Conference napalm::commusic_v1

	you know its a great issue, because I was rejected from it for a
	article about AlgoRhythms -  anyways, there's no rock in't.
	So these, if they never picked up a Computer Music Journal, won't
	like it.  if they do like it, they should look at CMJ.
	There is a little jazz in it, and you can order a CD with no
	AlgoRhythms music on it from IEEE.  Imagine, IEEE disks on MTV.
	I won't read it because I havn't read anything in computer music
	in a few years anyway.  There is an article about scrambling Mozart
	to find out why it sounds like Mozart, and an article about a
	conducting wand to synch up instruments, and a real-time generated
	video of moving instruments in response to MIDI events (I could 
	almost do that on an Amiga in an hour, but it wouldn't look as nice,
	using the Director MIDI listener and prepared images of instruments
	in differnet positions).  There is an article about other high-level
	abstractions in composition.
	The bios of the authors are all so much more glorified than mine,
	it's clear I'm just not qualified to work in that or any other
	field, and that explains the rejection. Good Judgement.

	I wish I knew why I have to submit to peer-review journals. ;-(
	Tom

    One of my latest rejections was possibly because my paper was too
    pragmatic to suite the tastes of the reviewers.  Tom, you would have
    had a better shot if AlgoRhythms didn't work.  That way, see, they
    would know it was pushing the state of the art and was worthy of
    publication.  
    
    Steve

    
    Geez, I'm glad to see some people slamming the "Computer Music
    Establishment"  I too have had problems with CMJ in the past.  Seems as
    though you need to be a Media Lab or IRCAM person to get published.  Or
    you have to compose boring academic "Bleep & Bloop Music"
    
    What really pissed me off a few years ago was some stupid article
    by Bruel (I think).  The damn thing wasn't even about music!  it was
    about some stupid "spirograph type" plots!  Guess you can publish
    anything if you are considered an "Expert"
    
    Roger Powell told me he had some success getting published in the
    AES journal, he even gave papers at AES conventions.  I'd say the AES
    would be a better forum if you're not one of the MIT Computer Music 
    "In Crowd"
    
    FIGHT COMPUTER MUSIC ELITISM!!!!!
    
    -Ed
                                     

>...you need to be a Media Lab or IRCAM person to get published.  Or
>    you have to compose boring academic "Bleep & Bloop Music"
    
    If true, I'm quite surprised an article on AlgoRhythms was rejected.
    
    karl

	The article is as of today in a draft for a new IEEE tutorial or 
	similar book.
	Which is better?  Boring original bleep and bloop music, which no one
	has said AlgoRhythms produces in the reviews for commusic 8,
	or boring regurgitations of commercial pop, minus melody, harmonic,
	and form?  I asking advice for what I should write next.
Tom

    Geeze is this a war starting?
    

    
    Hold on thar!!
    
    I just wanted to say that most people published in CMJ have a very
    different set of asthetics.  "Bleep & Bloop Music" (Roger Powell's
    words, not mine) is just not MUSICALLY interesting.  It is Technically
    interesting.  
    
    The real challenge to a computer musician is to create music that 
    appeals to BOTH sides of the brain.  CMJ is clearly for the "Computer
    Music Establishment"  where the emphasis is technical rather than
    musical.   
    
    There needs to be a different forum.  It seems as though there is CMJ
    (dominated by people who use non-commercial custom equipment in
    universities) and the trade rags who focus on selling equipment and
    software to people like you and me.
    
    Anybody try to submit to Leonardo?  Their emphasis seems more
    Psychological than "Computery" or Musical, but they occaisionally have
    Computer Music papers.
    
    -Ed
    

  >  
   > Hold on thar!!
    >
    >I just wanted to say that most people published in CMJ have a very
    >different set of asthetics.  "Bleep & Bloop Music" (Roger Powell's
    >words, not mine) is just not MUSICALLY interesting.  It is Technically
    >interesting.  

who is roger powell?? He has a narrow view of music's possibilities.
    
    >The real challenge to a computer musician is to create music that 
    >appeals to BOTH sides of the brain.  CMJ is clearly for the "Computer
    >Music Establishment"  where the emphasis is technical rather than
    >>>>musical.   
That's CMJ published my non-technical aesthetic article in volume X # 3,
Categories of Aesthetic Appeal in Computer Music.  I covered synesthesia,
onomatopeia, congruence with the physical or abstract worlds in shape,
and about 5 other non-electronic categories.
    
    >There needs to be a different forum.  It seems as though there is CMJ
    >(dominated by people who use non-commercial custom equipment in
    >universities) and the trade rags who focus on selling equipment and
    >software to people like you and me.
Without the non-commercial custom equipment in universities, there would 
not be any trade rags or commercial equipment.
    
    >Anybody try to submit to Leonardo?  Their emphasis seems more
    >Psychological than "Computery" or Musical, but they occaisionally have
    >Computer Music papers.
    
    >-Ed
    
Tom

    re 2682.5 :
>..or boring regurgitations of commercial pop, minus melody, harmonic,
>and form?  I asking advice for what I should write next.
    
    Well, sure.  Try it. Everyone should raise their sights once in a while.
    
    karl

    I think that the interest in publishing an article is inversely
    proportional to the amount of money to be made with the ideas
    presented.  I say, publish the software and laugh all the way to the
    bank ...  The fact that nobody wants to publish might help you to get
    it past Digital's legal eagles (er ... buzzards?)
    
    Steve

    Tom,
    
    Sorry if I offended you.
    
    I just find CMJ hard to swallow these days.  Papers like Hal Alles'
    stuff on Digital Oscillators and the Bell Labs Digital Synth (Which
    Roger and Larry Fast worked with extensively) were quite interesting.
    Even Chowning's FM paper was great.
    
    I just don't see much of anything useful in CMJ these days.  I dropped
    my subscription after that horrible "spirograph drawing" article
    because I really got the feeling that old Rhodes & Strawn were engaging
    in classic academic elitism.  
    
    You're right, custom hardware started it all, but CMJ seems to like to
    make light of the practical and emphasizes the theoretical.  I'll have
    to ask Roger if his Apple ][ + Modular Moog work was even submitted to 
    CMJ, but even if it were, I'm sure they would have found a way to
    reject something from a rock musician/non-college-graduate who
    homebrewed hardware and software to produce an album.
    
    That Apple work, by the way, eventually became TEXTURE.  I've since
    heard a number of MIT snobs criticize TEXTURE's simplicity and
    limitations, but at least Rog had the guts to make it a REAL product.
    
    If you have an idea for a product, then MAKE IT!!  To hell with a bunch 
    of academician snobs who reject your papers!  TEXTURE may not be the
    ultimate MIDI sequencer, but for a product that was originally designed
    to create control voltages from a Mountain D/A card in an Apple ][,
    it's not bad and even made Rog a few dollars.
    
    People who work on the bleeding edge seldom make for real change. 
    Remember that Edison, Wozniak & Jobs, Hewlett & Packard and even KO
    were laughed at by a number of scholars.  
    
    Maybe I should order your Commusic Tape and read your CMJ articles.
    
    love on you guy!!
    
    -Ed
    

	Well, uh, OK, so I dropped my subscription to CMJ about 2 years ago.,
	but then my involvement in music, or anyway making new music, and
	practicing piano, dropped after I sold the piano.  Curtis Roads
	hasn't been with the CMJ for a while I think, and he left the
	main editing position some time ago, a few years ago probably.
	At the time, I dropped all periodicals in search of a change,
	including IEEE Integrated Circuits, The Drama Review (or TDR, or as
	I like to call it, Time Domain Reflectometry Journal), etc.
	So maybe CMJ today is less interesting.  Chownings original article
	on FM was not in CMJ, it was in British acoustical society or
	someplace.
	Tom

    I think what we're experiencing here is that people who make music
    don't tend to subscribe to CMJ.  Similarly, people who do lots of design 
    tend not to subscribe to technical design journals.  I've noticed that 
    I've not been asked to referee any more papers for DAC since I don't 
    attend the conferences.  I suspect that they pick referees from among 
    their clients for trade journals and conferences.  So, the natural result 
    is that journals and conferences take on the characteristics of those that 
    patronize them.  The folks in university environments have the time
    and the budget for this type of thing and us working stiffs tend not
    to.  Gross generalization, of course.
    
    Steve     

	For a technical person such as myself, it takes decades to figure out
	what the most popular people in high school knew, that the world works
	on human alliances, quid pro quo, rapport building, etc.  good insight
	steve
tom