it all ADDS up

Additive synthesis was brought up this week in class and talked about how it has been used in more common music. Thinking about it, its a very true thing. Take a guitar riff for example. If you hit a note and either simultaneous or soon thereafter strike any other note the sound that will be projected or amplified has the additive qualities.

The one extremely evident case of this with guitars is what "scenies" commonly call "dissonant chords." Really they aren't chords in a structural sense of the word chord but whatever. Playing two notes half a step apart in pitch is extremely common in today's rock, pop, and metal music. In fact in harder metal or hardcore music its been so used that for a time being there was a slight joke of a movement against bands that used this aspect in their songs because they were just ripping off what NORMA JEAN (website) had come up with and i highly doubt that they *invented the idea* but they do deserve credit for being an early band to coin a style of use for the "dissonant chords."

I see those "dissonant chords" as a very effective example of the additive synthesis in common music because the notes fight so evidently, so that is why i concentrated on that subject so much, but all in all pretty much everything that involves numerous notes performed from one instrument entails additive synthesis in a way. I guess this is another case that suggests new media to be not so different after all.

Chris Lundeen