# Predictability, Unpredictability and the Issues of Modernism



## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Now I'm sure none of this will be particularly revelatory. These basic ideas are fairly common sense, but I think it could be a good starting point for some interesting discussion.

All music is a mixture of predictable (P) and unpredictable (U) elements. People tend to like a certain amount of P and a certain amount of U. Think about pop songs on the radio. A typical song is engineered so that the average person will learn to like it by the end of the 3" that the song plays. This song must have some P elements that are expected by the listener and it doesn't hurt it to have some U elements as well so the listener will feel like it is a new and hip experience.

We could say that any piece of music has a percentage of U - ranging from 0 to 100. Simply playing middle C on the piano over and over at the same speed would be a "0" - totally predictable, while a piece that is completely random would be a 100.

Now think of your favorite piece of music. The first time you heard it it had a certain value of U. With each subsequent listen the amount of U, for you as a listener DECREASES. There comes a point where the value of U is ideal for you as a listener. With too many repetitions there is little if any U and the piece becomes somewhat boring to you and you look elsewhere for a new musical experience. 

The first time I heard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms in high school I liked it a lot, but it wasn't until the 3rd through 10th-ish times that I was just in Nirvana. Now, after having heard it 30 times or more, it's still a nice piece but doesn't have the same power for me. It has become too predictable.

Ok, now the deal with Modernism. Of course every composer is different. Music like Brian Ferneyhough's has a high U percentage while the music of Aaron Kernis has a lower U percentage. But for the sake of discussion, let's generalize and say that music written today has high U percentage compared with 100 years ago.

My estimation is that a typical piece of music written during the romantic era requires about 4 repeated listenings by the average listener for the piece to be understood (and consequently appreciated). With the higher U value of today's composers, often, I feel the required number of repetitions to be 12, or even higher. (I think it is theoretically possible to appreciate a completely random work of ridiculous complexity but it may require 200 repetitions until the value of U makes the piece palatable).

The problem is that few people are willing to 'work' that hard to understand a complex piece. For me personally, often I feel that that level of work is absolutely worth the payoff. Recently I took it upon myself to do what it would take to understand Maxwell Davies Trumpet Concerto. It took a lot of repetitions but I found that I really love and appreciate the work. Having said that, though, I can understand why it may be a tough sell to the average concert-goer.

This leads to many questions and thoughts but for now I'll simply post what I have.

Disclaimer: I'm just a dude, not a musicologist, so if you feel like I'm full of sh** please tell me so politely, Thanks!


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

One question is: do modern composers care less about the listening capacities (U threshold ) of their audiences?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

20centrfuge said:


> One question is: do modern composers care less about the listening capacities (U threshold ) of their audiences?


I think modern composers expect that their listeners will not be able to take in everything at once in their pieces as in, say, a Haydn symphony. That much is probably true.

Anyone's listening capacity can be expanded, though; it speaks better of a composer's respect for the audience that he believes that they can understand something complex than if she believes it needs to be dumbed down.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Mahlerian said:


> I think modern composers expect that their listeners will not be able to take in everything at once in their pieces as in, say, a Haydn symphony. That much is probably true.
> 
> Anyone's listening capacity can be expanded, though; it speaks better of a composer's respect for the audience that he believes that they can understand something complex than if she believes it needs to be dumbed down.


With modern composers this makes sense since recording technology existed when the pieces were made (depending of course where you drawn the line between modernism and blahblah). However I still find even late romantic music quite difficult to digest at first listening. I feel like complete moron compared to the listeners of the time who had much less possibilities to relisten to the same work.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

As a listener, I don't want to be able to take it all in too soon. I tend to purchase music, so listening should be a long-term relationship.


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2015)

I am of the opinion that the amount of excrement in you is quite high.

How's that for polite!!

Hah. Just kidding.

But seriously folks, what you've left out of your neat equation is the listener. Oops! How did that happen?

Different listeners have different levels of experience, different capacities, and different attitudes.

A piece from the Romantic era might take fewer listens to "get" for a person in 2015 than a piece by Ferneyhough.

But but a piece from the Romantic era has been around for a long time. It's vocabulary is completely familiar already, even if the piece itself has never been heard before. With the Ferneyhough, that's not true.

So you've left out time, too. Something that's been around a long time will be more familiar than something new.

But that's just generally speaking. Maybe the hypothetical listener prefers Ferneyhough. That listener is not going to take any time at all to understand and appreciate the next Ferneyhough piece. That listener might struggle with Berlioz' _Benvenuto Cellini,_ though, even though that's been around for a long time.

In general, I think your metrics are a) too simple and b)leave out crucial bits of the real situation.

For example, your question about whether composers care less about the listening capacities about their audiences leaves out the fact that each member of the audience has a different capacity. It also leaves out that there are several different audiences. An audience made up of enthusiasts of modern music are going to either have an enormous capacity for enjoying the music first time through or are going to have an enormous affection for the unfamiliar--that is, they will welcome it more than not.

An audience of people who don't particularly care for modern music are very unlikely to even be in a position to hear any of it. If they patronize symphony orchestras or chamber groups or attend piano recital series, how much opportunity are they going to have of hearing anything but pieces that are utterly familiar, either because they've been heard already many times or because they're in a familiar idiom. Modern music is happening somewhere else, in some other building, where non-modernists would never go. So there's that that you've left out, too.

Anyway, I hope that all met your standard of courtesy. Be fair, that IS what I was going for.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Don't get me wrong, I am totally "on-board" with contemporary music. But I also know that amongst my musician peers I am a minority. Very few seem to appreciate new music, and frankly, that concerns me. Too many symphony orchestras in the USA program museum music with new works seen as a rarity.

"some guy" - you make some good points, especially about the factor of time.

"Dim7" brings up interesting points about the relationship between the listener, the concert hall, and the personal recording device. Is there an expectation that the listener will know the piece by way of it's recording before visiting the concert hall?


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

some guy said:


> I am of the opinion that the amount of excrement in you is quite high.


That's why it's called the P.-U. Factor :lol:


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Interesting theory this P-U scale. It echoes thoughts I used to have when I complained that if every note is unpredictable then none of them are - a piece becomes a predictable randomness, and so I found many contemporary works boring. 

However with further and deeper listening I've found my own U threshold, if you will, has increased or the bar has been raised or the border expanded, or whatever geometric symbol makes sense for what has happened. What used to sound U-heavy, now sounds closer to P, if only a little.

So my thoughts run parallel with some guy on this.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I think Modern music generally sounds more interesting than older stuff in terms of pure tone color and orchestration (although it's hard to generalize). This is something that can easily be appreciated with the first listen.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I've been doing a little digging around on topics a few pages back and I found this wonderful little discussion that I'm sorry that I missed!

One complication that I would add is that there are different kinds of unpredictability, and different listeners probably react to them differently. For example, I suspect there are people who love a great deal of wild timbres but don't enjoy too much deviation from 4/4 time... and they probably listen to techno music! But there are other people who can handle a great deal of variation in rhythms but don't want to hear unusual timbres.

Anyway, I happened to come across this just now when I'm listening to Xenakis' Persepolis, a work that is _45 years old_! It's really wonderful. This is my third time through, I think. It's a very intellectual work, with more in it than I'll ever find, but of course I can listen to it with only the little insight that I have. It's a fantasy of sound, and because of that I think most people would describe it as unpredictable, but it actually has a lot of predictable elements to it: there is not a great deal of variety in dynamics (some but not much), for the most part there is a predictable rhythm (not a meter though, as far as I can tell), the up-and-down motion is almost uninterrupted, etc.

A few days ago I listened to Coltrane's _Ascension_, another work that people would probably describe as unpredictable, even though it is very simply an exploration of a particular motif, made clear in the first few seconds of the work. Of course there are a lot of variations on that motif in the course of half an hour, but the structure of the work as a whole really isn't that unpredictable... or, at least, upon a bit of analysis it reduces to a fairly traditional structure.

So... I suspect that there are so many variables in music that it might be possible for music to be very innovative (~unpredictable) in some ways and very traditional (~predictable) in others, and so that rather than measuring a listener's differential reaction to "predictability" in general we'd want to consider various kinds of predictability.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I've actually long planned to post a thread on the subject "pieces that are very modern/complex/unusual in one aspect but rather conservative/simple in other aspects" but some reason haven't bothered yet.

I personally have high tolerance for dissonance, chromaticism & timbral weirdness (I was a huge fan of psychedelic trance in my teens) and general abrasiveness (metal and all that stuff) but what I dislike is that when the pieces are so complicated that I can't even hear any themes.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

20centrfuge said:


> Now I'm sure none of this will be particularly revelatory. These basic ideas are fairly common sense, but I think it could be a good starting point for some interesting discussion.
> 
> All music is a mixture of predictable (P) and unpredictable (U) elements. People tend to like a certain amount of P and a certain amount of U. Think about pop songs on the radio. A typical song is engineered so that the average person will learn to like it by the end of the 3" that the song plays. This song must have some P elements that are expected by the listener and it doesn't hurt it to have some U elements as well so the listener will feel like it is a new and hip experience.
> 
> ...


I think that you can measure the greatness of a piece of music objectively by the persistence of U. A piece like op 131 is U and stays surprising. Same for Art of Fugue. Haydn 88 is U initially but the Uness soon wears of, same for Mahler 2. A Dvorak quartet is hardly U at all.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Dim7 said:


> I've actually long planned to post a thread on the subject "pieces that are very modern/complex/unusual in one aspect but rather conservative/simple in other aspects" but some reason haven't bothered yet.
> 
> I personally have high tolerance for dissonance, chromaticism & timbral weirdness (I was a huge fan of psychedelic trance in my teens) and general abrasiveness (metal and all that stuff) but what I dislike is that when the pieces are so complicated that I can't even hear any themes.


Fair enough, but be sure to realize that a lot of works in the past 80 years don't intend to be thematic, and that's okay! Like take Webern's Symphonie, Concerto for Nine Instruments, String Quartet, or just about any of his later works. They are not thematic, but they definitely have intervallic and motivic and rhythmic structure. And for from being "so complicated", they actually are very crystal clear works, where the sparse Klangfarben textures allow one to hear the individual voices.

And when one gets to the electronic music of the 50s and 60s and beyond, like Stockhausen etc. the musical elements become electronically generated or prerecorded sound. No themes at all. And yet, the music is highly expressive, and most importantly, very crystal clear. The sound sources are generally carefully chosen to allow one to pick up on them (not necessarily where the sounds come from, but at least hearing and distinguishing different components of the sound), and the music is always followable. It isn't meant to be "so complicated". Take for example Xenakis's Bohor or Berio's Visage, two classics.

Now, of course, there are dense and complicated modern composers for sure. Boulez and Ferneyhough are probably the most famous examples. But even though they are dense and paint extremely complex musical soundscapes, those soundscapes are still beautiful.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Thank you for identifying the enemy, which is not "modernism" or "atonality" but rather athematic music! Just kidding - I don't necessarily reject all non-thematic music but they certainly are more challenging for me than music with clear themes.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

20centrfuge said:


> My estimation is that a typical piece of music written during the romantic era requires about 4 repeated listenings by the average listener for the piece to be understood (and consequently appreciated). With the higher U value of today's composers, often, I feel the required number of repetitions to be 12, or even higher. (I think it is theoretically possible to appreciate a completely random work of ridiculous complexity but it may require 200 repetitions until the value of U makes the piece palatable).
> 
> The problem is that few people are willing to 'work' that hard to understand a complex piece. For me personally, often I feel that that level of work is absolutely worth the payoff. Recently I took it upon myself to do what it would take to understand Maxwell Davies Trumpet Concerto. It took a lot of repetitions but I found that I really love and appreciate the work. Having said that, though, I can understand why it may be a tough sell to the average concert-goer.


If I thought I was going to have to listen to a piece of music 12 times before I could "appreciate" it, I would be unlikely to make the effort. That would not be a desirable work-to-pleasure ratio.

Any skilled composer can make something complicated and hard to hear, but difficulty of comprehension is no mark of excellence, and a piece with a high unpredictability factor may well be unpredictable just because it isn't well-constructed. Such music might take a long time to get to know, but offer little reward for the time and effort invested. Conversely, music we know well, and got to know rather easily, may continue to give us pleasure. I find that the onset of boredom has more to do with the style and specific expressive quality of the music than with its complexity or unpredictability, though those can definitely be factors.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> If I thought I was going to have to listen to a piece of music 12 times before I could "appreciate" it, I would be unlikely to make the effort. That would not be a desirable work-to-pleasure ratio.


I have done this several times, but feel a bit stupid for it.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I love listening to music 12 times in a row. It makes me feel proud that I conquered Mt. Everest like a true achievement.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I'm rather startled just now because I thought it was normal to need to listen to a work about ten times to begin appreciating it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

science said:


> I'm rather startled just now because I thought it was normal to need to listen to a work about ten times to begin appreciating it.


If that were normal, the first Cro-Magnon to sing a song would have been greeted with a blank stare and a comment like "What the hell was that?", and music would have disappeared forever.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Whether having to listen to a piece ~10 times before understanding it is too much effort depends on the length of the piece though.
View attachment 66383


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Pattern recognition, that's the issue here. Even "randomness" can be predictable, like a walk through the woods, looking down at random leaves on the ground.

The point is meaning; what *meaningful* pattern can we derive?

Do we "see" meaning in the thing, or do we* put* it there?

Art is a 2-way conveyance of shared meaning and experience.

It gets complicated when an artist creates an art that is in some ways a mystery to even him; them we both are invited into uncharted territory, in which the intent of the artist to convey meaning is somewhat overcome by the "labyrinth" of mystery in the art object itself. Who knows what it may then mean?

That's the appeal, to me, of much modernism. The "meaning" is not always a conveyed contrivance of the artist, but is part of the "stuff" of the art itself; like "just sounds" with Feldman and Cage, or "just paint' with abstract expressionism.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I'm willing to put the required work in.

It took me three solid weeks of playing the Schoenberg Piano Concerto 'til I finally "got it".

It was worth the struggle.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Pattern recognition, that's the issue here. Even "randomness" can be predictable, like a walk through the woods, looking down at random leaves on the ground.
> 
> The point is meaning; what *meaningful* pattern can we derive?
> 
> ...


There is nature, and there is art. If I want to find "meaning" in "just sound" and "stuff," the world supplies more than enough stuff without the assistance of artists. I turn to the artist for meanings that stuff can't convey on its own.

But to each his own.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> There is nature, and there is art. If I want to find "meaning" in "just sound" and "stuff," the world supplies more than enough stuff without the assistance of artists. I turn to the artist for meanings that stuff can't convey on its own.
> 
> But to each his own.


Your post seems to ignore the fact that artists are "conveyors" of this less intentioned, lighter, less egocentric aesthetic experience, as we have experienced in art forms such as the ones John Cage, Xenakis, and Feldman have provided.

I suppose you see art in the Western sense, as a product of the artist's intent and ego, and very "intentioned."

A lot of modernism, Boulez and Cage included, have attempted to escape from this, and much Eastern art reflects this approach.

It seems that you are simply rejecting art which does not fit your definition, and calling it "un-art." Isn't that rather presumptuous?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Your post seems to ignore the fact that artists are "conveyors" of this less intentioned, lighter, less egocentric aesthetic experience, as we have experienced in art forms such as the ones John Cage, Xenakis, and Feldman have provided.
> 
> I suppose you see art in the Western sense, as a product of the artist's intent and ego, and very "intentioned."
> 
> ...


No, I didn't offer any definition of art. Art can and does convey the intrinsic qualities of the stuff of which it's made - paint, stone, sound, etc. Art isn't abstract thought. It's sensual. That's part of its appeal. But only part, and for me not the most important or interesting part.

Debussy's _La Mer_ is not a dip in the Mediterranen.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

I would add that music from the "Classical" era tends to be more on the P side of the spectrum due to its heavy reliance on harmonic/melodic/rhythmic conventions. Simplicity and symmetry were perceived as ideals, derived from the ancient Greeks and Romans. We can often "predict" where the music is going based on what has come before it.

Mozart and Haydn knew how to be unpredictable within these conventions, and this is what makes much of their music stand out above the rest.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Celloman said:


> I would add that music from the "Classical" era tends to be more on the P side of the spectrum due to its heavy reliance on harmonic/melodic/rhythmic conventions. Simplicity and symmetry were perceived as ideals, derived from the ancient Greeks and Romans. We can often "predict" where the music is going based on what has come before it.
> 
> Mozart and Haydn knew how to be unpredictable within these conventions, and this is what makes much of their music stand out above the rest.


Yeah. It took some of us a while to appreciate the U factor in Classical stuff that sometimes seems to hammer out "tonic-dominant-tonic-dominant-tonic-dominant..." forever. I confess, perhaps at my peril, that the repetitive cadences in a Mozart opera can make me grumble even now, especially when followed by a dose of recitativo secco.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> If that were normal, the first Cro-Magnon to sing a song would have been greeted with a blank stare and a comment like "What the hell was that?", and music would have disappeared forever.


For all we know, that was the reaction the first time someone sang, but around the tenth time he or she did it someone else joined it.

Although to be honest I think the evolution of music was probably much more gradual than that, and surely drumming and dancing and religion were tied up with it pretty tightly.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

science said:


> For all we know, that was the reaction the first time someone sang, but around the tenth time he or she did it someone else joined it.
> 
> Although to be honest I think the evolution of music was probably much more gradual than that, and surely drumming and dancing and religion were tied up with it pretty tightly.


It took a brave Cro-Magnon to do that in front of his peers. He probably had a supportive pal like you.


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