Response Essay 2: Sonic Frameworks

The first video that caught my eye was “Iannis Xenakis – Metastasis”. This video is an 8 minute composition which was arranged by Iannis Xenakis, who was famous for incorporating mathematical concepts into his music. I found this particularly interesting, because of how uncanny the music was. It sounded like the score to “Hereditary”. I thought it was interesting how incorporating traditionally unmusical elements can produce such a unique result that was still recognizably music, despite how bizarre it was. Despite the lack of literal synthesizers, it got me thinking about how things like math and science mesh so well with something like music.
Another video that caught my eye was “Inlets | 2008 | John Cage 100th Anniv. Countdown Event”. This video depicted a performance that involved the sounds that three seashells made when they were filled with water and moved. The similarity to synthesizers that I observed was the fact that they were making music without using traditional instruments. Forgoing horns and strings for shells and water. However, one thing I noticed was that it barely was recognizable as music. This isn’t a bad thing, it was just something I noticed.
The last video that I found interesting was “Conlon Nancarrow, Study for Player Piano No. 21”. It was a video of a piano which would play a song when a piece of hole punched paper was inserted in it. I found this interesting because it appeared to be some kind of ancestor to modern synthesizer programs, ones which allow an artist to plot out notes and simply play a song. The progression of technology is clear, despite the function remaining somewhat the same. The fact of the matter remains that someone who has no musical background can simply pick up a sheet of parchment and a hole puncher and have this machine play what they wrote reminds me very much of the way some artists describe one of the pros of synthesizers. Making it so that people with no musical background can make interesting pieces of art. 
Here are links to the youtube videos.
https://youtu.be/f2gVhBxwRqg
https://youtu.be/3-wF0zrev7c
https://youtu.be/n2O8bMlEijg