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Whats harder - composing a classical piece of music or a top 40 pop song?


alby

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Damn, thanks Alby! I've completely forgotten about Billy Joel! I cannot find the article(s) so don't quote me on this but I believe Billy Joel grew up "in the classics" and that it's not that much different for him to write pop songs than it is writing classical pieces.

 

Wait a minute... Found it!!

 

From an 1997 article http://www.berkshireweb.com/rogovoy/interviews/joel.html

 

From an AP article 11/2001

http://click.hotbot.com/director.asp?id=18&target=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecarserver%2Ecom%2Fentertainment%2Fv-text%2Fstory%2F166663p-1596229c%2Ehtml&query= billy+joel+classical+&rsource=LCOSWF

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Originally posted by Steve LeBlanc:

 

Mozart did a whole lot of studying between age 5 and 9...his knowledge of traditional music theory was quite broad by the time he was 9...people were pretty much amazed at how well versed he was.

 

That's 4 years, not 15-20 years. And we're talking about a 9 year old.

 

 

7 weeks is a long time...if it took me 7 weeks to write 3 pop songs I'd shoot myself.

 

3 top 40 hits??? ...really??? Does that mean at this point in your life, all totaled together, you've been trying to write a hit song for less than 2 1/3 weeks??? Put down the gun, and step away from the piano...s l o w l y.

 

Any monkey can write a pop song that would be easy enough to get on a Top 40 chart.

 

Only if you're talking about Mickey Dolenz.

Remember, Neil Diamond wrote "I'm a Believer"

 

...some tunes need a bit more help than others...some pop songs border on genius.

 

Same with "symphonies".

 

 

Good night Steve.

 

 

steadyb

 

[ 01-04-2002: Message edited by: steadyb ]

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Originally posted by Alejandro:

Steadyb, wrong about Paul. I love the Beatles. But Paul (he is a natural) recognized in public that he cant write a music score. How could he then be able to write a symphony if he is not even able to write his own songs?

 

With help.

 

Not Paul's finest piece of work...

 

dB

:snax:

 

:keys:==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <==:rawk:

 

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Thanks Dave for the feedback. Very interesting.

 

By the way, has anybody listened (seen) the Smithsonian Piano event in DVD?

I like it. There, Billy Joel (he was recurrently mentioned in the thread) plays a few of his well-known songs and also one of his classical pieces is performed.

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Originally posted by Alejandro:

Thanks Dave for the feedback. Very interesting.

 

By the way, has anybody listened (seen) the Smithsonian Piano event in DVD?

I like it. There, Billy Joel (he was recurrently mentioned in the thread) plays a few of his well-known songs and also one of his classical pieces is performed.

 

Saw it at the Smithsonian. It was a great exhibit. History of the piano.

 

I think what's happening is that people think that what they don't do is "harder." Plus, there is no agreed-upon meaning for "symphony" (here, or anywhere, really).

 

I wrote my first "symphony" in 8th grade entitled "Symph," played by the Juilliard Orchestra. Since then I've had a number of symphonic commissions that have been performed and even recorded. Concerts of my orchestral music in large venues have sold out.

 

It is easy to write a "bad" symphony, just as it is easy to write a "bad" anything. This afternoon, anyone could write a "novel" that conforms to established definitions of the novel, yet sucks. So which is harder, a "novel" or "short story"? Some "novels," BTW, are shorter than some "short stories!" Some symphonies are shorter than some pop songs. Neither is intrinsically hard or easy. Quality is what is difficult to achieve. It is "harder" to write a brilliant letter than a meteocre novel.

 

I can teach anyone how to write a "symphony" in an hour. In fact, I've done it with kids, using intuitive, rather than complex forms of notation. Please don't treat so-called "classical" or "orchestral" music as the exclusive domain of the Gods.

 

THUS:

 

It is easy to write a bad symphony.

It is easy to write a bad pop song.

 

It is hard to write a good symphony.

It is hard to write a good pop song.

 

THEREFORE:

 

It is harder to write a good symphony than a bad pop song.

It is harder to write a good pop song than a bad symphony.

 

HOWEVER:

Neither one is intrinsically (generically) "harder" than the other.

 

-Peace, Love, and BrittanyLips

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Interesting topic, near and dear to my heart, of course. ;) I'll chime in with a few random thoughts.

 

To begin with, the word "classical" requires some clarification. Do you mean music from the classical period (mid-18th to early-19th century), or do you mean anything from Renaissance music through twenty-first century, so-called "serious" music? Some post-modern music is brilliantly structured, but some of it was written with reckless abandon. Picking notes and rhythms at random is not much of a challenge (although it can be difficult to play).

 

Secondly, I'd like to address a minor misconception:

 

In pop, you have a formula. You can weave in and out of that formula, but there's still a formula. Plus you have lyrics to (hopefully) tell some sort of story. You just need a vehicle to transport the story from start to finish. With classical, there's no formula, and there's no lyrics

 

Classical music (in the broad sense of the word) DOES have a "formula." Canons, chorals, rondos, fugues, inventions, etc. all have definite structures (some more rigid than others). And prior to the 1880's, the harmonic devices used in classical music followed well-defined patterns, as well.

 

Finally, I believe that B-Lips has the right idea. Anything done well presents a challenge. It's more difficult to come up with a compelling blues song than it is to compose a lackluster concerto.

The Black Knight always triumphs!

 

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  • 2 months later...

Kind of late to the party here, but just a few more thoughts not addressed in the rest of the thread.

 

My own _opinion_ is that it is now impossible to write a "classical" (read original composition derived from the high tradition of baroque/classical/romantic/modernist/serial music which contributes to and expands that tradition in a significant and ground-breaking way) composition.

 

The tradition, as long, complex and rich as it is has, essentially, been exhausted. Interesting minor additions have been made in the past 30 years but nothing comparable even with, say, a work by Leonard Bernstein or David Diamond (and those two do a certain amount of recycling anyways). Serialism proved to be a dead end. Post-modernism is/has proven to be a dead end.

 

Plenty of "classical-like"composition goes on, and it is great for what it is -- I remain moved and impressed by James Horner's scores while watching a movie. I wouldn't take the time to go out and buy them on CD in lieu of, say, getting a new recording of Mahler's 6th symphony.

 

Pop music is, although in scope significantly smaller in scale, also an exhausted tradition. There have been a few quick oscillations towards the end -- punk, rap, "dance" (aka disco revival, basically) -- but the tradition itself has about fleshed out everything it can do. As expected.

 

There _are_ interesting experiments in electronic music, but they are certainly not embraced by either of the above traditions. In fact, some of the most interesting experimental electronic music, in my opinion, is music that -- like pop and rock when it was fresh -- is drawing upon and _integrating_ disparate musical traditions in a conscious and intelligible fashion.

 

Tala Matrix is one such example, not "electronic music" per se but a fascinating integration of folk-classical Indian music tradition with jazz and synth music tradition.

 

I do think that electronic music, as it draws upon and grows from such acts of integration, will eventually point the way towards new musical forms, but right now, at best, we have just some of the preliminary elements of what could be called a "mass art" (as opposed to folk art) which will, in the future, contribute to a new music.

 

None of this meant as a put-down _at all_, just my honest opinion when it comes to a truthful answer as to whether pop or "classical" music is harder to "do." Both are at this point impossible. :wave:

 

rt

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Originally posted by realtrance:

My own _opinion_ is that it is now impossible to write a "classical" (read original composition derived from the high tradition of baroque/classical/romantic/modernist/serial music which contributes to and expands that tradition in a significant and ground-breaking way) composition.

Perhaps, but new music is being written all the time. Surely SOME of it advances the repertoire. No offense, but I, for one, hope to poke a few small holes in your theory with my own work. ;)

The Black Knight always triumphs!

 

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Originally posted by realtrance:

My own _opinion_ is that it is now impossible to write a "classical" (read original composition derived from the high tradition of baroque/classical/romantic/modernist/serial music which contributes to and expands that tradition in a significant and ground-breaking way) composition.

 

The tradition, as long, complex and rich as it is has, essentially, been exhausted. Interesting minor additions have been made in the past 30 years but nothing comparable even with, say, a work by Leonard Bernstein or David Diamond (and those two do a certain amount of recycling anyways). Serialism proved to be a dead end. Post-modernism is/has proven to be a dead end.

 

rt

I think you're right about serialism, and wrong about everything else. Critics have claimed the end to "serious music" throughout the history of the Western Musical Tradition. Each time it was declared dead, it was on the virge of rebirth, in a different direction. What makes you think that we are not part of the same cultural flux in which superior works emerge and define the era, but on retrospect? Like everyone else, your inability to see it is a function of your contemporaneous existence within it.

 

Plus, there has never been a composer in the history of the world who has not done "a little recycling," at the very least. From one composer to another, let's agree that that's the dirty little secret of composition, from Medevial Chant, to Bang On A Can.

 

Leonard Bernstein was a Great American Musician. But David Diamond? Are you nuts? I remember seeing him in the Juilliard Bookstore buying his own music so they would re-order. There are tons better than Diamond huffing and puffing around today.

 

-Peace, Love, and BrittanyLips

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Originally posted by realtrance:

Dan,

 

If you do so, I'll be delighted to hear it! What do you consider your most productive influences currently, if I may ask?

 

rt

Influences? Whatever pops into my head, I suppose. ;) I'm into kind of a nouveau-Baroque thing, basically. Vivaldi is my favorite composer, but I steal from the lot of them without discrimination. :D

The Black Knight always triumphs!

 

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Okay, I take it all back, and I'm in a better mood! :wave: -- maybe we're on a verge... and maybe Dan South is The One...

 

Seriously, BL, excellent post and so true. Dan, Vivaldi is wonderful, yes; I can attest to the fact that Bruce Springsteen's producer's mother would listen to little else back in the early '70s. What kind of influence that fact had on rock 'n roll is incalculable, as is J.S. Bach's influence on Funk.

 

rt

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