that other stuff

How strictly do you define 'tune'? Do you mean music that has no 'TONES'?

You mean MBV or Sonic Youth type noise?

"We Now Interrupt For A Commercial" by Ornette Coleman (off "New York Is Now") played to me by my dad when I was 4/5. Solidified by "Revolution #9" heard not long thereafter. It all comes back to the bloody Beatles. Curse.

Cecil Taylor: it sounded like a fight. Then japanoise: moreso.

Why, I don't think I have. The closest I've come is emerging into the world after listening to Nine Inch Nails intensively all winter, walking around, hearing odd little noises I wouldn't have noticed before that reminded me of the effects in the music, and finding them beautiful. It's not the same thing as what you're asking, though.

I liked that idea before I heard any music that backed up the idea I think. I remember when we were teenagers we were looking for music with no tunes & just weird noises & we couldn't find it anywhere. We lived in a small town, it was the late '70s. My friend taped some avant garde music off the Concert Programme with himself playing euphonium along with it.

Listening to "The Uplift Broadcast" on KPOO in San Francisco (a radio show hosted by an Elder of the Church of St. John Coltrane). I knew earlier Coltrane, but drew the line at A Love Supreme. That album was borderline for me and anything after seemed too noisy. But the radio show blended new and old Coltrane and I began to see threads and acquire a taste for the Intersetller Space/Live In Japan era. It was the texture of his horn, the way it seemed to emulate screams. Must have been in a "dark" mood during that period, because that music, which I think of as dark (I know some hear praises to god in there, such as the church, obviously) worked.

I have a problem of definition here. I don't know if I've ever heard music that has no tune. Drumming has tunes; even radiator hiss and car backfires have tunes (inadvertantly). The Velvet Underground, however, made me appreciate music that was out of tune.

KPOO! All I ever hear on KPOO is Too $hort.

Which is great, don't get me wrong!

Glass.

Philip Glass or breaking glass, Sterl?

("Tune" = yrs to define, foax)

On the whole, Nothing - because almost everything I can think of that I like has a tune. The only exceptions I can think of are the Fall and Lou Reed, where the tunelessness was compensated for by a) the strength of personality / lyrics at the helm; b) the interesting / driving / rockin' music behind them.

mark: Phil G. I listened to him back at the young age of 12. Nowdays? I have the same stuff, and still think Einstein On The Beach is magnificent. But I don't listen anyway. Smashing though it may be.

also: I see foxy's problem, if he thinks The Fall have no tunes. I mean... wow.

Also, I used to watch static on the TV/listen to static on the radio, b/c I thought I made me, punk?, a-g?, cool?, weird?. I stopped doing that b/c I like tunes. And, y'know, human creativity in the process of composition and all. Also, I like Feldman, and liked him around the time I got into glass. He is, if anything, more tuneless.

Lyra: no, it IS the same thing as I'm asking. I was wondering if tunes aren't perhaps like pretty faces on people ie the stuff you notice in the street or at parties, and fine and fun and fair enough, but not — in the end — what you're looking for, to last.

Famous Ugly Lothario quote (not Sartre, but similarly hideous "on the outside"): "I can talk the ladies past my face in five minutes..." What was the first moment when you were "talked" past the music's "face"?

(My parents report when when v.small [= early 60s], I responded to William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast on the radio with the following off-the-cuff review: "Music peeping tooting and crashing!" But I have no memory of this... Like Duane, I liked the idea, as read about, long before I encountered anything like the FACT of it...)

So I'm tempted to answer: J.Rotten's cackle, at the start of "Anarchy"... But that is not the real answer, for me, I know.

Tune = anything you can hum to yrself? Have not yet found myself whistling any Bernhard Gunter while walking down the street...

Learning to listen takes time - when I first heard blues or reggae, for example, it all sounded the same to me. After a while yr ears become more sensitive to nuance, variation, departure from the 'norm' - opening yrself up to the possibility of music as something other than just song/melody. Musicianship, the tics and tricks of favoured players, becomes more important, maybe, so yr listening to the WAY something is said as much as the WHAT. Also, the boom in IDM etc. perhaps helped rock/pop fans of 'my generation' recognise the importance of sound/atmosphere in music - that old S. Reynolds immersive body experience thing. And the arrival of the CD also important - longer duration perfect for the non-tune noise/drone experience.

To answer the question directly - 'Dreamweapon' by Spacemen 3 and Earth2 by Earth. Two drone albs that helped me to appreciate longer intervals between musical 'events', and pointed a way into minimalism etc. Found myself listening out for pauses, sudden eruptions of noise, and in particular all the other sounds you can hear when you think yr giving something yr undivided attention - cars on the street, the beating of yr heart, the tick of the clock, the silence inside yr own head...

I was quite young, about 12 or 13, and my parents had season tickets for the Saratoga Performing Arts Centre. The "composer in residence" that year was Philip Glass. I think it jolted something inside me, not really changing me, but making me realise something that was already happening to me. I became entranced by the texture, by the harmonies caused by interlocking bits of abstract musical phrases. I realised that what I was listening to in the synthpop of the day (Duran Duran and New Order are the only ones I'll admit to now) was not actually the jaunty tunes or vocal melodies, but the burble and interplay of the texture beneath.

Clover: I see your problems too.

which is?

It was watching a documentary on Steve Reich and hearing 'come out', it was one of those euerka moments when I realised that music could be other things than something to whistle in the shower (though it is quite good to try).

Essentially though it's like most things with music in that I'm in a grerat big room and I discover a new door to go through which I wasn't even aware of.

'Tune' is REALLY hard for me to define because as far back as memory allows I always responded to things like snare hits, a well-placed vibrato etc. The sound of Andy Summers' 'somehwat excessive' (i.e. turn on amp, play note, go to Seychelles and come back to play next chord) sustain on the Police's "Walking on the Moon" is the earliest one I remember.

A trouble here is that Mark's question conflates two different ideas: "having no tune at all" and "listening for something else instead." Johnny's cackle wouldn't have been as effective if it had gone on for three minutes with no other tune or rhythm. By analogy, I don't read Rex Stout novels for their uninteresting plots but for Archie's comic timing and the social by-play between Archie and Wolfe. But still, without the plots the timing wouldn't have anything to time itself against and the social by-play would have gotten tedious, since it would have had no other motion to set itself against. (And the books would have been better with better plots, anyway.)

Conflates nothing! The thing y're LISTENING maybe goes on to have a tune, sure: but the idea is placed in yr head that something cd be great that has no tune. And you go looking. But no you cannot find it, because by the time you listen to what you think might be it, your idea of "tune" has changed.

(Did you just get up v. early, and haven't you gone to bed yet, Frank?)

(And = or, obviously)

No, "and" does not equal "or." I have long since conflated "bed" and "up." Bed is on the ceiling, morning comes with the stars.

By the way, Sterling, are you any relation to the Clover dat fit de battle of Jericho (a.k.a. the maid of Orleans, whose no longer speaking to me)?

Tricky, this.

Taken to mean "[first keen interest in/first acknowledgment that there was] music outside the tonal/melodic template of folksongs/chart pop/trad classical/nursery rhymes" then it might be: Steve Reich's "Drumming".

Taken to mean "first time texture or production became the thing that appealed, possibly beyond the melody" then it might be: The Human League's "Travelogue" (those fizzing, crunchy, sparkling synths).

Taken to mean "first encounter of a non-musical sonic texture that's influenced your reception of music-as-sound ever since" then it might be: my mum's spin dryer, from as early as I can remember. An enveloping, roaring, juddering drone, that I've found echoes of in Laporte, Ligeti, MBV, Amacher...

Pinefox: your enjoyment of "Loveless" can't simply be down to the tunes, surely? "Soon"? "To Here Knows When"?

No Acid House revelations on this thread yet?

whose = who's, obviously

No, wait, "whose" does not equal "obviously," at least not in most circumstances; though it would be fun to go through all literature and replace "whose" with "obviously." "Whose shoes are these?" = "Obviously shoes are these." "To me not obvious. More like tennis rackets they look to me."

Michael J - none here.

Oh wait, there was one - I remember thinking, "Where are the clavinets? They'd sure sound good here!"

Captain beefheart-trout mask. First time I heard I did think they were just randmonly playing, with no direction whatsoever. There was only one/two tracks out of 28 that I could say- 'That's a tune'. After a few more listens grew to love it, of course.

The Velvet Underground, however, made me appreciate music that was out of tune.

Quite! The horrible viola was one of the best things I'd ever heard in rock music.

Also:

The clocks at the start of "Time" by Pink Floyd, which I only like because they STILL startle me every time.

"Machine soldier" which is a song from an anime a friend downloaded that's all made up of metal clashing quite interestingly.

The vocalist for In Flames, because although the music certainly has melodies, the singer sounds like he's retching or barking or something, and it fits perfectly.

A friend just turned me on to Paul Lansky, who cuts up voices (much like Steve Reich did) and played them back at different cadence and various rythms. He also would play back an interview with JK Randall through a vocoder, and remove a few fragments to mess with the meaning...

Frank: no relation, b/c this is not my real name. Not that I know who yr talking about anyway.

As for Mark's 2nd part to the question, which I didn't answer -- listening for A) structure B) texture, overall emotional impact.

Does the pinefox really like Loveless?

Absolutely - as I have said, in swooning phrases decked with lilacs and pansies, on several other threads.

I suppose I must have mentally-blocked out your Loveless swoons. I imagined the texture-over-songwriting approach would be uncharacteristic of (what little I know of) your taste. Now that I come to think of it, I can see a "How Soon is Now" : "Soon" connection.

Mitch L: yes, your intuition makes sense. I just happen to love MBV. (I have no idea of the titles, though. I mean, I know the titles, but don't know which songs they correspond to.)

Steady Mike: you're absolutely right - I love Loveless and not particularly for the tunes. (The same is true of Dylan, I suppose.) Mind, the question is about liking music which has NO tune AT ALL, which rules Loveless out (doesn't it?).

Mark S suggested above that (in effect) tunes might be an alibi, a ruse, via which The Real Stuff gets through - that tunes aren't really what it's about at all. To me this is an inversion of Foucauldian proportions - daring, interesting, almost unbelievable. (The exception, I suppose, would be political music - you know, "The pretty tune draws the listener in and they are affected by the Message", etc - but this wasn't, I think, what MS meant.) It bears thinking about, though I can't think about it much cos I don't know what the Real Stuff might be.

Counter-inversion: what if it's all about tunes and everything else (eg. arrangements) are a lure to the Real Thing which is the tune?

Anecdotal submission: as far as I can make out, when I write a song the tune *is* What It's About - the other stuff (lyrics etc) are the albi, the occasion for melody. But I don't want to insist that this be generalized to everyone else.

Michael J - soytnlee. Ege Bam Yasi at the QM in Glasgow. The slightest twitch of the man's thumb enuf to send room into spasms.

There were no tunes, it was ALL dynamics and layering, uncoincidentally the 2 hardest things for rock bands to get right.

Foxy: tune, "other stuff" division, while fun, is obv. complete bunk. We all know that covers of songs can completely transform them, thus it is obv. the "other stuff" which matters. Also, we all know that an artist with the SAME style of production can induce multiple emotions. Thus it is all tune, and not "other stuff". Alternately to this cute little paradox, we can just accept that things are more complex than that. Lack of tune != necc. lack of thematic development, but rather lack of predictability. Thus with Glass, you don't have a clue what the next note will be, although you do have a good clue what the general structure of the notes will remain (i.e. arpeggiated chords)

I think what first got me into the mode of music without a melody was listening to the humming of the lawn mower on one of the many hot summer days on the prairies, and thinking just how cool a tone that was. I didn't really develop this much until I went to the first segment of the Electroacoustic Music class at Brandon University. That's where I heard a lot of the "classics" like Reich's "Come Out", Cage's "Fontana Mix", some Stockhausen, etc. That's also where I learned that making a hell of a racket is a whole lot of fun, and layering a ton of sound is blissful. Definitely a lot more fun doing it than hearing it, most of the time.

Somewhere in between there was Einstuerzende Neubauten's track "Das Schaben", heard on headphones in the middle of the night, coming over the airwaves (thanks to the CBC's late-night program Brave New Waves). Just ten minutes of metallic screeching and scraping, and still one of my favourite pieces of recorded sound.

I used to sing along with the lawnmower. Perhaps I was finding the tune hidden within the nontune.

I don't think that Mark's question is flawed - you can listen to (and for) the other stuff in music that has tunes, but it's often not until you get to music with no tune at all that you realise the proposed binary dichotomy can be inverted/undone.

For me the realisation probably struck when I got into Basic Channel, which is not that long ago. On the other hand there's a lot of music with a scarcity in the tunes department that don't really register as such. Much of jungle is basically breakbeats and bass tones, but the sense of narrative development the deployment of the beats imbues can disguise the lack of a tune. In that sense there's heaps I was already listening to but wasn't aware of in that sense - yes, including acid house.

Actually, Mark's question is great because its terms are problematic (e.g., "tune" vs. "nontune" not a clear division and assumes a form of music that is hardly universal). But to answer the damn question: Spoonie Gee's "Love Rap," which is all rap and percussion. That said, I refuse to concede that the percussion and rap don't contain tones and tune. And anyway I prefer "Spoonin' Rap," which has bass, hence more "tune." And anyway this wasn't when I came to a realization in favor of other stuff, since I may have been born with it, again taking into account that a lot of the other stuff is substantially if not officially "tuneful." E.g., "Rapper's Delight" making obvious (for those who didn't know already) that the bass was the best thing in "Good Times" (and for this discussion we have to ignore the fact that the bass part has a tune); or James Brown inserting ten-minute call-and-response vamps into three-minute pop songs, Yardbirds inserting half-an-hour raveups in same, Dylan detaching a piece of tune and vamping on it, etc. (Same caveat as above, in that all these elements are tuneful.) Or the fact that I'd be an idiot to claim that James Brown's "Give It Up Or Turn It Loose" was tuneless, but I'm not able to isolate a particular element as the "The Tune." Or the fact that the guitar riff in "Satisfaction" actually gets a lot of its kick from its interaction with the bass part (though since each part has a tune, now I'm having to claim that the tunes are one type of thing and their interaction is "other stuff"). Or the fact that I love the original recording of "Jumping Jack Flash" but have hated every other version including the Stones' attempts to do the song live. I'd say the moral here isn't that "other stuff" is more important, but that "other stuff" (some of it, anyway) is integral to the tune, is just the less explicit part of the tune. (And in a lot of music I like, the tune is a less explicit part of the rhythm.)

The real "other stuff" might be that "Jingle Bells" is blah as a song but a lot of fun to sing, or that a lot of songs are more fun to talk about than to listen to, or didn't become fun to listen to until people talked about them.