For The Sake of Being Different...

[dansouth]

Originally posted by marino:

Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, Honegger, Puccini, Hindemith, Stravinsky, Schoemberg, Berg, Webern, late Richard Strauss, Ginastera, Janacek, Albenitz, Rachmaninov, De Falla, Busoni, Prokofiev, Barber, Gershwin, Orff, Milhaud, Scriabin, Messiaen, Ligeti, Xenakis, Berio, Kurtag, Stockhausen, Bussotti, Takemitsu, Penderecki, Nono, Boulez, Carter, Riley, Subotnick, Partch, Ferneyhough, Adams, Glass, Feldman, Nancarrow, McNabb, Harrison, Schottstaedt, and many many others...

 

Wow, that's a LOT of music you consider crap! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

That's because most of it IS crap, although I'll bet that the majority of these composers have written some interesting works. The ones that I recognize certainly have. But then, this is hardly an exhaustive list of 20th C. composers. There are a lot of shitheads turning out a lot of crap, and that crap piles up. I've heard a lot of this crap performed live, and let me tell you, crap stinks!

[Raymar]

I recently did some 21st century improvised composing when my PC graciously died and took me three weeks to replace. I wouldn't call it classical music but its classically inspired somewhat and it sort of modulates between abstract and synth/orchestral music. Its completely improvised with two synths in realtime switching between and combining sounds and even modifying them at times direct to tape without sequencing or editing. Its entitled 'Summer In Here' (parts 1 - 3) .

 

This message has been edited by Raymar on 07-13-2001 at 07:06 AM

[Steve LeBlanc]

That's because most of it IS crap

 

Whoah...check your temperature

[dansouth]

It's funny! I'm working on a new tonal piece in Logic. One passage was too bland harmonically, so I decided to change the underlying chord structure. The piece has four parts. I changed two of them to match the new chord progression, but hadn't adjusted the other two yet. I played it back just for fun, and experienced some freaking WILD harmonies. It sounded quite interesing, but it was COMPLETELY RANDOM in structure, i.e. no rational thought went into creating those harmonic structures.

 

I think I'll go back and randomly transpose sections of some of my other pieces and put Twentieth Century classical composer on my resume and business cards. If the music starts sounding horrible enough, you can add me to Marino's list.

 

Anyone can be a dadaist.

[DOS]

Okay, marino, I see your point. I know you were directing your comment towards Dan, but just to clarify, I wasn't bashing an entire century worth of composers.

 

First off, leave Debussy out of this. Why? Indeed, he had many different approaches to music like Schoenberg and Stravinsky, but unlike them, he could create emotional intensity like composers of the past. The same can be said for Rachmaninov, Ravel, and many other 20th century composers. Also, I like the minimalist because minimalism was an answer to serialism and atonality and although simple as the genre suggest, minimalists still made an effort to create tonal music that the atonal composers had destroyed. Also, I like the "return to tonality" with Gershwin, Copland, and others. Maybe I just have a grudge with the atonal composers... I guess so because it's a lot easier to write atonal music than it is to write tonal... and that probably explains the surge of composers in the 20th century.

 

Face it... 1000 years from now people will still love Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and even Debussy. Even people who don't read music can understand why.

 

Mike

[marino]

Originally posted by dansouth@yahoo.com:

I think I'll go back and randomly transpose sections of some of my other pieces and put Twentieth Century classical composer on my resume and business cards. If the music starts sounding horrible enough, you can add me to Marino's list.

 

I wouldn't count too much on it

[Senator]

Originally posted by Steve LeBlanc:

I'm not going to argue this topic because I think it would be futile...possibly a complete waste of time...

 

I'll just say I strongly disagree with almost everything posted on this thread (well except the Zappa quote http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif).

 

Oh yeah baby!!

[dansouth]

Yes, it is futile to argue this, because it's a polarizing topic for most people. Atonal music and music with irregular rhythmic patters offer a lot of potential, and some of this music is stunning and brilliant. On the other hand, a great deal of it is hideous. As I mentioned before, twentieth century techniques, applied tastefully, have revolutionized the motion picture soundtrack. Good! But many other pieces are as painful to endure as a swarm of biting insects. Composers are more than welcome to compose "swarm" music if they want to, but this music will NEVER enjoy the popularity of Back or Mozart, nor the popularity of less "out" examples like Also Sprach Zarathustra or Fanfare For The Common Man. Not that popularity is the measure of all things good, but it IS important for the survival of artists and orchestras. I forecast a return to tonal music, or at least less challenging atonal music like the two examples listed above.

 

The brilliance vs. sham question is bound to come up whenever atonal music is discussed. Some atonal music makes as much sense as Jackson Pollock's random splatterings of paint on canvas. Pollock has his defenders, but he'll never receive the popularity of Picasso or Mondrian or Dali. Why? Becase Picasso, Dali, and Mondrian created abstract works that follow discernable logic. Randomness is just randomness. You could choose notes based on where your dog takes a dump in the yard, a completely random approach, true dadaism. Dadaism sometimes yields intriguing results, but there's no way to determine whether any of the choices made in the process were really suitable, whether a note is "right" or "wrong" or whether a more appropriate rhythm or voicing could have been devised.

 

Atonal music can be classified into these to categories - Picassoesque (abstract but logical) and Pollockesque (random). Both have their place, but I'll argue to my last breath that only the former requires talent to produce. Not that talented people don't produce the latter from time to time.

[mEm0]

Just a couple of points, gentlemen:

 

1. Who knows what music will transcend 100 years from now. Really. Many artists were not understood by the masses during their time. Many scientist were KILLED, even with undeniable proof about their ideas, only to be later mourned by humanity, many years too late... I don't really liked Zappa's Black Page. But why can't it end up in a loop to the next big dance hit? Imagine people dancing to those 17:3 tuplets?

 

2. Plurality is a good thing. In music making, as well as in opinion (like this forum). Thank God we don't all like the same things; the world would be a very, very boring place. I for one, don't understand the ethnic music from India. However, I'm sure if these guys listened to the ethnic music from my country, they too would think it's crap.

 

3. Purists tend to be wrong, and history can prove this. They usually close their minds (and ears in this case) to NEW ideas, anything that's not done in the traditional fashion. So don't be one. I don't like most of 20th Century Classic composings either. I believe all that dissonance is just plain WRONG. But then again I don't like most country music either.

 

4. And finally, is it not real music because it used a computer-based algorithmic composer? If you think so, why can then "pressing on electronic switches that sense velocity and aftertouch which in turn trigger small electronic recordings of real instruments played by REAL musicians" be called music? Are we not performers but just mere imitators, pseudo-musicians? I like to think not. But who draws the line, YOU?

 

 

My motto is, if you don't like the channel, change it. And don't waste time or energy dissing something or somebody. Nothing good comes from that. Create instead.

[Senator]

To argue taste or not to?

[realtrance]

A possibly interesting thread -- my own opinion here is that Bobro's comment is the most musically, and historically, informed of the bunch.

 

Stravinsky, if you listen to him in the context of Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, is actually rather conventional. I think it's only the kind of lightweight hype that wouldn't even have made into the liner notes in the good old days of LPs that has made him out to be "musically revolutionary." In style, practice, technique, Stravinsky, like Copland, is truly in a line with what went before. Not saying anything against the music, just against the perception that his music is in any way really "revolutionary" in form.

 

By contrast, formally speaking Schoenberg _is_ revolutionary, but it was a revolution that only carried itself into a spate of imitations in the soundtracking of American movies in the '40s and '50s (where most of his students went), without any real major step forward in the embrace of new conventions, aesthetic and formal conventions, for music making.

 

I consider Shostakovitch, who in many ways is really mainly extending work that Gustav Mahler did, more revolutionary in both a formal and musical sense than either of the above. Shostakovitch both takes many of the formal experiments others around him did and applies them in a way that is more popularly contextualized in his music (thus side-stepping the criticism of "empty formalism" laid at the door of Schoenberg, Cage and others), and takes the conventions of popular expressivity and popular musical form -- as Beethoven did -- and integrates them coherently and seamlessly into his more classical compositional approach.

 

I think 100 years from now Shostakovitch will really stand out as one of the last major innovators in the tradition of Baroque/Classical/Romantic/Modern music.

 

The problem with much of this thread is that it throws the same accusations at the door of "atonalism" that have always been thrown at the door of innovators: it doesn't sound "right," somehow, so it must just be "faking it." Even Beethoven suffered from such accusations, Haydn was the more correct classical composer.

 

I feel in the late-20th/early 21st century that we have fallen on musical hard times, and that -- consistent with what has happened politically, economically, scientifically -- we are in a New Dark Ages, living through a period of successful, reactionary repudiation of the consequences much of the innovation of the mid-20th-century pointed to.

 

It may take another two generations for that to change, I certainly don't expect any kind of relief in my lifetime at this point.

 

rt

[soapbox]

Now, now folks. Let's not be too hasty to condemn a genre of music just because we don't like it. I wish that people would quit blanketly dismissing whatever music they happen to hate as "crap." (As if anyone's taste were an objective barometer!) Every kind of music has its place and speaks to someone. Personally, I prefer 20th century music to much of what came before, so sue me!

 

"The Rite Of Spring" doesn't speak to me because it is different. The Rite Of Spring moves me because it is powerful! I just can't fathom a human being who has ever heard Stravinsky's "The Rite Of Spring" (or "Firebird Suite," for that matter) without being stirred! This is a man who wrote with passion!

 

As Cameron mentioned, Stravinsky studied with Rimsky-Korsakov, perhaps the greatest orchestrator of all time. I'm sure he knew full well what any instrument sounded like in any register and that he wrote what he did, not as an "experiment" but as a way to create a desired, not random, effect. Anyone who thinks for one minute that Stravinsky's main purpose in writing music was to be different, just doesn't get it, IMHO. I'm not saying that as a snob because there are types of music I just don't get either. However I recognize that I don't get it, and that's okay.

 

While I agree that experimentation for experimentation's sake is not something I would release as is, I believe that experimentation is essential if music is to keep from stagnating. If Schöenberg hadn't experimented, the beauty of Webern's music would have never existed. Also, to say Schöenberg's music was unemotional just because it was 12-tone is like saying other forms of music are unemotional just because they were in a major or minor key. Schöenberg invented a language when he invented 12-tone. For my money, this was no different than inventing the blues scale. It's not what you've got; it's what you do with it. Just as there's emotional blues and rote blues, there's passionate 12-tone and 12-tone by the numbers.

 

Personally, I salute the pioneers. If I hadn't tried new things throughout my life, my music would still sound like "Chopsticks."

 

Here's to the composers of the 20th century!

 

(P.S. Yes, anyone can be a dadaist. However, that doesn't mean that anyone is a dadaist!)

[soapbox]

<< I guess so because it's a lot easier to write atonal music than it is to write tonal >>

 

Personally, I believe the opposite is true. For me at least, restricted forms of music, such as pantonal (Schöenberg hated the term "atonal") and pop are tougher to write in because a lot of the freedom to write what I hear is taken away. Under these conditions, I have to come up with something that I find satisfying using narrow constraints! Of course, it's simple to write in either style if one uses a formula. However, is one then creating what he or she considers to be "music?"

[soapbox]

As for the future, if we manage to avoid destroying the world, who's to say what humanity will like or dislike? I'll bet that humanity itself will have to change fundamentally if we are to survive. One of the ways this may happen is through genetic engineering. If human beings then become a changed species, what will these new humans like? What will their taste in music be? I for one don't have the foresight to feel confident of any prediction.

[soapbox]

... Okay, so I was on a roll!

[realtrance]

Thank you, soapbox! All good comments.

 

I agree, Stravinsky's music is powerful -- I like many of the less well known works as well as the old chestnuts (Petrochka, Firebird, Rite). Was only suggesting that it is not, at least formally speaking, useful to point at Stravinsky as "revolutionary" in his approach. Schoenberg was more so, as you indicate.

 

"Inventing a new musical language" -- that's what it's all about. And then being able to speak fluently in it.

 

rt

[Art_dup1]

DOS, I kind of understand you. Really I am. I got a degree in Composition and there were a LOT of very bad new music I encountered during my study. But I think you point the finger at the wrong guys.

 

Stravinsky and Schoenberg were not those fake composers that you referred to. They knew what they were doing. And, yes, they could write what you may call good music as well. This is the reason that I respect them. You just have to listen to their early works and you'll hear it. Listen to Stravinsky's Firebird and other pieces before that. For Schoenberg, listen to Verklarte Nact and Gurrelieder. Now from these pieces alone, aren't they a great composers? I know I cannot write that good, and I'm sure only a few of us can match them.

 

The question is, if they wrote good music earlier, why did they turn to write those screetching noise later in their lives? They didn't do it so that everybody would notice them - they were already famous more or less by the time they started writing those noise.

 

The thing is, they felt that it must be done. They could of course go on and write Firebird 2, 3,... but they chose to be truthful to themselves. And I must say that they were right. Without both composers, we would never have many wonderful pieces by other composers later on (and many bad pieces, as you already notice, but we can hardly blame it on Igor and Arnold.)

 

Now, about 12 tone system, I hate to sound like I'm on their side, but you must listen to real good 12 tone music in order to know what it is. It is the system to control some parameters, not the compositional result. In other words, in the hand of good composer, 12 tone or any system can yield a good result. Listen to Schoenberg's Serenade op.24. It's not completely 12 tone but many movements are already serialized. You'll like the March and the Waltz (or minuet?), believe me! Should we continue using 12 tone system, I don't know, I don't use it much myself, and we have many other interesting things since then. Can it produce good music, you bet!

 

Music needs development. Without this, it's dead, like traditional music of many eastern countries. (And yes, I'm from one of those countries, so no prejudice here.) In early 20th century, the time was right for atonal.

 

I'm glad that someone is brave enough to come up and says that 20th century music sucks. I think many of them are. But Mr. Igor and Arnold are my fav and they are damn fine composers!! You must listen to their music more. Heck, when Beethoven wrote Razumovsky quartet, count Raz didn't even call it music at that time. To him, it's that ugly! Listen to it now, it's beautiful. Now if you point your finger to Christian Wolfe or some others who couldn't write even a decent non-experimental music and thus end up pretend to be experimental, I'll completely agree with you.

 

My flamesuite mode is on, so no need to throw in any flame :-)

 

Cheers,

 

Art

 

Originally posted by DOS:

I have always said that there is a fine line between being experimental and being complete crap. I've met countless "musicians" who call themselves "experimental" when in truth, they couldn't write a good song or piece of music so they put together a compilation of bleeps and bloops and called it "cutting edge."

 

Then there are those of you who are great musicians and can write wonderful music and have decided to turn to experimental. Respect goes out to you, but let me just say that no matter how good of composer you are, being completely out of the ordinary and experimental is no more original than being mainstream pop. There are countless musicians who don't realize this and think that just because you can't follow their rhythm, that they're original. I wish I could introduce all of them to the music of Anton van Webern (1920), or have them listen to Edgard Varese's "Poeme Electronique" (1958), but of course, that is impossible.

 

Okay, well I found it necessary to point that out first before I get to the real topic in hand. Although 20th century classical music is highly praised, I find something almost disturbing in the music of Stravinksy, Schoenberg, and many others all the way up to todays electronic styles. Before I tell you what this is, I want to justify that I don't mean to bash on a whole century of composers, but I think the motivation behind the music is wrong... it seems many of these composers write music just for the sake of being different and original. For example, I know that the intro to Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" is of an instrument played at it's highest register. Stravinsky did this just to "explore" the boundries of the instrument and sound original. He didn't do this to tonally please; he did it so people world say "Oh, he's original!" As absurd as it sounds, you can't try to be original when you write music, your music should just come out as original. Yeah, it sounds strange I know, but I think that explains the sudden shift in the music from Romantic to 20th Century. Every historical composer from Hildegard de Bingen in the Medieval period to Claude Debussy and Serge Rachmaninov has been original, yet their music is first. Suddenly, you hear the screeching sound of a violin coming from a piece by Schoenberg. This man is screeming "Pay attention to me! I am original!" No you're not! You wrote a piece, covered it by the "12-tone system" (because you didn't know your scales), and are now highy praised. How about Charled Ives? I think he just wrote a score inspired by a 3-year-old banging on the piano. This is original, but is it music? Basically, all I'm saying is that in the quest to be original, composers have lost the sense of music. This I cannot expain in words, but I'm sure you understand what I mean and as a result, composers have become a dime a dozen.

 

Mike

[Byrdman]

Originally posted by DOS:

... disturbing ... Schoenberg,

If you want to hear some disturbing Schoenburg, listen to "Pierre Lunaire".

 

Thing is its supposed to be disturbing. Schoenberg's best friend had just been murdered. Its one of the great pieces of music, in my view.

 

As for serialism, if you work at it you can learn to hear what is happening. The fact that the music is fairly inaccessible to the uneducated listener does not make it bad music, just unprofitable music.

 

(Like the line in one of Eugene Ionesco's play were a character runs in and says to the playwright:

 

"I've just found the perfect theatre for your work - it seats twelve")

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

I developed a personal prejudice on this entire topic when I was a music major in college. One of my senior-level composition professors was Delores Stevens, a brilliant, highly-awarded composer and pianist who was a well-respected performer/historian for the Schoenberg Institute.

 

She always was mostly complimentary toward my composition technique, but seemed somewhat reserved about the details. Finally, when I asked her about it point blank, she said (I'm paraphrasing) that my stuff, though good, was not pantonal enough for her liking. In others words, heh-heh, I'm just too damn normal.

 

I never intended on taking my composition chops in any serious direction for fine art music. Still, it bugged me a bit to be looked down upon for the conscious choice that I made to work within the boundaries that I personally found enjoyable.

 

Anyway...that was then. No one gives a shit now, and I mostly strum three raunchy chords on my guitar and have fun.

 

- Jeff

[soapbox]

Originally posted by Jeff, TASCAM Guy:

my stuff, though good, was not pantonal enough for her liking

"not pantonal enough"

 

I LOVE IT!!!

 

What if we posted comments like that in Craig's Is Your Music Any Good? Find Out Here!! thread?

 

Maybe I should use that criticism once or twice when producing my next vocal session! "Sorry Britney. We've got to do that take over again; and can you plleeaase sing the ad-libs a little more pantonal this time?"

 

Jeff, I'm sorry for any frustration your composition professor's comment caused, but I had a great laugh taking it out of it context!!!

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

Originally posted by soapbox:

I'm sorry for any frustration your composition professor's comment caused, but I had a great laugh taking it out of it context!!!

Hell, looking back, I get a laugh out of it in context! Dee Stevens was a great teacher and a wonderful musician, and it's not like she downgraded me for my lack of dischord. But still....there's this elitist attitude which bothers me about people who can only appreciate one type of music, be it 20th century avant garde, hip hop, country, metal or whatever. I like it all, baby!

 

- Jeff

[RobT]

Originally posted by dansouth@yahoo.com:

 

Is this really a viable way to rate the merits of a piece of music, by the amount of violence and ill-will that it creates? If it is, then I'd guess you must hold rap in extremely high regard. It's audience is polarized, just like Stravinsky's, and you don't have to go far to find someone who hates rap with a passion. Hell, people are killing each other over rap music. I don't recall hearing about Schoenberg's posse trying to bust a cap in Stravinsky's skinny, white, cracker ass, so their music must have been lame by comparison to the almighty gangsta rap.

 

Perhaps you should rethink your position on riots as a criteria for critiquing the arts.

LOL! Drive bys in Vienna - details at 11:00.

 

Mozart busts a cap off in suspected rival!

 

So does anyone here like Phillip Glass or is he a hack too?

 

RobT

[graypencil]

<

 

no I don't ..

 

..and ,IMO , yes he is ..as are a lot of the so called "minimalists" ...

 

Having spent more than a few years composing film music, the occasional TASTEFUL application of dodecaphonic techniques offer another useful tool in a composers arsenal.

 

That having been said, I both have to agree.. and disagree with much of what has been bandied about here.

 

.. whereas there are many " academic "hacks" who churn out many pieces of musical feces that are totally unlistenable, there are many fine composers throughout the 20th century who have made very expressive and emotianally viable music using the techniques being discussed here.

 

... again, the keyword being "taste" ...

[Jojje]

The problem with so called modern composers is that they don´t think it´s hip to write pretty melodies...

[Rod S]

Originally posted by RobT:

So does anyone here like Phillip Glass or is he a hack too?

 

RobT

I watched him in concert once. I was only familiar with one of his less minimalistic albuns.

 

I did manage to sit through the whole concert. Looking back, I'd rather have root canal work for a whole year than watch that concert again. Most electronic music seems extremely harmonically complex when I recall that concert.