Mixing is total craft, from records to baking, mixing is simply craft.

You can learn how to count beats

You can learn what texture dough should be before rolling

Mixing is as craft as it gets.

The art for sure is engaging an emotional response, but this is not a new development and surely has always been there. I am unsure, but I believe we are both discussing the same idea, holding the same opinion, but from completely different ends. I feel you are evaluating this from more of a radio DJ perspective and myself as the sonic continuum of meticulously woven streams of audio; and this clearly relates to our lives and fields of experience.

I despise the quiet within a listening experience, the “breath” disengages my listening and again my brain is pondering, and therefore: not listening. Can you not view this mix tape as a sonic continuum? Trevor Wishart discusses notions of planes of sound, of these planes becoming webs or meshes that our brain can appreciate, the spatial movements, the flow (literally) like waves. Where is extreme quiet in all of this? The wave “breathes”, but it is not quiet – it is a gesture, a shape, a morphology.

The track ordering is curation, not mixing, the ordering is the set, the tape, the art. Mixing is combining of two (or more) things, the multiplication, the crossfade.

In your method songs do not “siege” or “mutate” into each other, they simply see each other from a distance before they are gone, they never touch or attempt to make contact, they do not combine, they just see the other across a plane of quiet before they disappear.

Surely you would know me well enough by now to know I am not only talking about beats.

None of this is or ever has been a mix

Neil

Nothing is ever left that long.  And few posts result in me thinking about our collaboration, namely how long it takes me to put my finger out of my arse, or how long it takes you to reply as your brain races at the speed of light.

So are you saying a ‘good mix’ is defined by paced rhythm, builds, tempo and changes?  Is this the ‘craft’ at work?   Do you think the art of the mix tape has evolved, embracing ‘emotional response’ over time?

To answer your question.  No, I do not liken moments of silence to periods of waiting.  To me the silence, or at the least ‘extreme quietness’  is only about waiting when in the doctor’s waiting room, the eventuality of a knock at the door, or at the worst, doomsday.  To me the silence in a mix tape IS a form of mix.  A breath between a song, a period of reflection, or the tension before a new track.  Maybe what I am trying to say is that the order, or sequence of the tracks is the real mix, before the fun of the actual fade in/fade out occurs.  I never really think too hard about how the songs siege into each other.

Speaking of which, I like how you have highlighted my use of the word ’siege’.  Maybe I don’t really mean that.   I’m moving towards ‘mutate’.  But that will probably have changed before the next post.

Tim

Tim

I know you said to not reply immediately, and I haven’t, but I didn’t leave it very long.

A ‘good mix’ would adhere to the conventions of traditional mixing, and I assume these conventions originate from dance (music) culture. There needs to be a constant continuum of similarly paced rhythms in order to keep listeners dancing, or of course carefully blended builds and tempo changes. Even within the realms of the DJ, there is nothing left to silence; any fades or moments of quiet are filled with speech, conversation and/or spot sound effects.

There should never be any silence no matter what forms of music, or audio, you are mixing, but this doesn’t mean that there can’t be moments of quiet.

In the world there is never silence. You cannot ‘mix’ nothing.

I am interested in your use of the word “siege” in: “how one track sieges into another?”

Siege is like battle, but mixing is about harmoniously weaving together, there has been little room (so far) for dissonance in mixing.

But think about it: is there ever room for dissonance amongst mixing?

Weird tasting food? Bizarre smelling perfume? Paint?

Here’s questioning consonance.

Do you wish to liken moments of silence to periods of waiting?

Neil

I’m playing devil’s advocate here, so go with me on this one.  I’m intrigued by why there should be no silence between tracks in ‘good mixes’.  What is taboo in this respect?  Is the ‘mix’ in mix tape about the craft of how one track sieges into another?  Or is how the listener is taken on a journey, or how an emotional response is communicated the ‘mix’.  In my mind a period of silence could be part of the mix, the stream of consciousness, the emotional resonance as equally as the two tracks blending into each other.

Tim

I agree that it may be truly unnessary to establish a rule for mixing the text, but I feel it is essential that we do attempt to mix the text. And I hope you are attempting this. Like the mixing, as per Paul D. Miller, pulling together the disparate streams of our consciouness and combining them for a couple of sentences would add a really nice flow/continuum.

To textulate?

I like blank space in books, I feel we should look for canons of how to lay out text, immediately I can think of John Cage’s collection of writings: “Silence: lectures and other writings” and my personal favourite “Nova Express” by William Borroughs.

Nova Express

REMEMBER:

1. As in all good mixes – there should be no silence between the tracks.
2. We are not writing a blog, this is the place to discuss ideas, or pose questions, but you must still be writing the text in secret.

I am glad that you are on board.

Neil

Neil

Do we try to establish a rule for mixing text?

Does text mix, or can it crash?  Can the length of the silence between tracks or text be communicated by blank space within in book?

The transitions are so important and flexibility is the key in my eyes.

So Neil.  You wrote this many weekends ago.  And I didn’t respond for many weeks.  So already I have breached the agreement.  So much happened.  On the page, I would like a long gap between your last post and this reply.  That is the mix.  That was the narrative.  That was the time spent.

Tim

I just saw a barge called “bagheera” like from the jungle book. Is clearly a pun on the word barge. I’m at the harbour side in Bristol and I’m really cold in the wind. I am always cold because I have no fat or hair on my head. But a lot of time I’m sweating.

There is a bespectacled fat man with glasses and a football team. He is wearing a suit jacket and football shorts. I think it is his only jacket.

This is not a question.

Neil

I want the book to be a mix tape and I completely understand why and am entirely sure it should be.

All my research points to this one point.

(intentionally)

I want to make it more like a mix tape,

than just a sequence of written works.

I want more pictures and I will generate some to be included and mixed…

I know we can mix the pictures with the text without too much trouble.

I know we can mix multiple pictures very easily.

I know we can create cross roads of ideas and thought functions.

But Tim,

how do we mix the text? (crossfade)

two seperate columns one column the text increases in size while the other decreases,

interweave sentences with a similar device?

I might want to give the book to you very soon, I will be away on this weekend so you will not get it until Monday,

which will nearly be my week,

or do you wish me to return it to you tomorrow?

Neil

How does one integrate a mix tape into a book?

I suppose I’m asking myself whether it matters?  Is there a need for a mix tape to be somehow a parasitic entity that leeches itself to a book, or writing?

I think (when I look at my writings in the past) that often the sounds I take on board in my life, naturally find a home in the anything I write.

Take the initial exchange of notes between lovers, where ideas/philosophies/sounds/visuals are traded as gifts to each other.  The mix tape becomes the whole series of correspondence between two people.  The stories that shape them.  The relevance in the lives of those who have chosen them.  The careful consideration and editorial control in what gets included and what doesn’t.

Take the thrill of finding a rare long lost mp3 of a South African vocal group that your mum has spent years trying to find.  You give her a disk, and see how pleased she is.  The mix tape becomes the gift.

Take the excitement of creating a mix tape yourself.  It is something that never seems of have a definite conclusion, or fixed status.  I complete the ‘mix’ yet I am left there thinking it is wholly incomplete.  The mix tape becomes the small link in the otherwise endless chain.

So when you ask how do you integrate the mix tape into the book.  I can’t see it as a separate entity that may somehow be something that you ‘include’.  I see the overall book as being the mix tape.

I like the idea of being the ultimate mix tape you could possibly never get or does not exist.  It gets me thinking about the thinking or intent behind the creation of a book/mix tape.

So why do you create mix tapes?  What function do they serve in your life?  Do you have a particular inkling as to how it might be incorporated?

Tim

I’ve been writing about music, I am writing specifically about mixing and have referred to this mix so thought you might want to hear it:
Nicely listening mixt by neilrose

I am writing about my current fad/obsession: the mix tape and it’s function as a carrier of feelings.

I have a question:

How do I integrate a mix tape into the book?

Is a list of tracks and a cutout and keep cover good enough?

Maybe this could be like the ultimate mix tape of tracks you could possibly never get or do not exist?

There’s coffee on my computer.

Neil