With news that Apple is suing the manufacturers of the iGasm it occurred to me last night that this perhaps was a possible new venue for contemporary music. I brought up the subject with a few friends over beers and the debate began, ‘What piece of avant garde music would be the ideal iGasm driver?’

Steve Reich? Philip Glass? Xenakis? Ferneyhough? The winner at the table seemed to be the genre of noize punk. Driving 200 BMP noise. But who knows? Maybe your music could be a hit at this latest of new music venues extended! What piece of music would drive the adventurous iGasm user into sensory overload?

13 thoughts on “The iGasm ‘Listener’ – A Potential Avant Garde Music Audience?”
  1. 4’33” might be the the least effective, but Feldman could take the cake for sheer frustration.

  2. […] The soundON Festival of New Music takes place June 13-16 and features San Diego State experimental music professor Joe Waters. Her Noise was an exhibition of women in experimental music, and a video is available of the making of the exhibit. Another video, this one of Anthony Braxton in Istanbul, is available. The Anton Kern Gallery is featuring the art of Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart). Finally, on the lighter side, a Sequenza21 blogger considers what kind of avant-garde music would best facilitate the iGasm, a new “toy” that is *ahem* driven by digital sounds. […]

  3. Yes, that’s correct about Palestine—one of my favorite works by him, actually. Forgot about that.

    Re: 4’33”: if it’s feet and inches rather than minutes and seconds, I’m not sure the “ineffectiveness” is tenable

  4. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Charlemagne Palestine have a piece called “SCHLONGO! : theLUVVdrone,” or something similar? That’s probably a winner.

    It would also be interesting to consider which music would be the absolute WORST for this purpose. Or maybe not – I guess 4’33 would be pretty hard to top for sheer ineffectiveness.

  5. Aha! A definitive means to mediate all classical-music smack-downs: Wagner vs. Brahms, Schoenberg vs. Stravinsky, Babbitt vs. Reich. Who REALLY delivers the O?

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