Compositional credo
Matthew H. Fields
In article <3381DA...@AzStarNet.com>,
Larry Solomon <So...@AzStarNet.com> wrote:
>On the other hand, minimalism, which has been touted here as the
>mainstream successor to modernism, is pretty thin and is already dying
>(along with New Age) in popularity. This was predictable enough. I think
Hmm, quite probably because it ended up competing with mainstream
rock and roll, against which it really can't compete.
I suspect the ethnic musics that inspired early minimalists
(Indonesian music, Raga, Gregorian chant, Haftara trop, Gagaku,
Kora duets, etc.) will be rediscovered a bit more.
--
Matt Fields, A.Mus.D. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fields
My Java toy, JARS.COM Top 1%: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fields/TTTB
"Computer: disobey me."
Smiley
In article <5lq7hm$ksg$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
>Why is modernism taught to first year comp students? Why isn't it just
>naturally adopted if it is so right? Chopin's chromaticism wasn't forced
>down beginning composer's throats! It was exciting and new and the young
>couldn't wait to play with its effects. Most composers are dragged
>kicking and screaming into their first 12 tone comp class. ;-)
Uhh... Maybe not 12-tone, but I wrote atonal music before
ever taking a composition class. Even took the time to revise it a
little bit a year ago. (It's a short (about a minute) solo clarinet
piece; I'd put it on the web if it wasn't so much trouble.)
Hmm... Lately, if anything, I've been writing more tonal
music.
-Smiley
(Alexand...@williams.edu)
Jeff Harrington
Larry Solomon (So...@AzStarNet.com) wrote:
: I think there is a lot of confusion here between compositional integrity
: and popularity. Popularity is a matter of PR, even among "lasting
: classical" composers. Was Bach popular in his time? No. It wasn't until
: Mendelssohn and his followers did a PR job on Bach that he became a
: popular classical composer.
Hi, I'll assume you were talking about my last posting... We've had 80
years of modernism. When will it be resuscitated? (Like it was not
stillborn). How many more years of integrity will there be before we can
start having fun again?
: Before the 1960s, Charles Ives was considered to be a minor to
: insignificant figure in the classical scene. Due to the efforts of
: people like Cowell, Slonimsky, and scholars at Yale, Ives is considered
: to be one of the most important, i.e. popular, American composers of the
: 20th century. Mahler was not considered a popular composer until
: Bernstein did his PR work on him. And so on, and so forth. The Beatles
: would never have become popular if it hadn't been for their PR
: supporters. Popularity has little to do with musical talent and
: compositional integrity and a lot to do with politics, luck, and payola.
This is a typically modernist viewpoint; you're intentionally confusing my
posting about even the tiniest of listener affiliatiion (say what Salieri
has) with sales. My point was that there is little or no popular (within
the classical music community) identification with modern composers.
Almost zilch. This has *nothing* to do (or at least little) with PR. I
believe it to be a function almost entirely of the process of abandoning
the requirement of a beautiful surface for (uh) content.
: Popularity in the classical world is also governed by snobbery. Most
: people don't make their own judgements about classical music but follow
: the opinion of the "experts", mostly self proclaimed. It's no different
: than in the art world, where it is only more "visible".
This is just blame the audience think.
: Popularity in the pop circus is largely a media show. One only has to
: look at the way "stars" are made today.
More confusion with the pop marketing cycle.
: If you want to popular with the general public, you must cater to their
: tastes and especially that of their patrons and go the way of Yanni,
: Garth Brooks, and Tesch. If you want to get into the textbooks you need
: to get PR in academia and with symphony conductors.
I'm sure this is part tongue in cheek, but nonetheless, it's still playing
the helpless little or me, I'm a modernist, trapped writing in a style
that no one gets. I've just got to write this hard-to-like stuff because
I'm such a damn honest person. ;-)
Here's a few more lies I've been told about why modernist music is so...
1. The evils of war in this century.
2. The plight of the poor.
3. Essential existential problematicism.
4. The rebellion against the tyranny of Wagner.
5. Nowhere else to go with 12 tones.
They're all lies, I tell ya... ;-)
Modernism exists so that hacks with big egos can play the composer.
: None of this has to do with compositional integrity. Ives kept writing
: what he did in the face of great neglect and upopularity. He wrote what
: was true to himself -- what he believed to be good, true, and beautiful.
: Cage did so, also. So did Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Babbitt, etc. They
: were true moderns. This is what I call a committment to compositional
: integrity.
Wow.... compositional integrity. From ASUC? ;-)
How is an American writing in a Viennese style truthful?
Why has the down and out never written in a modernist style? Why is it
always academics; how many hobbyist modernist composers are there?
How many years will it take before modernism is accepted popularly by a
typicall classical music audience
Why is modernism taught to first year comp students? Why isn't it just
naturally adopted if it is so right? Chopin's chromaticism wasn't forced
down beginning composer's throats! It was exciting and new and the young
couldn't wait to play with its effects. Most composers are dragged
kicking and screaming into their first 12 tone comp class. ;-)
: So, is modernism dead? Nah! It is more popular today than it ever was
: (now that many of its composers are dead). But, there are still a lot of
: composers writing modernist music, and the crowds are growing. Living
: modernist composers are enjoying more popuarity now than did Ives in his
: day. Modernism is far from dead.
Yeah... right. If it smells like its dead... Maybe you should talk to a
symphony music director about why her audience does not want new music?
I completely blame new music's bad rep on youz modernists wearing your old
tired picture of a heart on your sleeve. It ain't a real heart.
It's just a pitcha o' one.
Just a reminder, I consider myself a modernist to a limited extent. But I
know when to draw the line. Taste is not a talent one can acquire.
;-)
Again, thanks for an interesting thread, everyone. Even you, nipple ring!
I hope my provocations don't offend (uh...) everyone.
Jeff Harrington [ "Art does not make peace...that is not its business...]
je...@parnasse.com [ Art is peace." --Robert Lowell]
http://www.parnasse.com/jeff.htm --------->>[[ My Music ]]<<--------------]
http://www.parnasse.com/vrml.shtml ------->>[[ My Worlds ]]<<-------------]
Jeff Harrington
Larry Solomon (So...@AzStarNet.com) wrote:
: You apparently also consider these composers as modern(?) If this is so,
: I think that you've missed the boat or something. Hey, Bartok isn't
: popular??? Did you see my earlier posting about the Friends of Music
: concert? Stravinsky isn't popular??? Hell, even the Tucson Symphony
: Orchestra is now playing the Rite of Spring, and I'm told that some high
: school orchestras are doing it.
Come on... ;-) Those composers are in no way approaching the popularity
that LvB had in his *lifetime!* What about Chopin? How many girls swoon
at Le Sacre (that is girls who aren't on stage ;-).
: >I believe it to be a function almost entirely of the process of abandoning
: >the requirement of a beautiful surface for (uh) content.
: What constitutes a "beautiful surface"? That's an personal aesthetic
: judgement that requires a point of view. Are you sure that you aren't
: confusing "beautiful" with Romantic? I think the Les Noces is a very
: beautiful work, moreso than most Romantic works. It has a very beautiful
: surface.
Joe and Sally Beethoven fan get a forkin' headache when they hear Les
Noces... come on. Are you this far out of the loop. This justification
for 80 years of experimentation - is - hermetic. Pure Ivory Tower
hermetic.
: >This is just blame the audience think.
: Hell, yeah! The audience plays the most important part in determining
: what is popular. If they are right, we may as well become Garth Brooks
: clones.
Typical modernist academic excuse. There is a way to write art music that
would be popular... great art music. To deny this is to be blantantly
misanthropic and solipsistic to boot.
: >I'm a modernist, trapped writing in a style
: >that no one gets. I've just got to write this hard-to-like stuff because
: >I'm such a damn honest person. ;-)
: I think that it's very interesting that you wrote this in the first
: person. I've heard your music, and I think it's modern. What would you
: call it?
I don't employ expressionistic artistic value systems in generating my
music. Melodies are assymetrical, but inspired by pop and jazz and world
musics. Rhythms are primarily African and Spanish... That's modern?
Maybe in a Debusseyan sense. My formal methods are right out of the
classical period (transitional strategies and climax methods).
: So, is this some kind of sado-masochism?
Ha... I've been spotted. I am, to a certain extent, playing devils'
advocate. Nonetheless, I'm doing so to say things that I think need to be
said.
: Sure as hell doesn't
: sound like John Tesch, Michael Jackson, Rachmaninov, Brahms, or Yanni.
: >Modernism exists so that hacks with big egos can play the composer.
: You mean like Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg? -- they weren't composers,
: just hacks with big egos?! Who are you talking about?
I mean ASUC members. People who get their one performance a year at a SCI
meeting. ;-)
: >I completely blame new music's bad rep on youz modernists wearing your old
: >tired picture of a heart on your sleeve. It ain't a real heart.
: >It's just a pitcha o' one.
: Hey, I've got just as big a heart as you, so, don't play Mother Superior
: with me. Who are you to play God and judge who does or doesn't have a
: heart? There is plenty of heart, without romantic sentimentality, in
: Berg's music. And what could be more heart rending than Schoenberg's *A
: Survivor from Warsaw* (and, yes, it's about war), or *Erwartung*? Uh,
: Xenakis? I don't think so (who, by the way, is a quintessential
: modernist). Give me a break!
Heart rending? Give me a break! ;-) Those pieces are screams. Heart
wretching maybe. ;-)
: I think you need to examine and assess your meaning of "modernism",
: because I agree with David Horne, that you are using it as a straw man.
: 8:-)
I'm using it to discuss touchy subjects. BTW, you ignored most of my
questions about the "authenticity" of academic atonal modernism:
////////////////////
How is an American writing in a Viennese style truthful?
Why has the down and out never written in a modernist style? Why is it
always academics; how many hobbyist modernist composers are there?
How many years will it take before modernism is accepted popularly by a
typical classical music audience?
Why is modernism taught to first year comp students? Why isn't it just
naturally adopted if it is so right? Chopin's chromaticism wasn't forced
down beginning composer's throats! It was exciting and new and the young
couldn't wait to play with its effects. Most composers are dragged
kicking and screaming into their first 12 tone comp class. ;-)
The ultimate reason that atonal modernism has been a disaster.
It don't get people off.
;-)
It is not ecstatic, therefore it dies.........
Matthew H. Fields
In article <5lsavo$8fa$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
>Come on... ;-) Those composers are in no way approaching the popularity
>that LvB had in his *lifetime!* What about Chopin? How many girls swoon
>at Le Sacre (that is girls who aren't on stage ;-).
You mean now or at the premiere?! Quite a few at the premiere by all
accounts!
How many people are getting into fisticuffs over Yanni?
George Bogatko
Some random thoughts:
Simple music will be more easily absorbed by the general audience than more
difficult music. Thus simple music will usually be more easily financed
than difficult music. This makes it very unlikely that composers of
difficult music will be able to devote 8+ hour days to their muse unless
they are wealthy or have a patron (university or otherwise).
Simple music is not necessarily more or less worthy than difficult music, and
vice versa. The lifespan of a piece of difficult music is usually a function
of finances -- supplied either by the composer, their patron, or the NEA.
Simple music that is stupid or insipid will not last as long as simple music
that is not. Same for difficult music. There are exceptions (Louie, louie).
Usually stupid or insipid music gets an extended life if the words catch on.
Most pop songs depend heavily on the lyrics. Take away the lyrics (just
play the tune), and the audience will get glazed eyes very quickly.
Any musical style or level of complexity will be more easily absorbed when
joined by another form of art -- Film for example.
The lifespan of a piece of music depends on exposure. A piece of music that
is played only once in its lifetime is stillborn by definition -- it's
worth notwithstanding.
The larger the forces necessary to realize a piece of music, the
less likely that it will have a long lifespan. This only applies
to pieces composed in the last 2 or 3 years. It's mainly a matter
of finance. At $5000/hr, it's only the Carters and Berios of this world
than can afford real good symphonies.
A piece of music rendered into a CD needs to sell at least 300,000 copies
before the composer is taken seriously by those who will finance the next
venture. Otherwise -- it's a hobby.
Play a piece of either simple or difficult music in a non-concert venue for
more than 2 people at once, and somebody will start talking over it. Ask
them to be quiet and you risk insulting them.
The vast bulk of the American musical audience gets their music from a pair
of speakers. In other words, they have grown up listening to synthetic music.
To this group (a very large consumer group), there is little difference between
a symphonic recording made by a large group of humans, and one made by a
synclavier.
To this group, there is little difference between Beethoven and Yanni -- they
both go well with dinner.
"Soothing soft rock" is the music of choice of the American Businessman.
GB
BHeneg8560
In article <5lsveg$5...@uucp.intac.com>, gbog...@intac.com (George
Bogatko) writes:
>The vast bulk of the American musical audience gets their music from a
pair
>of speakers. In other words, they have grown up listening to synthetic
>music.
It's not synthetic - it's just the sound of whoever's playing coming out
of
speakers. How is that synthetic, and furthermore, why does it matter?
You talk as though the word "synthetic" actually meant something.
>"Soothing soft rock" is the music of choice of the American Businessman.
But does that matter?
best wishes
Ben Heneghan
Matthew H. Fields
In article <5lstpd$lkq$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
>Larry, man... you're just avoiding the question. Why isn't modern music
>popular?
Frank covered that perfectly well here long ago. Too much political
correctness, not enough cleavage at the show.
I gots news for you and your nerbs, if an American writing in a Viennese
style necessarily lacks integrity, same goes for an American writing
in a Funk style. Back to studying the music of the Ojibway, the Inuit...
Jeff Harrington
Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
: In article <5lsavo$8fa$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
: Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
: >Come on... ;-) Those composers are in no way approaching the popularity
: >that LvB had in his *lifetime!* What about Chopin? How many girls swoon
: >at Le Sacre (that is girls who aren't on stage ;-).
: You mean now or at the premiere?! Quite a few at the premiere by all
: accounts!
: How many people are getting into fisticuffs over Yanni?
Last time I got the shit kicked out of me, I didn't think it was fun...
We all know that what I'm talking about is different. When I was taking
conducting many years ago they called it "melting." It's an ecstatic
state, not one of anger.
I can think of a bunch of places that do it for me in the 20th century
music rep:
Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra (that climax when the horn triplets
come in).
Messiaen Turangalila
Carter Symphony for 3 Orchestras climax
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra - all over...
Messiaen Quartet
Ligeti Requiem
Kurtag (that last quartet)
But then, I'm a little jaded........... as I've posted, I'm not interested
in writing music solely for (uh...) people like me. That is not
interesting. I'm interested in finding a way to develop what is a more
universal form of musical expression that is still high art.
David Horne
Jeff Harrington (rus...@best.com) wrote:
: Uh uh... Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven et al were very popular in their
: lifetime. I don't have to tell you the story of people on the street
: humming Cosi after the premiere. What's with that?
Maybe the increased number of diversions?
David
** Harvard University Music Department **
** mailto://im1...@virgil.harvard.edu **
*** http://mario.harvard.edu/im1ru12/ ***
BHeneg8560
In article <33833D...@AzStarNet.com>, Larry Solomon
<So...@AzStarNet.com> writes:
>Modern music is now standard repertoire for most of the performers
>and ensembles that I know.
Oh yeah, and they're really out there in the market place, are they?
How many of them are directly or indirectly benefiting from subsidy,
such that it doesn't really affect them if nobody wants to pay what
these concerts *really* cost?
best wishes
Ben Heneghan
Larry Solomon
I think there is a lot of confusion here between compositional integrity
and popularity. Popularity is a matter of PR, even among "lasting
classical" composers. Was Bach popular in his time? No. It wasn't until
Mendelssohn and his followers did a PR job on Bach that he became a
popular classical composer.
Before the 1960s, Charles Ives was considered to be a minor to
insignificant figure in the classical scene. Due to the efforts of
people like Cowell, Slonimsky, and scholars at Yale, Ives is considered
to be one of the most important, i.e. popular, American composers of the
20th century. Mahler was not considered a popular composer until
Bernstein did his PR work on him. And so on, and so forth. The Beatles
would never have become popular if it hadn't been for their PR
supporters. Popularity has little to do with musical talent and
compositional integrity and a lot to do with politics, luck, and payola.
Popularity in the classical world is also governed by snobbery. Most
people don't make their own judgements about classical music but follow
the opinion of the "experts", mostly self proclaimed. It's no different
than in the art world, where it is only more "visible".
Popularity in the pop circus is largely a media show. One only has to
look at the way "stars" are made today.
If you want to popular with the general public, you must cater to their
tastes and especially that of their patrons and go the way of Yanni,
Garth Brooks, and Tesch. If you want to get into the textbooks you need
to get PR in academia and with symphony conductors.
None of this has to do with compositional integrity. Ives kept writing
what he did in the face of great neglect and upopularity. He wrote what
was true to himself -- what he believed to be good, true, and beautiful.
Cage did so, also. So did Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Babbitt, etc. They
were true moderns. This is what I call a committment to compositional
integrity.
So, is modernism dead? Nah! It is more popular today than it ever was
(now that many of its composers are dead). But, there are still a lot of
composers writing modernist music, and the crowds are growing. Living
modernist composers are enjoying more popuarity now than did Ives in his
day. Modernism is far from dead.
On the other hand, minimalism, which has been touted here as the
mainstream successor to modernism, is pretty thin and is already dying
(along with New Age) in popularity. This was predictable enough. I think
that it will be regarded as a peculiar, short-lived mannerism of little
consequence by the next century. It is interesting to note how
minimalism has paralleled the resurgent popularity of Muzak, Lawrence
Welk, Guy Lombardo, New Age, and Easy Listening.
--
Best!
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Larry Solomon
The Center for the Arts http://www.AzStarNet.com/~solo
Tucson, AZ
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Jeff Harrington
Larry Solomon (So...@AzStarNet.com) wrote:
: >Come on... ;-) Those composers are in no way approaching the popularity that
: >Sacre (that is girls who aren't on stage ;-).
: So, you want to write music that makes teenage girls swoon?!? I think
: you're writing the wrong stuff. Get into the pop scene and emulate
: Michael Jackson. Frankly, this kind of thing doesn't interest me at all.
Larry, man... you're just avoiding the question. Why isn't modern music
popular?
: If you want to be popular, write popular. Get on with it, guy!
Uh uh... Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven et al were very popular in their
lifetime. I don't have to tell you the story of people on the street
humming Cosi after the premiere. What's with that?
Again, the very idea that art music *cannot* be popular is misanthropic
and solipsistic. We are not locked into anything. Not atonality, not
modernist convention of any sort. If we use our imagination we *can*
create a popular art music.
Maybe you've given up... sad.
: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
: Since you've asked for my answers to your other questions, I can only
: speak for myself:
: >How is an American writing in a Viennese style truthful?
: I don't write that way, so I can't answer this question, which doesn't
: make sense anyway.
Uh, you know what I mean. I'm not the first to ask the question. You're
not the first to avoid it! ;-)
: >Why has the down and out never written in a modernist style? Why is it
: >always academics; how many hobbyist modernist composers are there?
: Again, I think you are misusing "modernist", or using it in some way
: that you can't define. Bartok, a modernist, was "down and out". So was
: Cage. So was Feldman. If you mean by "hobbyist", someone who can't
: survive by writing music, I think we're all in that category.
An authentic art form would be practiced by the people, not just by
university geeks. People would flock to learn how to do its mad forms...
The practitioners of this ecstatic form would be overwhelmed by the masses
hungry for its secrets... ;-)
: >How many years will it take before modernism is accepted popularly by a
: >typical classical music audience?
: As I already indicated (but you refuse to accept), it already is. Wake
: up! Modern music is now standard repertoire for most of the performers
: and ensembles that I know. Are you living in 1950? Have you been to
: symphony concerts lately? Stravinky's Firebird and Petrushka are just as
: popular with those audiences as any of Ludwig Van.
Yes, I am living in 1950. And when were those pieces written? Pre-1920?
It's about time. Something from this century became popular.
: Why is modernism taught to first year comp students?
: I don't "teach modernism", and I don't know who you are talking about.
: Be specific.
Atonality forced down the throats of people who grew up tonal. Dat's what
I'm talkin' 'bout, Larry. You're just avoiding the question...
You have never heard of composers forced into atonal modernism? You are
in a tower.
: >Why isn't it just naturally adopted if it is so right? Chopin's chromaticism
: >wasn't forced down beginning composer's throats! It was exciting and new and the
: >young couldn't wait to play with its effects. Most composers are dragged
: >kicking and screaming into their first 12 tone comp class. ;-)
: Where did you go to school?
LSU, Tulane, Juilliard, Hard Knox...
: My students choose the way they write -- I don't, and some choose, of
: their own volition, to write 12-tone music. I don't write that way, but
: I support them if that's what they're interested in doing. You seem to
: be saying that I should force them to write something else. Others
: choose to write in completely different styles. No one is forced to
: write any one way. My students write everything from death metal to rap
: to jazz to serial and chance pieces. THEY (not me) choose the way they
: write.
Cool... They're lucky to have you for a teacher, I suspect. We're just
typin' at each other, now to nought...
I've said what I had to say, you can respond, whatever... I'm off to new
threads.
Larry Solomon
Jeff wrote:
>Hi, I'll assume you were talking about my last posting... We've had 80
>years of modernism. When will it be resuscitated? (Like it was not
>stillborn). How many more years of integrity will there be before we >can start having fun again?
No, I wasn't addressing your post specifically, but that's okay. 8:-)
I think that many of the terms we're using do not match in our meanings:
like "modernism", "new music", "popularity", etc. So, i'll throw in a
definition or two of the terms for the way in which I use them, which
agree pretty much with current scholarship, and which I address only in
order to help the discussion. Keep in mind that I'm not trying to lay
these down as some kind of law. They just constitute my perspective.
Modern music is not the same as "new music". The Modern period is now
over, taken to be roughly from 1910-1960, and includes all composers in
this time period who shared a similar aesthetic. It does not include the
post-romantics, like Rachmaninov and Sibelius. The currently accepted
rubric for the period in which we now live (1960- ) is "postmodern", as
ugly as that may be. "New music" is another bag, which I'm not
addressing this post. Some scholars are also writing about high
modernism, late modernism, and other categories.
With this in mind, Bartok, Stravinsky, Hindemith, early Cage, Cowell,
Ives, are modernists in my book. So are Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern.
You apparently also consider these composers as modern(?) If this is so,
I think that you've missed the boat or something. Hey, Bartok isn't
popular??? Did you see my earlier posting about the Friends of Music
concert? Stravinsky isn't popular??? Hell, even the Tucson Symphony
Orchestra is now playing the Rite of Spring, and I'm told that some high
school orchestras are doing it.
>I believe it to be a function almost entirely of the process of abandoning
>the requirement of a beautiful surface for (uh) content.
What constitutes a "beautiful surface"? That's an personal aesthetic
judgement that requires a point of view. Are you sure that you aren't
confusing "beautiful" with Romantic? I think the Les Noces is a very
beautiful work, moreso than most Romantic works. It has a very beautiful
surface.
>This is just blame the audience think.
Hell, yeah! The audience plays the most important part in determining
what is popular. If they are right, we may as well become Garth Brooks
clones.
>I'm a modernist, trapped writing in a style
>that no one gets. I've just got to write this hard-to-like stuff because
>I'm such a damn honest person. ;-)
I think that it's very interesting that you wrote this in the first
person. I've heard your music, and I think it's modern. What would you
call it? So, is this some kind of sado-masochism? Sure as hell doesn't
sound like John Tesch, Michael Jackson, Rachmaninov, Brahms, or Yanni.
>Modernism exists so that hacks with big egos can play the composer.
You mean like Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg? -- they weren't composers,
just hacks with big egos?! Who are you talking about?
>I completely blame new music's bad rep on youz modernists wearing your old
>tired picture of a heart on your sleeve. It ain't a real heart.
>It's just a pitcha o' one.
Hey, I've got just as big a heart as you, so, don't play Mother Superior
with me. Who are you to play God and judge who does or doesn't have a
heart? There is plenty of heart, without romantic sentimentality, in
Berg's music. And what could be more heart rending than Schoenberg's *A
Survivor from Warsaw* (and, yes, it's about war), or *Erwartung*? Uh,
Xenakis? I don't think so (who, by the way, is a quintessential
modernist). Give me a break!
I think you need to examine and assess your meaning of "modernism",
because I agree with David Horne, that you are using it as a straw man.
8:-)
jaq...@en.com
In article <5lq7hm$ksg$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, rus...@best.com (Jeff
Harrington) wrote:
> Larry Solomon (So...@AzStarNet.com) wrote:
> : Before the 1960s, Charles Ives was considered to be a minor to
> : insignificant figure in the classical scene. Due to the efforts of
> : people like Cowell, Slonimsky, and scholars at Yale, Ives is considered
> : to be one of the most important, i.e. popular,
Duh? When did "important" equate to "popular"? Popular composers are
important in some sense, but it's not necessarily true that important
composers are popular, at least with the general public.
Popularity has little to do with musical talent and
> : compositional integrity and a lot to do with politics, luck, and payola.
>
> This is a typically modernist viewpoint; you're intentionally confusing my
> posting about even the tiniest of listener affiliatiion (say what Salieri
> has) with sales. My point was that there is little or no popular (within
> the classical music community) identification with modern composers.
> Almost zilch. This has *nothing* to do (or at least little) with PR. I
> believe it to be a function almost entirely of the process of abandoning
> the requirement of a beautiful surface for (uh) content.
Case in point, as an exception to the rule: Copland. He's accepted by the
classical community on the basis of about a half dozen beautiful-surface
pieces. Plus he's got the beef people etc. shilling for him (and they
think he's shilling for them). You're as likely to hear Copland on TV as
you are to hear "Hearts and Flowers" in old cartoons. It's part of popular
culture. But there's a vast amount of Copland that the public never hears,
because somebody thinks it's too tough for them.
> How is an American writing in a Viennese style truthful?
Or in an Indonesian style, or Armenian, or or or? At least there are more
German-American around.
Conductor still program concerts that try to shotgun-wed different
audiences. This weekend, if I want to hear the Cleveland Orchestra
Carter premiere, I get to experience Liszt#2 and some late Haydn. Been
there...
--
Jeffrey Quick
http://www.en.com/users/jaquick
Larry Solomon
>Come on... ;-) Those composers are in no way approaching the popularity that
>LvB had in his *lifetime!* What about Chopin? How many girls swoon at Le
>Sacre (that is girls who aren't on stage ;-).
So, you want to write music that makes teenage girls swoon?!? I think
you're writing the wrong stuff. Get into the pop scene and emulate
Michael Jackson. Frankly, this kind of thing doesn't interest me at all.
If you want to be popular, write popular. Get on with it, guy!
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Since you've asked for my answers to your other questions, I can only
speak for myself:
>How is an American writing in a Viennese style truthful?
I don't write that way, so I can't answer this question, which doesn't
make sense anyway.
>Why has the down and out never written in a modernist style? Why is it
>always academics; how many hobbyist modernist composers are there?
Again, I think you are misusing "modernist", or using it in some way
that you can't define. Bartok, a modernist, was "down and out". So was
Cage. So was Feldman. If you mean by "hobbyist", someone who can't
survive by writing music, I think we're all in that category.
>How many years will it take before modernism is accepted popularly by a
>typical classical music audience?
As I already indicated (but you refuse to accept), it already is. Wake
up! Modern music is now standard repertoire for most of the performers
and ensembles that I know. Are you living in 1950? Have you been to
symphony concerts lately? Stravinky's Firebird and Petrushka are just as
popular with those audiences as any of Ludwig Van.
Why is modernism taught to first year comp students?
I don't "teach modernism", and I don't know who you are talking about.
Be specific.
>Why isn't it just naturally adopted if it is so right? Chopin's chromaticism
>wasn't forced down beginning composer's throats! It was exciting and new and the
>young couldn't wait to play with its effects. Most composers are dragged
>kicking and screaming into their first 12 tone comp class. ;-)
Where did you go to school?
My students choose the way they write -- I don't, and some choose, of
their own volition, to write 12-tone music. I don't write that way, but
I support them if that's what they're interested in doing. You seem to
be saying that I should force them to write something else. Others
choose to write in completely different styles. No one is forced to
write any one way. My students write everything from death metal to rap
to jazz to serial and chance pieces. THEY (not me) choose the way they
write.
Jeff Harrington
: Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
: >Larry, man... you're just avoiding the question. Why isn't modern music
: >popular?
: Frank covered that perfectly well here long ago. Too much political
: correctness, not enough cleavage at the show.
: I gots news for you and your nerbs, if an American writing in a Viennese
: style necessarily lacks integrity, same goes for an American writing
: in a Funk style. Back to studying the music of the Ojibway, the Inuit...
Hey, don't get like dat... I was just mocking Larry's assertion that
compositional integrity was inherent in any one style.
Jeff Harrington
: Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
: >
: >But then, I'm a little jaded........... as I've posted, I'm not interested
: >in writing music solely for (uh...) people like me. That is not
: >interesting. I'm interested in finding a way to develop what is a more
: >universal form of musical expression that is still high art.
: Well, then, be sure to serve food and have scantily clad dancers as
: part of the symphony.
Sheer forkin' misanthropy. Everywhere I look...
Listen, the literature scene is bommin' now. Great literature is being
written again and it's selling like hotcakes. The new Pynchon book is
going to be a best seller and it could be the greatest book of the decade!
What is *our* problem?
Jeff Harrington
Larry Solomon (So...@AzStarNet.com) wrote:
: It seems clear that Jeff wants to write popular music. I say, fine. Get
: on with it and stop complaining about what other people are writing, no
: matter whether they are "academics", "modernists", or "down and out
: hobbyists". Just let people write what they want and you can write what
: you want. It's that simple.
You continue to characterize my postings as telling other people what they
should write. Whatever... I'm just asking questions, because I believe
there are stylistic assumptions about what art music can and cannot be
that are crippling expression. As I posted in response to Matt's post
this morning, other art froms have recently experienced a huge gain in
their audience share. The novel is back full force; Pynchon's new book,
which is likely a masterpiece will be a best seller. This is similar to
Dickens' popularity! Why couldn't this happen in music. I'm not talking
crap here... this is high art that is on the best seller list.
They did this be returning to the narrative; by returning to the
thoughtful characterization... extrapolate as you please.
: But, forgive me for offering some advice, Jeff. If you wanna be popular,
: ya needs to revise ya style. It's too interesting and complex. Ya need
: to write plain I IV V in 4/4, give it a monotonous hard beat, don't
: forget the drummer, electric bass, vocalist and some nice sexy (or
: violent) lyrics. The music should repeat every 5 seconds with nothin new
: -- promise. Oh, and it needs to be 3.5 minutes, no more, no less, with a
: fade ending. Then enlist Madonna's agent, cause y'll need 'm. I'm not
: being sarcastic, here. :=/
Yeah, I know you're not... you're being blatantly misanthropic.
Really... I find this attitude common to today's composers. It's the
ostrich hiding in the sand; the beggar in speech, disdaining the pleasures
of the upper classes while they drool...
;-)
: Jeff wrote:
: > If we use our imagination we *can* create a popular art music.
: > Maybe you've given up... sad.
: No, I've never tried. Once more (man, turn on your hearing aid), I'm NOT
: INTERESTED in writing pop stuff. I like to write my wierd, esoteric
: stuff. Oddly enough (and to my surprise) some people like it. That's
: just fine with me. If they don't that's just fine, too. Can you
: understand and honor that? /;-)
I could really give a crap what people write. As I continue to post, are
*you* listening? I'm just querying the possibility that we're locked into
attitudes and into musical forms that are self-defeating to an end that
could be positive for all parties.
Listen, I expect people to not use their imagination to get themselves out
of this corner *because* they believe that there is no solution. They
disdain the public, essentially, even the classical music public. They
think they know better and that the public is just screwy.
The one question, anybody is invited to answer - yes or no:
Do you really believe that is impossible for a piece to win both the
Pulitzer (or Grawemeyer or such) and be a platinum record?
I think the difference is, I think it's possible and even likely in the
next 100 years that this will happen.
(Mikel Rouse used to say that was his ambition... to win the Pulitzer and
have the same piece be in the top 10 in the same week).
Matthew H. Fields
In article <33846A...@AzStarNet.com>,
Larry Solomon <So...@AzStarNet.com> wrote:
>It seems clear that Jeff wants to write popular music. I say, fine. Get
No! Jeff is competing with Gregory Munna (who?) for the girl and
the free drink.
Chris Koenigsberg
Larry Solomon <So...@AzStarNet.com> writes:
> "New music" is another bag, which I'm not addressing this post. Some
> scholars are also writing about high modernism, late modernism, and
> other categories.
What I found thoroughly amusing was when I was playing in a rock band
during the punk rock/New Wave era, where one prominent radio DJ was
playing our albums on his "New Music" radio show. And at the same
time, across town I was attending contemporary classical music
concerts, by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. Two totally different
kinds of "New Music" (and both capitalized the N and the M, by the way
:-)
> And what could be more heart rending than Schoenberg's *A Survivor
> from Warsaw* (and, yes, it's about war), or *Erwartung*? Uh,
> Xenakis? I don't think so (who, by the way, is a quintessential
> modernist). Give me a break!
I beg to differ. I happen to find Xenakis' "Cassiopeia" (an additional
standalone piece, added on to his "Oresteia" suite, on the CD), with
the baritone singer wailing in high falsetto while the percussion
pounds away around him, to be thoroughly heart rending. I get similar
feelings from some of his solo pieces for strings, like "Nomos Alpha"
for cello and "Mikka" for violin.
Another example of a quintessential "Modernist" piece that I find
thoroughly heart-rending is the sequence in Philip Glass's "Einstein
on the Beach", which metamorphoses from the innocence of the
prematurely air-conditioned supermarket that reminds her she hasn't
been to the beach, starts slipping in references to a "Gun", and ends
up, through an incredible schizophrenic mind-blowing brain-damaging
verbal morph, with the black vocalist/dancer repeating "Bank robbery
is punishable by a minimum of 30 years in Federal prison". And she is
suddenly wearing a police uniform, and the other dancer/singer, the
white one, has suddenly become Patty Hearst, when she appeared to have
joined her SLA kidnappers in robbing a bank with a machine gun ....
Chris Koenigsberg, c...@ckk.com (c...@pobox.com), <http://www.ckk.com>
George Bogatko
bhene...@aol.com (BHeneg8560) wrote:
>>The vast bulk of the American musical audience gets their music from a
>pair
>>of speakers. In other words, they have grown up listening to synthetic
>>music.
>It's not synthetic - it's just the sound of whoever's playing coming out
>of
>speakers. How is that synthetic, and furthermore, why does it matter?
>You talk as though the word "synthetic" actually meant something.
The word "synthetic" does mean something. I didn't make it up. Music
coming from speakers is not music coming from a human standing in the
same room playing an instrument. It is a complex waveform produced by
electronics driven by digital encoding. An actual interaction goes
on between a human and a listener when in the same physical space.
This does not occur with speakers and electronics. That's what I mean
by synthetic. In this sense the means of producing the programing
that results in the waveforms is irrelevant. The waveforms are not
being produced by humans, they are being synthesized by a machine.
Thus, as I pointed out in the rest of the sentence, at some point
there is little difference in the mind of the general audience between
a waveform programed by the efforts of a group of humans aimed at a
microphone and a synclavier.
>>"Soothing soft rock" is the music of choice of the American Businessman.
>But does that matter?
Yes, it does matter. Composed music that is not realized is like
being endlessly pregnant. As long as those consumers who can afford
to sustain the production of new music that is beyond the simplistic
and simpleminded, are only interested in music that is simplistic and
simpleminded (or so well digested and familiar that it might as well
be simpleminded), the longer new composers will remain pregnant, or
continually producing one-performances pieces -- stillborn by
definition.
>best wishes
>Ben Heneghan
and Best Wishes back to you!
GB
George Bogatko - gbog...@intac.com
Michael P. Mossey
In article <33846A...@azstarnet.com>,
Larry Solomon <So...@AzStarNet.com> wrote:
>It seems clear that Jeff wants to write popular music. I say, fine. Get
>matter whether they are "academics", "modernists", or "down and out
>hobbyists". Just let people write what they want and you can write what
>you want. It's that simple.
>
>ya needs to revise ya style. It's too interesting and complex. Ya need
>to write plain I IV V in 4/4, give it a monotonous hard beat, don't
>forget the drummer, electric bass, vocalist and some nice sexy (or
>violent) lyrics.
I'm not taking sides here, but Larry, Jeff has made it very clear that
he doesn't want to write music that's just popular...it also has to
satisfy his sophisticated tastes and perception.
I think I'm sympathetic to both Jeff and Larry, but I do particularly
like that Jeff is asking us to consider whether we have sometimes
forgotten to design our music to be perceivable with less effort.
My Feldenkrais teacher (the F. Method is the study of graceful and
efficient movement) likes to say that our society is filled with the
"work harder fallacy."
The harder you work, the more you accomplish.
This is a fallacy because it is common for people to work very hard in
ways that accomplish no useful work in the external world and instead
increase the stress on their bodies. It's common for these people to
perceive all this extra work not as something that can be eliminated,
but rather as something that is a fundamental difficulty of what they
are trying to accomplish. This seems to be a universal danger about
human perception.
So I have to wonder, is there an analagous danger in music-making? Is
it possible that as composers attempt to make music that pleases them,
they are creating music that takes more effort to perceive than really
necessary?
I don't know the answer to this question. I don't have enough
experience composing even to know the answer for myself.
Here's another analogy. Let's say that composers or performers are
like ski slope designers, and the listeners are like skiers.
Obviously an advanced skier needs a challenging slope to enjoy the
trip. But, does that mean that if the designer puts in a bunch of
hidden dropoffs, surprising turns that fool the skier into almost
hitting a rock wall, and trap doors, he has done a good job? A very
advanced skier might feel good getting through all those dangers, but
maybe that took an awful lot of effort. Would it be possible to
design a slope that's just as fun, but takes less effort to ski? Or
at some point, does the reduced effort lead even to increased
enjoyment (I tend to see increasing effort as reducing enjoyment)?
I don't know if these analogies offer anything. I do know that I
believe there's a strong connection between getting a job done with
less effort and enjoying the job more, and that most other people seem
to act out of the opposite belief. I know I used to be stuck in the
opposite belief.
Let me be careful to say that I don't think composers should aim to
please more people. I do aim to please myself by making music that's
as easy to perceive as possible, and I presume that will make the
music appeal to more people.
Bottom line: I think that 'ease of perception' and 'banality' are not
the same axis, but rather orthogonal. I think Jeff is quite correct
in pointing out the danger of confusing these two axes.
MM
Larry Solomon
It seems clear that Jeff wants to write popular music. I say, fine. Get
on with it and stop complaining about what other people are writing, no
matter whether they are "academics", "modernists", or "down and out
hobbyists". Just let people write what they want and you can write what
you want. It's that simple.
But, forgive me for offering some advice, Jeff. If you wanna be popular,
ya needs to revise ya style. It's too interesting and complex. Ya need
to write plain I IV V in 4/4, give it a monotonous hard beat, don't
forget the drummer, electric bass, vocalist and some nice sexy (or
violent) lyrics. The music should repeat every 5 seconds with nothin new
-- promise. Oh, and it needs to be 3.5 minutes, no more, no less, with a
fade ending. Then enlist Madonna's agent, cause y'll need 'm. I'm not
being sarcastic, here. :=/
Jeff wrote:
> If we use our imagination we *can* create a popular art music.
> Maybe you've given up... sad.
No, I've never tried. Once more (man, turn on your hearing aid), I'm NOT
INTERESTED in writing pop stuff. I like to write my wierd, esoteric
stuff. Oddly enough (and to my surprise) some people like it. That's
just fine with me. If they don't that's just fine, too. Can you
understand and honor that? /;-)
Brian Newhouse
In article <19970520232...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
bhene...@aol.com (BHeneg8560) wrote:
> In article <33833D...@AzStarNet.com>, Larry Solomon
> <So...@AzStarNet.com> writes:
>
> >Modern music is now standard repertoire for most of the performers
> >and ensembles that I know.
>
> Oh yeah, and they're really out there in the market place, are they?
> How many of them are directly or indirectly benefiting from subsidy,
> such that it doesn't really affect them if nobody wants to pay what
> these concerts *really* cost?
>
This is irresistible, but--
The main variable affecting the need for an ensemble for subsidy or
patronage is purely and simply size. Pop/rock groups, which generally
perform without subsidy, are generally small and close-knit--four to six
players, comparable to a classical string quartet. (And to what extent do
string quartets benefit from subsidy?) Larger groups, such as big bands,
tend to be organizationally far more unstable and subject to the
vicissitudes of the larger economic situation, regardless of popular
demand. On the other hand, opera companies depend heavily on patronage
and subsidy even when they stick to the dozen or so nineteenth-century
Italian or French warhorses; if they depended entirely on box-office
receipts, what audiences remained would be even more monotonously rich
than they are now.
--
Brian Newhouse
newh...@mail.crisp.net
Brian Newhouse
In article <19970521003...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
bhene...@aol.com (BHeneg8560) wrote:
> >"Soothing soft rock" is the music of choice of the American Businessman.
>
> But does that matter?
>
Yes it does, if you're trying to build audiences for your music by
starting on what exists out there. It matters still more if you are
looking for private patrons among said businessmen...but wait, Mr.
Heneghen is opposed on principle to musicians supporting themselves on
anything but box-office receipts (to judge from some of his other
postings); private patronage is the next worst thing to government
subsidy, which coddles musicians from the true and just verdict of the
public.
--
Brian Newhouse
newh...@mail.crisp.net
jaq...@en.com
In article <5lt1f2$38r$1...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>, fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu
(Matthew H. Fields) wrote:
>> How many girls swoon
> >at Le Sacre (that is girls who aren't on stage ;-).
>
> You mean now or at the premiere?! Quite a few at the premiere by all
> accounts!
> How many people are getting into fisticuffs over Yanni?
Too few! :-)
ILawson104
In article <EAKAL...@nonexistent.com>, newh...@mail.crisp.net (Brian
Newhouse) writes:
Soothing soft 'classical' is also a popular choice - if by any remote
chance this is seen as a more 'suitable' starting point.
One form of private patronage is to buy a composers CD or concert ticket.
If, in addition, an individual is keen enough to make a further 'private'
contribution could anyone complain? This is nothing like government
subsidy where unelected quangos spend other peoples money on art because
the 'other people', as individuals, have chosen not to.
regards, Ian Lawson
ILawson104
In article <EAKAC...@nonexistent.com>, newh...@mail.crisp.net (Brian
Newhouse) writes:
>
>The main variable affecting the need for an ensemble for subsidy or
>patronage is purely and simply size. Pop/rock groups, which generally
>perform without subsidy, are generally small and close-knit--four to six
>players, comparable to a classical string quartet. (And to what extent
do
>string quartets benefit from subsidy?)
Despite numbers, pop concerts are often more expensive to put on (and to
attend) than orchestral concerts; so I don't that this point is valid.
One of the largest single costs of a typical classical concert is the fee
for the main star - often conductor or soloist. They can sometimes earn
more money in one night than the orchestral players earn in a year. This
is the sort of thing subsidy goes on.
String quartets benefit enormously from subsidy, as the organisations that
hire them are nearly always subsidised to do so.
regards again, Ian lawson
Ross Driedger
Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote in article
<5lt4os$q5h$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>...
> Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
> : How many people are getting into fisticuffs over Yanni?
>
> Last time I got the shit kicked out of me, I didn't think it was fun...
Yeah, those little ol' ladies with the walkers can get pretty mean when you
start trashing their heros...
> But then, I'm a little jaded........... as I've posted, I'm not
interested
> in writing music solely for (uh...) people like me. That is not
> interesting. I'm interested in finding a way to develop what is a more
> universal form of musical expression that is still high art.
Lurking on this thread, I was aware that you were doing more than bitching
about life, the universe and almost everything musical (SOME may have
gotten that impression ;-) ).
Two points I am in absolute agreement with: many in musical academia have
done much to deliberately alienate the mainstream audience ("What? write
music for people to enjoy? How gauche! We are not giving you your
Doctorate here!") and this kind of 'ivory-towerism' is self perpetuating (a
friend of mine refers to it as the "Canadian Music Mafia"); in this country
we suffer, additionally, from our typical cultural neurosis: "We may not
know much about good music, but we know what is Canadian!"
I think your stated goals are very noble and what I've found to be the
universal thread in music that has a broad based audience is emotional
honesty (or very slick marketing). What you have (as well as Matt) is
financial support from activities outside of composing; you don't have to
suck up to those who want to see yet another bad clone of a bad clone of
___<add your least favorite composer's name here>___, for your next
foundation grant or sessional appointment to teach first year theory at a
back-water college. The downsides to this are that you can't devote full
energies to what you love and you may lack certain credibilty to some
because you are not a 'full-time' composer (Don't ya just love management
types?)
Anyways, back to the old programming grind -- Doing this MFC stuff, I can
see why some want to go onto Java.
Thanks for the GREAT thread.
Ross
KeybdWizrd
gbog...@nile.intac.com (George Bogatko) wrote:
>An actual interaction goes on between a human and a listener when in the
>same physical space. This does not occur with speakers and electronics.
Is it real, or is it Memorex? I don't buy into what you've said. :)
What about "live" electronic/amplified music? Are you saying that the
experience for a listener is different if they hear me play my synthesizer
through a speaker while in the same room with me, as opposed to listening
to me play my synthesizer via a digital recording played back through the
same speaker? What about other instruments (like electric guitars) that
must necessarily involve "speakers and electronics?"
I'll agree that a "live" musical experience *can* be different than
listening to a recording, but IMHO this has nothing whatsoever to do with
"speakers and electronics."
Michael Walthius, synthesist
THE MUSIC OF CYBERSPACE
http://www.keybdwizrd.com
Matthew H. Fields
You know, the whole "effort/enjoyment" thing doesn't mesh with
anything I do when composing. My music is sometimes complex, but
never with the purpose of making things harder to perceive---but
always with the purpose of providing more details worth perceiving and
enjoying, more things to catch on a second and third hearing, and more
fun. The challenges this offers the listener---to enjoy it all or be
overwhelmed in that effort--- are really just side-effects. It's
kinda like offering the listener not a 5-degree view of a mountain but
a panoramic sensurround view of the Grand Canyon, or better still, an
actual trip to the Grand Canyon: the fact that it takes more time and
effort to fully enjoy it is not the result of making it hard but
merely of providing more of it at once.
There isn't much good shopping to be done in the Grand Canyon, and
it's kinda pointless to play shuffleboard there. You can't ride the
Maid of the Mist there... As popular as it is, it's not going to be
as popular a vacation spot as Disneyland unless humans evolve in a
different direction....
But I think developing it into another Disneyland would rightly
bring a great hue and cry.
Throwing away intense strains of music just because they're currently
"esoteric" seems to me similarly misguided.
Matt
rick
Matthew H. Fields wrote:
> How many people are getting into fisticuffs over Yanni?
Outside of this ng, I'd say none. Then again, how many are getting laid
to the strains of Yanni? <g>
R
Brian Newhouse
In article <19970522130...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
ilaws...@aol.com (ILawson104) wrote:
> In article <EAKAC...@nonexistent.com>, newh...@mail.crisp.net (Brian
> Newhouse) writes:
>
> >
> >The main variable affecting the need for an ensemble for subsidy or
> >patronage is purely and simply size. Pop/rock groups, which generally
> >perform without subsidy, are generally small and close-knit--four to six
> >players, comparable to a classical string quartet. (And to what extent
> do
> >string quartets benefit from subsidy?)
>
> Despite numbers, pop concerts are often more expensive to put on (and to
> attend) than orchestral concerts; so I don't that this point is valid.
My point was, the larger the ensemble (regardless of repertory), the
greater the need for subsidy (defined loosely here as monies raised by any
other means than box-office receipts and recording royalties). I was
talking about classical chamber ensembles which like pop/rock groups
consist of three to six musicians, not orchestral groups which contain ten
to thirty times as many players. But are the prices to _chamber_ concerts
artificially depressed to the same extent compared to pop groups of
similar size and reputation? (That last is important; not all pop groups
are famous enough to charge top dollar.)
[snip with apologies]
By the way, if this subthread keeps up like this I may take the liberty of
cross posting to rec.music.classical.contemporary or even
rec.music.classical. It has definitely veered far beyond the province of
rec.music.compose.
--
Brian Newhouse
newh...@mail.crisp.net
Jeff Harrington
: it's kinda pointless to play shuffleboard there. You can't ride the
: Maid of the Mist there... As popular as it is, it's not going to be
: as popular a vacation spot as Disneyland unless humans evolve in a
: different direction....
You're just playin' Larry's tired old tune that popular means crap,
Matt... really. When I suggest that a sophisticated music could be
popular, why is it you guys wave your hands and start talking about
Disney, Madonna, Michael Jackson? It just trivializes the idea that a new
music could be made which is digestible *and* even delicious to the
classical music public. To suggest that this is impossible *is*
indicative of the problem, basically, a cooler than thou way of thinking
of *our* public.
Do you guys even know who Thomas Pynchon is and why his novel being a best
seller is significant? Or why Gabriel Marquez's novels are always on the
best seller list? What is wrong with us?
: Throwing away intense strains of music just because they're currently
: "esoteric" seems to me similarly misguided.
Ain't nobody talkin' about throwing anything away. Sheesh... That will
take care of itself. Unpopular art, art that is not intelligible to the
serious, intellectual listener on the third listen at least, art that has
such a forbidding surface that it does not invite repeat listenings will
be retired to the experimental music section of the city dump.
All I'm suggesting is that we take a second look at our public. There was
a term in 1st year algebra, about making your equation as simple as
possible but no simpler. To me, it is the highest art to embrace the
intelligent listener and to sing to them in as simple and powerful a
manner as possible.
I'm still working on it.... of course. Maybe this is all for the next
generation, but it will get done. It is a real revolution in the making
and if we don't join it, we'll end up like Marie Antoinette...
Larry Solomon
Michael wrote:
>I'll agree that a "live" musical experience *can* be different than
>listening to a recording, but IMHO this has nothing whatsoever to do >with "speakers and electronics."
Oh, but it does! I hope you don't really believe that your music heard
live is the same experience when listened to over a cheap portable radio
with a frequency response of 300-6000 HZ and 15% distortion, do you?
KeybdWizrd
Larry Solomon wrote:
>Michael wrote:
>>I'll agree that a "live" musical experience *can* be different than
>>listening to a recording, but IMHO this has nothing whatsoever to do
>>with "speakers and electronics."
>
>Oh, but it does! I hope you don't really believe that your music heard
>live is the same experience when listened to over a cheap portable radio
>with a frequency response of 300-6000 HZ and 15% distortion, do you?
Well, your point is well taken, but the nature of the "hardware" used for
playback is always a factor. For example, a Beethoven piano sonata sounds
different whether listened to via a $50,000 concert grand piano as opposed
to an old out-of-tune upright that's been sitting in someone's basement
for ten years. All kinds of things can affect a performance -- consider
that the performance of a piece by a 10th grade orchestra will differ from
that by the London Symphony.
My point (which perhaps I didn't make very well) is that all things being
equal, does it matter whether the music is "live" or not? If a
synthesizer is played live through brand XYZ speakers, is it different
than an exact recording of the synthesizer played through the same
speakers?
-
Michael Walthius
THE MUSIC OF CYBERSPACE
http://www.keybdwizrd.com
-
Jonah Barabas
> ... To me, it is the highest art to embrace the
> intelligent listener and to sing to them in as simple and powerful a
> manner as possible. ...
>
That just might be the best thing you've said around here. A couple of
additional comments with your permission:
(1) Intelligent listener -- I think it's time for all of us to acknowledge
the general beauty in the human soul and the wide-spread ability to
appreciate beauty in us all. For too long we have been segmented into the
classes of Alphas, Betas, Gammas, etc. like a twisted chapter out of
Huxley's "Brave New World". We're not Alphas or Gammas -- we're Sams and
Sues and Jeffs. Each with common experiences. Each with different
experiences. Each with their synapses wired differently -- but all
possessing them. I believe there are very few truly unintelligent people
in this world -- unfortunately, there are many that haven't been properly
mentored. So, along with the striving to find a voice that folks will
hear, let's also strive to help them with someone with their spiritual ear.
Not institutionally or virtually (i.e. Internet), but personally. ONE
person sharing their lust for the muse to another person. Expect them to
appreciate it because, like all men, they also have a good mind and beauty
in their soul.
(2) powerful manner -- There is too much concentration on the craft and not
enough on the content. The power of our songs comes from what it means to
us and what we want it to mean to others. The artist gets his/her content
from living a life. The sound of your child's laughter or your wife's sigh
should echo through the measures of your music. Personally, I don't want
to hear music written by someone that only composed, I don't want to see a
painting by someone that only painted, and I don't want to read a novel by
someone that only wrote. I want to share their experiences, their fears,
their hopes, and their dreams through their art. We should still be like
Irish bards setting around the camp fire sharing a little of our soul with
each other. I've said it before and I will say it again, music MUST say
something -- it's only nice when it says it well. A grammatically perfect
description of someone's office doesn't move me. An ungrammatical
recounting of their proposal to their wife could. In other words, I
believe that the power of the song comes from having something to say.
Anyway, as always, be well and play well.
Jonah Barabas
http://www.tclock.com/jbarab.htm
George Bogatko
keybd...@aol.com (KeybdWizrd) wrote:
>My point (which perhaps I didn't make very well) is that all things being
>equal, does it matter whether the music is "live" or not? If a
>synthesizer is played live through brand XYZ speakers, is it different
>than an exact recording of the synthesizer played through the same
>speakers?
yes, it is different. whether the instrument being played is
electric, electronic or acoustic is irrelevant. the point is that
when mr. america listens to a record, he's listening to a synthetic
reproduction, not the real thing.
worse, mr. business america does not understand why an orchestra costs
so much when a synthesizer can do the same thing far cheaper. having
absorbed the bulk of his music from recordings, whether the recording
is made by machinery, live humans, a computer or any combination of
the above is irrelevant to him.
gb
gb
George Bogatko - gbog...@intac.com
George Bogatko
keybd...@aol.com (KeybdWizrd) wrote:
>gbog...@nile.intac.com (George Bogatko) wrote:
>>An actual interaction goes on between a human and a listener when in the
>>same physical space. This does not occur with speakers and electronics.
>What about "live" electronic/amplified music?
I suppose I should have said "In the home". I'm talking about people
who only listen to recordings for *all* their musical input. You're
talking about "live" music in a concert hall.
I'm trying to get people to understand that records have replaced live
music for the bulk of the listening audience.
Matthew H. Fields
In article <5m230l$36c$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
>Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
>: There isn't much good shopping to be done in the Grand Canyon, and
>: it's kinda pointless to play shuffleboard there. You can't ride the
>: Maid of the Mist there... As popular as it is, it's not going to be
>: as popular a vacation spot as Disneyland unless humans evolve in a
>: different direction....
>
>You're just playin' Larry's tired old tune that popular means crap,
>Matt... really. When I suggest that a sophisticated music could be
>popular, why is it you guys wave your hands and start talking about
>Disney, Madonna, Michael Jackson? It just trivializes the idea that a new
I mentioned Disney, Niagara Falls, and shuffleboard. I do think
this is a whole different thing.
>music could be made which is digestible *and* even delicious to the
No, it suggests that The Classical Music Public (tm), when we
equate it with The Popular (tm), is looking for something predigested.
>classical music public. To suggest that this is impossible *is*
>indicative of the problem, basically, a cooler than thou way of thinking
>of *our* public.
I have never suggested it's impossible to share what I'm doing with
a big public. However, I have suggested that changing what I'm
doing is not the way to accomplish that (that'd have the effect of
sharing nothing new with the Big Public(tm)).
>Do you guys even know who Thomas Pynchon is and why his novel being a best
>seller is significant? Or why Gabriel Marquez's novels are always on the
>best seller list? What is wrong with us?
Neither I nor anybody in my office have ever heard of either. I just
checked. Your BestSeller category is quite hard for me to distinguish
from Larry's Popular Modern Music category. On a second check, my
friend Andrew who has more books in his house than the public library
knows of them.
>: Throwing away intense strains of music just because they're currently
>: "esoteric" seems to me similarly misguided.
>Ain't nobody talkin' about throwing anything away. Sheesh... That will
>take care of itself. Unpopular art, art that is not intelligible to the
>serious, intellectual listener on the third listen at least, art that has
>such a forbidding surface that it does not invite repeat listenings will
>be retired to the experimental music section of the city dump.
Like the Rite of Spring, Beethoven's 9th, Ravel's "nasty little
sounds", etc. Really, we don't know in advance which art fits that
category.
>All I'm suggesting is that we take a second look at our public. There was
>a term in 1st year algebra, about making your equation as simple as
>possible but no simpler. To me, it is the highest art to embrace the
>intelligent listener and to sing to them in as simple and powerful a
>manner as possible.
Yeah, and forget about soundtracks, sets, and subtle jokes in movies,
too---all that complication only makes things unintelligible. Simplify.
Open-air theater, forget the iambic pentameter---too complex. Forget
the puns---gotta think hard to get a pun. We really can get it down
to pretty darned simple and still have great power and embrace the
intelligent listener. One thing happening at a time, teach the
listener to sing it too. Forget about art, sing around the campfire.
But I'm still going to enjoy making complex, theatrical, fugal, serial
stuff for the very few who "get" it. I'm not convinced they're all that
few, actually. In fact, it seems only the overeducated conservatory
grads don't realize that they already "get" it...
>I'm still working on it.... of course. Maybe this is all for the next
>generation, but it will get done. It is a real revolution in the making
>and if we don't join it, we'll end up like Marie Antoinette...
Does it have anything to do with beauty, or is it just a lot of steam
looking for an argument and a free drink?
Brian Newhouse
In article <5m230l$36c$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, rus...@best.com (Jeff
Harrington) wrote:
> Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
> : There isn't much good shopping to be done in the Grand Canyon, and
> : it's kinda pointless to play shuffleboard there. You can't ride the
> : Maid of the Mist there... As popular as it is, it's not going to be
> : as popular a vacation spot as Disneyland unless humans evolve in a
> : different direction....
>
> You're just playin' Larry's tired old tune that popular means crap,
> Matt... really. When I suggest that a sophisticated music could be
> popular, why is it you guys wave your hands and start talking about
> Disney, Madonna, Michael Jackson?
Popular means high sales figures, and Michael Jackson's are (or were)
about as high as you get. Given that the classical music public, all of
it, is estimated as perhaps five or six percent of the musical public in
the United States, what kind of market share did you have in mind?
Seriously, though, I don't think Mr. Fields meant that popular necessarily
means crap, just simple. Shopping can be a very useful and charming
activity, but sometimes you want something rather more intense.
Similarly, really really popular music of the Top Forty sort comes in the
form of songs that have a limited and well-defined point to make, often in
connection with some social purpose like dancing or proclaiming identity,
and do it perfectly well. But if you want to do something a little more
complicated--something which has several points to make, or which exceeds
the bounds of a well-established social purpose, for instance; something
of the sort that might incidentally pick up a Gravemeyer or whatever--you
won't make the Top Forty; that's not what popular music is for. It
doesn't mean you won't maintain a reasonably-sized audience; it certainly
doesn't mean that the music you do write must have absolutely nothing to
do with that nasty vulgar pop stuff (it might be more interesting and
appealing if it did); it just means that the context for the sort of
autonomous stuff that requires one to actually concentrate and listen for
extended periods of time that we're all interested in here at r.m.comp. is
different.
>
> Do you guys even know who Thomas Pynchon is and why his novel being a best
> seller is significant? Or why Gabriel Marquez's novels are always on the
> best seller list? What is wrong with us?
Do you know anything about the publishing market in this country? It is
generally estimated that perhaps half the adult public in America buys
books, and rather less than that buys non-genre fiction like Pynchon's or
Marquez's. And these days, the fiction best-seller lists regularly
include at least one or two serious-minded literary books like Pynchon's
or Toni Morrison's or Jane Smiley's or Saul Bellow's or...which they
didn't used to fifty years before, perhaps _because_ the book-buying
public that made bestsellers out of the likes of _Captain from Castile_
has in part been siphoned off into television or whatever. (Of course,
there is a nasty little controversy over whether best-seller lists,
specifically the NYT one, are really accurate.) It's hardly a
revolution--but still, forty or even ten percent of the adult public in
America is a substantial amount, not to be despised.
> : Throwing away intense strains of music just because they're currently
> : "esoteric" seems to me similarly misguided.
>
> Ain't nobody talkin' about throwing anything away. Sheesh... That will
> take care of itself. Unpopular art, art that is not intelligible to the
> serious, intellectual listener on the third listen at least, art that has
> such a forbidding surface that it does not invite repeat listenings will
> be retired to the experimental music section of the city dump.
[snip!]
Of course, any invoking of the "verdict of history", of "art that is not
intelligible..." being tossed upon the "dustbin of history", about
"revolutions" that one must join or perish, should arouse the suspicion of
_any_ politically aware person conscious of this century's bloody
history--not to mention any veterans of the excesses of Darmstadt and the
Domaine Musicale...
But seriously, are Mr. Fields's "intense strains" necessarily
"unintelligible to the serious, intellectual listener"? Are all dense,
non-triadic sonorities or complicated polyrhythms to be absolutely
forbidden under the revolution, as things we know about but must never,
never mention lest the stability of the musical order be endangered? (Or
have I just read too much conservative social theory lately?) When you
speak to flesh-and-blood composers, you _are_ talking about throwing
things away.
(And interesting that you should use Pynchon as an exemplar; the prose
surface of his novels _is_ on the rebarbative side.)
--
Brian Newhouse
newh...@mail.crisp.net
Matthew H. Fields
In article <5luonh$jai$1...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>,
Matthew H. Fields <fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
>Well, then, be sure to serve food and have scantily clad dancers as
>part of the symphony.
Hey, I wasn't kidding.
R Strauss did it. Even Schoenberg did it (but the piece in question is
really just a sketch....).
Debussy almost did it: Njinksy's pantomimed masturbation got Faune a lot
of extra listens!
fie...@umich.edu
> Thanks for the GREAT thread.
> Ross
Now can we move on to a compositional Gloria?
Gloria's in Excel.
.....sea horse.....
Daaaaaaaaaayyyyyy--O!
James H. Carr
Jeff Harrington wrote:
>
> Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
> : There isn't much good shopping to be done in the Grand Canyon, and
> : it's kinda pointless to play shuffleboard there. You can't ride the
> : Maid of the Mist there... As popular as it is, it's not going to be
> : as popular a vacation spot as Disneyland unless humans evolve in a
> : different direction....
>
> You're just playin' Larry's tired old tune that popular means crap,
> Matt... really. When I suggest that a sophisticated music could be
> popular, why is it you guys wave your hands and start talking about
> indicative of the problem, basically, a cooler than thou way of thinking
> of *our* public.
>
> seller is significant? Or why Gabriel Marquez's novels are always on the
> best seller list? What is wrong with us?
>
I suggest everyone read this brief but terrifying article. Simply put,
the audience is "staying away in droves"-everyones audience, including
Igor's, Wolfgang's, and Wynton's.
"THE STATE (OR DEATH?) OF THE ART"
by Lisa A. Urkevich, University of Maryland
http://www.music.org/pubs/news/articles/urkevich.html
It seems to me the issue is a bit larger than most of us realize, and
has little to do with style.
Jim Carr
Stanford University
James E Hoburg
Jeff Harrington writes:
> You're just playin' Larry's tired old tune that popular means crap,
> Matt... really. When I suggest that a sophisticated music could be
> popular, why is it you guys wave your hands and start talking about
> Disney, Madonna, Michael Jackson? It just trivializes the idea that a new
> music could be made which is digestible *and* even delicious to the
> classical music public. To suggest that this is impossible *is*
> indicative of the problem, basically, a cooler than thou way of thinking
> of *our* public.
>
> Do you guys even know who Thomas Pynchon is and why his novel being a best
> seller is significant? Or why Gabriel Marquez's novels are always on the
> best seller list? What is wrong with us?
I know Pynchon and Marquez. "Best seller" is relative--it's a wide list;
interesting music appears on the pop charts as well.
Consider another axis. First, what do you listen to and most enjoy?
Second, let's think about people with little *deep* involvement in music. Say
someone whose only instruments are a CD player and a radio; a person whose
major use for music is having a audio backdrop for her life. What do you
suppose her tastes might run to?
Do you suppose there are more people like yourselves or more people like the
hypothetical casual listener? If we drop these two extremes of people at
opposite ends of a continuum with more moderate examples strung between, do
you suppose more people lean toward the casual or deeply involved end?
Do you think the experience of listening to music is even the same for
musicians and nonmusicians? (I understand measurements of brain functions
between the two groups during active listening are markedly different). What
do you hear during Daphnis et Chloe, and what does a nonmusician hear? What
do you suppose the relevant demographics are for the Charles Ives audience?
Whose ears do you write for? Which ideas appeal enough to you to merit
development? Why those particular ideas? Isn't it possible that those
choices somewhat define any potential audience? As to "cooler than thou"
thinking, isn't it natural (though maybe not better) to more fully connect
with those who most *get* what we're trying to accomplish with music?
Regards,
jeh
Michael P. Mossey
In article <5m1tbn$lib$1...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>,
>anything I do when composing. My music is sometimes complex, but
>never with the purpose of making things harder to perceive---but
>always with the purpose of providing more details worth perceiving and
>enjoying, more things to catch on a second and third hearing, and more
>fun. The challenges this offers the listener---to enjoy it all or be
>overwhelmed in that effort--- are really just side-effects. It's
>kinda like offering the listener not a 5-degree view of a mountain but
>a panoramic sensurround view of the Grand Canyon, or better still, an
>actual trip to the Grand Canyon: the fact that it takes more time and
>effort to fully enjoy it is not the result of making it hard but
>merely of providing more of it at once.
We aren't meeting somewhere, and I don't really know where, but I'll
just try to type some thoughts and see what happens.
I think of the demand level of music, and how much you 'provide at
once', as more closely tied concepts than you imply here.
Note that I carefully use the word 'demanding' rather than 'hard'. I
certainly don't think for a moment that you or any other composer I
know wants to make their music hard. But I do perceive a lot of my
favorite music as deliberately made demanding, as something more than
a side-effect.
Hard activites I define as those that require effort. Demanding
activities are those that require something other than
effort...perceptual abilities, experience, concentration, patience.
You can do these latter things with effort, but I often find I can
learn to do them with less effort, and in the process, enjoy them
more.
Do you know what I mean by the danger of using an excessive level of
effort in movement and then perceiving the extra effort as a necessary
component of the job? Because if you don't, I'm not sure you will
follow anything else I'm saying.
Fun and demand are tied. Demanding activities can be fun...and a lot
of times the same activites aren't fun anymore when you take away the
demand, like some sports and games, and in fact, some music.
Fun activities don't have to be demanding, though. I would say that
riding a roller coaster, having sex, and looking at the Grand Canyon
are some the less demanding forms of fun. Listening to my favorite
music? That's a bit more demanding, at least as far as I experience
it.
MM
Fred
In article <5m00k1$5...@gap.cco.caltech.edu>,
m...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Michael P. Mossey) wrote:
>I think I'm sympathetic to both Jeff and Larry, but I do particularly
>like that Jeff is asking us to consider whether we have sometimes
>forgotten to design our music to be perceivable with less effort.
*NOW* he is asking...at the start of this thread(in reply to the original
post) he was demanding... (please don't make me look it up in DejaNews...)
I too agree with what he is now suggesting, but when you start off telling
others what they should not do, as Jeff did, you'd better appologize or
expect people to continue being a little thick until you do.
Fred
Matthew H. Fields
Mike, I think I understand fully what you're saying. I just don't think
we're in a position to "demand" anything of our listeners. The closest
we come is perhaps being able to "entice" them.
Jeff Harrington
: we're in a position to "demand" anything of our listeners. The closest
: we come is perhaps being able to "entice" them.
That, ultimately is exactly what we're talking about. If we don't entice
our listeners, we've got no listeners.
Extrapolate that with the fall of the new music audience share and you've
said it all.
This also gets back to the "beautiful surface" stuff I was talking about a
while back. Without seduction (and
previous enticement) and of course agreement to engage ;-) it's just rape.
The experience of musical/auditory rape; the feeling of being trapped in a
room for 20+ minutes while your ears are repeatedly assaulted, is a
feeling that our contemporary audiences are very familiar with. It is
this type of negative experience that has destroyed our audience. I'm not
saying that I experience this. This is a verifiable experiential norm in
new music concerts for many audience members.
We know that you can get pretty dissonant, really as dissonant as you
want, if you prepare an audience. Look at the dischords in Beethoven 9 or
the dischords in Mahler. These are prepared and happen only after the
audience is comfortable and assured that the future 20 minutes will not be
constantly uncomfortable.
The awareness of audience discomfort and it's control is just something
we'd should be aware of. Yes, yes, yes, it's relative.... <yawn>...
Another quick point, in the past we had two categories of classical music.
There was the "learned style" and the "popular style." Composers were
expected to write music for their peers and for the larger audience.
Today we have one type of new classical music.
Matthew H. Fields
In article <5m70bh$osd$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
>Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
>: Mike, I think I understand fully what you're saying. I just don't think
>: we're in a position to "demand" anything of our listeners. The closest
>: we come is perhaps being able to "entice" them.
>while back. Without seduction (and
>previous enticement) and of course agreement to engage ;-) it's just rape.
I still maintain that's impossible. We're not in a position to impose
anything on anybody.
>The experience of musical/auditory rape; the feeling of being trapped in a
>room for 20+ minutes while your ears are repeatedly assaulted, is a
>feeling that our contemporary audiences are very familiar with. It is
Indeed, I'm very familiar with being trapped in a waiting room
with James Brown blasting at me, waiting to see the opthamologist!
>this type of negative experience that has destroyed our audience. I'm not
>saying that I experience this. This is a verifiable experiential norm in
>new music concerts for many audience members.
Indeed!
>We know that you can get pretty dissonant, really as dissonant as you
>want, if you prepare an audience. Look at the dischords in Beethoven 9 or
>the dischords in Mahler. These are prepared and happen only after the
>audience is comfortable and assured that the future 20 minutes will not be
>constantly uncomfortable.
Thank goodness for the disssonances to relieve the otherwise unmitigated
discomfort!
>The awareness of audience discomfort and it's control is just something
>we'd should be aware of. Yes, yes, yes, it's relative.... <yawn>...
>Another quick point, in the past we had two categories of classical music.
>There was the "learned style" and the "popular style." Composers were
>expected to write music for their peers and for the larger audience.
>Today we have one type of new classical music.
Perhaps. If we have any type of classical music at all.
Jeff Harrington
: Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
: >Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
: >: Mike, I think I understand fully what you're saying. I just don't think
: >: we're in a position to "demand" anything of our listeners. The closest
: >: we come is perhaps being able to "entice" them.
: >while back. Without seduction (and
: >previous enticement) and of course agreement to engage ;-) it's just rape.
: I still maintain that's impossible. We're not in a position to impose
: anything on anybody.
Matt you're wearing blinders! You've never sat through a concert because
your parents wanted you to go or somebody bought expensive tickets as a
gift or you're just intimidated by the fat person to your left who's
blocking your way out? You just grit your teeth and bear with it. When I
was subscribing to a new series recently, I don't know how many times I
just felt like getting up, but I wanted to hear the next piece and the
tickets were expensive. It is assaultive at times! So, I've decided to
begin bringing ear plugs to *any* new music concert. I am not going to
risk my hearing and sit through 20 minutes of unadulterated loud
dissonance without protection. (These days in NYC, it's not unusual for
concerts to employ amplification on the order of a rock concert).
It *is* a kind of rape when *no* consideration for audience comfort is
demonstrated. Typically these types of concerts make the assault - the
message. It's cooler than thou, I know better because I'm the composer
misanthropy, typically.
Beauty, of any kind, should not require physical damage and intimidation.
Matthew H. Fields
In article <5m7a30$2au$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
>Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
>: In article <5m70bh$osd$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
>: Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
>: >Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
>: >: Mike, I think I understand fully what you're saying. I just don't think
>: >: we're in a position to "demand" anything of our listeners. The closest
>: >: we come is perhaps being able to "entice" them.
>
>: >while back. Without seduction (and
>: >previous enticement) and of course agreement to engage ;-) it's just rape.
>
>: I still maintain that's impossible. We're not in a position to impose
>: anything on anybody.
>
>Matt you're wearing blinders! You've never sat through a concert because
>your parents wanted you to go or somebody bought expensive tickets as a
>gift or you're just intimidated by the fat person to your left who's
>blocking your way out? You just grit your teeth and bear with it. When I
What the @#$#@)$@( does this have to do with composing music? Of course
I've done that. The musicians were up on stage. Some of the composers
were dead. This is rape by composers?
>was subscribing to a new series recently, I don't know how many times I
>just felt like getting up, but I wanted to hear the next piece and the
>tickets were expensive. It is assaultive at times! So, I've decided to
>begin bringing ear plugs to *any* new music concert. I am not going to
I've been carrying earplugs with me *everywhere* for 15 years. So?
>Beauty, of any kind, should not require physical damage and intimidation.
What about kink?
Noam Elkies
>bringing ear plugs to *any* new music concert.
Jeff you're wearing earplugs!
>I am not going to risk my hearing and sit through 20 minutes of
>unadulterated loud dissonance without protection. (These days in NYC,
>it's not unusual for concerts to employ amplification on the order of
>a rock concert).
Other points aside, 20 minutes of unadulterated major chords at 100db
-- rock or symphony, doesn't matter -- will hurt your hearing as much
as the same length and loudness of dissonance. (Orchestral players,
especially those at or near the brass and percussion sections,
routinely wear earplugs to protect their hearing even when the
repertoire is no more adventurous than Wagner and Mahler.) The
dissonance may feel more objectionable, but I don't think it's the
beats between overtones that physically hurt your ears...
Matt replied:
>Some of the composers were dead. This is rape by composers?
Oh boy. I've heard of necrophilia but I think being raped *by* the
dead is a new twist...
--Noam D. Elkies (elk...@math.harvard:edu)
Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University
David Horne
jaq...@en.com wrote:
: And if kink is what you like, the concerts are out there, and it's fine by
: me. Nobody goes to a Speculum concert, or Bang On a Can, expecting vanilla
: music. What has to stop is the mixed-orchestral concert with the token new
: piece in impenetrable language.
Given that you've taken the sexual analogy further, what's to say that the
'insertion' of a new piece into an otherwise vanilla concert isn't a good
way of gently introducing the participant to a new position that they may
eventually end up rather liking?
** Harvard University Music Department **
** mailto://im1...@virgil.harvard.edu **
*** http://mario.harvard.edu/im1ru12/ ***
Matthew H. Fields
In article <jaquick-2405...@p13-ts5.en.net>, <jaq...@en.com> wrote:
>In article <5m7aug$lcg$1...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>, fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu
>(Matthew H. Fields) wrote:
>>>(Harrington):
>> >Beauty, of any kind, should not require physical damage and intimidation.
>
>> What about kink?
>
>the assumption in that the activities will be more or less vanilla, and
[...]
>music. What has to stop is the mixed-orchestral concert with the token new
>piece in impenetrable language.
Huh? If it's inpenetrable, could it just be a case of embarrassment
by language and not penetration by music? Sounds like it has nothing
to do with the piece and everything to do with the programming in your
opinion.
Having watched folks walk out of concerts or open their lunches and
block out the sound of chamber music, I've come to the conclusion that
ill treatment of new music at concerts is nothing special to the new
music. It's pretty obvious to me why folks are amplifying their
concerts: the expectation is now that A) you'll be able to hear the
music if you want to, and B) you'll be able to shout, sing along, and
discuss politics or the performer's cleavage if you want to. I'm only
surprised the players aren't performing in gas masks. The "civilized"
concert of attentive listeners may have been just a brief-lived fluke---
or a borrowing from churches that isn't doing so hot outside of its
realm of patronage.
Jim Leonard, a local character and mover and shaker in classical
music, says that by informing folks more, making pre-concert
lecture-demos and lecture-concerts available, the markets for
classical music and jazz can be stabilized, whereas sales of items of
fluke fad popularity (chant CDs, various crossover fads...) come and
go very quickly, leaving behind a pile of unsold stock.
I'm still wondering whether we'll see electric power become prohibitively
expensive early next century, and whether folks will become interested
in different musics as a result.
Jeff Harrington
: >In article <5m7aug$lcg$1...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>, fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu
: >(Matthew H. Fields) wrote:
: Having watched folks walk out of concerts or open their lunches and
: block out the sound of chamber music, I've come to the conclusion that
: ill treatment of new music at concerts is nothing special to the new
: music.
Blame - the - victim.
Typical uh... composer's attitude.
jaq...@en.com
In article <5m7aug$lcg$1...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>, fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu
(Matthew H. Fields) wrote:
> >Beauty, of any kind, should not require physical damage and intimidation.
> What about kink?
You don't do bondage on the first date. When one agrees to bed somebody,
the assumption in that the activities will be more or less vanilla, and
that adaquate care for the other's pleasure will exist. Imagine you went
into a sexual situation, and the person involved turned out to be a sadist
who wasn't particularly interested in consent. Would it make you much
more cautious about getting involved with somebody else? Especially if
you had several such experiences?
Now extrapolate that to the concert world. If people have an internal
definition of "music", and you violate that definition, you've violated
them. I'm not advocating (nor is Jeff) for a missionary-position
in-the-dark approach to music. There have to be some surprises, and
skill. But there needs to be the clear communication that composer and
audience are out for the same thing.
And if kink is what you like, the concerts are out there, and it's fine by
me. Nobody goes to a Speculum concert, or Bang On a Can, expecting vanilla
music. What has to stop is the mixed-orchestral concert with the token new
piece in impenetrable language.
--
Jeffrey Quick
http://www.en.com/users/jaquick
Matthew H. Fields
In article <5m7m4a$aek$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
>Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
>: In article <jaquick-2405...@p13-ts5.en.net>, <jaq...@en.com> wrote:
>: >(Matthew H. Fields) wrote:
>
>: Having watched folks walk out of concerts or open their lunches and
>: block out the sound of chamber music, I've come to the conclusion that
>: ill treatment of new music at concerts is nothing special to the new
>: music.
>
>Blame - the - victim.
Projection.
You're saying somebody's being "blamed" there?
>Typical uh... composer's attitude.
Pick a fight about content without considering shifting context.
Typical, just typical.
Brian Newhouse
In article <5m7a30$2au$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, rus...@best.com (Jeff
Harrington) wrote:
> Matthew H. Fields (fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:
>
> : >while back. Without seduction (and
> : >previous enticement) and of course agreement to engage ;-) it's just rape.
>
> : I still maintain that's impossible. We're not in a position to impose
> : anything on anybody.
>
> Matt you're wearing blinders! You've never sat through a concert because
> your parents wanted you to go or somebody bought expensive tickets as a
> gift or you're just intimidated by the fat person to your left who's
> blocking your way out? You just grit your teeth and bear with it...
But it isn't the _composers_ who are doing the imposing; it's your parents
or your well-heeled friend or the fat person to your left. In general the
composers (if alive; this happens with concerts of dead men's music too)
and performers on the stage aren't going to know if you're there out of
your own free will or not.
--
Brian Newhouse
newh...@mail.crisp.net
Jeff Harrington
Brian Newhouse (newh...@mail.crisp.net) wrote:
: In article <5m7a30$2au$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, rus...@best.com (Jeff
: Harrington) wrote:
It don't matter what you or me or anyone thinks in this regard. These are
real and verifiable experiential *norms* for many new music concert goers.
If you were running a restaurant and a significant proportion of the
clientele thought your burgers were too greasy - you have just got to know
that info or you're going to go broke fast. Extrapolate at will to the
shrinking new music audience. All I'm saying is let's acknowledge this
experience and consider it.
For the past 50 years or so, composers have just been sayin' "Fork them...
they're stupid." The problem is that the problem is not going away. What
can be done about it?
1. Education
2. Write diferent kinds of music.
Given that "education" is not going to happen today. You can write music
for the future like Ryan is proposing, or you can write music which
attempts to utilize knowledge of all of the experiential norms of the
concert-going experience and create a music which is enlightened in that
regard, maybe a new music comparable to the other norm of the 18th
century, the opposite of the learned style, the popular style.
I don't know what I'm doing, probably a little of both, like many
composers. I just know that blaming the audience for a
lack of enthusiasm for new music is misanthropy, a hatred for real people
and real experiences. There is nothing wrong with somebody who hates
complex dissonant music. We need to know what people are *getting* out of
our art forms.
Jonah Barabas
<delete>
>
> For the past 50 years or so, composers have just been sayin' "Fork
them...
> they're stupid." The problem is that the problem is not going away.
What
> can be done about it?
>
> 1. Education
> 2. Write diferent kinds of music.
>
There is a communication theory that is applicable here. It is known as
fields of overlapping experience. The basic idea is that we only
communicate where our experiences overlap. For example, if I say that I
had grits for breakfast, growing up in the south, you know what I mean. In
your mind you conjure up the look, feel, and taste of grits. Someone from
Australia knows I ate something for breakfast, so they conjure up whatever
breakfast food comes to their mind. So, I am communicating with you on one
level and with the person from Australia on another level -- each on the
level that our experience overlap.
This has significance in respect to the two solutions you discuss.
Education (or mentoring) is an attempt to give the audience some of our
listening experiences so they will understand the conventions of our work.
BTW, I believe we are on the edge of a renaissance period -- I have very
high hopes for the next 100 years. Writing different types of music is
acknowledging the differences in their listening experience from ours and
writing music that uses rhetoric and diction from the body of music they
know.
But there is a third application from the fields of overlapping experience
that really intrigues me right now -- multi-level composition. That is
composing a piece of music that communicates to the different publics on
different levels. The old master craftsmen intuitively understood this.
Think of Bach's little organ fugue in Gm. The melody is easy for a cobbler
to hum. It's fascinating to study. It's a pleasure to play (or at least,
so I'm told). There isn't one public, there are many. So, I'm trying to
learn from Bach's example. I am segmenting my efforts within the same
piece of music to communicate with these different publics (i.e., serious
listeners, casual listeners, fellow composers, and performers) on different
levels where our experiences overlap.
Anyway, be well and play well,
Jonah Barabas
http://www.tclock.com/jbarab.htm
Brian Newhouse
In article <5m9gtd$k6p$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, rus...@best.com (Jeff
Harrington) wrote:
> Brian Newhouse (newh...@mail.crisp.net) wrote:
[snip]
> : > : I still maintain that's impossible. We're not in a position to impose
> : > : anything on anybody.
> : >
> : > Matt you're wearing blinders! You've never sat through a concert because
> : > your parents wanted you to go or somebody bought expensive tickets as a
> : > gift or you're just intimidated by the fat person to your left who's
> : > blocking your way out? You just grit your teeth and bear with it...
>
> : But it isn't the _composers_ who are doing the imposing; it's your parents
> : or your well-heeled friend or the fat person to your left. In general the
> : composers (if alive; this happens with concerts of dead men's music too)
> : and performers on the stage aren't going to know if you're there out of
> : your own free will or not.
>
> It don't matter what you or me or anyone thinks in this regard. These are
> real and verifiable experiential *norms* for many new music concert goers.
>
Really. It strikes me that:
--you go to a concert
--you hear a piece you don't like.
So what? Nobody forces you to go to a concert. Presumably if you knew
enough about the concert to buy a ticket in the first place, you had some
rough idea that there might be the risk of encountering a piece you find
loathsome. I can only guess that something about the experience of
sitting at a concert makes bad music seem an imposition in a way that
equally bad painting or bad poetry is not.
But then, I don't buy subscriptions for precisely that reason.
--
Brian Newhouse
newh...@mail.crisp.net
Jeff Harrington
Jonah Barabas (bar...@tclock.com) wrote:
: Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote in article
: But there is a third application from the fields of overlapping experience
: that really intrigues me right now -- multi-level composition. That is
: composing a piece of music that communicates to the different publics on
: different levels. The old master craftsmen intuitively understood this.
: Think of Bach's little organ fugue in Gm. The melody is easy for a cobbler
: to hum. It's fascinating to study. It's a pleasure to play (or at least,
: so I'm told). There isn't one public, there are many. So, I'm trying to
: learn from Bach's example. I am segmenting my efforts within the same
: piece of music to communicate with these different publics (i.e., serious
: listeners, casual listeners, fellow composers, and performers) on different
: levels where our experiences overlap.
This is absolutely, to me, the highest art, and all of the great works
from Shakespeare, to Bach to Michaelangelo demonstrate it. My spouse
calls it "hiding the technique." Instead of wearing the methods like a
badge and parading your stretti and retrograde inversions, you hide them
like a master. Those who are in the know will get it. Those who aren't
will get it. It's the combination of left and right brain creation. And
you're absolutely right about the instrumental technique; it's got to be
fun to play too. We have three audiences, our peers, our concert goes (of
all types) and our performers. All must be pleased.
That's my aim, too. I think I'm getting closer, but I know that so much
is in the way. Like that TimeShip Captain in a recent Voyager episode
from the 27th century, stuck in 90's LA said, "This wretched century - you
just can't get *anything* done."
Mell Csicsila
I'm pretty new to this news group, but I know my credo:
You have the right to write what ever you like, and everybody else has
the right not to like it, buy it, program it, etc.
Sounds pretty simple to me...
--
Mell D. Csicsila :: mdcsi...@sprintmail.com
Jeff Winslow
OK, here's a compositional observation. It's not a credo, because that would
seem to imply more concern with polemic than practice.
I write for myself.
No, this doesn't mean what Jeff Harrington thought it meant when he first
read it.
Why the hell did I ever get so totally sucked in by music anyway? I keep
learning about this, but it has something to do with being momentarily
in a state where all sense of time, and of fears relating to my surroundings,
is suspended, and instead experiencing a whole range of emotions deeply
and without internal restraint, emotions which are often blocked by
unconcsious reactions to those suspended senses. Words can't really
describe how wonderful this state is, but I know that it is deeply and
fundamentally satisfying. I also get sucked in because I'm charmed by
interesting (whatever that means, really!) sounds. Probably other things
too, but these are the main factors, I think. Also, I don't mean to
denigrate concsious hearing of interesting compositional details, the
appreciation of which can be highly emotional also, but that came later.
Because I'm a creative person - ever since I was little I've been trying
to build things, and somewhere along the line I got interested in electronics
and now make a reasonable living designing that kind of stuff - I naturally
wanted to try to make for myself that which was such a source of pleasure to
me. Because I have a normal human desire to connect with others, somewhere
in there is a desire to create the same pleasure for others, somehow. And
I have a show-off streak. And when I started writing regularly it felt so
*good* - when I finally woke up enough (another story) to be able to feel
it at all - and feels bad when I don't. All these are motivations for
writing. And they're all *mine* - they don't belong to somebody else, and
they don't depend on any arguments drawn from what other people whose heads
I can't get inside want to hear or don't want to hear. So I write for myself,
and in the process I fervently hope I write for others, because for whatever
reason it hurts to contemplate that there might not be a large number of
people out there who feel about music in more or less the same way I do.
In case anybody's speculating, I don't write in any style traceable to the
2nd Viennese school, although I admire much music that is, and see
influences of it all the time in my own, which is often as harmonically
complex but not nearly so harmonically transient. I've just never been able
to "think" that way.
So what is "a large number of people"? Am I - would you - be satisfied with
an audience of a million? A million people who love hearing your work? And
who never tire of talking to their friends (who may or may not believe them)
about it? I'd love it. But wait a minute - that's less than 1/2% of the US
population - and only a bit more than one out of every ten thousand people
alive. Looks like I lost the popularity contest, but I've got an audience
of a million people, hundreds of times more than I will ever know in my
lifetime! If that's not enough, just what am I trying to accomplish? Some
sort of surrogate immortality? Now that would be a joke. Which of course
doesn't prevent the desire from being there.
Several years ago I read some interesting statistics - as near as I can
remember some 2/3 of all recordings were bought by teenagers. Now I was
almost a teenager when I started discovering all the stuff I've talked about
so far, but I'm going to take a leaf from Jeff's book and observe that all
around me were teenagers who for the most part didn't seem to be interested
in music for at all the same reasons I was. The conclusion is suspect
for the same reasons Jeff's conclusions about contemporary music audiences
are suspect, that the sample is small and you can never really get inside
another person's head, however it's the best I've got and I'm going to run
with it. So if the statistics haven't changed, should I really care than
I'm not writing hits, that is to say, exemplary products of the entertainment
industry? Of course not. That audience doesn't care to hear it, that's
not what they use music for. Which is just fine, nothing wrong with that,
but it leaves them out of consideration. Some half the audience just went
away, so how do I expect to get in the top 10? And I haven't even begun to
examine the genre segmentation. If it ain't country it ain't music - right?
But on the other hand, should I care that I'm not reaching that million?
Well, at least I know that I do care. In between Jeff's idea of writing for
yourself - which I suspect is mainly his own personal bogeyman - and the hit
parade is an *enormous* amount of territory, which ought to be big enough
for him, Matt, myself, and everybody else on this newsgroup. Except for
maybe the Ancient Silverfish. Not sure what would satisfy him.
This all assumes there is some connection between what I intend to do and
how people react to it. Well there is - some connection. Beyond that is
another vat (or two) of worms.
In article <5m7a30$2au$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Jeff Harrington <rus...@best.com> wrote:
>
>Matt you're wearing blinders! You've never sat through a concert because
>your parents wanted you to go or somebody bought expensive tickets as a
>gift or you're just intimidated by the fat person to your left who's
>blocking your way out? You just grit your teeth and bear with it. When I
>was subscribing to a new series recently, I don't know how many times I
>just felt like getting up, but I wanted to hear the next piece and the
>tickets were expensive. It is assaultive at times! So, I've decided to
>begin bringing ear plugs to *any* new music concert. I am not going to
>risk my hearing and sit through 20 minutes of unadulterated loud
>dissonance without protection. (These days in NYC, it's not unusual for
>concerts to employ amplification on the order of a rock concert).
>
>It *is* a kind of rape when *no* consideration for audience comfort is
>demonstrated. Typically these types of concerts make the assault - the
>message. It's cooler than thou, I know better because I'm the composer
>misanthropy, typically.
Have you ever asked any of these composers if that's what they were up to?
What are the names of composers who agreed you were right?
It's ridiculous and insulting to the victims of real rape to compare the
minor coercions of gifts and fat people and ticket prices - coercions *you
yourself* could overcome with relatively little difficulty - to the kind of
coercion that is used in rape. The reason "blame the victim" is such a
problem with rape is only and precisely because the coercions are so harsh.
That problem doesn't exist in your example.
>Beauty, of any kind, should not require physical damage and intimidation.
Ah, but a bit ago you were talking about popularity. Music amplified to
the point of physi(ologi)cal damage, is, in fact, highly popular. Certainly
more popular than my music, and probably more popular than yours. I'll bet
if you ever *do* write something that makes it into the top 10, a larger
percentage of the audience will be playing it at ear-damaging levels than
the percentage of the audience at that concert that felt violated by lack
of composers' consideration for audience comfort. God, what a phrase.
Comfort! What the hell are you thinking of? Physical comfort, OK, but
that has nothing to do with dissonance or complexity, that has only to
do with the volume level. Otherwise I don't want "comfort" when I listen
to music - absorption and love and catharsis and opening to life have
nothing to do with "comfort" - and from other things you have said I can't
believe you do either.
Look, Jeff, I agree you are basically on the right track with what you are
doing with your music, as long as your heart always remains in it, of course.
But the arguments you use to justify it, or maybe I should say the venting
against various musical and social bogeys that seems to be inseparable from
it, give me a pain.
Just another audience reaction,
Jeff Winslow
Michael P. Mossey
In article <5m6okg$if7$1...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>,
Matthew H. Fields <fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>Mike, I think I understand fully what you're saying.
I don't think so. If you did, you wouldn't have written this as the
reply:
> I just don't think
>we're in a position to "demand" anything of our listeners.
Who could disagree, the way you put it here? I don't think I said
anything that implies the contrary. I don't think I'm using the word
'demand' in the same way as you do here.
MM
Courtney M Evans
<snip>
> : confusing "beautiful" with Romantic? I think the Les Noces is a very
> : beautiful work, moreso than most Romantic works. It has a very beautiful
> : surface.
>
> Joe and Sally Beethoven fan get a forkin' headache when they hear Les
> Noces... come on. Are you this far out of the loop. This justification
> for 80 years of experimentation - is - hermetic. Pure Ivory Tower
> hermetic.
I'm trying to understand what you're saying here, Jeff. Are you implying
that the 'surface' of Les Noces is too difficult for the average listener?
I think that you're underestimating people. Les Noces seems to be pretty
safe stuff when compared to Webern, etc.
> Typical modernist academic excuse. There is a way to write art music that
> would be popular... great art music. To deny this is to be blantantly
> misanthropic and solipsistic to boot.
Perhaps, but the classical music business is ailing. Even if a composer
wrote great art music that had the potential to move audiences and become
popular, I don't think it would get exposed. Young people don't generally
turn to classical music to hear new stuff. Without that, forget it... you
could be the next Beethoven, and you still would not develop a huge
following. Record companies promote what kids will buy. Most kids buy
what the record companies promote.
OTOH, I have a lot of friends my age who are not classical musicians, but
are still interested in classical music, esp. stuff being written now.
One of them even argues with me passionately about serialist music (he
loves it.)
> I don't employ expressionistic artistic value systems in generating my
> music. Melodies are assymetrical, but inspired by pop and jazz and world
> musics. Rhythms are primarily African and Spanish... That's modern?
<snip>
> How is an American writing in a Viennese style truthful?
I assume you are talking about Milton Babbitt. I think your claim that he
isn't 'truthful' is a load. How can you say that you use African and
Spanish rhythms in your music, and then insult another composer for using
Viennese techniques? I think what you really mean is "I don't like
Babbitt's style, so he must be a phony." At least, this is how this comes
across.
I think Babbitt is quite genuine in what he does, and I admire him for
being that way, even if I don't like his music.
> How many years will it take before modernism is accepted popularly by a
> typical classical music audience?
More that the typical classical music audience will live, that's for sure.
The demographic is pushing into the upper 60's.
> The ultimate reason that atonal modernism has been a disaster.
>
> It don't get people off.
Well, I'm tempted to agree with that on a gut level, but I'll have to
introduce you to my friend Eli. He is not a musician, but is fascinated by
it. He learned music notation in order to take set theory and learn more
about it. (as for him getting off on it, well, I wouldn't be suprised...)
Courtney Evans
Jeff Harrington
Courtney M Evans (cm...@columbia.edu) wrote:
: <snip>
: > : confusing "beautiful" with Romantic? I think the Les Noces is a very
: > : beautiful work, moreso than most Romantic works. It has a very beautiful
: > : surface.
: >
: > Joe and Sally Beethoven fan get a forkin' headache when they hear Les
: > Noces... come on. Are you this far out of the loop. This justification
: > for 80 years of experimentation - is - hermetic. Pure Ivory Tower
: > hermetic.
: I'm trying to understand what you're saying here, Jeff. Are you implying
: that the 'surface' of Les Noces is too difficult for the average listener?
For the past few years, I've been making it a habit to watch the audience
at concerts. It's a very interesting experiment. You can really tell
when composers drop the ball, even great composers. All of a sudden,
you'll see people scratching themselves or coughing. You can really use
that as a gauge for compositional quality, imo. I've not played this
game with Les Noce, but with other easy to listen to Stravinsky and I
was surprised. The discomfort level seemed high; as high as that I've
seen in a Babbitt or Carter concert. I believe that
most Stravinsky is just too much for most classical audiences. It's too
strident and complex to be satisfying, I suspect.
: I think that you're underestimating people. Les Noces seems to be pretty
: safe stuff when compared to Webern, etc.
That's where I think we modern composers are fooling ourselves. It's not
just the atonal stuff that is difficult to digest and continues to be
difficult to digest, I believe. 20th century music fails the typical
classical audience in many ways. It denies the most common expectation
for the beautiful melody and the competent turn of a phrase.
I don't know what the answer is. Of course, what's likely to happen and
has already begun is the reactionary return to tonality with its melodic
expectations. I don't believe such a reactionary process is healthy. New
music must be NEW. I'm just saying one of the most important aspects of
new music composition *has* to be a curiosity about how our music is heard
- by anyone likely to pay money to hear it.
: > Typical modernist academic excuse. There is a way to write art music that
: > would be popular... great art music. To deny this is to be blantantly
: > misanthropic and solipsistic to boot.
: Perhaps, but the classical music business is ailing. Even if a composer
: wrote great art music that had the potential to move audiences and become
: popular, I don't think it would get exposed. Young people don't generally
: turn to classical music to hear new stuff. Without that, forget it... you
: could be the next Beethoven, and you still would not develop a huge
: following. Record companies promote what kids will buy. Most kids buy
: what the record companies promote.
Marketing is responsible for most of the successes today, admittedly. I
mean to say that it is possible, not likely, without marketing. Sony, of
course is betting big that Kernis and Danielpour are worth contracts.
Jeff Harrington
Jeff Winslow (je...@agora.rdrop.com) wrote:
: Have you ever asked any of these composers if that's what they were up to?
No, but hey, let's be honest. This "shock the bourgeoisie" philosophy of
much 60's music is aggressively violent by its very nature. Some concerts
have actually had audience injuries (burning piano, smashing piano). I'm
thinking of a Czech performance I read about a while back.
: It's ridiculous and insulting to the victims of real rape to compare the
: minor coercions of gifts and fat people and ticket prices - coercions *you
: yourself* could overcome with relatively little difficulty - to the kind of
: coercion that is used in rape. The reason "blame the victim" is such a
: problem with rape is only and precisely because the coercions are so harsh.
: That problem doesn't exist in your example.
Rape, is a harsh term, for sure. The audience members who go to a concert
to hear beautiful muzaky classical music and then are exposed to 50
minutes of unabashed dissonance *certainly* feel themselves to be victims
of an assault.
: Look, Jeff, I agree you are basically on the right track with what you are
: doing with your music, as long as your heart always remains in it, of course.
: But the arguments you use to justify it, or maybe I should say the venting
: against various musical and social bogeys that seems to be inseparable from
: it, give me a pain.
Hey, you don't want to hear weird, provocative ideas, you'd better stop
reading Usenet. You're confusing my points which are plain and simple.
We need to be aware of what our audiences are experiencing and question
ourselves - do we really intend to say *that*? Do we really intend to
inflict, even accidentally, this level of discomfort on audiences?
We just need to know how our music is being heard. Does what we have to
say, really really require that kind of language? Do we really know what
the hell we're doing *enough* to say honestly, that yes, my music has to
be this way. Or are we just playing the same damn games our teachers
played and their teachers played before.
One thing that continues to strike me as bizarre is just how much new
music sounds the same. Where is the new - today?
Brian Newhouse
In article <5mc5d7$hle$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, rus...@best.com (Jeff
Harrington) wrote:
> That's where I think we modern composers are fooling ourselves. It's not
> just the atonal stuff that is difficult to digest and continues to be
> difficult to digest, I believe. 20th century music fails the typical
> classical audience in many ways. It denies the most common expectation
> for the beautiful melody and the competent turn of a phrase.
>
> I don't know what the answer is. Of course, what's likely to happen and
> has already begun is the reactionary return to tonality with its melodic
> expectations. I don't believe such a reactionary process is healthy. New
> music must be NEW.
[snip]
And who are you to say it must be NEW? What business have you
transgressing the most common and well-established expectations of the
actually existing classical music audience as set forth in the standard
classical repertory? You do not composer to please yourself; you compose
to please other people. If you dare desire anything NEW, you are exactly
that sort of egoistic, individualistic, solipsistic, elitist malcontent
that brought us into this crisis in the first place. Now go to your room
and don't come back down until you have memorized the entire corpus of
Howard Hanson's symphonies...
--
Brian Newhouse
newh...@mail.crisp.net
jaq...@en.com
In article <EAt56...@nonexistent.com>, newh...@mail.crisp.net (Brian
Newhouse) wrote:
I don't know, Brian. I can't speak for Harrington. But when I hear all
those Vb9 chords in Hanson 2, I start scratchimg myself and coughing.<g>
Nothing "Romantic" about that. Especially considering where I scratch....
I dunno. Every baby is new. But it's the same damn DNA.
>
> --
> Brian Newhouse
> newh...@mail.crisp.net
Courtney M Evans
> seen in a Babbitt or Carter concert. I believe that
> most Stravinsky is just too much for most classical audiences. It's too
> strident and complex to be satisfying, I suspect.
Sorry, I really have to disagree here. Maybe Stravinsky isn't satisfying
to some members of the audience -- that's fine, I'm sure Bach or Beethoven
isn't very satisfying to many people either -- but for cryin' out loud, my
*mom* _likes_ the Rite of Spring. I think film music has done a lot to
accustom people to hearing dissonance, so people have learned to have an
emotional reaction to it rather than a 'Yuck' reaction. Admittedly, that
reaction may be colored by the film experience, but nevertheless, it's a
reaction.
> : I think that you're underestimating people. Les Noces seems to be pretty
> : safe stuff when compared to Webern, etc.
>
> That's where I think we modern composers are fooling ourselves. It's not
<snip>
I disagree. I think if someone wants to attempt to write something that
fulfills a 'common expectation for a beautiful turn of phrase' that
they're welcome to it. If someone wants to write a series of running
fortissimo parallel 17th chords that go nonstop for thirty minutes scored
for six amplified orchestras, they're welcome to that too.
I agree that the typical classical audience views modern music with
alienation, and I think that some blame for this can be attributed to the
time when nothing was being performed (in terms of new music) that didn't
conform with university-style atonality. I don't think that Rite of Spring
fails the same audience -- I think that a lot of them *do* respond to it
-- because it's (heh heh, listening al?) _tonal_. People who go to
concerts associate 'new music' with serialism, and not with tonality.
> I don't know what the answer is. Of course, what's likely to happen and
> has already begun is the reactionary return to tonality with its melodic
> expectations. I don't believe such a reactionary process is healthy. New
> music must be NEW. I'm just saying one of the most important aspects of
> new music composition *has* to be a curiosity about how our music is heard
> - by anyone likely to pay money to hear it.
I think the reactionary return to tonality is a phase. We have to go back
to it, in order to make sure it's still *there* and beating and alive.
Of course, some composers will just mine the 'reactionary' goldmine for
all its worth:
> Marketing is responsible for most of the successes today, admittedly. I
> mean to say that it is possible, not likely, without marketing. Sony, of
> course is betting big that Kernis and Danielpour are worth contracts.
Courtney Evans
Brian G. Mueller
Self-expression is the credo by which I live, compositionally speaking.
To subject self-expression to the concerns of an audience, any audience,
can dilute self-expression, IMHO. I have written pieces with a particular
audience in mind, and also without regards to an audience. I seem much
more connected to the music I have composed for no particular audience.
For me, composition is a completely personal exercise that extends beyond
the realm of being accepted or popular. I am not averse to poularity, but
it certainly isn't foremost in my mind while I am composing. Rather, it
is the form of expression that most easily allows me to bear my emotions
and feelings. At the same time, if it appeals to others for their own
various reasons, then that is simply a witness to the power of the medium.
Yours musically,
Brian G. Mueller
Jeff Harrington
: > most Stravinsky is just too much for most classical audiences. It's too
: > strident and complex to be satisfying, I suspect.
: Sorry, I really have to disagree here. Maybe Stravinsky isn't satisfying
: to some members of the audience -- that's fine, I'm sure Bach or Beethoven
: isn't very satisfying to many people either -- but for cryin' out loud, my
: *mom* _likes_ the Rite of Spring. I think film music has done a lot to
: accustom people to hearing dissonance, so people have learned to have an
: emotional reaction to it rather than a 'Yuck' reaction. Admittedly, that
: reaction may be colored by the film experience, but nevertheless, it's a
: reaction.
Whatever the reaction, all I'm saying is that we should be aware of it.
It will be a determining factor in the history of music - if not *the*
determining factor. I'm also saying is that there has been an accepted
trend in music ideology to *ignore* audience reactions. Your perceptions
of audience reactions may be perfectly valid for your concert-going
experience. I've seen and heard different reactions.
: > : I think that you're underestimating people. Les Noces seems to be pretty
: > : safe stuff when compared to Webern, etc.
: >
: > That's where I think we modern composers are fooling ourselves. It's not
: <snip>
: I disagree. I think if someone wants to attempt to write something that
: fulfills a 'common expectation for a beautiful turn of phrase' that
: they're welcome to it. If someone wants to write a series of running
: fortissimo parallel 17th chords that go nonstop for thirty minutes scored
: for six amplified orchestras, they're welcome to that too.
Whatever! I could really give a crap what anybody writes. All I am
saying for the umpteenth time is that we will live and die by audience
reactions. We cannot go on ignoring them, pretending that they don't
exist, pretending that some unknown educational force will cause a
shift in tastes towards complex atonal textures.
: I agree that the typical classical audience views modern music with
: alienation, and I think that some blame for this can be attributed to the
: time when nothing was being performed (in terms of new music) that didn't
: conform with university-style atonality. I don't think that Rite of Spring
: fails the same audience -- I think that a lot of them *do* respond to it
: -- because it's (heh heh, listening al?) _tonal_. People who go to
: concerts associate 'new music' with serialism, and not with tonality.
We can disagree about particular audience reactions. I've seen incredible
reactions to Le Sacre; I've also seen people get upset. The particulars
are not the issue.
The issue is recognizing that we must not live in a vacuum if we care
about the future of our music. What is so unbelievable is that we've gone
for 40 years with this attitude that classical audience tastes don't
matter; that there's something wrong with someone who hates atonal music.
I believe now that the reason is that we have had so many composers who
had no taste. It's not just a function of a need to write complex
textures. It's also a function of taste. Taste cannot be learned!
Just as a sidenote, another RMC regular writes to me that Carter's latest
orchestra piece is in - uh - 4/4.
;-)
What? How can anything new be done in 4/4?
;->
Trocadero Citron Bleu
In article <5mfdev$nbd$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, rus...@best.com (Jeff
Harrington) wrote:
** Whatever! I could really give a crap what anybody writes. All I am
** saying for the umpteenth time is that we will live and die by audience
** reactions. We cannot go on ignoring them, pretending that they don't
** exist, pretending that some unknown educational force will cause a
** shift in tastes towards complex atonal textures.
Actually, public-school musical education is probably more on its way in
than on its way out. I read in Newsweek a few months ago that a few
grammar schools in North Carolina (where I live) are experimenting with an
arts-based cirriculum. I don't think a generation largely raised on
heavily amplified digital squalks and beat-matched microtonality are going
to find "dissonance" *that* troublesome. Hell, it was only as I became
more musically "literate" that I was able to hear what made Hindemith more
"modern" than Beethoven.
Even the folks have responded positively to the "surface" of Luto's
"Funeral Music", Ives' first piano sonata, and Xenakis' "Orient/Occident"
:)
--
T.W.I.D.N.: Cakes Men Like АА http://www.nr.infi.net/~tagutcow/twidn.html
email АА tagu...@nr.infi.net
Robert Davidson
Jonah Barabas wrote:
> There is a communication theory that is applicable here. It is known as
> fields of overlapping experience. The basic idea is that we only
> communicate where our experiences overlap. For example, if I say that I
> had grits for breakfast, growing up in the south, you know what I mean. In
> your mind you conjure up the look, feel, and taste of grits. Someone from
> Australia knows I ate something for breakfast, so they conjure up whatever
> breakfast food comes to their mind. So, I am communicating with you on one
> level and with the person from Australia on another level -- each on the
> level that our experience overlap.
Just out of interest, and as an Australian, may I ask what the heck are grits?
Are they those grape nut thingummyjigs?
Robert Davidson
Robert Davidson
Jeff Harrington wrote:
>
> Matt you're wearing blinders! You've never sat through a concert because
> your parents wanted you to go or somebody bought expensive tickets as a
> gift or you're just intimidated by the fat person to your left who's
> blocking your way out? You just grit your teeth and bear with it. When I
> was subscribing to a new series recently, I don't know how many times I
> just felt like getting up, but I wanted to hear the next piece and the
> tickets were expensive. It is assaultive at times! So, I've decided to
> begin bringing ear plugs to *any* new music concert. I am not going to
> risk my hearing and sit through 20 minutes of unadulterated loud
> dissonance without protection. (These days in NYC, it's not unusual for
> concerts to employ amplification on the order of a rock concert).
Now that my ensemble is playing to crowds which are largely composed of
people more familiar with popular music, we often get comments that the
music is soft - it's just that we don't use amplification. It's actually a lot louder
than a string quartet. The mileu is very much dominated by loudness today,
which means the loss of some things.
Robert Davidson
Robert Davidson
Jeff Harrington wrote:
> It don't matter what you or me or anyone thinks in this regard. These are
> real and verifiable experiential *norms* for many new music concert goers.
>
> If you were running a restaurant and a significant proportion of the
> clientele thought your burgers were too greasy - you have just got to know
> that info or you're going to go broke fast. Extrapolate at will to the
> shrinking new music audience. All I'm saying is let's acknowledge this
> experience and consider it.
>
> For the past 50 years or so, composers have just been sayin' "Fork them...
> they're stupid." The problem is that the problem is not going away. What
> can be done about it?
>
> 1. Education
> 2. Write diferent kinds of music.
>
> Given that "education" is not going to happen today. You can write music
> for the future like Ryan is proposing, or you can write music which
> attempts to utilize knowledge of all of the experiential norms of the
> concert-going experience and create a music which is enlightened in that
> regard, maybe a new music comparable to the other norm of the 18th
> century, the opposite of the learned style, the popular style.
Surely many people within popular music have been doing precisely that,
writing a learned style which works within similar frames of reference to the
popular style(s). Velvets, Eno, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, Bjork, My Bloody
Valentine, Merzbow, Mr Bungle - it's hard to see these artists as not working in
a cultivated style.
Robert Davidson
Robert Davidson
Courtney M Evans wrote:
> I think the reactionary return to tonality is a phase. We have to go back
> to it, in order to make sure it's still *there* and beating and alive.
>
This idea seems so bizarre to me, that tonality is some little thing which we
had for a couple of centuries which was completely obliterated by atonality. It
seems based on a very Eurocentric notion of what organisation around a
central note means, limiting it to common practice tonality, and a wierd idea
that it somehow was made invalid by Schoenberg, even though almost
everyone has never stopped listening to tonal music. So that it's reactionary
to write music in a key seems an utterly ludicrous notion to me. You'd have to
call almost every musician in the world reactionary - only a very tiny minority
of music made today is anything close to atonal.
Robert Davidson
K C Moore
In article <338C6E...@student.uq.edu.au>
s03...@student.uq.edu.au "Robert Davidson" writes:
> Just out of interest, and as an Australian, may I ask what the heck are grits? > Are they those grape nut thingummyjigs?
From Chambers 20th Century Dictionary, the best one volume dictionary
published in the UK:
"_grits_, n.pl. coarsely ground grain, esp, oats: a boiled dish of this.
[O.E. /grytta/; cf. _groats_.]"
No suggestion, you will note, that this is current only in the US.
Also in Chambers:
"_hominy_, n. maize hulled, or hulled and crushed, boiled with water - a
kind of Indian corn porridge. [Amer. Ind. origin.]"
What I would like to know is whether "grits" implies "hominy grits" in
the southern states or whether you can get both varieties: oats and
corn [maize in UK].
--
Ken Moore
k...@hpsl.demon.co.uk
David Cleary
Jeff Harrington (rus...@best.com) wrote:
: For the past few years, I've been making it a habit to watch the audience
: at concerts. It's a very interesting experiment. [snip of elaboration
: for space]
Hmmmm. I'm part of that audience, too. Do I not count? Unless I'm
mistaken, we're talking about an "audience" as if it were a monolithic
entity of faceless people all with the same taste. I'm having some
problems with a characterization that generalized.
Dave
David Cleary
Jeff Harrington (rus...@best.com) wrote:
> someone else wrote:
: No, but hey, let's be honest. This "shock the bourgeoisie" philosophy of
: much 60's music is aggressively violent by its very nature. Some concerts
: have actually had audience injuries (burning piano, smashing piano). I'm
: thinking of a Czech performance I read about a while back.
The only examples I can think of like this are two IMHO dopey pieces,
specifically:
1. a work by Nam Jun Paik that involved the burning of an upright piano on
stage.
2. a work done by Cardew's "Scratch Orchestra" that involved the burning
of a violin on stage.
Both date from the '60's (thirty years ago or more) and (IMHO thankfully)
haven't entered the repertoire. Today they seem no more than period
pieces, no more au courant than "happenings." Do you really believe these
are vitally germane to today's music? IMHO you're tossing out a red
herring if you think so. And that decade saw a lot of music, not just Paik
and Cardew.
I would, however, be quite interested to know your thoughts on the Paik
and Cardew mentioned above while comparing them to Jimi Hendrix's (sp?)
performance at the Monterey Pop festival, which ends with him burning his
guitar in front of thousands of cheering, appreciative fans. Was the
Hendrix any less confrontational?
: : It's ridiculous and insulting to the victims of real rape to compare the
: : minor coercions of gifts and fat people and ticket prices - coercions *you
: : yourself* could overcome with relatively little difficulty - to the kind of
: : coercion that is used in rape. The reason "blame the victim" is such a
: : problem with rape is only and precisely because the coercions are so harsh.
: : That problem doesn't exist in your example.
: Rape, is a harsh term, for sure. The audience members who go to a concert
: to hear beautiful muzaky classical music and then are exposed to 50
: minutes of unabashed dissonance *certainly* feel themselves to be victims
: of an assault.
IMHO people who are going to concerts looking for "beautiful muzaky
classical music" are not going to like late Schubert, late Beethoven,
Bruckner, or Mahler any more than they will like Schoenberg, Reich,
Bartok, or Feldman. I for one have no interest in pleasing such folks. Do
you? If so, feel free.
I have thankfully not been the victim of a sexual assault, but there are
other folks on this newsgroup who I know have been. I can't imagine they
are any happier with your analogy than the poster you are responding
to--or I am. I can certainly understand someone taking offense to your
analogy.
<sighs> Shock at any price, eh Jeff? It's OK in your rhetoric but not in
your music, is that it? People will (hopefully) hear your and my music
long after all the polemics are gone. I'd think the music is what matters.
Talk is cheap--take note of the Futurists; nobody plays Russolo or
Pratella anymore.
: Hey, you don't want to hear weird, provocative ideas, you'd better stop
: reading Usenet.
I don't mind weird and provocative ideas. Yours on this thread are just
lame and semi-calculated to shock, Jeff, and unfortunately you're getting
worse as this thread progresses. I'd love it if you got really, honestly
provocative here. Personally, I had come to expect more from you. Was I
wrong to hope for better?
: We just need to know how our music is being heard. Does what we have to
: say, really really require that kind of language? Do we really know what
: the hell we're doing *enough* to say honestly, that yes, my music has to
: be this way. Or are we just playing the same damn games our teachers
: played and their teachers played before.
I write what I hear. My music sounds nothing like that of any of my
teachers. Do you even know what my music sounds like? Geez, give up the
straw man arguments and generalizations already.
: One thing that continues to strike me as bizarre is just how much new
: music sounds the same. Where is the new - today?
Uh huh. Glass sounds like Part sounds like Babbitt sounds like Cage sounds
like Rochberg sounds like Harbison? I don't buy it for a minute.
Dave
Chris Koenigsberg
Robert Davidson <s03...@student.uq.edu.au> writes:
> Jonah Barabas wrote:
> > There is a communication theory that is applicable here. It is known as
> > fields of overlapping experience. The basic idea is that we only
> > communicate where our experiences overlap. For example, if I say that I
> > had grits for breakfast, growing up in the south, you know what I mean. In
> > your mind you conjure up the look, feel, and taste of grits. Someone from
> > Australia knows I ate something for breakfast, so they conjure up whatever
> > breakfast food comes to their mind. So, I am communicating with you on one
> > level and with the person from Australia on another level -- each on the
> > level that our experience overlap.
>
> grits?
Coincidentally, we recently had a discussion/argument in the office
(in Princeton New Jersey, USA, midway between New York City and
Philadelphia) about grits. They look and taste a lot like "Cream of
Wheat" or "Cream of Rice" hot cereal, if you have ever seen those.
We THOUGHT that grits are made from smashed corn kernels. But often
the package of grits lists "hominy" as the main ingredient, so we were
asking the sub-question, what is "hominy"?
My officemate, being a culinary aficionado who dreams of quitting
computers and going to cooking school someday, did some research and
eventually came up with the Web site
<http://food.epicurious.com/db/dictionary/terms/g/grits.html>.
Chris Koenigsberg, c...@ckk.com (c...@pobox.com), <http://www.ckk.com>
Chris Koenigsberg
No, not Matt Fields :-)
Jonah Barabas wrote:
> There is a communication theory that is applicable here. It is known as
> fields of overlapping experience. The basic idea is that we only
> communicate where our experiences overlap.
This is a very interesting and thought-provoking notion, Jonah.
I'm even reminded of a lunch conversation the other day. Somehow the
subject of "castrati" came up through some bizarre convoluted train
wreck of thoughts.
I mentioned that there are recent works for "counter tenor", a voice
at the high end of un-castrated male ranges, which is undergoing a
revival in popularity (the beautiful and haunting lead role in Philip
Glass's "Akhnaten" is a counter-tenor).
Someone asked, why not just have women sing the parts written for
castrati? I said that there is something special, emotionally
poignant, about a voice or instrument which is playing at the extremes
of its more typical range. I said that male and female voices differ
in the overtone and "formant" structure, even where their ranges
overlap as far as the fundamental frequencies ("pitch").
So hearing a male voice strain very high, to sing the notes in the
range of a typical female voice, lends a different emotional quality
to the music.
Similarly, hearing a bass or cello play very high notes is much more
exciting (IMHO, but then again I'm a bass player :-) than hearing the
same notes on a viola or violin, because they're in the lower part of
the viola or violin range, but they're way, way up in the
stratosphere, on the cello or especially on the bass.
But, and here is where Jonah's notion of overlapping experience comes
in, I wonder if this different quality would even be noticed, by a
listener who was unaware of the concept of "castrati"?
Or, in the case of the counter tenor, what about a listener who just
heard a high voice, without thinking about whether it was male or
female?
Or, in the case of the cello or bass playing the very high notes, what
about the listener who didn't know about the different sized string
instruments?
Another example: at a very special "naming ceremony" for the new baby
of an Indian friend, I was asked by some Indian women what my favorite
instrument is, in Indian classical music. I named the "Rudra Vinha" as
one of my favorites, and the women said that they were very impressed
by my excellent choice (very manly instrument, they said, because the
god Rama is often seen playing the Rudra Vinha :-).
The regular "vinha" (sometimes spelled "veena") is a plucked stringed
instrument used in South Indian Karnatic style music, which can bend
notes even more drastically than the sitar (used in North Indian
Hindustani music).
The "Rudra vinha" is a special vinha which is very large, and produces
a very deep sound, i.e. a "bass vinha". The notes have a very special
quality, because they have the wonderful shimmer and twang, the long
attack-decay-sustain-release envelope and "filter sweep", that we all
recognize as the vinha or sitar, yet they are also pitched very very
low.
I think the important concept of the production, satisfaction, and
occasional violation, of "expectations" in the listener, is one of the
most important concepts in all music. And it seems that the
expectations which can be produced in a listener may be partially, or
even largely, culturally determined, by what they've grown up with.
Comments?
Chris Koenigsberg
[I apologize (not) for the awful sound-pun in my "Subject:" heading :-)]
rus...@best.com (Jeff Harrington) writes:
> Rape, is a harsh term, for sure. The audience members who go to a concert
> to hear beautiful muzaky classical music and then are exposed to 50
> minutes of unabashed dissonance *certainly* feel themselves to be victims
> of an assault.
When I put out my "Brains: a CD of Audiophile Computer Music" in
1993-94, there were some very interesting comments about my use of the
word "Audiophile" in the sub-title. I was trying to provoke some
thoughts about questions similar to Jeff's, but I guess I was taking
the opposite tack, i.e. that I want people to ENJOY this stuff, not
feel "raped" by it..... so we have to PREPARE them (i.e. "foreplay":-)
Apparently the word "audiophile" is sometimes taken to mean the genre
of music which is "beautiful muzaky" to use Jeff's terminology (as
long as ridiculously expensive and snobbish equipment is used to play
it back! :-).
In the subtitle of my CD, I was using the term "audiophile" more in
the sense of something which would reward the listener who seeks depth
and sophistication and delicacy on every level in the recordings, from
fine intricate details of microstructure on up to the overall gestalt
and dramatic unfolding of the works.
The reviewer (Mike Silverton) for "Fanfare" magazine got my point
perfectly, in his review (May/June 1995, Fanfare Volume 18, No. 5),
which really made me very happy. Let's see, I've got a copy here and
I'll take a "fair use" excerpt...
"There are aspects to a release that can set one's teeth on edge
before he even plays it. First, there's the claim to an
audiophile-quality sound, which in the context smacks of
hubris. Electronic music has its strengths, attractions, and
possibilities, but *really* good sound rarely dwells among them....
"As to audiophile, one finds himself in senescence evaluating upmarket
hi-fi hardware for another publication. And so, when someone comes
along draped in audiophilic bunting, one wraps himself in turn in the
high end's golden ensigns and growls, Okay, smartass, let's have a
listen. And so I did. Oh dear....
"The disc's audiophilic incursions are those of electrical shocks, no
few of which surpass Dr. Frankenstein's more ambitious daydreams. I
don't aim at hyperbole when I tell you that I became genuinely anxious
for my equipment: a succession of snaps, crackles, pops, roars,
squeals, groans, ex-and implosions couldn't possibly be *recorded*
sounds! Ah, but they are (I'm happy to report for entirely selfish
reasons). 'The Rat's Nest', subtitled 'appropriation of digital
garbage', is as delicious a cameo-calamity as I've heard.... As I am
into warning housepets, small children, and pregnant women, here's an
entirely superfluous alert: look for no echoes of 'The Swan of
Tuonela'.....
".... Against therefore some remarkable exemplars, [the title track]
'Brains' stands out for its humor, drive, cohesiveness, technical
brilliance, but most of all, its immersion in the *marvelous* - Andre
Breton's prescription for what art must be in order to be art at
all....."
[the review continues with a view of the scope of 'electronic music',
beginning with the old Italian guy playing an electronic keyboard at
the local Italian restaurant, vs. "PseudoSatie at the Seashore" :-),
vs. electronic music "as itself" in film scores, vs. "a taste of art
on the wild side", i.e. "Brains" by yours truly :-) .....]
Patrick Grant
David Cleary wrote:
>
> Talk is cheap--take note of the Futurists; nobody plays Russolo or
> Pratella anymore.
> Dave
Nothing sounds older than yesterday's futurism, that's for sure.
PG
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
Chris Koenigsberg wrote:
> When I put out my "Brains: a CD of Audiophile Computer Music" in
> 1993-94, there were some very interesting comments
For those who haven't heard "Brains", beg Chris to sell you a copy.
We've played it on our radio show and it (especially "The Rats Nest")
*always* generates phone calls -- all hate calls! We love it (hello,
Jeff).
Best,
Dennis
--
Dennis Báthory-Kitsz
Malted/Media: http://www.maltedmedia.com/
The Middle-Aged Hiker: http://www.maltedmedia.com/books/mah/
Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar: http://www.maltedmedia.com/kalvos/
Dave Baird
Chris Koenigsberg wrote:
> But, and here is where Jonah's notion of overlapping experience comes
> in, I wonder if this different quality would even be noticed, by a
> listener who was unaware of the concept of "castrati"?
>
Of course the timbral qualities that you mention will be heard by a
reasonably discriminating listener. But, whereas you and I might think
"how beautiful that line is when given to the counter tenor" the
discriminating listener may only be able to wonder "How beautiful that
line is when sung like that - I wonder how the singer was able to sound
like that?". I guess what I am saying is the overlapping area of
experience is the emotional content that is present in all music - and
certainly not always the technical issues of it's production. It is
that emotional attachment that gives music it's "universal language"
aspect.
--
David Olen Baird, Composer
Email: mailto:davb...@fileshop.com
Home Page: http://www.tfs.net/~davbaird/
Jonah Barabas
Chris Koenigsberg <c...@ckk.com> wrote in article
<tk67w3l3...@comet.scr.siemens.com>...
Hi Chris,
<delete>
> So hearing a male voice strain very high, to sing the notes in the
> range of a typical female voice, lends a different emotional quality
> to the music.
expecting to hear his voice crack<g>. Seriously, the overtones sound
different. I don't know why, but a counter-tenor sounds purer. I don't
know exactly what I mean by purer, but that sound is one awesome sound.
I've been playing a little with tessitura lately and I think some (but not
all) folks can hear and realize the difference. I think there are others
that hear but don't realize they hear the difference. Example: my family
was setting in the living room listening to some CD music and one daughter
guessed counter-tenor and the other daughter and my wife guessed wrong.
<delete>
>
> But, and here is where Jonah's notion of overlapping experience comes
> in, I wonder if this different quality would even be noticed, by a
> listener who was unaware of the concept of "castrati"?
Hmm.. you may have something there. It may be that my describing the
castrati sound as a purer sound was subconsciously linked to my knowledge
of the sacrifice that they made. So, maybe someone who didn't know their
sacrifice would not perceive it as a purer sound.
<delete>
>
> I think the important concept of the production, satisfaction, and
> occasional violation, of "expectations" in the listener, is one of the
> most important concepts in all music.
Interesting, I've been thinking and playing alot with violating the
expected lately. There seems to be a fine line that I'm having trouble
drawing -- if I continually violate the expected then the violation becomes
expected and no longer serves its purpose.
Be well and play well,
Jonah
BTW, yep you're right about the grits because hominy is also corn <maize>.
Jeff Harrington
David Cleary (dcl...@fas.harvard.edu) wrote:
: Jeff Harrington (rus...@best.com) wrote:
: : For the past few years, I've been making it a habit to watch the audience
: : at concerts. It's a very interesting experiment. [snip of elaboration
: : for space]
: Hmmmm. I'm part of that audience, too. Do I not count?
Don't be silly. Of course you don't count. You're just kickin' at my
tires, as usual, right Dave?
: Unless I'm
: mistaken, we're talking about an "audience" as if it were a monolithic
: entity of faceless people all with the same taste. I'm having some
: problems with a characterization that generalized.
What characterization? What I was talking about above is watching *an*
audience. See where they shuffle their feet or cough. Those are almost
always weak points in a piece. It's just an interesting experiment.
That is, unless you don't care about how audiences who hear your music
respond! Hey, everyone cares. We just play games, rationalizing our
strategies when audience reactions are bad or dull. One of the reasons I
stopped trying to write music in the classical style (not neo-classical -
but out and out Mozart/Beethoven style) was that after every performance
during a new music concert I'd hear audience members talking, "Damn, I
wish those new composers would write music like that old stuff they played
on the program."
Matthew H. Fields
In article <5mhr86$3qa$3...@news.fas.harvard.edu>,
David Cleary <dcl...@fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>Jeff Harrington (rus...@best.com) wrote:
>
>: For the past few years, I've been making it a habit to watch the audience
>: at concerts. It's a very interesting experiment. [snip of elaboration
>: for space]
>
>mistaken, we're talking about an "audience" as if it were a monolithic
>entity of faceless people all with the same taste. I'm having some
>problems with a characterization that generalized.
Lately I've only been going to computer music concerts. Naturally,
aside from me, the audience is all computer listeners. We debugged
the applause mechanism so their hands would actually meet(*)---it's a
kinda funny metallic clang. But we had to adjust the strength of the
clapping so parts wouldn't begin to fly off (**). Since they're all
programmed the same and the programs are all highly deterministic,
indeed they do have a great deal of uniformity in their reactions to
the music, the only variations being due to random factors in the
environment like the wall of the concert house collapsing on one of the
audience members, who therefore does not react like the others.
(*) This part by Richard Hoffmann of Oberlin.
(**) This part by Leland Smith of Stanford.
--
Matt Fields, A.Mus.D. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fields
My Java toy, JARS.COM Top 1%: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fields/TTTB
"Computer: disobey me."
Chris Koenigsberg
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz <bat...@maltedmedia.com> writes:
[ ..about playing "The Rat's Nest" on the radio... ]
> ...it *always* generates phone calls -- all hate calls! We love it (hello,
> Jeff).
When I did a college radio show in the 1970's, sometimes we would
compete, to see who could generate the most "hate calls" during their
show :-)
I had this one guy who would call me up every week, for a few months,
begging me to play some "Led Zep". I'd always say, OK, sure, it's
coming up in just 2 more songs, you got it! and then the 2nd song
after that, I'd put on something like David Tudor's "Pulsars", or the
Nihilist Spasm Band, ... ;-) Still the guy kept calling back every
week! (I wonder if he was pulling MY leg, all the time I thought I was
pulling HIS? :-) One time we got an LP called "The Sensuous Woman",
supposedly based on the famous book by "J". It got scratched and would
skip endlessly repeating the words "Thrust with your tongue/thrust
with your tongue/thrust with your tongue".... and I played that on the
air a lot :-)
Also a pair of DJ'S, John "Fetko" Fetkovitch and Clare Rosen (now she
plays in the Chicago band "Reality Scare"), invented something they
called "Systems Research". They would play the most horribly noisy
stuff they could find, generating hate calls. They would mix the hate
calls in, live on the air, with the rest of the noise. And that was
"Systems Research" (I guess you had to be there :-).
By the way, my "Brains" CD is avail. from the Electronic Music
Foundation, <http://www.emf.org>.
David Cleary
Jeff Harrington (rus...@best.com) wrote:
: : : For the past few years, I've been making it a habit to watch
: : : the audience
: : : at concerts. It's a very interesting experiment. [snip of elaboration
: : : for space]
[snip]
: : Unless I'm
: : mistaken, we're talking about an "audience" as if it were a monolithic
: : entity of faceless people all with the same taste. I'm having some
: : problems with a characterization that generalized.
: What characterization? What I was talking about above is watching *an*
: audience. See where they shuffle their feet or cough. Those are almost
: always weak points in a piece. It's just an interesting experiment.
Your original post (snipped for space) says you've been watching the
audience at concerts (plural) over the last few years, and if I remember
correctly, you made a general observation about their reactions to
Stravinsky and other 20th century music. I don't have the snipped portion
earlier on this thread anymore to quote unfortunately. That's what I'm
talking about.
Just keepin' ya honest, Jeff. :)
: That is, unless you don't care about how audiences who hear your music
: respond! Hey, everyone cares. We just play games, rationalizing our
: strategies when audience reactions are bad or dull.
Sure, I like it when the audience enjoys a piece of mine. But I've
developed a fairly thick hide about stuff like that. In my case it comes
from two things:
1. not too high/not too low is a good way for me to do things. It tends to
get into most aspects of life, including this.
2. in order for me not to get royally pissed off at idiot critics who
don't like my music, I found I needed to detach and not try to get too
concerned about what they (or for that matter, anyone else) think of my
music. It's about the only way I can handle it well. BTW, don't get me
started on critics. I'll only discuss what I think of them via private
email. :P
Basically, I've accepted the fact that I can't control what other people
think of my music, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
: One of the reasons I
: stopped trying to write music in the classical style (not neo-classical -
: but out and out Mozart/Beethoven style) was that after every performance
: during a new music concert I'd hear audience members talking, "Damn, I
: wish those new composers would write music like that old stuff they played
: on the program."
An enjoyably funny story, Jeff! :)
Thanks for posting.
Dave
Christopher Hunt
I think if someone wants to attempt to write something that
> fulfills a 'common expectation for a beautiful turn of phrase' that
> they're welcome to it. If someone wants to write a series of running
> fortissimo parallel 17th chords that go nonstop for thirty minutes scored
> for six amplified orchestras, they're welcome to that too.
YES!!! I'd like to take this point one step further and say that the
"beautiful turn of phrase" and the "fortissimo parallel 17th chords"
could be written by the same composer on two different occasions. Why
should you or I develop one and only one style, and then be a prisoner of
it? Sometimes when a composer steps outside his/her usual persona, the
result is brilliant - like those wonderful Schoenberg Cabaret Songs.
Christopher Hunt
Dept of Music Studies
Mohawk College
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Jeff Harrington
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz (bat...@maltedmedia.com) wrote:
: Chris Koenigsberg wrote:
: > When I put out my "Brains: a CD of Audiophile Computer Music" in
: > 1993-94, there were some very interesting comments
: For those who haven't heard "Brains", beg Chris to sell you a copy.
: We've played it on our radio show and it (especially "The Rats Nest")
: *always* generates phone calls -- all hate calls! We love it (hello,
: Jeff).
Hey, when I was doing my New Music Radio Show at Tulane (1985-88) every
Sunday night for 4 hours I played the David Tudor/Cage 3 record set, a
french Boulezian/Japanese hybrid 4 record set (with 15 minute pauses!).
We got all kinds of calls.
One night after playing the Boulezian/Japanese hybrid (can't remember the
name of the composer, was probably too drunk; probably shouldn't admit
this but we'd bring a case of cheap beer into the studio every show) I got
a *death* threat! The piece has like one "thwat" and then a ten minute
pause and then some really nice Boulezian crystalline impressionism and
then another "thwat" or two and a 5-15 minute pause. You could see the
gap in the vinyl!
The guy said, "I'm gonna fuckin' come down there and kill you for making
me sit through this shit for 2 hours hoping for a change!"
;-)
We were laughin' for hours!
Jeff Harrington
: <sighs> Shock at any price, eh Jeff? It's OK in your rhetoric but not in
: your music, is that it? People will (hopefully) hear your and my music
: long after all the polemics are gone. I'd think the music is what matters.
: Talk is cheap--take note of the Futurists; nobody plays Russolo or
: Pratella anymore.
You're reading too much into my posts. I'm just saying that it's shocking
that composers don't seem to notice *how* our music is being experienced.
The full gamut! You're not denying the discomfort; I know its verfiable.
There are few other art forms which can produce this amount of physical
discomfort for certain audience members. (OK, my neighborhood movie
theatre's seats suck...).
: : One thing that continues to strike me as bizarre is just how much new
: : music sounds the same. Where is the new - today?
: Uh huh. Glass sounds like Part sounds like Babbitt sounds like Cage sounds
: like Rochberg sounds like Harbison? I don't buy it for a minute.
It's all boring to me... It's all academic and dull. Even the Cage is
pure contrivance. Give me Louis Armstrong any day of the week....
;-)
Noam Elkies
In article <5mkseo$fd0$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu>,
>: One of the reasons I
>: stopped trying to write music in the classical style (not neo-classical -
>: but out and out Mozart/Beethoven style) was that after every performance
>: during a new music concert I'd hear audience members talking, "Damn, I
>: wish those new composers would write music like that old stuff they played
>: on the program."
>An enjoyably funny story, Jeff! :)
It is, but how is that reason to stop writing such music if you're
concerned with the audience? It seems you've just found a segment
of the audience that wants precisely the kind of new music you were
writing! Why didn't you introduce yourself to them as the composer
of "that old stuff they played on the program"?
--Noam D. Elkies (elk...@math.harvard:edu)
Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University
Noam Elkies
In article <33918D...@AzStarNet.com> So...@AzStarNet.com writes:
>Noam Elkies wrote:
>>... but how is that [a] reason to stop writing such music if you're
>>concerned with the audience? It seems you've just found a segment
>>of the audience that wants precisely the kind of new music you were
>>writing! Why didn't you introduce yourself to them as the composer
>>of "that old stuff they played on the program"?
>Good point!
>Imagine a contemporary prose writer writing in Elizabethan English, or
>in the English of Chaucer. What conclusions would you draw?
Depends what that writer was saying. (BTW why limit it to prose?
Cf. the sad case of Chatterton.) But there is an important difference:
in a very real sense, it's the musical language of Bach, Mozart, et al.
through about Tchaikovsky/Mahler that is the musical language *of today*:
it's what musicians learn their/our technique on (even Bartok's great
Mikrokosmos has not submerged WTC, the Beethoven piano sonatas, and
the Chopin etudes as the bedrock of piano technique); it is what most
of them/us spend most of their/our effort practicing and performing;
and -- notwithstanding the blip in the charts you recently reported
concerning Cage, of all people -- it is what most listeners hear
and pay for. It is also, like it or not, the idiom of the best and
most enduring masterpieces of Western music. Even those performers
and listeners who specialize in modern repertoire (or in early music
for that matter) are still reasonably fluent in the lingua franca
of common-practice tonality, to a much greater extent than most
classical-music audiences are even in the more acerbic music of Bartok
or Harbison -- never mind Stockhausen or Junk Cage.
A much more relevant parallel than Elizabethan vs. modern English is the
English of actual contemporary prose writers vs. the prose of James
Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Most prose writers today, even those who do
acknowledge the importance of FW, do not take that path in their
own writing.
>What if all contemporary composers wrote that way?
That's a straw man, of course, but a positively charming straw man
compared to its older brother "Why are all contemporary composers
writing indigestible total serialism?".
Larry Solomon
Noam Elkies wrote:
>... but how is that reason to stop writing such music if you're
>concerned with the audience? It seems you've just found a segment
>of the audience that wants precisely the kind of new music you were
>writing! Why didn't you introduce yourself to them as the composer
>of "that old stuff they played on the program"?
Good point!
Imagine a contemporary prose writer writing in Elizabethan English, or
in the English of Chaucer. What conclusions would you draw? What if all
contemporary composers wrote that way?
--
Best!
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Larry Solomon
The Center for the Arts http://www.AzStarNet.com/~solo
Tucson, AZ
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@