Music we keep....

Harbinger · February 15, 2009, 16:10:14

One of the greatest tragedies in life is to live, or die, without knowing the effect we have on our friends and acquaintances. In my moments of introspection (which is a lot), and thinking about the people who've affected my life (sometimes drastically, both good and bad), i've often wished they knew just how much they meant to my life. More importantly, each of us never stops to think the impact we made on someone else, their fond memories of us. As i've gotten older, i've found and gotten in touch with people i once knew, to remind them of such, and to give them a sense of the place they occupy in the universe of souls, and of how they "went with" me as i carried on thru my life. They often had no idea. (Sometimes it actually overwhelmed them to know of their impact.)

So i'd like to prevent that oversight here. I don't want in 10 or 20 years, perhaps long after i've moved to other tracking software, forums, or even interests, to look back and wonder if my compatriots in music knew of their affect on MY art, or never know how much i affected them artistically. Why wait until we pass on to the next world to know of our influence on each other?

What i propose is a posting of our lists of the music by our forum co-members that we, for one reason or another, keep with us. I'm sure most of us can say after listening to our colleagues' music that it had some artistic merit even if it wasn't our favorite genre of music, but there's also another group of songs from each other that we want to listen to more than just once, our "rotation" if you will. I'm curious to know which of my works people keep, and i'd like you my colleagues to know which of yours i keep. I think it would be a real exercise in soul-searching and artistic self-analysis. And this can only bring substance to our self-worth, and exchange knowledge of the level of respect we have for each-other.

Every process needs some guidelines so that folks don't misunderstand what's going on. Here's a few that will help us:

1. The idea here is not to stroke egos or be retaliatory over past offenses. We are simply exposing knowledge that our co-members may have not been aware of, and to make them aware that certain musical pieces somehow have had an effect on us. We're not trading anything here; our compliments should not be thought of as commodities (they really shouldn't be thought of as compliments either, but rather, "allowed observations")

2. I would suggest that just because you don't see your music in someone's list, don't take it as an affront; they may like your sense of aesthetic, but they're just not into that kind of music, so they have no reason to keep it.

3. The list should show music you like to listen to regularly, not a list of music you've archived for posterity's' sake or (god-forbid) draw samples from. And it should only be music of members of this forum, past and present.

We will find our lists changing over time, so if you add (or subtract) from your list, add a new post rather than edit your list, so it will bump the thread and keep it open for discussion. While i don't want this thread Stickied, i also don't want it to get buried over time.

At the risk of standing alone with my heart on my sleeve, i guess since it's my idea, i should start....

My Rotation - music i play in the background (besides my own music) while i work on the computer, in no particular order...

Royal (psishock) - Quintessential Trance; use for inspiration in my own EDM; would have paid money for
Drifting (psishock) - almost as good as Royal, the excellent melodic progression makes my mind move; often set my alarm to this music

A Winternight (Rakib) - a sonic story being played out in my brain; i love the ebb and flow of the song's driving pulse
Doop (Rakib) - Our own little Rave party!

Lake Shock No. 1 (Sam_Zen) - love that bass fingering! Zen's avant-garde approach to sound teaches me to be ready to abandon the comfort of self-imposed structure, so as not overlook an artistic nugget of gold
Periodes (Sam_Zen) - As close to EDM as i'm going to hear from Zen! the stereo soundplay works both sides of my brain

Evening with You (bvanoudtshoorn) - Nice mood music, just out of chiptune range to make it undistracting and old-school

System Partition (unfa) - Not comedy and not my kind of music, but it makes me smile EVERY time. This is what i get for being open-minded! Now i can't make myself get rid of it! It's a system partition!

uncloned · February 15, 2009, 18:16:36

Hmmm - I mostly devote my listening time like that to material I'm working on, commenting on (especailly for So On members) or something I'm trying to "grok" like Wendy Carlos or Shostakovitch or Britten or Debussy.

That is not to say the music posted here is not good enough - to the contrary I have been influenced by composers who post here.

Sam - what is there to say? Sam has one of the most musically open minds I've ever had the pleasure to know. I have been and am still learning from him.

Psi has taught me to open my mind more about what I can do with synthesizers - I'm learning from him too.

Harbinger - you also have quite an open mind towards music which I really appreciate and I'm trying to understand your thinking. My guess is that we may in a way be kindred spirits.

LPChip - wonderful improvisations and other work - but the piano improvs have captured me.

That's my short list at Modplug

I really do appreciate all posters at Modplug - even the freshest newbie - to be honest there is no one I haven't learned *something* from because everyne does it differently.

Sam_Zen · February 15, 2009, 21:10:38

A nice initiative, Harbinger.

I'm afraid I don't have a list of rotation, because I never play music while I'm at work.
So my archive is all there is, and I only select work from authors who are worth to save imo.
So not like single favourite tracks, if I start saving an author, I gather every work.
My earliest one of you is "Band for Orbiter V", when you were using the Korg.

If I decide to review a track, I prefer to start listening as unbiased as possible, no matter author or genre.
To me that's a condition to keep learning from all of you. Thanks for that.

And it's nice to watch the developments in skill of improvisation by both LPChip and Clones's daylies for example.
Psi's contributions are relatively new here, and I much appreciate his work, his fresh approach and his humour.

Saga Musix · February 15, 2009, 21:12:54

I have too many tracks in my playlist...

My last.fm profile tells a lot about my favourites already... As you can see, I listen to a lot of Radix, Allister Brimble, Xerxes, Radix, D Fast, Reed, Xaimus and Nighthawk, to list some scene musicians. My most played tracks are Tournesol and Yuki Satellites, both by Radix.

Sam_Zen · February 15, 2009, 23:44:32

Xaimus was a member here.. what happened ?

Nahkranoth · February 16, 2009, 08:21:47

I remember having the following folders/files on my HD:
cubaXD (War at Koboldsburg is f00king awesome!, not sure if I like his ambient stuff)
Sam_Zen (oldskool pack, old tapes, triangle of noise (!!!) and a couple of misc tracks)
barryvan (somewhere near 60% of his stuff posted here)
psishock (not much but still everything he posted so far

)
Jojo (some of his .it modules)
Skaven (what I've collected from his site)
nads20489 (or nathanD)
LPChip (some of his .it modules for educational purposes, and his Enigma, for sure!)
TheMingeworthyPrinciples - Feel My Tits (man, it's crazy!)
The Eagle what he has posted so far
phanoo Sub-Zero Conditions 2 soundtrack (!!!)
clones a bunch of selected tracks (i remember Enigma and Water will flow everywhere
there are some others, can't remember now (I'm at my workplace)

Saga Musix · February 16, 2009, 13:48:08

Xaimus is still here, lurking around. He can be found on IRC most of the time nowadays.

Sam_Zen · February 16, 2009, 21:45:30

So, not to forget the first ones I've got of :
Nahkranoth - Arrival
Jojo - Digital_loop

Nahkranoth · February 16, 2009, 21:50:00

Yeah, Sam, I remember, it was the one and only comment

BTW I forgot Louigi Verona's Formation and Receiver

psishock · February 17, 2009, 00:49:02

I'm relatively new here, but i have 2 HDDs with a sum around ~800gb, so keeping every single downloaded song shouldn't be much of a trouble.
About the "rotation playlist", well i'm kinda sharing the situation with Sam, i don't listen to music while i'm working, but i have a dedicated folder with the musics gathered from this forum and i'm listening to those compositions from time to time. Here are some pieces that i can remember even without searching in the archive, mostly (i think) because of their catchy melodies:

uncloned - Of Leaf and Stream (must be insignificant to him, but i love the melody)
Sam - Triangle of Noise (ahh, white noise, music to my ears ^^)
Barry - The Call (gotta love the melody)
LPChip - Dark December Day (true horror christmas theme)
Jojo - Jumpin Hi level1 music, Timelord
Harbinger - Tu chez Moi (catchy drumplay and a song with full of life =)
residentgrey - electric jazz

...i would possibly find more, with a little peek.

Saga Musix · February 17, 2009, 12:19:15

May I note that the level music from Jumpin Hi was made by a great tracker called ko0x...

psishock · February 17, 2009, 17:08:33

O rly? I wouldn't imagine lol, so that's why the similarity to his other tracks. ^^

Saga Musix · February 17, 2009, 20:22:42

You may haev a look at this mod which I've discovered today. I think that I can safely say that it's the best progressive rock mod I've ever heard. I'll keep this.

Sam_Zen · February 17, 2009, 23:11:39

Nice work by this Tourach indeed. But quite limited in stereo management.

uncloned · February 18, 2009, 00:59:13

Quote from: "psishock"
uncloned - Of Leaf and Stream (must be insignificant to him, but i love the melody)

...i would possibly find more, with a little peek.

Actually no, I so rarely come up with a nice melody so its valuable for me. I placed 3rd (or 2nd) with that one on an XM Heaven compo (the 2nd one I entered and I had only entered XM Heaven compos for Ander's sake).

Thanks, I'm glad you like it!