Chechnya is banning music that's too fast or slow. | Hacker News Reader

Chechnya is banning music that's too fast or slow.

npr.org

58 pointsMiguelX41350 comments

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> works will be limited to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute (BPM)

so heavy metal is OK but speed metal and doom metal are OUT.

Russian anthem has 79BPM, so they just banned an anthem of their own empire?

Who needs a high BPM when you've got demisemihemidemisemiquavers?

Laughs with “jungle” and “garage”.

BPM is a matter of opinion unless it is printed on sheet music, just the same as key. I can declare the BPM to be half (for 4/4) or twice what you think it is. This sounds unenforceable, and rightly too.

You might be in for some learning about how authoritarian regimes work.

Yeah, but a range of 80 to 116 requires some contortions for something just out of range. I think if you had 125 bpm quarter notes, it's hard to get that to fit (other than just slowing it down a bit)

I'm too young to internalize the speed gains for 33 rpm LPs on the 45 setting. (Is it just 33:45?) Maybe you can make things work by claiming that and claiming half or eighth notes are the beat.

Like no, my 120 bpm record was really 60 bpm half notes, and you were playing it on 33, but it was meant for 45, so 60 / 33 * 45 = 82ish, so all is well?

Finally someone is doing something for the slowed or sped up versions of masterpiece songs butchered on TikTok?

Some people like that. (I'm not one of them.) It's possible to not like something and let other people like it. That's even true if the people liking the thing are teenagers. No one is trying to force you to listen to the sped up / slowed down versions. You can just like and listen to other things.

It's just a joke :)

Basically, it's a roundabout way to ban all music that isn't traditional Lezginka style [0].

The Minister himself points that out [1].

While Chechnya is technically under Russian rule, in action it's basically a suzerain dictatorship under the son of a former rebel leader who defected to the Russians, but was given massive leeway and autonomy. And this is clearly an additional de-Russification method.

Turkey uses it as a pressure point on Russia as well [2], as a large portion of Turkey's population can trace their origins to refugees from the Russian Invasion of the Caucasus from the 1820s-1920s (eg. Erdogan's family), and even the Russian government recognizes it. Most of the infra there was built by Turkish companies closely tied to Erdogan (eg. Akhamat Kadyrov Masjid, the clock tower skyscraper, etc).

Also, because there are a bunch of braindead Redditors on here, Chechens are NOT ethnic Russian

[0] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1M9Q5zk1TRk

[1] - https://mk-chr.ru/novosti/soveshchanie-s-rukovoditelyami-tvo...

[2] - https://jamestown.org/program/as-war-rages-in-ukraine-turkey...

but isn't lezginka normally too fast? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39962833

(also, the former rebel leader had CIA ties, so presumably Kadyrov is in the Venn intersection of people who explicitly know what offers are on hand from both Vostok and West. He also provides a convenient "border march" polity between mainstream-RF and IRI)

From the original speech:

"По поручению Главы ЧР, Героя России Рамзана Ахматовича Кадырова в Министерстве культуры ЧР проводится огромная работа по вопросу соответствия чеченских музыкальных, вокальных, хореографических произведений чеченскому менталитету и музыкальному ритму, исполняемых произведений."

> the former rebel leader had CIA ties

That was an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that I only ever saw on Reddit (which I think your knowledge of Chechnya stems from as well).

I'd recommend reading Amjad Jaimoukha's "The Chechens: A Handbook" [0].

It's the only book I've ever read written by a Vainakh about Vainakh culture and internal politics.

Plus the "Kadyrov Mosh" you mention is Sufi Zikr (trance-like prayer) - specifically Naqshabandi influenced Sufism. It's a common practice among all Sufi influenced Muslims from Chechnya to Turkey to South Asia to Central Asia.

> a convenient "border march" polity between mainstream-RF and IRI

I don't think you've ever looked at a map. Take a look at where Chechnya is located and it's borders.

[0] - https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/97802033564...

OK, I stand corrected ... but lezginka or zikr, what about the tempos? both seem "too fast".

(and do you have any opinions on what opinions Kadyrov might hold on Nasruddin?)

Zikr is a style of prayer. Not music.

For most lezginka they're 100% ignore it.

Basically it's an excuse to crack down on non-Chechen language music and culture.

Re: map, yeah, I completely spaced on Azerbaijan (I'd been basing the IRI proximity based on flags seen in Kadyrov's VK feed; oops!). But last I saw the Жара festival is pretty much an ЕдРо-fest; in general should I be counting the Azerbaijani in the RF camp or not?

> crack down on non-Chechen language music and culture.

Well, that's no way to encourage Baskov to get married there!)

> should I be counting the Azerbaijani in the RF camp or not

Azerbaijan is basically in the Western camp.

Türkiye is the primary defense guarunteer for Azerbaijan and Israel is supporting Azerbaijan [0] as Iran has been supporting Armenia [1], and Israel has a listening post in Azerbaijan [2]

The only reason Russia hasn't intervened to support Armenia is in retaliation for Pashinyan overthrowing Russia aligned Sargsyan [3] in 2018. The failure to defend Nagorno-Karabakh has cauased violent instability in Armenia [4], which 100% will guarantee Sargsyan returning to power in the next 2 years.

[0] - https://apnews.com/article/armenia-azerbaijan-nagorno-karaba...

[1] - https://www.azatutyun.am/a/32853973.html

[2] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/03/28/israels-secret-staging-...

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1I92QG/

[4] - https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/several-hundred-p...

thx!

Radio Yerevan was asked: "Is it true that the Caucasus region is standing on the edge of an abyss?"

Radio Yerevan answered: "No. It used to be true, but now we have taken a big step forward."

This is just psychological abuse. Let’s call it what it is. People who think they have a right to control what people think or feel are mentally ill.

Better not hit fast-forward, it might land you in jail. What a bunch of fascist nonsense this is.

You under-cook chicken, believe it or not, jail. You overcook pork. Also jail.

Some of those tempos at the bottom seem way off. Hotel California is 147 bpm?

Might be a tool counting the beat half? I didn't measure but I can imagine that the song exactly half that, ie around 73 bpm. You can certainly nod your head at it with the exact speed of a bad hardstyle track

Seems about right. You're probably counting half notes, not quarter notes.

Yeah, it's half of that. Which oddly, makes it too slow.

you mock, but someone much smarter than you or me had this to say:

"Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul...when one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued with the same passion; and if over a long time he habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form."

One day science will figure out which genre actually caused Columbine

> his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form

He doesn’t seem very smart to me.

of course he doesn’t seem so to you

Where much smarter includes not actually looking in a woman's mouth to count her teeth?

yep, still vastly smarter than you or me

vastly

That is hilarious.

Nothing that some 160 bpm techno can't fix.

That said, no published policy on master clock division.

I’m more interested in how they will enforce it.

Selectively, with mostly hearsay evidence, against specific groups.

Music Venues, and radio stations probably.

There will be a whole genera of tracks remixed to 116.

Randomly but brutally is my guess.

Definitely not randomly. Arbitrarily, yes.

> "Borrowing musical culture from other peoples is inadmissible," Dadayev said, per a translation by The Guardian.

I did not have "Kadyrov takes a woke stand against cultural appropriation" on my bingo card for 2024.

record at 180bpm, remaster to 90bpm, print record, play at double speed.

Chechnya has been under Russian occupation for years.

It turns out most regions of the globe are occupied by some state or another.

Where else did you have in mind?

Time for a liberation

These successive waves of human occupation and dominance across the globe have gone too far.

So everyone back to the Olduvai Gorge!

Sure, toss it on the mountain-tall heap of problems humanity is incapable of addressing with any competence.

Chechnya is not a region, it's a country which is temporary under Russian occupation.

Chechnyan state needs to go bye bye already. It's sickening what they did/are doing to gay people (and plenty of other groups).

I never thought they’d reboot Footloose as a documentary, but here we are. Is Sacha Baron Cohen attached to the project?

Based Chechen. EQ matters. This is scientific. HN seethe. We need to monitor positive impacts from banning degen music. /s. This is so disingenuous it doesn't even ban ethnic metal music. Let's ban all degen music but Metal is cool

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