is EAI noise?

[jon abbey]

And what the electric guitar is for rock/pop, the bouzouki for rembetika, the violin for classical music, the saxophone for jazz, etc,
the computer is for EAI.

I don't think I agree with this, I don't think there is an equivalent. for me, there are still even now very few laptop musicians who are great improvisers, even fewer outside of MIMEO. if you're including the computer's ability to communicate by e-mail and to do postproduction, I'd obviously agree more, but that's not a great analogy then.

btw
"E" pronounced in english would mean "I" in dutch
"A" pronounced in english would mean "E" in dutch
"I" pronounced in english would mean somethng like "AIJ" in dutch
pff......

that's very interesting, I like it!

[Cornelis]

And what the electric guitar is for rock/pop, the bouzouki for rembetika, the violin for classical music, the saxophone for jazz, etc,
the computer is for EAI.

I don't think I agree with this, I don't think there is an equivalent. for me, there are still even now very few laptop musicians who are great improvisers, even fewer outside of MIMEO. if you're including the computer's ability to communicate by e-mail and to do postproduction, I'd obviously agree more, but that's not a great analogy then.

Me and a few others organised a new weekly series for electronic improvised music some years back (2002?)
At least 1 in 4 was a computer. Also a number of people we dont asociate with a computer tried out some stuff on a computer in a live situation or adding a computer to their usual set-up. (Quite often they decided against it after a while).
Lots of people stopped using them when the newness wore of and they realized it needs years to actually do something good and personal with it (rather then just installng supercollider and rubing your finger over the mousepad and look serious........)
So I think even if there are not many great players (I agree with you on that) it had a big indirect influence, through the specific sounds it created, the overall speed of reacting and last but not least it made it clear the PA had to be much better.

But things probably work differently in other place on this planet. This is just how it came across to me at that specific time.

another 2 cents
Cor

[sound plague]

Surely this exercise in pedantic semantics can only serve to distract from the music in question? How healthy is it to deconstruct something so essentially pointless and ambiguous? Does it help us understand the music any better? Let's say, for the sake of argument, we agree on "taomud". What next? A stage could feasibly be reached wherein every new release is its own sub-genre. There's already more releases than listeners.

Listen to the music, enjoy the music, criticise the music, deconstruct the music because that's what it's all about! Don't assign some fleeting label or moniker to the music, because the music will turn around and bite that label in the arse.

[gohleekwang]

Surely this exercise in pedantic semantics can only serve to distract from the music in question? How healthy is it to deconstruct something so essentially pointless and ambiguous? Does it help us understand the music any better? Let's say, for the sake of argument, we agree on "taomud". What next? A stage could feasibly be reached wherein every new release is its own sub-genre. There's already more releases than listeners.

Listen to the music, enjoy the music, criticise the music, deconstruct the music because that's what it's all about! Don't assign some fleeting label or moniker to the music, because the music will turn around and bite that label in the arse.

i think most of us have the argument only after we spent 10 years or more on this music, not before we get into any of this, so this should be fine. the discussion did not stop me to listen to anything.

[sound plague]

Surely this exercise in pedantic semantics can only serve to distract from the music in question? How healthy is it to deconstruct something so essentially pointless and ambiguous? Does it help us understand the music any better? Let's say, for the sake of argument, we agree on "taomud". What next? A stage could feasibly be reached wherein every new release is its own sub-genre. There's already more releases than listeners.

Listen to the music, enjoy the music, criticise the music, deconstruct the music because that's what it's all about! Don't assign some fleeting label or moniker to the music, because the music will turn around and bite that label in the arse.

i think most of us have the argument only after we spent 10 years or more on this music, not before we get into any of this, so this should be fine. the discussion did not stop me to listen to anything.

I respectfully disagree. Only when I first discovered this music did I crave to label it. Now that however many years have passed, it's something I've happily left behind.

[gohleekwang]

I respectfully disagree. Only when I first discovered this music did I crave to label it. Now that however many years have passed, it's something I've happily left behind.

it is totally up to you of course, thank you for sharing with us

what interest me is the discussion not the answer, and the question never bother me in the first place, i m happily leave it behind for many years too

i just hope that within the discussion some interesting thing can pop up. i began this topic because somebody asking "is EAI jazz?" which i think the question is a bit old (to me)

[lolabelle]

This may be a really stupid question, sorry I'm still learning about this area, but how do the musicians involved refer to their work? If at all. I have more knowledge about the visual arts and I know that in this field most artists hate to be categorised, i would assume the same applies here. I try not to give too much importance to genres and sub-genres, I look on it as a form of shorthand, I love the work of Eva Hesse, Sophie Calle and Joseph Cornell and if I want to find other similar work It is far easier to look up other work that has been placed in the same sub-genre. It is not perfect and is often incredibly irritating, least of all for the artist involved if they feel they have been unfairly categorised. But I have come across some really interesting and exciting artists and musicians by chance due to some fate of indexing. Because all of the most interesting art is unique to itself, it is always going to be problematic trying to fit it into some ready made category, and there is never going to be a way to please everyone.