January 2014 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Swartz, Weev & radical libertarian lexicon (Re: Jacob Appelbaum in Germany - Aaron Swartz)
by John Young 07 Jan '14

07 Jan '14

Anybody with a three-letter name of a website, or more grotesquely vain, a TLA nym, needs killing thrice as a bitter old diaper-wearing turd and tex-mexist marxian from Odessa, oil-capitalist murder capital of the USA.

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NSA, FBI creep & rule of law, democracy itself (Re: [cryptography] To Protect and Infect Slides)
by Adam Back 07 Jan '14

07 Jan '14

This is indeed an interesting and scary question: On Sun, Jan 05, 2014 at 08:31:42PM +0300, ianG wrote: >What is a game changer is the relationship between the NSA and the >other USA civilian agencies. The breach of the civil/military line >is the one thing that has sent the fear level rocketing sky high, as >there is a widespread suspicion that the civil agencies cannot be >trusted to keep their fingers out of the pie. AKA systemic >corruption. If allied to national sigint capabilities, we're in a >world of pain. > >Question: Is there anything that can put some meat&metrics on how >developed and advanced this relationship is, how far the poison has >spread? How afraid should people in America be? maybe the most interesting and portenteous shift in power towards Orwellianism and totalitarianism in a century, as it affects the effectiveness of rule of law, and already weak separation of politics from law enforcement and justice system in the (current though slipping) super-power with unfortunate aspirations of extra-territorialism and international bullying. We're still a few decades from the cross over of financial dominance to Asia and BRICs, and most of those places are probably worse than the US by aspiration if thats possible, though less internet spying budget and capability. Unless something shapes up towards democracy in the super-power competitors we're in for a dismal century seemingly. That the NSA, and now seemingly FBI, see this I think maybe this FBI mission creep suggests the national security / law enforcement separation is slipping badly: http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/01/07/0015255/fbi-edits-mission-statement… | "Following the 9/11 attacks, the FBI picked up scores of new | responsibilities related to terrorism and counterintelligence while | maintaining a finite amount of resources. What's not in question is that | government agencies tend to benefit in numerous ways when considered | critical to national security as opposed to law enforcement. 'If you tie | yourself to national security, you get funding and you get exemptions on | disclosure cases,' said McClanahan. 'You get all the wonderful arguments | about how if you don't get your way, buildings will blow up and the | country will be less safe.'" so if even the FBI are getting their nose into the tent of unfetter access to historical data on everyone, plus informal channels and "tip-offs" on dirt on politically unpopular pepople - eg say effective security researchers like Applebaum, or effective journalists like Greenwald. (No "foreigners" dont feel very comforted, and the explict acknowledgment of tip-offs, and inforation channels to US domestic and international law enforcement, basically puts the entire planet at risk of politicaly motivated interference.) With retroactive search of your entire lifes electronic foot print including every "encrypted" IM, skype voip channel, contacts, emails, attorney client privileged and not, with no warrant or evidence presented to a judge for subpoena, the Orwell 2.0 system can probably fabricate or concoct trouble for 99% of the adult population of the planet. George Orwell 30 years late. We're pretty close to fucked as a civilization unless something pretty radical shifts in the political thinking and authorizations. And realistically it not even clear the NSA can politically be controlled anymore by the political system. Its very hard to influence something with that much skull-duggery built into its DNA, that many 10s of billions in outsourced defense contractor lobbying power, that much inertia and will to survive as an org, with military PSYOPs to turn on its own populace and political system, and black bag covert ops ties to dirty tricks in CIA, and judicial and law virtual immunity. They probably realistically went full speed ahead since the 11 Sep 2001, if not earlier on such things, and the scrapping. TIA wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness | Although the program was formally suspended [as of late 2003], its data | mining software was later adopted by other government agencies, with only | superficial changes being made. Probably even before since we nominally won the export regulation debacle and democractic countries were forced to admit it was inconsistent with their self-perception as open democratic countries, to be controlling and banning encryption software. The 21st century equivalent of book burning. Can we rectify this with the cypherpunks write code? Maybe as Schneier said in a discussion on this topic with Eben Moglen (at Moglen's respective university) maybe we can make it more expensive by deploying more crypto that is end to end secure, secure by default. ie more TOFU, more cert pinning, more certificate transparency distributed cert validation. Even the cert valiation maybe behind the game, perhaps NSA really do already have a lot of actual SSL private keys via hardware, software hacking and backdoors with manufacturer complicity or not, as well as just demanding them with NSL orders, gag orders as Lavabit showed finally with evidence. I wonder what proportion of SSL certs worldwide the five eyes/Orwell 2.0 shadow orwell 2.0 government have copies of? Adam

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Re: Omidyar influence in new Greenwald venture [was: SRF: cryptic]
by John Young 07 Jan '14

07 Jan '14

GG is to be complimented for engaging on Twitter. That could be the most lasting of the outlets due to its free swarming and lack of wealth accumulation and concentration by hierarchical rewarding of the very top, commercial journalism (acknowledging the Twitter owners stealing the values of the free tweets). Tweets are only about self- and product promotion. Not like this grafitti billboard. Most of GG's statement comes right out of Silicon Valley playbook for acquiring hard-luck journalism. Use of "thrilling" is the clue the saved emit upon envisioning the IPO, which is what GG is PRing about as required of NGO beneficiaries of great wealth. The Snowden pact was superceded by the Omidyar pact. A buyout of a fledgling venture by a vulture continuing to prowl for rabbits. The vulture is the commercial components coutured by the non-profits. GG is disingenuous about the separation, as PGP was about Symantec takeover, as RSA was about EMC's. Many journalists aquired by Omidyar and Bezos have made similar statements of "irresistable" rescue by better endowed kingpins. And, yes, founders do appreciate the windfall, sign NDAs, relieve their desperate families, and move on to being celebrities, their brands prostituted to continue the windfall deal to keep quiet, to say nothing disparaging. Seymour Hersh and many others have told about their experinences with short-attention span of journalist publishers and their advertisers, TV producers, movie underwriters as fans move massively toward other markets. Edward Snowden should prepare to be royally screwed as Manning has been. This is the ancient tradition of brass sacrificing grunts for noble causes, the careers of generals and above. At 08:36 AM 1/7/2014, you wrote: >On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 7:02 PM, coderman <coderman(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > ... > > the Omidyar buyout of Greenwald and Poitras apparently to shield the > > willful, disgraceful corporate role in pervasive privacy destruction... > >GG refutes this premise entirely, and with conviction: > >http://utdocuments.blogspot.com.br/2014/01/email-exchange-with-reader-over-… >""" >(4) The claim that we are "holding back documents" for some nefarious >or self-interested purpose is and always has been false. I have >discussed many times before - most prominently here - why our >agreement with our source, along with related legal issues, prevents >any sort of mass release of documents, but I have been working >endlessly, as has Laura, to continue to publish stories all around the >world, including publishing many stories and documents after we formed >our new venture. > >Not only have I published new documents in Norway, Sweden, France, >Spain, and Holland after we formed our new venture, but I also >published one of the most attention-generating stories yet in the >Huffington Post just five weeks ago. Similarly, Laura has published >numerous big articles and key NSA documents in both der Spiegel and >the NYT after we formed our new venture. We're doing the exact >opposite of this accusation: we're publishing documents and stories >aggressively all over the world with other media outlets until our >First Look site is ready. > >We will continue to publish aggressively with other outlets until we >are up and running at First Look. In fact, I am working right now with >other news outlets, including in the U.S., on big stories. I'm not >"holding back" anything: of all the many entities with thousands of >Snowden documents, I have published more NSA documents, in more >nations around the world, than anyone. And there are many, many more >that will be published in the short-term. > >But - and this is critical - in his Washington Post interview with >Snowden last month, Bart Gellman noted "Snowden's insistence, to this >reporter and others, that he does not want the documents published in >bulk." From the start, Snowden indeed repeatedly insisted on that. > >Anyone who demands that we "release all documents" - or even release >large numbers in bulk - is demanding that we violate our agreement >with our source, disregard the framework we created when he gave us >the documents, jeopardize his interests in multiple ways, and subject >him to far greater legal (and other) dangers. I find that demand to be >unconscionable, and we will never, ever violate our agreement with him >no matter how many people want us to. > >That said, we have published an extraordinary number of top secret NSA >documents around the world in a short period of time. And our work is >very far from done: there are many, many more documents and stories >that we will publish. > >Toward that end, we have very carefully increased the number of >journalists and experts who are working on these documents and who >have access to them. We are now working with more experts in >cryptography and hacking than ever. One of the most exciting things >about our new organization is that we now have the resources to >process and report these documents more quickly and efficiently than >ever before, consistent with ensuring that we don't make the kinds of >errors that would allow others to attack the reporting. > >These documents are complex. Sometimes they take a good deal of >reporting to fill in some of the gaps. From the start, people have >been eager for us to make serious mistakes so they can exploit them to >discredit the reporting, and so we work very hard to make sure that >doesn't happen. That takes time. Convincing media institutions (and >their armies of risk-averse lawyers, editors and executives) to >publish documents, the aggressive way we think they need to be >published, also often takes a lot of time. > >When we began our reporting in June by publishing a new story every >day, even our allies - people who work on these issues for a living - >complained that the releases were coming too fast to process, >understand, or keep up with, and argued that each story needs time to >be processed and to allow people to react. > >In terms of effects, I think it's hard to argue with the strategy. >Even seven months later, the story continues to dominate headlines >around the world and to trigger what Chelsea Manning described in her >private chat as her goal when whistleblowing: "worldwide discussion, >debates, and reforms". That's why Edward Snowden made clear to Bart >Gellman that he "succeeded beyond plausible ambition." > >For the same reason, I'm proud that we're trying to amplify the >lessons and maximize the impact of these disclosures even more through >things like books and films, which can reach and affect audiences that >political reporting by itself never can. I've been working for many >years warning of the dangers of state surveillance and the value of >internet freedom and privacy, and am thrilled to now be able to have >those messages heard much more loudly and clearly than ever before by >using all platforms to communicate them. > >In sum, I know that we have been and continue to be extremely faithful >and loyal to the agreement we entered into with our source, and are >doing our journalism exactly as we assured him he would. As Snowden >himself has said, he thinks that, too. That continues to be a >critically important metric for me. >"""

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Omidyar influence in new Greenwald venture [was: SRF: cryptic]
by coderman 07 Jan '14

07 Jan '14

On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 6:11 PM, coderman <coderman(a)gmail.com> wrote: > ... this should be tempered with appropriate caution: > "Six Degrees of Omidyar" > http://tomslee.net/2013/09/six-degrees-of-omidyar.html > who will surely show up in any Open Data effort making progress... also involved in: """ Glenn Greenwald, who has published many of the most important scoops from the Edward Snowden leaks, is leaving The Guardian and setting up a new media venture with long-time journalist Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill from The Nation. The venture is being funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who has suggested that he's prepared to invest more than $250 million in the new venture. """

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Re: [cryptography] To Protect and Infect Slides
by John Young 06 Jan '14

06 Jan '14

Brian Carroll rightly expands the discussion of pervasive targeting by ubiquitous technology. In architecture, for example, the increasing use of automation for controlling building systems -- HVAC, electrical, plumbing, security among others -- poses considerable vulnerabilities beyond legacy analog controls. Many of the automated systems are administered remotely over telephone, cable and wireless networks. Others are controlled locally within structures. Some are secured with encryption but many are not. And few are TEMPEST-protected outside military and governmental facilities. We have found that few architects and building engineers are knowledgeable about building automated systems nor the variety of means to secure and protect them. They are customarily designed, operated and maintained by specialty firms not traditional building designers. Moreover we have found that building management and maintenance staff rely upon outside firms for advanced technology, thus subjecting their facilties to unsupervised interventions by outside personnel who may themselves be sub-contractors, and sub-subs for each component of automation. In short, it is fairly easy to interdict and access building automation systems for implanting devices, injecting packets, tampering with OSes, siphoning networks, temporarily suspending security, all the things recently revealed in the 30c3 presentations. Digital security and TSCM experts are familiar with many of these vulnerabilities but there is a common practice to specialize in services (often at client request) and neglect comprehensive coverage. For example, to inspect communications and security systems but not HVAC, plumbing, electrical and automation systems which often have far more inadvertent emitters and transceivers contained in extensive components throughout a structure. NSA TAO and the joint CIA-NSA Special Collection Service are especially capable to expoit these gaps, and usually send teams composed of experts in each building system to determine a comprehensive attack on vulnerabilities, and shrewdly, planting multiple and various decoys to mislead counterspies. A catalog of these full-scope operations would be quite informative and perhaps diminish the effectiveness of ruses and decoys, in particular the kind of solo operation valorized in movies, books and TV.

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Re: [cryptography] To Protect and Infect Slides
by John Young 06 Jan '14

06 Jan '14

If your server or ISP generates log files, as all do, you cannot be secure. If upstream servers generate log files, as all do, you cannot be secure. If local, regional, national and international servers generate log files, as all do, you cannot be secure. So long as log files are ubiquitous on the Internet, no one can be secure. Log files are the fundamental weakness of the Internet because system administrators claim the Internet cannot be managed and maintained without them. This is not true, it is merely an urban legend to conceal the interests of system administrators and their customers to exploit Internet user data. There is no fundamental need for log files, except to perpetuate the other urban legend, privacy policy, which conceals the abuse of log files by web site operators and their cooperation with "lawful" orders to reveal user data, most often by being paid to reveal that data to authorities, to sponsors, to funders, to advertisers, to scholars, to private investigators, to inside and outside lawyers, to serial cohorts, cartels and combines, to providers and purchasers of web sites, to educators of cyber employees, to courts, to cybersecurity firms, to journalists, to anybody who has the slightest justification to exploit Internet freedom of information by way of phony security, privacy and anonymizing schemes. In this way, the Internet corrupts its advocates by inducing the gathering and exploiting user data, . It is likely your organizaion is doing this ubiquitous shit by pretending to ask for advice on security. As if there is any. NSA is us. At 05:44 PM 1/4/2014, you wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA256 > >On 31/12/13 21:13, Jacob Appelbaum wrote: > > I'm also happy to answer questions in discussion form about the > > content of the talk and so on. I believe we've now released quite a > > lot of useful information that is deeply in the public interest. > > > > All the best, Jacob > >Hi people: > >As most of the people around the world, I find really troubling all >these revelations. Of course we suspected this kind of shit, we just >didn't know the gory and surprising details. > >I work in a libre-software e-voting project [0] which has been >deployed in some interesting initiatives already [1] and we strive to >make it as secure as possible [2], though our resources are currently >limited. Of course, anyone is welcome to join and help us. > >Do you have any specific recommendation for securing the servers of >the authorities who do the tallying, in light of latest revelations? >it seems really difficult to get away from the NSA if they want to get >inside the servers. > >Kind regards, >- -- >[0] https://agoravoting.com >[1] >http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/joan-baldovi-spain-transparenc… >[2] >https://blog.agoravoting.com/index.php/2013/01/03/agora-a-virtual-parliamen… >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) >Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ > >iF4EAREIAAYFAlLIjtMACgkQqrnAQZhRnaqPhwEA8DWIYkdp4gyC4uo6asng0Olc >1viSsZazIcv1TC9w8S4BAN0Q+iZ7boZOconhKCBBfele9Im9/+0Dt0j/M+ySVeQ7 >=e6ab >-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- >_______________________________________________ >cryptography mailing list >cryptography(a)randombit.net >http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

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Re: Jacob Appelbaum in Germany
by John Grubbs 06 Jan '14

06 Jan '14

On Jan 3, 2014 5:34 AM, "James A. Donald" <jamesd(a)echeque.com> wrote: > > > At 04:38 PM 12/31/2013, James A. Donald wrote: > >> In practice, it is pretty obvious that most practitioners of civil > >> disobedience believe they are above the law, that they usually *are* > >> above the law, and that in particular Swartz believed he was above the > >> law, and was shocked to find that he was not. > > On 2014-01-03 11:53, Ulex Europae wrote: > > You seem to be laboring under a pernicious misapprehension: that there > > is a legitimate mandate to obey laws that are unconstitutional and/or > > unjust. There is a mandate, but it is just as illegitimate as the > > unconstitutional or the unjust law. > > If someone was to hide a laptop in one of my cupboards, to steal such > large amounts of information from my home network as to disrupt its > functioning, I would take a sledgehammer to his laptop, and when he > showed up to collect his laptop, a sledgehammer to him. > > Swartz committed a crime against people more powerful than he was, > incorrectly thinking he was more powerful than they. Just who did he commit the crime against, both MIT and JSTOR wanted prosecution dropped. In your example "your house" represents both MIT and JSTOR. The rest of your argument makes me think your either a deciple of Authority or here to troll, or both.

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Recent Der Spiegel coverage about the NSA and GCHQ
by Jacob Appelbaum 06 Jan '14

06 Jan '14

Hi, I wanted to write to highlight some important documents that have recently been released by Der Spiegel about the NSA and GCHQ. We worked very hard and for quite some time on these stories - I hope that you'll enjoy them. Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-… Part 1: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-… Part 2: Targeting Mexico: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-… Part 3: The NSA's Shadow Network: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-… NSA's Secret Toolbox: Unit Offers Spy Gadgets for Every Need: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-secret-toolbox-ant-unit-offer… Shopping for Spy Gear: Catalog Advertises NSA Toolbox: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-door… Interactive Graphic: The NSA's Spy Catalog: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-941262.html Neue Dokumente: Der geheime Werkzeugkasten der NSA: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/neue-dokumente-der-geheime-werkz… NSA-Programm "Quantumtheory": Wie der US-Geheimdienst weltweit Rechner knackt: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/quantumtheory-wie-die-nsa-weltwe… Der Spiegel 1 / 2014: https://magazin.spiegel.de/digital/index_SP.html#SP/2014/1/124188114 http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/index-7629.html TAO slides: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-knackt-der-geheimdienst-… NSA QUANTUM Tasking Techniques for the R&T Analyst: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-uebernimmt-der-geheimdie… Yahoo! user targeting and attack example with QUANTUM: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-uebernimmt-der-geheimdie… QUANTUMTHEORY and related QUANTUM programs: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-uebernimmt-der-geheimdie… If you'd like to detect the QUANTUM INSERT, I suggest reading about the race condition details: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/qfire-die-vorwaertsverteidigng-der-nsa-fo… Details about the Man-On-The-Side with QUANTUM: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-uebernimmt-der-geheimdie… QFIRE (NSA-Geheimdokumente: "Vorwärtsverteidigung" mit QFIRE), TURMOIL, TURBINE, TURBULENCE: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/qfire-die-vorwaersverteidigng-der-nsa-fot… MARINA: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-uebernimmt-der-geheimdie… More MARINA details: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-uebernimmt-der-geheimdie… Catalog of equipment covering around ~50 programs: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/interaktive-grafik-hier-sitzen-d… Other slides covering FOXACID and more: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-knackt-der-geheimdienst-… NSA QUANTUMTHEORY capabilities list: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-knackt-der-geheimdienst-… GCHQ QUANTUMTHEORY capabilities list: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-knackt-der-geheimdienst-… OLYMPUSFIRE: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-knackt-der-geheimdienst-… An overview of all of these articles is available in German: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/quantumtheory-wie-die-nsa-weltwe… Earlier this week, I also recently gave a talk titled "To Protect and Infect: part two" at CCC's 30C3. In the talk I explain a number of these topics - the video is a reasonable complement to the above stories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0w36GAyZIA There are quite a few news articles and most of them have focused on the iPhone backdoor known as DROPOUTJEEP - they largely miss the big picture asserting that the NSA needs physical access. This is a misunderstanding. The way that the NSA and GCHQ compromise devices with QUANTUMNATION does not require physical access - that is merely one way to compromise an iPhone. Generally the NSA and GCHQ compromise the phone through the network using QUANTUM/QUANTUMNATION/QUANTUMTHEORY related attack capabilities. An example of a vulnerable Apple user is shown: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-uebernimmt-der-geheimdie… "note: QUANTUMNATION and standard QUANTUM tasking results in the same exploitation technique. The main difference is QUANTUNATION deploys a state 0 implant and is able to be submitted by the TOPI. Any ios device will always get VALIDATOR deployed." They're not talking about Cisco in that slide, I assure you. Details on VALIDATOR: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/nsa-dokumente-so-knackt-der-geheimdienst-… Welcome to 2014! The truth is coming and it can't be stopped, Jacob

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"Google and the World Brain" (2013)
by Gregory Foster 06 Jan '14

06 Jan '14

thoughtmaybe (Jan 5) - "Google and the World Brain": http://thoughtmaybe.com/google-and-the-world-brain/?lang=en > In 2002, quietly and behind closed doors, the Internet giant Google began to scan millions of books in an effort to create a privatised giant global library, containing every book in existence. Not only this, but they claimed they had an even greater purpose–to create a higher form of intelligence, something that HG Wells had predicted in his 1937 essay “World Brain”. Working with the world’s most prestigious libraries, Google was said to be reinventing the limits of copyright in the name of free access to anyone, anywhere. But what can possibly be wrong with this picture? As Google and the World Brain reveals, a whole lot. Some argue that Google’s actions represent aggressive theft on an enormous scale, others see it as an attempt to monopolise our shared cultural heritage, and still others view the project as an attempt to flatten our minds by consolidating complex ideas into searchable “extra-long tweets” for the screen. > At first slowly, and then with intensifying conviction, a diverse coalition of authors and others mobilise to stop the ambitious project. Google and the World Brain explores this high-stakes story with an important alternative voice to the technological utopianism of our age. http://www.worldbrainthefilm.com/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2551516/ https://twitter.com/worldbrainfilm Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZkdkobK99A Thanks to Michael Allan for the pointer to thoughtmaybe.com via libtech, https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2013-August/010908.ht… HT their email announcement list: http://thoughtmaybe.com/subscribe/ gf P.S. - H.G. Wells' collection of essays and addresses, _World Brain_: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Brain Including "The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia", his "[c]ontribution to the new Encyclopédie Française, August, 1937": https://sherlock.ischool.berkeley.edu/wells/world_brain.html > Quietly and sanely this new encyclopaedia will, not so much overcome > these archaic discords, as deprive them, steadily but imperceptibly, > of their present reality. -- Gregory Foster || gfoster(a)entersection.org @gregoryfoster <> http://entersection.com/

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drumming (urls)
by brian carroll 06 Jan '14

06 Jan '14

if (strcmp() > t= engine_get(t)) {?format=<lucid|achilles>... --- drums & music --- In Speed Metal, Fastest Drummers Take a Beating Few Humans Can Keep Up in Battle With Drum Machines http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230459160457928853112603… [q] When new technologies arrived, metal drumming standards entered the realm of the physically impossible. [/q] /* so i read the above article and it reminded me of some issues perhaps correlatable with computing today.... i have thought about this a lot after taking up electronic drums for music therapy, learning via self-study, to benefit from the rewiring of circuits and coordination, etc. very much like juggling actually, these two realms combining, and also extending into processing concepts in terms of looping and sequencing of patterns. first, there is so much going on that shares a fundamental limit with how music is conceived of and limited to an outdated paradigm based on perceptual awareness, that the framework of ordinary approaches normally assumes an absolute frame of one-way movement in time of a coordinated group led by a conductor, and this is how music is processed, organized, how songs are defined, relations, instruments designed, etc. like a rationalization in a given view that then may not allow other dynamics in that controlled domain, even, if not due to heresy what this leads to is a technical approach, to refinement, where virtuosity is tied to speed and dexterity and memory, repeating over and over older code performances as flawless as possible, within a range of interpretation though in a finite or contained or bounded way. this extended into radio, recordings or copies of originals, and mp3s, copies of copies, then carrying on this ~music or sound-information or patterning, people training to repeat play the code via lifelong training of authority-based instruction, yet the ideas and concepts fixed in a narrow range of thinking, as if music itself has become its own notation. music as signage. the language of music overtaking the music of music, as its truth. rote performance in a sense. so the assumption arrives at a song if successful, plays eternally, via endless concerts and furtherance by others repeating the code. instead of, perhaps a song only exists in its truth once, in a singular instance, and then it is another song, and cannot be recaptured the same. also: that there are experts or musicians, education needed to play complicated instruments whose interfaces are cryptic to the uninitiated if not musicians themselves, by technical design or engineers who make equipment, yet the _musicological questions have been removed from these same instruments, in their further development in an electronics-based context, especially with computing, where now instruments ship buggy and broken, designed to fail, and with artificial limits or constraints that prevent anything beyond existing bounds from being explored, to control and shape parameters that feed into existing industry automation, as if new music is another can of soup on assemblyline, volunteered or subsidized, paid for the ideal technical performer, to which technology itself aspires, is the robot musician who can function at speeds and with memory and dexterity and coordination humans cannot, and yet in this substitution or equivalence, the truth of music as more than repeated patterns is lost to a reductionist approach, where it is merely language as language, doing things yet at another more detached layer, perhaps even disconnected from a relational, emotional grounding via music, such that it becomes or is technique, only, music as technology, audio engineering with a pleasing aesthetic layer determined by polls and behavioral psychologists if it makes a brain wave peak or entrances a heart rhythm, therefore determining it is effective as an influence, meant to modify or control response, including salivation via music-video [video] A Mohawk Robot With Four Arms Is Playing The Drums... http://www.memecenter.com/fun/691462/a-mohawk-robot-with-four-arms-is-playi… [video] Robot Drummer Animatronic - By: Steve Joy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nUAi8kDR_4 ...thus, the future could be with a 'drummer' in a band that is a machine or automaton, a puppet or animatronic model with increased capacity to perform serial gymnastic sequences of patterns, and this could involve more than four limbs in-sync, as part of a core band-setup. (if you see a Chuck E. Cheese robot at a future concert- run!) Chuck E Cheese's Band https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEWiilxASZM SO-- MAYBE THINGS ARE ALREADY THIS FAR GONE... in terms of destruction of culture and robotic repetition of 'songs' as if babel, where meaning is replaced by pattern matching as a potential condition where music is a disconnect or escape or bubble condition or virtual layer of self that is sustained in the parameters of music, though this in a context of engineering and a loss of insight from music as music, or from 'new music instruments' via electronics, beyond a given conception that locks it into a realm of calculation and computation, versus a larger exploration of ideas and truth beyond previous limits of what music was conceived of, such that today music is a regression, several centuries caught in an inaccurate framework that perhaps results in its being an inward or introvertedness that is this interaction, lost to the reality of the present day, as if a dream-state yet in a negative dynamic, via detachment, as if a higher state or condition when instead perhaps ungrounded, unreal, fantasy, ego even, as if everyone wants to read eachother's diary and relate on these terms, then go buy stuff and copy one another and belong in the latest trend engineering, as if on gerbil wheel, used as engine and energy for cultural development in these devolved terms, against higher truth and greater relation than only what can be achieved within the contained, forced dynamics it doesn't need to be this way, yet that is where it is heading, seemingly without alternative, due to a status quo that is unquestioned (again, loss of culture, language, communication, and awareness to reason and agree and develop otherwise). so the ideal tends towards the future of this guy: Robot Drummer: “Spruce Deuce” http://highlyliquid.com/hl2012/blog/304 [video] Spruce Deuce v1.2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfVCmPT6l68 ...where, via archaic MIDI protocols, and further refinements, such an 'electronic drummer' or 'MIDI drummer' would be able to replace a drummer by technically playing or ~performing a score, in place of a person, yet able to do more than a person and at greater speed/accuracy if developed this way, while lacking in other parameters, like being a human, relations with others in the band on an intuitive level, (beyond those designed for intercommunication and control). for instance, if built-out of specs allowed it, perhaps such a drummer could keep up with "speed metal" genre drumming, who knows- maybe even puffs of smoke could emit from eyes and elbows, flames from ears, to bring in extra effects layers to bring the point home of what is going on- the superman as robotic emulation that surpasses functionality in a limited technical domain - minus actual awareness, musical ability, beyond repeating code if mimicry, though perhaps with AI, its own sensibility could develop, though as music it may remain ungrounded beyond its being about matched patterning, or so it seems highly likely that a gap exists between generating music off a midi-score as interpretation and someone having insight about what a song means or is about- though perhaps music is not this today or does not extend that principle into its technologicalization, where technique replaces it, thus the format, the hit song as pattern, remade over and over and over, played over and over, that level of mindwashing and brainwashing of media, commercials having more insight and truth than many songs in their at least attaining authenticity, honesty in communication than other more manipulative or hidden-profit behind fashion trends agenda of cult engineering, this multimedia spanning all of consumption, from ego to attitude to clothes to drugs to status to in-group out-group, as if everything is mediated as if a school hallway scene, that level of adolescence mainstreamed with geriatrics continuing the illusion, ultrahipcool (this is to critique music as marketing, as if a style that can be 'canned' into formatting that then contains its essential quality or value (truth) versus more superficial aspects of this that can involve mimicry or repetition of previous patterns, language as music, or music notation as if music itself, the code referencing itself for its validation and not connected or external truth, which then can become ungrounded from culture it supposed represents/describes. in this way it may not exist as general 'shared consciousness' as believed, even while marketed and profiting this way, an engine of success or business model, versus of aesthetic truth that communicates beyond these boundaries, into another realm of awareness, understanding, perhaps involving musical communication between individuals as a basis for computation or establishing social relations, a level of shared awareness based on music as foundation for literacy in its interdisciplinary depth) the gap is what, then. where. how. who (cannot ask that question). why. (probably not that either). the situation or context is... about a shift in culture, values, perception, including loss of awareness and understanding, governance, replaced by technical approaches, managers of other principles, developed into a remotely administrated and controlled framework. music. instruments. media. relations. skills. truth. consciousness. bound into this, held back by it, captured and contained with it. detached from self, group, and higher aesthetic functioning so in a pre-electric context, 'drums' once used for communication and signaling then evolve into a drum set, from marching band carrying around a bass drum and others snares, to putting these on the floor in a given arrangement and going at it within other parameters, that level of change and new consideration- big band era, then moving into mics and mixers and amplification-- and with electronics, presumably, the first drum machines, not unlike a lot of repetition-based rhythmic processes that could be programmed, yet with sound versus say telephone multiplexing via routers, etc. sound engineering and music production then having overlaps, a large electronics hobbyist dimension becoming an electronics industry in music via all the electronic gear, do-dads, extras, that help establish or create a given sound or noise, a signature, seemingly everything believed justified the resulting 'end products', or not. in that 'shaping a unique sound' may be at the expense or cost of retaining or accessing or developing music principles within instruments themselves, that functionality lost. instead turning to presets, of which add-ons then allow to be further tweaked, 'refined' as a 'unique signal', though not necessarily dealing with its production or possibilities prior to the condition of notation, as language, within those de/con-fined parameters and frameworks. (so everything is really special, though not necessarily meaningful as music, though as private communication that is capable of being modified to n-degrees, that is an effect for that, and a chain of them will be your own special sauce, as long as not sharing the electronics secrets though in these days, logfile and receipt snooping, someone will be able to piece it together and soon enough another clone of the sound will arrive out of central music formatting inc, and replace efforts with a chart-topping hypnotic hit, to selling fries at baseball games next. talk about the patriotrism, worksong. talk about the commercialism, musical careers today, infected by the celebrity worm as a basis for cultural communication within these parameters then also framing questions of music, feedback only in certain institutional views deemed ok to support the charade of one-way authority over this process, keeping questioning at bay) then things hit the wall. no progress beyond a certain point in music instruments in this 'new and improved' electronics context. like everything has been stuck in the 80s with equipment, excepting that of midi-controllers which makes the computer into the instrument, and music into a question of excel-like parameterization, and HTML-webpaged, canned production via tools and endless varieties of hot-swap software circuits, emulating plugboards & everything thus, the disemboweling of piano into keyboard controller that requires a computer to work as a sound-device, that can then be mapped to organ, synth, piano, or other sampled sounds. and somehow, via MIDI, the keyboard becomes the centerpiece and limit to further MIDI considerations, such that the piano-roll defines music in terms of its notation (sign=sign) and does not question possibilities or concepts of music beyond those so far technologized, such that dials, buttons, and switches, then map out this quasi-instrument as 'reading/writing' tool yet only in a very limited dictionary and with highly biased, warped selections to choose from and within that finite realm-- all music is allowed, yet nothing outside of its model is possible to explore. such that, sure you can play along to a preprogrammed hip-hop pattern, yet it is not possible to split a note geometrically, or move things in space-time, or program music in its code outside its being a representation - tape-recorder playback of given filtered action, in a linear, one-way, authority-based approach all based on a narrow approach to time, this embalmed in the MIDI spec, basically killing off potential for music in an electronic domain by turning it into a technical question with a given response, rationalization, set of choices; the question of music is absent in these tools, they are designed instead to produce copies of what already exists within parameters that already exist, that is the specific raison d'être the electronic drums and drumset being two different things, the ecosystem never uniting beyond the parts, then moves into a computer-based context of desktop controllers where people can play drums with their thumbs to 'set down beats' with little capacity beyond this same level of dexterity in terms of what it involves as a question of drumming, beyond say input via tapping on a desk to get a beat, than say communicating larger longer ideas than what fits into a given set of software fields for MIDI rhythms, the foundation of the music. drums are more than this. though in a digital audio workstation (DAW) context, sometimes not more than an arbitrary string needed to generate others that are output as new songs, song as information, information as communication. and perhaps that is all okay, necessary even in terms of the situation, yet music involves vastly more than this in terms of questions and shared cultural communication. though it seems to have been made trivial, as if only a technical exercise, and equated with meaning and skillls that go far beyond this and ground in a larger framework or knowledge that potentially even some of these tools do not allow it is not to suggest taking away the freedom to explore music in varieties of ways, instead it is to question the depth or shallowness of this exploration as a standardized, normalized, and mainstreamed as music produced and received as culture, dumbing-down awareness and then accepting culture at a lower level than is necessary to relate within, socially, mentally, emotionally. unless everyone is in a crib playing with shiny toys and rattles, making noise, and that is the shared condition (perhaps requiring being drugged out of your mind to not be bothered by it, especially in terms of aesthetics and lack of insight, the din of 'music noise'() so this realm completely fascinates me, there is total potential to turn this situation around via another conceptual approach, a paradigm that meets the electromagnetic situation and reframes music within a more accurate nonlinear/multilinear context, getting outside this narrow false absolutist view from classical ideology and music training, its institutionalization and into new parameters and functionality that opens up the instruments for music literacy, understanding, development of skills, interaction, relations, based on music as a shared practice tied into with literacy, social development, awareness, technological advance and refinement, and at its core, about aesthetics, thinking and ideas, truth accessed and involved for instance, take the robot drummer situation. compared to the Def Leppard drummer who lost a limb in an accident and continued to drum one-handed, via technological assistance. a similar condition exists with juggling, where some believe that you need to juggle more balls than your hands to be juggling, thus 2 hands require at least 3 balls to be 'juggling', and yet it also is implied that less than 3-balls is not juggling, when anyone who learns to juggle quickly realizes the steps it takes to get there involves being able to juggle two balls with one hand, that this is a core skill (and adept jugglers can juggle three balls if not more balls in one hand) It is this kind of false limit that may keep people away from juggling because not everyone is at the highest skill level or will achieve that virtuosity yet could still benefit from juggling at a lower level as a learning practice. and if someone only has one-hand, it could be legitimate juggling to juggle 2 balls and is in essence the same as juggling with two hands and three balls in that certain principles are involved and shaped and can be explored in those parameters, such as movement, speed, height, and so on. including with those two-handed, that learning to juggle one-handed in each hand is a core skill and necessary to be effective at juggling, as this ambidextrous condition is what is a challenge, mirroring of various patterns in different directions, thus starting with one-side or the other, as this effects brain processing, as if the pendulum is involved or something that connects both hemispheres of the brain as the side that is preferenced then moves into new relation with the other side, neutralizing out bias given the amount of practice, developing new nerve connections, brain cells, this changes memory circuits, functionality, coordination, thinking or possibility, even, opening up options instead of accepting given limits, and learning step by step how to go about this drum sticks are very much like this, one hand biased and learning to use both, coordinate, and explore basic patterns, from the most basic, single tap here, single tap there, to multiple tap sequences then mirrored across to the other side, as with changing direction in juggling a given pattern, reversing it, so too, using drumsticks to tap out rhythmic structures in reverse using opposite hands, and learning from this as a skill, process, many dimensions involved so the big failure of 'the drummer' in the intro article is that they cannot keep up with the MIDI score, and a better clock is needed or metronome so others can play in sync together 'as a band', thus the computer solves the technical problem. the drummer as instrument not good enough, supposedly, in a high-tech context. what is needed instead is a Shiva-like multiarmed character with insane speed and processing ability, then the band would look good while the drummer flails and generates smoke and heat. [image] album cover http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_npo9ydLAc3I/SEWXECn2ddI/AAAAAAAAAZU/cmS_5TjZ_S8/s… the thing is- as with early photography studies by Muybridge of horse hoofs on the ground- the time-lapse of a drummer is indeed this multi-armed epiphany doing what to most is physically and mentally impossible to coherently understanding in real-time, even if it is dissected, because the issues of dexterity and awareness may be so beyond what most people are capable of, that it is really a unique skillset and capacity to be able to take this functioning on at a higher level, requires special skill or talent or dedication to attain that performability, and yet, slowed down, it can also be more manageable for others at a different skill level or way of playing that does not just rely on speed or given styles of playing. drums are not just a particular sound, style, genre, or format, it could be opened up to more than is questioned today in terms of the instrument - in that instead of emulating and rationalizing a style or particular approach to drumming, it could be requestioned based on more knowledge than an extended linear progression of a given trajectory allow - such that separation of drum machine from electronic drum set may not be structural, only a choice, and likewise others so in a non-profane context of serious issues with the way equipment is and its technical limitations, consider the sculpture of Shiva in terms of its capturing this increased capacity that is some inherent limit in the given technical approach for ~electronic drumming... Multi statue armée en Thaïlande http://fr.123rf.com/photo_11044455_multi-statue-armee-en-thailande.html so consider again the issue of time. if this was a many-instanced view, most drummers would have a sequence very much of this many-armed approach. though if a score is sped up so fast, at some point only a multiarmed robot or a superfast two armed robot could feasibly drum at a certain pace, beyond human capacity, due to time, energy, ability to process information. it is perhaps a classic case of multitasking though within a group-subgroup dynamic of (drumset (drums)) where a certain limit is approached to what can be performed in terms of given parameters of functioning. multitasking -- handyman http://www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/handyman_small.jpg multitasking -- office work http://www.getthere-fromhere.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Shiva-Image.jpg not sure if it is evident yet, though this is a condition also existing in computing, whereby there are large gaps between tasks that have no larger relation to one another beyond certain limits or parameters, incompatible or unintegrated software or frameworks or approaches, thus atomizing everything into a separate domain or task or chore, and thus losing efficiency, whereby 'speed' is the ability to coordinate in that framework, keep it coherent, and get things done simultaneously, not unlike banging out a sequence on drums where is this going? there is a physical and mental limit to what can be done and it can be reached and then hold back functioning, as a barrier, yet also people can be judged against what is an institutionalized inefficiency or false constraint, due to design, that forces these dynamics, which can then turn against efforts, such as making 'work' less productive, etc, even when home computing was sold as an efficiency device, to make things easier when instead it becomes more and more time-wasting chores and routines, upkeep, hassle, etc as if an ulterior motive designed in from the start, its dysfunction programming and formatting user dysfunction. in this way, the problem with tools shaping the user via negative influence, the dynamics set up in a devolutionary or regressive way, via detached, ungrounded, unreal, or otherwise inferior approaches that then become standardized, the norm to follow, etc so this is about time, about tools and technologies in a context that are interacted with, communication, and about intent or symbiosis between a person and technology, perhaps bridging into a larger organization of others and other technology (playback, etc) the electronic metronome is basically the keystone to electronic drumming in a band in so far as it relates to music notation, a style of playing, the shared 'music score' as code & program. that a person would have to play so fast to keep in sequence is akin to GHz and CPUs, as this relates to design parameters, is it really better or a design approach leading to other values. though the central idea is that timing and drums are structuralized in the framework of a band and a drummer performs an advanced metronome function within the band, that today for some a machine can replace and extend into other functionality that may or may not be manageable by or with a drummer at the helm. in place of a drummer, some have a PC with software tracks, hooked into mixer, controlling drums via software interface. others have drummers with triggering of additional samples or patterns, to allow this information management via sticks hitting trigger/sensors in the drum kit, to activate a given sound or sample or recorded playback. so the upper limit appears to be- a physical entity aka drummer cannot feasibly play this or play it as needed , thus some electronics equipment or tools will do it, and perhaps there is no need for a drummer in the band, they are not fast enough or cannot manage the sounds, (perhaps even there is irregular timing or something, cued other than by drums, etc). so here is a bit of clarity on this situation: no where does it say there has to be only one approach or direction with 'time' in music, and yet it is a forced perspective that has now become the structure for all electronic music instruments, in a one-way flow of time that moves into 'speed' as a view of increased or advanced processing. as if linear flow is all of it. music has no perspective, no dimensionality, it is a flattened realm of inquiry stuck within an 16-18th century notion of space-time that is pre-Einstein, perhaps pre-Copernican even, as if everyone needbe sitting at the feet of Beethoven then evolving to churn out rap songs next in endless strings of concatenation of themes, structures, values, as if 'composers of reality', eventually by way of merely saying or singing language to various melodies and tunes, as if music and song is definable in fixed parameters endlessly extendable, never stale, rotting and the ruins of culture, festering and stank in its role and importance, loss of connection with truth beyond finite beliefs shared in-group, scaled to consumerist ubiquity & for sale why could there not be 'many clocks' at once, perhaps moving in different directions within a drum set. in an acoustic context this is not possible. in an electronic drum set it is possible yet not able to be explored given the way things are designed and structured for emulation and extension of previous styles. the depth of music buried under an emptiness of its value and insight by a genre past its time, yet repeated endlessly on the radio and online as if eternal, vs. cultural tyranny of noise that seeks to mask out other views, stand in as if 'the standard' when instead this is conceit, based on power politics, control over media, enforced authority and forced perspective, that somehow everyone holds certain musical truth in common, as if aesthetics and shared awareness can be engineered for and scaled to populations via expert propaganda of repeat iconic performance, tv-specials, awards, superbowl halftime shows i have several ideas about a new approach to electronic drums as an ecosystem of various components, including mixer, looper, sequencer, sampler, metronome, and drums combined into a single instrument interface. much like a web server that spans another virtual machine or process, to manage or access another dimension, so too, why not allow a drummer to have 'multiple arms' via the tools themselves, by allowing a drum machine to capture patterns that the drummer plays, set them up as a loop in real-time, and then add and subtract and shape this information while it is live within the equipment. many clocks, different directions for the sound, starting one pattern in certain instruments and send it in a given direction and then another with different sounds in another direction, and let them go on their way while playing yet another sound, different rhythms, within this layered context. hell, who needs a band, even, if you have such a drum set. this is more like drumming as programming though in haptic or even neuro-feedback or voice-control interface, prototype for future computing even in its communicative function, if considering performance could be over the network and thus local and remote via HDTV connections. so shared work model in teleconferencing into music, new MIDI standards allowing multiple times, though far more is involved than can be sketched here in these parameters. the larger point of it is that even though it is not allowed, 'the music' of drumming exists in a context beyond the way the equipment is now designed, yet could be reconsidered, once again questioned for what is going on in musicological terms, the substance of instruments, and then open up these parameters for music to breath within versus be stifled by lack of ability to do anything other than playing as fast as possible as the innovation path available, versus multilinear and ecosystem and other dynamics that could also be possible, if these situations would be evaluated in their truth, versus just as profit for the automated machine and music-production ideology that formats these tools as formulaic, calculator-like devices that produce endless strings of self-same limited parameter computations over and over, as if equated with heightened awareness and grounding of culture by mere communication. in other words, maybe virtuosity of expertise in a given instrument is not the aim or goal and instead literacy of music via instruments and as a way of forming and shaping awareness and consciousness and forming a basis for shared communication at a greater depth than existing culture allows though has historically been achieved and held with great reverence, in that music forms the centre of shared experience, brings many together in one relation and that instruments can do likewise. (in this regard, some of my ideas include people being the performance themselves, musicians as networks of multiple timed looping patterns and interacting as ecosystem, being able to move through music at any point or path as with software models thus the song is interpretable, non-repeatable even, an environment that is navigated, this could include performance, headphones allowing positioning or moving around acoustic space, etc. software tools anyone can use to learn musical principles. musicological instruments that redevelop existing types along more fundamental musical structures and principles, such that music instruments are reading/writing instruments, gaining that level of interaction and ability to communicate beyond existing notation parameters that deter such developments) a drumset that is grounded in its electromagnetic context and can access the truth of this condition in that parameters of music allow it to be tapped into, explored, understood, and experimented with, then potentially relates to a next-level of computation of the sensor-based environment requiring orchestration from within chaos, into order, via looped patterns of tasks and routines of separate elements (whether tom-tom, sequencer, metronome, or pantry, computer, e-ink wall display). the larger dynamics involve similar principles, how to manage multilinear flows of information, shape them, program them, secure functioning while existing or starting in another framework. how to make the transition, what is the conflict in ideas or ideology, what if the difference in values, in control, management, authority, is truth driving the process or its representation that can be warped, subverted, and what if what today does not work together at all instead could be naturally, organically cohesive as an ecosystem, harmonious, due to recognizing shared principles, functionality, parameters and functionality that are symbiotic, and provide feedback in shared frameworks that benefit the whole infrastructure which is scalable, because it is based upon shared truth this truth of music is truth of life, truth of culture, truth of people, truth of society, that is the value that has been replaced by another set of principles moving in an inhuman direction that then holds people against its values as if inferior when it is the opposite- these tools need to serve people, not the other way around. they should free the imagination and open-up options, not deny or break these connections to maintain some other agenda or priority; and yet music like everything else has become trapped in this realm of falsity, held captive to mimicry and substitution of a false-view, seldom do i hear music of my own nature anymore and thus these words about future instrument design, what is needed, within these ruins of civilization and its- our- lost culture <>---- reference ---<> [q] Drum: It is an instrument frequently used in rites and rituals; its rhythmical sound is sometimes (e.g., in Buddhism) equated with the hidden sounds and powers of the cosmos. Often (e.g., among black African peoples) the drum served magically to call down heavenly powers; the war drum in particular was closely associated with the symbolism of LIGHTNING and THUNDER. -- In China the sound of the drum was related to the course of the SUN and especially to the winter solstice (i.e., that point when the yin principle exerts its greatest influence but also when the sun, and hence the yang principle, begins to increase its influence again). See YIN AND YANG. -- The drum is the symbolic heart of the universe for Native Americans. [/q] --- The Herder Dictionary of Symbols, p.62 DRUM A symbol of primordial sound, and a vehicle for the word, for tradition and for magic (60). With the aid of drums, shamans can induce a state of ecstasy. It is not only the rhythm and the timbre which are important in the symbolism of the primitive drum, but, since it is made of wood of 'the Tree of the World', the mystic sense of the latter also adheres to it (18). According to Schneider, the drum is, of all musical instruments, the most pregnant with mystic ideas. In Africa, it is associated with the heart. In the most primitive cultures, as in the most advanced, it is equated with the sacrificial altar and hence it acts as a mediator between heaven and earth. However, given its bowl-shape and its skin, it corresponds more properly to the symbolism of the Element of earth. A secondary meaning turns upon the shape of the instrument, and it should be noted that it is in this respect that there is most variation in significance. The three essential shapes are: the drum in the form of an hour-glass, symbolizing Inversion and the 'relationship between the two worlds' (the Upper and Lower) ; the round drum, as an image of the world, and the barrel-shaped, associated with thunder and lightning (50). [/q] --- A Dictionary of Symbols, j.e. cirlot. p.85 :;.:|: drummer :.|;.: [video] interview with Kenny Aronoff: Part I (27:18) http://www.theblackpage.net/interviews/kenny-aronoff-part-1 [video] interview with Kenny Aronoff Part II (22:26) http://www.theblackpage.net/interviews/kenny-aronoff-part-2 Listening... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listening --= on tuning =-- Here’s Why You Should Convert Your Music To 432 hz. http://zedie.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/heres-why-you-should-convert-your-mus… the surrounding context https://www.dropbox.com/s/ov2yfxa3435wbgd/ruins.gif {educational fair-use of copyright, 2013} 411-A1A/56 413-C2B/812-NET r80,e#W9s/95x02+k

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