Ben Nobuto: Hallelujah Sim. (2024)

[@chrisdunn5733]

Thanks for sharing. The work was a blast.🎉

[@ktviewtube]

Awesome! I’m sharing this with others.

[@chrisbest6548]

This was mesmerising. I loved it!

[@davidwright8432]

Headphones strongly recommended! Wonderful. Thanks!

[@simbax67]

Thank you for this upload 🙏 heard it today on BBC radio 3 and was absolutely mesmerised by the song 🎵 🙌

[@riverreasteve]

Amazing performance from the choir. 👍

[@kernicterus1233]

This was brilliant!

[@seanjones8672]

Unbelievable feat of collaboration.

[@IonelNavon]

Parkinson😮 2:22 1:49

[@BetonBrutContemporary]

Finally something amazing from Nobuto!

[@yeetthebeet]

LOL

[@hornzackwamme]

First time (and hopefully last time) ever, I'll comment something with: LOL! Great piece.

[@bennobuto]

👽🙏💕

[@robertofilho6060]

Amazing, amazing

[@cynthiad-r6130]

So enjoyable and different

[@SaintDeus]

Cool piece

[@daisykittybear]

😮❤

[@kwiecisty1]

Why does it sound so similar to Simon Steen-Andersen's "Double up"?

[@maxsilva11]

It doesn't really sound that similar to me. This sounds very much like a Nobuto piece and not a Steen Andersen piece. Maybe it's one of those things where everything within a stylistic subgenre sounds the same to folks who don't know it as well? There is one electronic sample that's kinda similar, right at the beginning, but that's about it to my ears. I think that similarity is more because they're both commenting on the same kinds of media environments, rather than a direct borrowing.

[@YuriUmemoto]

Completely different.

[@MicheleoTuTo]

@@maxsilva11 I am quite experienced with Steen-Andersen music, I went to many concerts with his music, I studied his scores and recordings (I am a composer). This is extremely similar to his work. I am no trying to insult or deminish anyone, I am just state a fact: I can give you at least 5 different aspects of this composition that can be found in Steen-Andersen's music.

[@firzaakbarpanjaitan]

No way those two are similar, this work is actually enjoyable

[@maxsilva11]

@@MicheleoTuTo I don't disagree that similarities between this piece and Steen-Andersen's entire body of work exist; I was responding specifically to the contention that it sounds similar to a particular work. The similar beeps right at the opening of the two works undoubtedly do explain in large part the perception of strong similarities between them. And while I appreciate that you aren't insulting or diminishing Nobuto, the original comment struck me as thinly veiled insinuation that Nobuto was somehow plagiarizing (especially because a specific piece was mentioned). I want to note, though, that you compared this piece to Steen-Andersen's entire oeuvre. And yeah, sure, there are many similarities there, I know his work well too (besides listening to everything I can find online, I presented a paper at a conference where he was the guest composer of honor at the accompanying concert series - I'm a former all-but-dissertation PhD candidate in musicology and music theory). Some big ones that I think are relevant are: the emphasis on the sounds of starting and stopping musical samples in playback media (I'm thinking specifically of the plastic bottle squishes mimicking projector slide deck changing sounds in Steen-Andersen's TRIO); the technique of establishing a sequence of samples and speeding up their recurrence until they switch at a pace that enables them to form their own melody (again, TRIO is a great example); an intentional confusion between live acoustic sound and playback; the tongue-in-cheek use of voiceovers that comment upon the music as it happens. However, I think those things are abstract enough, are widely enough shared amongst a larger group of composers, and are enough an evolution of and building upon trends in new music, that any implications that there's direct copying by Nobuto - rather than simply inhabiting a stylistically similar compositional niche - are worth pushing back against. And I do want to push back on that implication, even though you've claimed you're not making it, because by comparing this one piece to Steen-Andersen's entire output, you're kind of implying that you think that it's fair to comment on their similarities as composers without any reference to the rest of Nobuto's own output. In other words, you claimed to know what I called "a stylistic subgenre" well enough to evaluate the simlarities and differences here, solely on the basis of knowing Steen-Andersen, without knowing Nobuto's work. If you did, you'd see that there's much more that makes this piece sound like Nobuto than like Steen-Andersen. The similar elements between the two composers certainly establish them as working within a subgenre, but if you take a look at each of their output, they clearly have their own distinctive voices, especially if we bear in mind that Nobuto is younger, less established, and until now has not really been promoted much (that I know of, at least) by major festivals and world-class ensembles. I recommend listening through some of Nobuto's "bento box" series for some bite-sized introductions to his style, as well as some of his medium-scale pieces, like "Serenity 2.0." Altogether, I think what distinguishes Nobuto's style is his particular interrogations of specific kinds of mediated experiences - the kinds of experiences of younger generations who've grown up with screens, terminally online, with media often tending towards kitsch or cutesiness or gamification; Nobuto is much more interested in making commodification audible.