or the illusions that define Escher or Bach, but more so the combining of mathematics and art; creating meaningful mathematical art in which something relatable and recognizably human can be found, e.g. emotions or animals.
Yeah but what’s illusive about Bach’s music
I'm glad I found somebody who mirrored by thoughts on this video. It just all seems very forced to me, like I have to lie about what I'm directly experiencing in order to pretentiously go along with these supposed illusions but, as you say, with optical illusions that is rarely an issue. I'm not very familiar with Bach yet though so I'll look into what he might add
@@brodjefferson3513 Illusion is not necessarily fundamental to Escher's art. Bach and Escher share an affinity towards the same kind of clever enigmatic structures that are both mathematical and relatable on a human level, that often leave people wondering how it works. And Bach does actually have his fair share of illusive tricks, e.g the infinitely modulating canon.
I think it’s really telling when he asks “why isn’t Ligeti as popular as Escher?” It’s his pet project of advocating for Ligeti. Ligeti may be fine, but these are not illusions.
When I think of fractal sounding music I think of Autechre. Those dudes have done some truly mind twisting work
exactly, here is a musical fractal : ruclips.net/video/SLvFsP1izS4/видео.html
I don't know why but David's videos on Illusion look very satisfying. I love his narration and editing as well as his compilation of information , honestly.
Thank you, David for enlightening me with interesting techniques and music illusions for composition, etc.
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
D I V A D
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You can do an illusion with keys as well. During a verse or section, you sneakily modulate down a semitone or two, then it sounds like the return to the start is jumping up a key. I've only found two examples:
Pirate Jenny by Weill
The Dona nobis pacem from Bernstein's Mass.
I really admire both of these.
I went to the Escher Museum awhile back. It took forever to get to the second floor!
Oh, you!
Just wrote my doctoral dissertation on Ligeti, touching on this very aspect of his music.
As always excellent job by the man, the myth, the legend, David Bruce. Can’t wait to send this to my students.
"Otoacoustic emission" seem like a good candidate for musical illusions too. Like, the stuff Maryanne Amacher was working on? It's not as "listening friendly" as Ligeti but it's definitely interesting.
I was vibin' to her "Chorale"!
You think Ligeti is "listening friendly"? For me, Ligeti pieces are all too long & I can't wait for the blissful end when the noise stops.
@@resourcedragon I think you misplaced your comment
The animation of this thumbnail when it moves up and down in the recommended bar is such a cool little detail
need to watch this 2-3 times... thats a good thing
Hehe I thinking the same.. even 5, 6 here for me + taking notes.
Pink Floyd hit it with their perpetually rising tone at the conclusion of ""Echoes"
That's the first Pink Floyd song I ever heard. When I was a kid, a neighbour was washing his car and had that song cranked on his ghetto blaster. The guitar sounds blew my mind. Up til that point, I'd never heard anything like that music.
When I saw the title of this video first composer who came to mind was Steve Reich and his "phasing." There's another minimalist who played similar "illusion" games... at least I think- but his name and title of pieces escape me at the moment so I can't even look them up to confirm if I'm remembering correctly. But this is great! I didn't know about many of these Ligeti pieces. Thank you!
I played Ligeti's 6 bagatelles for wind quintet in college and it was one of the most raucous fun times I think I had at conservatory.
David Bruce, you are a beautiful human being. Thank you for continuously creating some of the most inspiring and insightful content any musician or composer could ever ask for. You are a gem.
12:22 I always have a similar feeling when there is some constant noise outside, like a lawnmower for example. After some time it moves into my subconcious and i don't hear it conciously anymore. Only when that noise stops i realize again that it was actually there.
Always awesome to find someone who can relate the Gestalt laws of visual perception to music. Thank you.
I would nominate Steve Reich in this category too. His music sounds like tessellation art looks.
Basically all minimalists can be put in this cathegory, but yeah, Steve Reich really comes to mind here
Some of the works of Phillip Glass fit here, too.
Both greats studied African music very closely.
This is wonderful. I’m not a musician or composer, I just love music and have an insatiable curiosity.
Completely spaced out whilst watching the fractal illusion bit and now I can see the universe
Some music actually has to be explained in order to be appreciated. Thank you sir, it is greatly appreciated 🙏
I will be whistling these at work tomorrow.
can you please release a video or soundcloud track of the risset rhythm you composed, its honestly one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've heard in a long time!
@ around 9:25- Tchaikovsky does something like this way earlier than any modern composers in his 6th symphony, I believe. He has a melody cross voicing between 1st and 2nd violins if memory serves. But in person, esp. if you're up close to the orchestra, since the 1st violins are on one side and seconds on the other, it creates this stereophonic affect like the melody is moving back and forth from one ear to the other.
My favourite composer since I was about 14. This is an excellent video.
I would have thought it was Zappa,...Im gonna spend some time with Mr Ligiti...thanks...the multi-dimensionality of music is always fascinating
David, could you do an analysis of Joe Hisaishi's music and other music from fairly similar composers? (i.e. RUclipsrs like Seycara). There's a certain "texture" to their music that is hard to pinpoint as it follows conventional rules but in a particular way that makes them specifically Joe Hisaishi.
Thanks! Loved this vid btw
Sonatine... So beautiful
Thanks for putting in the effort to create this David, this was a delight!
When I was in high school, I got to hear Atmospheres live by the NY Philharmonic (Ozawa, cond.) It was a little shocking, but I was more shocked at many people getting up and walking out.
This video made a lot of the things I already experienced by playing around with arpeggiators and scales but couldn't explain, fall into place for me. Thx for that.
What I've always admired about Ligeti is exactly what you mention at the end of the video: there's only one way to listen to his music, and that's to LISTEN to it. You can't just have it play in the background while you do household chores. It's music that really demands to be experienced live. And I can tell you from experience: learning his music well enough to perform it is like learning a new language.
great video about a great artist ..who will even more gain in recognition, since the reality around us has changed and is changing....so that his music will be understood by more and more people
That fractal segment 16 minutes into the video is absolutely brilliant!
You really should make a video on Takemitsu's music.It cames a lot on this subject! Thanks.
Per Nørgård’s music is filled with auditory illusions. His infinity series are fractals.
Thanks for the great video. I discovered Ligeti in high school. I had an uncle who had the 2001:A Space Odyssey soundtrack. He bought it for the Strauss like everyone else, but I was entranced by the Ligeti. I made him make a tape for me and I listened to it regularly. I still enjoy his music and still have a CD of Le Grand Macabre somewhere. Best of luck in the project with Sequoia. I worked with him briefly here in Portland - nice guy and exceptional musician.
Starting to watch this, so if you don't mention the book Godel, Escher and Bach in this one, I'm going to be maaaaad! One of the most mind blowing book. If you did, never mind my comment lol.
Ending that section with a mini-brot was just... Mwah! So satisfying.
A simpler example of scales at different speeds is Part's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten. Which is nice.
I have found my next favourite channel! So well structured and fluent and entertaining!
Like the "multiple speed" illusion, I found a technique when overlaying loops of non-tempo-synced lengths where it becomes easy to make extremely long patterns, or indeed, ones that do not repeat on a macroscopic scale in any way. This was really easily done with electronic keyboards and guitars through pedals like the rc-2 looper pedal made by Boss as soon as I got my hand on more than one looper at once. Very fruitful way of making music, one year I managed to record a practically obscene number of things with that as one of the fundamental methods.
My favorite musical illusion is the one I heard in this video where somebody gets like a 100 cheap keyboards and bass them all play E at the same time. The resulting interferences between all the different E’s overtones seemed to create a canvas for its own piece. At some point I started hearing a melody in it and started following it and each time I’d play the video I’d hear a new one each time, so it really reminded me of that fractal space type concept.
Do you have a link/name to that vid?
Simplify ruclips.net/video/Vh3H6x1GFn4/видео.html
Brilliantly informative video and the idea behind Patreon supporters getting to have their 1 minute compositions played by a professional pianist is such a great incentive! Great stuff. Cheers! :)
Thanks for the informative video, Danny Boyle
The bit about windows reminded me of H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Music of Erich Zann," which is in my opinion the greatest fictional work of music of all time. I once tried to make a recording of the music of Erich Zann with a friend of mine, but perhaps appropriately to the story, it has been lost.
Thank you for this wonderful introduction to Ligeti! I fell in love with Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna, and the Requiem excerpts from 2001 when I first heard them as a boy. My explorations into his wider work as an incomplete music major and later in life left me scratching my head but still determined to appreciate his oeuvre. Your explication has given me a new place to start from. Very exciting!
Thank you for contributing this level of depth and sophistication to music analysis.
You know what’s a fine illusion that is fairly conventionally musical? Third matrices - circle-of-thirds compositions. The most famous & pioneering ones are of course by John Coltrane: “Giant Steps” (tonal center continuously descending in major thirds from Eb to B to G and again), and “Central Park West” (tonal centers in minor third relation to one another, including a modulation by tritone - B to D to Ab to F and again). “Giant Steps” especially feels as though it is both ascending and descending in key infinitely, and the changing tonic simultaneously acts as a changing home base as much as it acts as a pivot to the next key.
There is also a completely under-discussed example: “Knights of Cydonia”, a fairly popular song by Muse, cycles in descending major thirds through the same guitar & vocal motif performed in E minor -> C minor, then C minor -> G# minor, then G# minor -> E minor. And interestingly about this song, the melodic motion is upward as it modulates, yet the keys are most easily understood as being in plagal, *down-leading* relation to the key before. To me the song repeatedly feels like it’s rising to the heavens as much as it’s surrendering itself to the dirt.
Exploiting the cycle of keys gives the impression of a new key in fractal-like relation to the last one, even though it is harmonically identical to the key played one cycle before. One might want to say that that key is completely new. For instance, G# minor feeling like A-flat minor instead due to descending in thirds. E minor becomes “F-flat minor” if G# minor is read as Ab minor instead, even though Ab minor is more coherently modulated to from a key like C minor as it is a major third down instead of a diminished fourth down. A move from D major to the key a tritone away can be read as Ab major or G# major, which recontextualizes the key a minor third above as Cb major as well as it could B major. One could read it also as though it were indeed that same key being played again, or as though the song is continuously progressing to a key that truly resolves it. And all of these interpretations would be simultaneously correct and incorrect because the notes relate harmoniously, but the tonics are dissonant to one another such that the roots of each tonic would become ambiguous - “perfectly dissonant”? - if put together as a chord (an augmented or diminished seventh chord), though harmonious - imperfectly consonant - if the chord resulting were separated into dyads (major or minor thirds).
A modulation by major third, diminished fourth, minor sixth, or augmented fifth can be sensorily interpreted from the same modulation... and namely, when modulating by a tritone like occurs in “Central Park West”, the relation by augmented fourth or diminished fifth is ambiguous and becomes simultaneously upward and quintal in movement as much as downward and plagal in movement. It’s a musical Penrose stairs. Up morphs into down, down morphs into up, consonance quickly becomes read as dissonance and vice-versa, yet the structure itself is cyclical and unchanging.
Gotta love fractal music. Pretty sure you will love the band GoGo Penguin. 'Branches Break', 'Atomized', 'To The Nth' and 'Hopopono' are some of my favorite formula's.
About the ending: it is not even that not everybody knows how to think about music in an abstract way, but that not everybody wants to. If one thinks about music as a language of emotions, Ligeti is not the way to go and in fact he comes across as disconnected, cold, and abrasive. If we take what is played in concert halls as an indicator, people seem to attend performances to be moved, not to solve complex puzzles. One may even opine that post-WWII wave of “conceptual” music was a fad with little lasting value. Excellent presentation, by the way.
GREAT VIDEO! I love Ligeti's work since the beginning of my career as a composer.... even wrote many pieces using these ideas (Clocks and Clouds is amazing and hard to find. I met Ligeti in person once too when he was here in LA right before he passed). I also realized how this also has become a part of how 1960's synthesizers developed with "sequencers" with patterns and evolving limits to the modular synth CV sequencers work and especially now with LIVE style loops. Ligeti changed everything like Pederecki and Lutoslawski too.
Another excellent video of yours, David Bruce, both educational and enjoyable.
This was a delightful video. You are an excellent teacher, as was Ligeti. I know, because I had some composition lessons with Ligeti in Italy in 1985. He was inspirational. Thanks.
🤯🤯🤯
This channel is getting more incredible day by day ! We are so lucky
Escher is not looked down by the establishment. He's one of the most esteemed geometers of the 20th century, acknowledged by working mathematicians.
On a personal note, he had a cordial relationship with HSM Coxeter, "the King of Geometry".
There are many familiar handles in Escher's work, not so in Ligeti's. But this is a fascinating expose and I am grateful to you for having taught me new things. Thank you.
A wonderful lecture. I've had considerable exposure to abstract art and contemporary classical music (or "serious music") and you've helped me to appreciate these subjects even more. Thanks!
Great video. I love how much Ligeti was mentioned. Someone who takes his ideas further, particularly from Ligeti's earlier music, is Georg Friedrich Haas. Many of his pieces have Shepard tones and a sense of stretched and pulled time. His In Vain and Limited Approximations are quite a trip.
Maybe most important composer of today
This was great! I would love a video on Feldman and his music!
angelic to the core was a dope ass album 🔥
Wait... that little Risset Rhythm demonstration starting at 6:50 is absolutely stunning. Please extend that to a whole piece!
Very interesting video, the technique of negative space in music used in creative ways particularly
I _adore_ Ligeti. So glad you made a video about him!
When you're showcasing interesting pieces of music like these, please give us more than a three second sample before talking over it (I understand for some of the modern stuff there are probable copyright claims). But it becomes very hard to hear the musical illusions.
THIS!
Also seems to me like the voice over is way louder than the music example.
Remember: show don't tell.
While your points are interesting, I am way more interested in hearing the music.
I agree. It is frustrating when the narrator or presenter inadvertently gets in the way of the very thing they're trying to demonstrate.
Without the video being twice as long idk if it makes sense? I'm very happy with the pacing , seeing as you can just go and listen to any length of any one of these pieces afterwards?? Or just,,,,,open another tab and pause this video???
@@probablyfinlay6101 These are work around that do offer solutions, however I feel the points above are about presentation.
I also challenge your point that having a little longer music clips would actually double the length of the vid. It would increase the length, absolutely, but not a lot. Right?
Perhaps David prefers to keep his videos shorter and let us explore for ourselves. That said, I would happily listen to him for an hour. An in-depth look at one work could be great - like Discovering Music on BBC Radio 3.
Thank you for a really educational video on Ligeti and all this great paralells between art and music a most inspiering piece of work David Bruce, and while at it in general always nice to see your videos too! I wish there where some of the videos that could be a little longer(this one is actually comming around really a lot in the time-frame, fantastic!) and cotinue to examine whatever topic it is dealing with but where the music examples are a little longer sometimes and just that there where a chance to go on a little more than these short videos wich are the general concept on youtube often...(when things are interesting you want it to go on for ever) Thanks for a great channel!
Thank you Bruce. As a fellow composer that was most interesting and illuminating
A whole video of Ligeti. I love you, David. Great Video as always
what an instersting and inspiring video! as an aspiring visual artist this has brought me so much more curiosity to what the possibilities are with combining these more abstract audio pieces with visual art or even base visual pieces on this music.
Fascinating and informative - so much stuff to take on board - some familiar and some less so - thanks Brucey for keeping us learning and listening
Stumbled onto this video, really cool! I'm a bass guitar soloist, and have been working on a cool piece; a 6 note pattern repeated over another bass playing the 1st 5 notes of the same pattern. They eventually match up and that's where the next part comes in. It's too much fun especially adding delays, or harmonizing.
This is cool. I'd never heard of Shepard's tone before. 👍 I've heard it before, but I didn't think anything of it. Definitely a case of something that becomes way more impressive once you know it's there, and what's going on. Ty for the video!
I have 3 sets of musical letters after my name and your videos beat the pants off any music establishment I have attended.
What a brilliantly put together video! Lots of new concepts and associations to get my head around.
Btw after watching the fractal image, I looked up at a clock on the wall and it seemed to be moving away from me...
Very interesting stuff, thank you! I'm an overtone singer and I like to play with two overtone melodies and also varying the basic note, leaving the unsuspecting listener to decide what to listen to. The same when I play the tanpura where I often play several melodies at the same time. It is not all that deliberate as I make it sound here though. It's more that I listen very intently to what presents itself. After a while I gain some control over this process and start my illusionist tricks. I love it.
If anyone is interested in truly fractal music, you should look at Per Nørgard's Infinity Series.
Ligeti was one of the modern composers who first engaged me and now I know how to pronounce his name!
Haas uses both the Shepard’s tone and the Risset rhythm. He just had a percussion work premiered based on a nonstop Risset rhythm that shifted moments of extreme action to extreme stasis
thanks do much for this insightful video, for me a reason to listen and play more Ligeti also!
This is wonderful. Thank you so much David. I studied Ligeti back in the 80s at Uni and only discovered Le Grande Macabre last week. What a wonderful blow-out for the ears and mind after so much virus doom! :-)
Legeti Continum reminds me of the intro to Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and King Crimson, Starless and Bible black 🖤
Thanks for making this - truly amazing production values, and great content!
MC Escher has more of those negative space patterns and they are absolutely brilliant
Great stuff, Maestro Bruce. Ligeti immediately came mind as Escher-esque. The end of Pink Floyd's"Echoes" uses that endlessly rising,'Shepard tone' idea.
I've always enjoyed Ligeti (and Escher), but have no musical theory. Thanks for explaining it to me (and to Kubrick, for introducing me to Ligeti).