THE "MIND TO MUSIC" TRANSLATION ISSUE
There are several aspects to this obvious problem : someone has something in mind, that person wants to translate this "something in mind" in music.
2. Psychoacoustic aspects
3. Complexity, abstraction & craftmanship
4. Iterative design as a possible solution
1. THE 'ROGER WATERS' SYNDROM
When Waters & Gilmour were working together, Waters was the "concept guy", and Gilmour the "music guy".
There was a distance between what Waters was trying to express, and the result itself.That distance was mainly brought by Gilmour : by adding some kind of "abstraction" to Waters idea, he made Pink Floyd's music more whole.
By "whole", it is meant that the music had a point (Waters) and expressed the point in an elegant and colorful way (Gilmour).When looking at pieces written by Waters only, like "Vera Lynn" (The Wall) or "Southampton Docks" (The final Cut), it is obvious that there is practically no abstraction to them.
Instead, there is a point (something like "look, I'm feeling really bad"), and some basic musical elements, litteraly copied from pre existent vocabulary (standard orchestra arrangements, standard acoustic guitar patterns).In those pieces, "mind" translates to "music" almost litterally.
But then, what is the point of making music there ? It's almost as if we are listening to Waters speaking. Is that being an artist ? Why not just speaking then ? It would save time and money.
2. PSYCHOACOUSTIC ASPECTS
Someone thinks something like : I have an abstract idea, I want to make it real, in music.
Example 1
For example, I want to make a piece with a huge, loud bass. I want the whole thing to be very loud.
But then what happens : it's not easy to make such a bass.1. For a bass, the [perceptive level / signal level] ratio is very bad, so there is no way a bass is going to sound loud easily.
2. Adding more low frequencies will not solve the problem, on the contrary. To make a bass "fatter", it would be necessary to add more harmonics for instance.
3. After two minutes of constant low frequencies, the whole thing may sound dull. Adding other sounds to make a contrast might help defining the bass as "bassic".
Example 2
Let's say I want to make a piece which sounds, litterally, far. Like from 100 meters.
The first approach would be : let's put loads of reverb on everything. But :
1. The thing will not sound far, it will just sound drowned in reverb - other details have to be taken care of.
2. If everything is far, the ear will become accustomed to it, and it will not sound far anymore, except if some other sounds put a perspective to the piece - some sounds that are closer.
Example 3
I just want to make a groove. Basically, the notion of groove is based on repetition.
If repetition is enough, then I just have to duplicate anything to make it groove (see the appleD problem for instance).
But naturally, this doesnt work : such a thing doesnt "groove", it's just boring.
Something else has to be done to build a groove.
3. COMPLEXITY, ABSTRACTION & CRAFTMANSHIP
From those two aspects, it is possible to think that a certain amount of complexity, abstraction, or craftmanship, would be a guarantee of success.
By "success", it is meant that the original idea is indeed translated into music.But then, are complexity, abstraction etc. enough to make a good piece of music ?
The answer is, of course, no, despite what people subject to the Bach syndrom think.
Let's consider again the Waters/Gilmour case. What makes Pink Floyd's music interesting is that there is a point, and the point is nicely put into music.
In this case, it's practically a question of being able to "stage" or "direct" the concept ( mise en scène).Let's also consider the second example.
Even with craftmanship, even if the original concept is well translated, you have to really mean it to make it touching.
There is always something not really tangible which will make an idea, even well directed, something more than an idea translated to sound.
4. ITERATIVE DESIGN AS A POSSIBLE SOLUTION
A method than can work well : iterative design.
This way, even if the final result is not really a translation of the original concept, the result will, at least, be, interesting to listen to, and sincere.
Which is what we want. Who cares about the original idea anyway ? People listen to a result, not to an idea.