when i was in college and people (usually of the older generation) would ask me my major, and i'd say "ohhh, well... music!". so many times i got the usual response, which was "well that must be fun for you!", or "oh what a great outlet."
if i wasn't lucky enough to see the conversation end there, "what sort of job are you going to have with that?" would inevitably follow.
though these certain types may have been right to doubt the security in careerpath, the part that i felt they often misunderstood is that music is not just a visceral hobby or "outlet"- of course it should be these things sometimes- but it can also be incredibly ACADEMIC.
the picture above is a screenshot of an max/msp patch written and used by the electronic artists Autechre.
here's some audio programming shots from other various programs. many of them aren't even exclusively for music- they are more like programming languages, used to research or shape audio information, which, in our glorious day and age- can be conveyed digitally.
an example of code from Super Collider:
"// play a mixture of pink noise and an 800 Hz sine tone
{ SinOsc.ar(800, 0, 0.1) + PinkNoise.ar(0.01) }.play;
// modulate the sine frequency and the noise amplitude with another sine
// whose frequency depends on the horizontal cursor position
{
var x = SinOsc.ar(MouseX.kr(1, 100));
SinOsc.ar(300 * x + 800, 0, 0.1)
+
PinkNoise.ar(0.1 * x + 0.1)
}.play;
// list iteration: create a collection of indices multiplied by their values
[1, 2, 5, 10, -3].collect { |item, i| item * i }
// factorial function
f = { |x| if(x == 0) { 1 } { f.(x-1) * x } }"
Years ago, people of culture studied music in school, took lessons requisitely, considering music to be integral to an education. They played cellos like they wore dresses. (Often.) Today, take a high school like mine, which had NO music program whatsoever, aside from an elective option choir, which was the worst in the western states, statistically and seriously.
The point is, music is intrinsically simple. Western music (as we know it) is based around only 7 tones of a major scale. But music also has a depth to it that so many people will never know, never understand- maybe because it's represented most often now by MTV and not by actual real and thinking musicians. There's a planets worth of organic tones we can spend lifetimes trying to emulate. Much like painting in visual art. And technology is only accelerating that capacity. I find this absolutely thrilling, humbling, and challenging.
