The Bells of Notre Dame

From around 1min40s of this video, we can hear a great composition that is reminiscent of generative styles of music. The different swings on each bell creates a pulsing, poly-rhythmic or even arrhythmic sense of time, and the chorusing bell chimes creates some really amazing resonances. A really quite abstract presentation of audio from a bygone era – where the Church was the holder of the largest, most impressive sounds. Of course, the Organ is a great example of this, and I think that in the past people really caught on to the idea that music/sound is one of the most ethereal and moving things to experience. Something (excuse the pun) resonated within people upon hearing these sounds. The cacophonous, generative aspects of these bells can be heard aplenty in many modern avante-garde electronic musical compositions, and once again brings up the age old question of: “Is anything under the Sun really, truly ‘new’?”. All genius stands on the shoulders of giants, and I think that this is an eloquent example of that.

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