# Modernism to Contemporary music - Making the Leap



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

*Disclaimer: I will be acting partly as a kind of Devil's advocate in this thread, so please don't get upset if it sounds like I am dismissing aspects of contemporary music.*

I have a confession to make. While I can genuinely say that I love the music of the modernists, that is, composers like Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok etc. (pre-50s), I find it a much harder leap to make to go from their music to that of contemporary composers. Dissonance I can handle, poly-rhythms and atonality - great!, but the difficulty of contemporary music is, for me, in its almost total abandonment of traditional forms.

Once one gets over the mostly visceral experience that distinguishes the first serialists from their late-romantic predecessors, one finds that in terms of form and structure surprisingly little has changed. Schoenberg was almost obsessed by musical form and the crafting of phrases, motives and the like. So its relatively easy for me to listen to his work; he keeps the ideas clear and comprehensible despite the lack of a tonal centre.

Contrast that with the work of a later (non serial) composer, Gyorgy Ligeti, for example, whose large scale orchestral works I can appreciate for their purely sensual appeal; the beautiful sonorities, harmonies and textures. However I cannot wrap my head around the form of works like Lontano or Atmospheres. They at times just sound like amorphous soundscapes that defy comprehension.

Right now you might be asking 'So what?' and my answer would be that for people like myself, whose brains are a bit small and overworked, this kind of complexity and intricacy is too much for us to process. It poses a problem for me as a listener, since composers will no doubt carry on regardless of how we feel about their work.

It seems to be a big trend in CCM that comprehension is given up in favour of complexity; in a world where 'economy' of notes seems to be a dirty word, there has been a takeover of micro-structures and mathematical probabilities (I still really enjoy Xenakis, but I feel I am missing a degree of understanding that I can get from listening to earlier composers), impossible instrumental sonorities (Ferneyhough) and drone-like tone clusters. All of these trends and more seem to just obscure and obfuscate the content of the pieces. Obviously I can't pin down the problem I find to just these individual aspects; they are rather the effects of this new approach to large-scale musical forms, dare I say; style over substance? Don't even get me started on those spectralists!

This is a far more dramatic, revolutionary (and perhaps imperceptible) change in music than the loss of a tonal centre, imo. So how do I get around this obstacle?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

From what you've described I don't think you have any obstacles. You already are enjoying some music post 1950. No, it won't do for you exactly what music of the previous era did, nor will that music do for a person what the music did that preceded that era etc. Each era of classical music offers something new, but it will naturally lose some of the other attributes in the process. The way you are describing your listening experiences sounds like you are making progress, just continue doing what you are doing and I think you will naturally want to keep expanding the variety of what you take in over time.


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2014)

Jobis said:


> the difficulty of contemporary music


Don't process it as difficult.



Jobis said:


> almost total abandonment of traditional forms


Don't process an interest in intrinsic form in contrast to extrinsic form as abandonment.



Jobis said:


> However I cannot wrap my head around the form of works like Lontano or Atmospheres. They at times just sound like amorphous soundscapes that defy comprehension.


Don't try to make them comprehensible. They are comprehensible, but they cannot be comprehended as things that they are not. And just because they are not formally comprehensible to you at this particular point in your life does not mean that they are formless or incomprehensible, either one.

Not that formless or incomprehensible are necessarily _bad_ things, you know!



Jobis said:


> process.


Don't.



Jobis said:


> It seems to be a big trend in CCM that comprehension is given up in favour of complexity; in a world where 'economy' of notes seems to be a dirty word, there has been a takeover of micro-structures and mathematical probabilities


Nope.



Jobis said:


> All of these trends and more seem to just obscure and obfuscate the content of the pieces.


Double nope. Note that while you have up to this point characterized yourself as unable to comprehend, you have now done a complete _volte face_ and are presenting yourself as knowledgeable about the content of pieces. Eventually, you will have to decide. Are you perplexed about what these pieces are about or are you knowledgeable? You can't be both. And you certainly cannot be one at one point in the conversation in order to make one point and then the other at another point in the conversation in order to make another point.



Jobis said:


> this new approach to large-scale musical forms, dare I say; style over substance?


I'm not convinced that you have correctly identified "the" new approach. I certainly don't think that there is only one new approach, either. I also don't think that style and substance are separable. They are two aspects of a situation. They can be talked about individually. But I don't think they are separable.

I hope this helps. I do think that you have obstacles, but none of them are external. Which should come as welcome news to you, as it does mean that you are in control of this situation, regardless of the obvious fact that composers are going to continue to do whatever they do regardlass. Because "this situation" is not about what composers do but what you do.

All the best.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

some guy said:


> Don't process it as difficult.
> 
> Don't process an interest in intrinsic form in contrast to extrinsic form as abandonment.
> 
> ...


I understand what you're saying, but I'm asking for advice of what I can do to overcome this obstacle. I didn't say it was the composers' problem, and if I did it was to state a possible layman's pov.

As for the examples I mentioned, I'm willing to look into their own inherent sense of form, but someone has to point it out to me initially, there's no use just saying 'don't try to make them comprehensible'. What kind of wack advice is that? Its not as though this music has to be shrouded in mystery or else the illusion is shattered. Understanding increases enjoyment of great art.

I recognise too, that I haven't been too clear on these new approaches, but that is because I find contemporary music so different to what has come before that it seems impossible to trace the beginnings of these developments. Xenakis for example, seems to appear out of nowhere, and Stockhausen too.


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2014)

Jobis said:


> What kind of wack advice is that?


The kind of wack advice you obviously need, and that you just as obviously need to take seriously. Remember, while you may not have gotten what you wanted, you certainly did get what you asked for. You're welcome.



Jobis said:


> Its not as though this music has to be shrouded in mystery or else the illusion is shattered. Understanding increases enjoyment of great art.


No, but wackily enough, it has to be taken on its own terms and not on terms that are alien to it. And for a piece that has a form unique to itself there's no substitute for listening to that piece and letting it speak what it is speaking. That's not really mysterious. More like common sense.



Jobis said:


> ...it seems impossible to trace the beginnings of these developments. Xenakis for example, seems to appear out of nowhere, and Stockhausen too.


Nope. Neither one. Perhaps David Cope's _New Directions in Music._ The most recent edition is way overpriced, but you can find less expensive copies of earlier editions easily enough. And all the editions are good. The third is my favorite.

There's also Paul Griffiths' _Modern Music and After,_ which other people have praised. I don't know this one well, but I can pass on the recommendations second hand.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> I understand what you're saying, but I'm asking for advice of what I can do to overcome this obstacle. I didn't say it was the composers' problem, and if I did it was to state a possible layman's pov.
> 
> As for the examples I mentioned, I'm willing to look into their own inherent sense of form, but someone has to point it out to me initially, there's no use just saying 'don't try to make them comprehensible'. What kind of wack advice is that? Its not as though this music has to be shrouded in mystery or else the illusion is shattered. Understanding increases enjoyment of great art.
> 
> I recognise too, that I haven't been too clear on these new approaches, but that is because I find contemporary music so different to what has come before that it seems impossible to trace the beginnings of these developments. Xenakis for example, seems to appear out of nowhere, and Stockhausen too.


If you carry with you, (once again) _habits and expectations_ of, say, a traditional floor-plan of a house, and you are instead walking through a newer structure which does not adhere to that plan, you will of course add to your initial disorientation.

You mentioned some of those pieces as more like landscapes. I think that very apt, and like many a landscape, some are not laid out in a formal grid, like later modern cities, and you have to familiarize yourself with them by walking through a good number of times, until that tree, this roll of a hill, that turn of a pathway become familiar enough that -- human brain impulse No. 0, your mind makes an order and sense of them. Then you are well on your way.

Everything you've described as 'difficult' or some sort of hurdle is seated in carrying old expectations into the new where other forms and shapes apply. Repeat listening, not forced, brings both familiarity and recognition of the landmarks which denote the new forms.

BTW, any piece of music most consider successful has some form, whether it is 'formalistic' in the old sense or built in another manner, something 'structural' is holding it together.

P.s. as 'whack' as it may seem, that 'don't try to make them comprehensible' advice is very like telling a neophyte to not trouble too much, or at all, initially with 'learning about sonata-allegro form, or symphonic form.' The why of it is exactly to the same purpose: listen first, start finding your own landmarks, identify this or that, and with that in hand, further reading about symphonic form has some chance of at least making sense vs. reading about the form prior the act of 'just listening.'


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

PetrB said:


> If you carry with you, (once again) _habits and expectations_ of, say, a traditional floor-plan of a house, and you are instead walking through a newer structure which does not adhere to that plan, you will of course add to your initial disorientation.
> 
> You mentioned some of those pieces as more like landscapes. I think that very apt, and like many a landscape, some are not laid out in a formal grid, like later modern cities, and you have to familiarize yourself with them by walking through a good number of times, until that tree, this roll of a hill, that turn of a pathway become familiar enough that -- human brain impulse No. 0, your mind makes an order and sense of them. Then you are well on your way.
> 
> ...


The thing is, I do listen to contemporary music, and made this thread because I couldn't make the same progress as I could with older music, despite starting to listen to them both at about the same time. The traditional forms were easily comprehensible to me, despite not being exposed to them in particular before I started listening to CM, perhaps because their impact is audible in most popular music. CCM on the other hand was completely alien to me.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I would just continue with listening to contemporary pieces, and then deep dive into whatever strikes me as more pleasant, o more interesting, and disregard the rest, at least temporarily.

For instance, I think you like Opera. Also, you are saying that you are having some difficulties listening to spectralist composers. Why not give an opportunity to "L'amour de loin", and Kaija Saariaho?. If you like it, then you can explore more Saariaho, and also review with renewed interest the basics of spectralism.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: I feel exactly the same way. I'm fine all the way through the mid 1980's with the music of Vincent Persichetti, William Schuman and Peter Mennin. Then, I find what's "out there" from around 1990 to the present time, "incomprehensible".


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

_Jobis_: "Right now you might be asking 'So what?' and my answer would be that for people like myself, whose brains are a bit small and overworked, this kind of complexity and intricacy is too much for us to process. It poses a problem for me as a listener, since composers will no doubt carry on regardless of how we feel about their work."

Looks like you are 'process oriented', and are taxing your brain working on process/procedure. Stop that!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> The thing is, I do listen to contemporary music, and made this thread because I couldn't make the same progress as I could with older music, despite starting to listen to them both at about the same time. The traditional forms were easily comprehensible to me, despite not being exposed to them in particular before I started listening to CM, perhaps because their impact is audible in most popular music. CCM on the other hand was completely alien to me.


The bulk of the modern contemporary you cited is still very much 'old fashioned procedures,' i.e. Stravinsky, etc. Your stumbling block, or small speed bump is probably more the actual, is, like Lontano, with much music from the mid to late sixties and beyond, where the M.O. and game changed, quite drastically, enough to call _that_ contemporary and the earlier period 'modern.'

You could ferret out the earlier works which were transitional to that later music, like Carter's Sonata for Cello and Piano or some works after that, where he worked through to his mature style, and ditto, say with Berio... try his pithy neoclassical 'Concertino,' and similarly, via research and going by dates, earlier Ligeti.

Despite all my formal music training, from earliest childhood to present I've never been taught, conditioned, led to believe or felt that in order to get full pleasure out of a fully abstract painting, a piece of music, or admire some beautiful building, that I at all needed to know about form, format, construction, techniques of how it was done, or the physics of engineering a building. They add a gloss, and clearly for you, knowing about them opens doors, but they are doors I don't understand the existence of, even.

But I think I must here bow out, i.e. I think the best guide or explanation will come via another who has had a similar difficulty or speed bump, and gotten over and through it.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Concerning Ligeti,why not try some of his concertos? They may be easier to get into than Atmospheres or Lontano? 
For me the concertos are my favored pieces. Violin, cello, double concerto, Hamburg concerto, chamber concerto.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

starthrower said:


> Concerning Ligeti,why not try some of his concertos? They may be easier to get into than Atmospheres or Lontano?
> For me the concertos are my favored pieces. Violin, cello, double concerto, Hamburg concerto, chamber concerto.


His concertos are fantastic. I used the examples of Lontano and Atmospheres because they seem to be highlights of the kind of music I have a bit of an ambivalent relationship with. I think they're great, but I don't understand why.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

starthrower said:


> Concerning Ligeti,why not try some of his concertos? They may be easier to get into than Atmospheres or Lontano?
> For me the concertos are my favored pieces. Violin, cello, double concerto, Hamburg concerto, chamber concerto.


Ligeti went, in a way, neoclassical or at least classical reference in much of his later works.... none of that is a help to finding one's way through _Lontano,_ or I suppose the _Requiem_ or other middle-period works.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Jobis said:


> I recognise too, that I haven't been too clear on these new approaches, but that is because I find contemporary music so different to what has come before that it seems impossible to trace the beginnings of these developments. Xenakis for example, seems to appear out of nowhere, and Stockhausen too.


I'd say they were both influenced by Varese and the emerging electronic music (and not just in their electronic pieces). Stockhausen was also influenced by Webern, but like Boulez he takes the almost pointillistic gestures of Webern and piles them up in rapid succession.



Jobis said:


> His concertos are fantastic. I used the examples of Lontano and Atmospheres because they seem to be highlights of the kind of music I have a bit of an ambivalent relationship with. I think they're great, but I don't understand why.


Without any disrespect intended, the problem might be that you feel you need to understand why.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Not everyone is going to enjoy some of those static pieces. I suppose many listeners want things to move along. The Teldec box is great because you can read Ligeti's notes on each work to get an understanding on how each piece was constructed.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I'd say they were both influenced by Varese and the emerging electronic music (and not just in their electronic pieces). Stockhausen was also influenced by Webern, but like Boulez he takes the almost pointillistic gestures of Webern and piles them up in rapid succession.
> 
> Without any disrespect intended, the problem might be that you feel you need to understand why.


None taken! As I am getting into composing a bit, I feel like I want to get somewhat analytical about contemporary music; at least so I don't end up writing with an archaic attitude. I guess a big part of my enjoyment is in appreciating the craftsmanship of a piece, but its not essential to my listening.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Jobis said:


> None taken! As I am getting into composing a bit, I feel like I want to get somewhat analytical about contemporary music; at least so I don't end up writing with an archaic attitude. I guess a big part of my enjoyment is in appreciating the craftsmanship of a piece, but its not essential to my listening.


I guess if you're trying to get into composing, you'll probably want to study contemporary composition much more deeply than anyone could do on a discussion forum like this.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I don't know about form, I always listen pretty un-analytically, but sometimes the music seems so inevitable that I feel as though it must me really well constructed - Ferneyhough's 6th quartet is an example, and Holliger's 2nd Quartet.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Jobis said:


> Once one gets over the mostly visceral experience that distinguishes the first serialists from their late-romantic predecessors, one finds that in terms of form and structure surprisingly little has changed. Schoenberg was almost obsessed by musical form and the crafting of phrases, motives and the like. So its relatively easy for me to listen to his work; he keeps the ideas clear and comprehensible despite the lack of a tonal centre.
> 
> Contrast that with the work of a later (non serial) composer, Gyorgy Ligeti...I cannot wrap my head around the form of works like Lontano or Atmospheres. They at times just sound like amorphous soundscapes that defy comprehension.
> ...there has been a takeover of micro-structures and mathematical probabilities (I still really enjoy Xenakis, but I feel I am missing a degree of understanding that I can get from listening to earlier composers), impossible instrumental sonorities (Ferneyhough) and drone-like tone clusters. All of these trends and more seem to just obscure and obfuscate the content of the pieces. Obviously I can't pin down the problem I find to just these individual aspects...style over substance? Don't even get me started on those spectralists!...This is a far more dramatic, revolutionary (and perhaps imperceptible) change in music than the loss of a tonal centre, imo. So how do I get around this obstacle?


I think you need to get back to basics, and ask yourself some basic questions about these different musics.

Your flaw in saying 'you like Schoenberg although he's modern' is that you have not identified what it is that Schoenberg did, or why you like it. Schoenberg was still concerned with pitch, sustained pitch, as his main element. Besides the discarding of harmony, he was very traditional.

It seems you are saying that when the traditional elements of music (pitch, rhythm, melody, form, development) are ignored in favor of other elements of sound, like timbre (the Spectralists), that you have a problem (you poor devil).

Know and identify what these different approaches are trying to do, how this differs from tradition, and what you should expect and listen for in this new music.

You are looking for "content" that is not there. Listen to "sound as sound" and it will be better. Use your intuition and your ears instead of being "all-brain."

Sit there, shut up, turn off your tickertape mind-chatter, and just listen.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

^^^ well, I would not have put it that way, but will only echo the same sentiment...

Put on the piece in question, stop thinking, trust the driver / pilot, and enjoy the ride. Every time your mind ticks into 'trying to track it mode,' you are missing something which might just be that little shift or marker you are interested in knowing about; missing a key element or not, you've interrupted the flow of the piece and your perception of it.

That is not advocating never thinking about it (you have good reason to want to know 'how it is put together' -- which also indicates that proclaimed difficulty or not you are probably enough liking what you hear.) But I think some of the problem is psychological, i.e. not completely trusting the pilot (or driver) as well as your senses taking in the music without the intellect conducting traffic and commenting upon flow. (The more frequently you are the driver, often the more impossible it is to be a passenger, relax and enjoy the ride.)

For some of the more "need to know, want the map, hafta know where I'm going and how the transportation works" frame of mind, that is quite a tall order to ask they "just turn that all off."

I recommend in the middle of listening, if the mind kicks in like that, literally say to that, "I'm busy, and I'll get back to you later," both parts of that being entirely true.

For some, this may border on or beyond some mysticism or hippie-dippie thinking. If that is a thought which leads to doubt, remember your mind is _always active,_ even when you are not conscious of it -- like when listening to a piece of music you (and your mind) are trying to figure out. Try it. What is desired has not yet been gained the way you've been going at it, so nothing much to lose with this other recommended approach


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Jobis said:


> *Disclaimer: I will be acting partly as a kind of Devil's advocate in this thread, so please don't get upset if it sounds like I am dismissing aspects of contemporary music.*
> 
> I have a confession to make. While I can genuinely say that I love the music of the modernists, that is, composers like Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok etc. (pre-50s), I find it a much harder leap to make to go from their music to that of contemporary composers. Dissonance I can handle, poly-rhythms and atonality - great!, but the difficulty of contemporary music is, for me, in its almost total abandonment of traditional forms.
> 
> ...


I would say you need to recognise the exceptional diversity of forms of contemporary music. This is the single most important aspect of it. This diversity is a key characteristic and the apparent complexity flows from it. And contemporary composers almost by definition rely on diversity to produce contemporary composed music.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

To clear things up; (as put to PB)

To tell you the truth I am merely experimenting with listening habits; (perhaps misunderstanding what) Varese said 'I don't write experimental music, it is up to the listener to experiment'. I've always in the past listened to music uncritically; but I found that despite this approach pre-contemporary music made more immediate sense. Its probably laziness on my part; not wanting to commit the time to really feel contemporary music, but I suppose I made the thread to form the question 'how do I easily transition from modern to cont. classical without spending hours just listening'. So I suppose my intentions were, if not dishonest, then just unclear. Now thanks to the attention of yourself and other forum members I realise that there isn't any way around it; I have to commit myself to listening to CCM in earnest; not just as background noise (on the one extreme) or as an exercise in critical analysis (on the other). As for wanting to know how the piece works; I have been trying to run before I can walk, I expect. Deep understanding comes after the enjoyment and appreciation, not before. 

Nonetheless, this thread might be useful for other users to explain their own experiences with CCM; in the manner of the 'in praise of 20th century music' thread; with insights into music post-1960.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Well, if you are really interested in the critical analysis, you can always take a course, if you are living near to a musical school.

Personally, I remember very fondly a course in Madrid's conservatory, in the early 1980s, on "Análisis de Música Contemporánea" given by the Spanish composer Luis de Pablo. At the time, I was mainly centered in pre-WW2 music, and after that period was really familiar only with Messiaen, and it was a revelation to learn about electroacoustics, computers, even spectralism, that was then in their first years... 

So, as the poet says: "Traveller. there are no paths; paths are made by walking".


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## Guest (Oct 3, 2014)

Jobis said:


> Deep understanding comes after the enjoyment and appreciation, not before.


True word.



Jobis said:


> this thread might be useful for other users to explain their own experiences with... music post-1960.


I first heard classical music per se (as in, not as used by Hollywood for movies and cartoons) around 1961. It was immediate love. All I wanted was more. Not more of the same, mind you. More.

In 1972, having listened to everything--as is only to be expected for a fanatic--I was ready for the twentieth century. Again, immediate love.

By 1984, I was listening to music written in 1984. Stop me if you've heard this already.

From the beginning, my listening has been driven by desire. There has been much that I haven't particularly liked. Some of that I have learned to particularly like. But that has always been the exception. The rule has always been more, gimme more. (That rule has changed somewhat of recent. Since I've heard everything, now the desire is for current composers to write stuff that I won't like. That is, to write stuff that won't be familiar to me, that will bewilder me and put me off. There's precious little of that for me.)

Anyway, the above articulates a huge handicap of mine in these discussions. The concepts of difficulty or effort or distaste are alien to my experience, generally. They occur only as isolated pieces. Fortunately, I can extrapolate from that and imagine a listener for whom all pieces or most pieces are difficult or require effort or are distasteful. But it's difficult. It's an effort of sustained imagination that is often distasteful to me.

What I simply cannot imagine at all is the antagonism to the new and the corresponding desire to express that antagonism at every opportunity. I can _see_ it--it is rather um intrusive after all. But I cannot imagine it. I cannot imagine what a person must be thinking or feeling to be antagonistic to the new. I can only guess.

Anyway, there's my confession. All of you who struggle with music, who beg for advice, who want to share your difficulties with this or that genre or composer or piece--I don't get it. The stuff is glorious. It's seductive and satisfying and just fun to listen to. What can you possibly be doing that is blocking you from enjoying stuff that is so obviously and naturally enjoyable? (



)

I can only imagine.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

schigolch said:


> So, as the poet says: "Traveller. there are no paths; paths are made by walking".


And the poet is also Spanish 

Anyway, I think that poem by Antonio Machado describes pretty well the approach to form in some contemporary music.

As Ligeti says about his pieces:

"_It is a kind of intervallic and rhythmic basic thought, which I would not call a motive, because the word motive is linked so strongly to the Beethoven technique of motivic development; the large form however must be developed slowly and gradually out of such small seeds, and at different levels. Let us say that the elements stand as small units, and I picture them as static units, like the stones of a kaleidoscope. At the level of the intermediate form there is a kind of metamorphosis, a kind of transformation of these kaleidoscopic pictures, an associative kaleidoscope, which is another thing. At a yet higher level there is a kind of organic proliferation, as when lianas gradually grow over a primeval forest, in other words, a very complex polyphonic lianoid structure. I could say that my earlier pieces are crystalline in nature, and that these are much more vegetative and proliferating pieces._" (he was talking about his late style, but the polyphonic considerations also apply to his middle style)

Grisey about sound and time in his music.

About complexity and comprehension, Boulez makes clear the contemporary view here (also in the context of Ligeti).

Anyway, Ligeti uses traditional forms in his late style sometimes. The third movement of his Piano Concerto is a rondo, in which sections based on the lamento motif, and similar in character to Automne a Varsovie, alternate with "African" sections, based on African rhythms and sounds.


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## SilverSurfer (Sep 13, 2014)

Hello, just to salute schigolch, I'm not aware of how many Spanish posters are here in TC.

I have many of the books written by, and about, Luis de Pablo, as well as records, by the way, but I have not seen in TC Spanish contemporary composers mentioned a lot...


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

some guy said:


> Anyway, there's my confession. All of you who struggle with music, who beg for advice, who want to share your difficulties with this or that genre or composer or piece--I don't get it. The stuff is glorious. It's seductive and satisfying and just fun to listen to. What can you possibly be doing that is blocking you from enjoying stuff that is so obviously and naturally enjoyable? (
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Frankly, most people don't care for noise "music".


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

SilverSurfer said:


> Hello, just to salute schigolch, I'm not aware of how many Spanish posters are here in TC.
> 
> I have many of the books written by, and about, Luis de Pablo, as well as records, by the way, but I have not seen in TC Spanish contemporary composers mentioned a lot...


I like Alberto Posadas. E.g., this.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Rapide said:


> Frankly, most people don't care for noise "music".


You're probably right, and speaking for myself I'm totally fine with that. As far as I'm concerned, the people that don't enjoy it can just not listen to it. It doesn't make them inferior or superior to anyone (again, this is as far as I'm concerned), it's just not their thing.

But at the same time, it won't get in the way of my own enjoyment.


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## SilverSurfer (Sep 13, 2014)

aleazk said:


> I like Alberto Posadas. E.g., this.


Thanks for mentioning, aleazk.

Posadas has a cicle of 5 string quartets (Liturgia fractal), which reminds that of his professor Francisco Guerrero (Zayin), who studied with Luis de Pablo, so the circle is closed.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

some guy said:


> Since I've heard everything...


I really wish I could hear everything, could already have heard everything, and so many times that it was familiar to me, that I knew it like an old friend.

Sadly, my own mortality looms near and large, reminding me that I will be lucky to know have a familiarity with even the most famous stuff. To say nothing of literature, art, architecture, food and drink, all the history and science.... The fulness of life is probably reserved for people who have even more money and leisure time than I do, but I will do what I can while I can.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

science said:


> I really wish I could hear everything, could already have heard everything, and so many times that it was familiar to me, that I knew it like an old friend.
> 
> Sadly, my own mortality looms near and large, reminding me that I will be lucky to know have a familiarity with even the most famous stuff. To say nothing of literature, art, architecture, food and drink, all the history and science.... The fulness of life is probably reserved for people who have even more money and leisure time than I do, but I will do what I can while I can.


Very inspiring and moving post. I wish you well.


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## Guest (Oct 3, 2014)

science said:


> I really wish I could hear everything, could already have heard everything, and so many times that it was familiar to me, that I knew it like an old friend.


Friends are good.

I never ever wished I could hear everything (or, if you must know "everything"). I just did it.

The key is neither time nor money. I've had very little money ever. And I get 24 hours a day, just like everyone else.

The key is voraciousness.

I was voracious.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I think I might understand what the OP is on about. Up through the 2nd Vienna School, serialism, all that, it really was still all about the traditional instruments doing what the composer instructed them to do with 12 notes, and pretty much with the same sort of structures (fugue, sonata form, etc) that had been used for centuries. Maybe it has a certain familiarity even for people used to CPP music. 

But even more assumptions went out the window with Cage, Varèse (who was of the generation of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, or Ives but feels more modern), Antheil, Partch, Stockhausen, Babbitt, Boulez, Harrison, Carter, Nancarrow. Maybe we could include Riley and Reich, who discarded a different set of assumptions. 

At any rate, it feels to me like there may actually have been some kind of break, some sets of completely new directions around 1950 or so. A partial list would include nonwestern instruments (and other nonwestern influences), electronic instruments, prepared instruments, totally new instruments, chance, machines and "noise," tape, amplification, distortion, more microtonality, a lot of innovation in rhythm, and at least occasionally something like a disregard for traditional structures of development or variation. 

I don't know of course. And usually any "major breaks" are found upon inspection to be overstated. But there does seem to be something.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Turntablism was going on in the 20s with Stephan Wolpe & Dada, but reproduction didn't really start competing with our perceptions until the 1950s and magnetic tape, then things got more fidelity. Now, "ear" score is as good as "eye' score," and notation is limited. The ear can record any sound possible. Any sound can now compete as frameable music.

With John Cage and Variations IV, sound itself is the substance.


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## Guest (Oct 3, 2014)

The twenties are a vast and as yet almost completely unexplored territory where some seriously innovative and imaginative stuff was happening.

Not until the fifties and sixties did we get our experimental groove back on, though the thirties and forties did have some cool things going on.

Walter Ruttmann's _Weekend_ is from 1930.

Varese's _Ecuatorial_ is from 1934.

Paul Ignace's _It Is,_ for orchestra is from 1949.

But it's interesting to realize that the fifties could almost have happened in the thirties....


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> I think I might understand what the OP is on about. Up through the 2nd Vienna School, serialism, all that, it really was still all about the traditional instruments doing what the composer instructed them to do with 12 notes, and pretty much with the same sort of structures (fugue, sonata form, etc) that had been used for centuries. Maybe it has a certain familiarity even for people used to CPP music.
> 
> But even more assumptions went out the window with Cage, Varèse (who was of the generation of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, or Ives but feels more modern), Antheil, Partch, Stockhausen, Babbitt, Boulez, Harrison, Carter, Nancarrow. Maybe we could include Riley and Reich, who discarded a different set of assumptions.
> 
> ...


But you're quite right. Post WWII, globally, is one of the biggest and most dramatic shifts in history, social, economic, and in thinking in general, whether arts or sciences.

All that you mentioned were earlier forays, and the roots which were seminal for what later bloomed.

Remember, the Modern era of music is 1890 to 1975, and though no one can pin a date to one cataclysmic shift, even those often being a somewhat graded progression with maybe one dramatic piece here or there showing a much newer direction, but by the mid to late sixties we had a wide swathe of experimentation, where all sorts of 'experiments' and explorations that had gone before began to really take off and reach some new state of 'conclusion.' You then have 'middle Elliott Carter' in his then earlier mature style, composers like Ligeti had arrived at a very new and singular approach, and many more of 'all those and that' -- clearly in a very different vein of the more traditional music-making and thinking which had been the previous status quo, for centuries before.

It could be in a later retrospective view that this shift, dated 1975 for some convenience as much as good reasons, might be considered as dramatic a change in music history as the one from monophony to polyphony.

While you seem -- by what you listen to -- to be open to just about anything musical and of a tremendous scope and variety (some people's ears, I think, are just 'open' and very free of preconceptions, about which you should consider yourself exceptionally fortunate), many still have a hard time with the music which really does not operate in the similar ways and habits of the music from the early renaissance and on through the modern period of 1890 - 1975.

As Carter said when asked why he had never written anything in serial method ala the Second Viennese School, "I looked into it, but it seemed to me to be all that old Brahms stuff." In a way, that is a kind of definition enough of a difference between much music before 1975 and what has followed, a lot of 'non-Brahms-like' music. A singer acquaintance in music school commented upon a contemporary choral work he was involved in, "We used to sing; now we hum and buzz." Actually, I'd say now we sing, hum, whistle, and buzz 

B.T.W. Your wish to know it all is something to never let go of, while also knowing it could not happen, even if you lived, alert and canny, until you were 120 years old. Just too much, an embarrassment of riches which, after familiarization, you have to somewhat decide upon and select the various avenues you most want to pursue... and thank Apollo, it seems the body 'of data' is just about endless compared to whatever our allotted time is, at least you know you will never run out of new and wonderful music to discover and explore.


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