Interesting post over at le blog de Momus about Finnish musician / innovator / etc, Erkki Kurenniemi. You can read some more about him here. He’s currently reworking all of musical theory, eliminating such unneccessary concepts as “scales” and such. And I quote:
Musical theory has stayed totally unchanged since the days of Rameau in the 18th century. We are needlessly the prisoners of traditional instruments and notation, since computers have already liberated us from them. The flypaper of tonal music does admittedly caress the ear, but it is interesting to investigate atonal music through some larger form. Such as sculptures or architecture. I am interested in what happens when we go from the art of music to the science of sound.
The DVD with his works and bio-documentary sounds interesting, I’d like to see it, but not enough to buy it (in expensive euros, no less!) Perhaps Facets can help, but their server is fucked at the moment. =P