# Preferring Predictable or Less Predictable Music



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I have read a number of posts describing certain works or composers as predictable, and often the poster will say the music is therefore boring and less enjoyable. Of course music can be predictable in 2 ways – first, the style can adhere to standard musical norms such that one can anticipate future notes or second, the listener has heard the work enough to know it well. In general I think those who say a work or composer is predictable and boring do not say that because they know the works really well. 

Personally, the works I enjoy the most are works I suspect would tend to be categorized by others as predictable (although I could be mistaken). I love anticipating the music, and feel great satisfaction and joy when an anticipated, beautiful part of music finally comes to pass. On the other hand, over the past 2 years or so I have spent the vast majority of my listening time with completely new works (many modern or contemporary) so I do enjoy hearing less predictable music. It’s simply that my greatest emotional response comes from more predictable music.

I know this topic will have some confusion because predictability can arise from the style of music or from repeated listening. Still I’d appreciate hearing people’s views on predictable and unpredictable (or less predictable) music.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

The thing is that predictable admits different variants. The most relevant I would say are: predictable, but unnoticed; predictable and noticed (i.e., cliché).
In the first case, you have for example a piece in an arc form. The piece starts quietly, then unfolds, a built up, the climax, reduction of activity, quiet again, end. If this is done right, you don't notice those things, since you are carried along by the piece (the famous "how did I get here" in the climax).
In the cliché, the most banal expectation is fulfilled with duty by the composer. I couldn't say I enjoy that.
If a piece can be foreseen in its totality, why bother to listen to it then?.
And when we say "unpredictable" we don't mean to add just any crazy, out of place thing, in order to make the piece "less predictable". Art is more subtle than that, and precisely the good composer is able to make an unpredictable piece but at the same time maintaining the sense of form.


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## Xiansheng (Feb 20, 2013)

How about the uncanny? You expect one outcome but are surprised to hear another another, only to realize afterwards that the composer's choice was more appropriate (by whatever standard) than the one you anticipated.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

As is often the case, I think a happy medium is ideal. I like music of the Renaissance, because on the one hand much of the music is through-composed and therefore there is a wonderful freedom of movement between the different parts and the melodies are never "obvious" so to say, but on the other hand the listener is always brought back to familiar territory with cadential progressions signaling finality.

I think that genuine unpredictability can only be achieved within the bounds of a familiar framework. When you get rid of this framework, such that everything is supposed to be unpredictable, then nothing is really unpredictable anymore.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

I don't think it is possible to classify either styles, composers or pieces as predictable or not.

It makes no sense at all unless one wants to cite particular examples. I am assuming we are talking about hearing pieces for the first time.

What is it we are supposed to predict? A cadence? A modulation? A structure? A sonority?

I agree with the OP regarding music we know. The sense of anticipation and fulfilment can be rapturous and send shivers through the body.

But for music we don't yet know? Even though we know that a classical sonata in C is going to move to G before we've heard a note, that knowledge tells us _nothing_ of the particular journey we will be taken on, only the destination.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

These terms - "predictable" and "less predictable" - remind me of Daniel Levitin's _This is Your Brain on Music_. That is a phe-flippin-nominal book. I recommend that to every literate person with an interest in music beyond "I just like what I like and whatever dude." I wonder if it was behind this thread's creation?


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

science said:


> These terms - "predictable" and "less predictable" - remind me of Daniel Levitin's _This is Your Brain on Music_. That is a phe-flippin-nominal book. I recommend that to every literate person with an interest in music beyond "I just like what I like and whatever dude." I wonder if it was behind this thread's creation?


Does that really relate to this or the other thread in the way that you put it? Did reading that book actually change what you like or dislike in music? Nothing wrong enjoying intellectual conversation but you don't have to always connect it with what you like listening to. There's plenty of good music that I've no doubt him or Alex Ross never mention at all.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I prefer to be surprised by the unpredictable. That's why I gravitate toward the Ives Concord Piano Sonata, Prokofiev 5th Piano Concerto, Bartok Second Violin Concerto and 3rd and 4th String Quartets, Beethoven Hammerklavier Sonata and Diabelli Variations, Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, etc;

All have unpredictably delightful twists and turns that I find most stimulating and appealing.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Petwhac said:


> I don't think it is possible to classify either styles, composers or pieces as predictable or not.
> 
> It makes no sense at all unless one wants to cite particular examples. I am assuming we are talking about hearing pieces for the first time.
> 
> What is it we are supposed to predict? A cadence? A modulation? A structure? A sonority?


One of my problems with writing the OP was that I did not know in what sense the posters who used the word predictable fully meant. I do not think they meant it in relation to hearing a piece once. Perhaps they meant predictable as in less interesting or perhaps less variable.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I have long (and I mean long) thought that some folks' initial unfavorable reaction to Brahms' music is caused by its tendency to suggest a path and then not follow it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

starry said:


> Does that really relate to this or the other thread in the way that you put it? Did reading that book actually change what you like or dislike in music? Nothing wrong enjoying intellectual conversation but you don't have to always connect it with what you like listening to. There's plenty of good music that I've no doubt him or Alex Ross never mention at all.


I really don't know what you thought I meant. It's not a book of recommendations. Its actual subject is something like "what the human brain is apparently doing when it listens to music." He mentions a bit of music but not actually much classical music, as he usually goes for examples that he anticipates being more familiar with a wider audience.

I just meant that I like that book and one of the ways he analyzes music is that there is a tension between predictability and surprise. He mentions (asserts?) that different people have different tolerances/needs: there is a sort of bell-curve spectrum, with some people unable to tolerate much unpredictability and needing more predictability, and others unable to tolerate much predictability and needing more unpredictability.

And so this thread reminded me of that and I was hoping that mmsbls, who seems to be a cool guy with whom I enjoy virtual "conversation," might be reading it or might have read it. And that's what my post meant!

Also, I don't know what other thread you mean, so if you want me to follow that up I need you to be more specific.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

aleazk said:


> The thing is that predictable admits different variants. The most relevant I would say are: predictable, but unnoticed; predictable and noticed (i.e., cliché).
> In the first case, you have for example a piece in an arc form. The piece starts quietly, then unfolds, a built up, the climax, reduction of activity, quiet again, end. If this is done right, you don't notice those things, since you are carried along by the piece (the famous "how did I get here" in the climax).
> In the cliché, the most banal expectation is fulfilled with duty by the composer. I couldn't say I enjoy that.
> If a piece can be foreseen in its totality, why bother to listen to it then?.
> And when we say "unpredictable" we don't mean to add just any crazy, out of place thing, in order to make the piece "less predictable". Art is more subtle than that, and precisely the good composer is able to make an unpredictable piece but at the same time maintaining the sense of form.


Yes, few, if any, works are completely unpredictable. I like your phrase predictable but unnoticed. Maybe the fully predictable are works where every expectation is fulfilled rather then having a surprise now and then.



science said:


> These terms - "predictable" and "less predictable" - remind me of Daniel Levitin's _This is Your Brain on Music_. That is a phe-flippin-nominal book. I recommend that to every literate person with an interest in music beyond "I just like what I like and whatever dude." I wonder if it was behind this thread's creation?


I have read Levitin's book and agree that it is filled with fascinating discussions of how the brain experiences and interprets music. I did not think of it when starting the thread, but certainly the sections on anticipating music are very relevant.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Ukko said:


> I have long (and I mean long) thought that some folks' initial unfavorable reaction to Brahms' music is caused by its tendency to suggest a path and then not follow it.


That's an interesting possibility. Since I've always adored Brahms music, I've often wondered why some people dislike Brahms but like other late Romantics although I think the others might also not follow paths.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

I thought my post was extremely clear compared to your own which just seemed a cheap shot loaded with assumptions.



science said:


> I recommend that to every literate person with an interest in music beyond "I just like what I like and whatever dude."


The threads on intellectualism don't mean that people are anti-intellectual. They wouldn't be on a forum discussing things if they didn't think about music, well many here discuss music anyway some are more what they like/don't like. But then you like that too don't you? That's your populist role, away from the intellectual.

As for the book, which I have heard of, it doesn't sound like a very surprising concept at all. I hope he has a lot more to say than just that. And _if_ he doesn't think people can expand beyond a more predictable or unpredictable music through more challenging listening it could be anti-intellectual in a sense. And of course just because he's wrote a book doesn't mean people here can't have perfectly valid things to say as well.

Anyway, enjoy your conversation with your 'cool' friend, someone who agrees with you more on this forum I guess.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

science said:


> These terms - "predictable" and "less predictable" - remind me of Daniel Levitin's _This is Your Brain on Music_. That is a phe-flippin-nominal book. I recommend that to every literate person with an interest in music beyond "I just like what I like and whatever dude." I wonder if it was behind this thread's creation?


If heard very negative things about that book, that it was pseudo science. Do you disagree?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I love elements that don't quite match our preconceptions about how music will go.

The Andante from Mahler's Sixth is brilliant. There's nothing superfluous in it, and when one listens to it, it feels self-evidently like the most natural thing in the world. But get down into the construction of it, and you realize that nothing in it matches up to what you might expect. The phrasing is irregular, the melody is broken up among different instruments, and what one hears as "the theme" is different every single time it appears.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> I love elements that don't quite match our preconceptions about how music will go.
> 
> , the melody is broken up among different instruments, .


Good point. That's what always bothers me about reconstruction of his Tenth -- that in any given passage they stay with the same instrumentation too long, and that the effect of "never stepping in the same river twice," which is a hallmark of Mahler, is lost completely.

Your comments about the adagio of the Sixth also apply to that of the Fourth -- although as a variations movement, it's more to be expected.


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2014)

I don't have a list of music that I consider to be "predictable" and another list that I consider to be "less predictable". (I'm excluding obvious exceptions like "Bolero".) 

I suppose if I tried it might be possible to produce a few examples of each type, but it would still leave a huge grey which I couldn't classify either way with any lasting confidence.

I don't think that composers can be classified according to their degree of predictabilty. Even for Vivaldi there is actually quite a lot variation if you take the trouble to delve below the surface. 

I doubt that it is possible to state that any particular genre is more prone to predictabilty than others, with the possible exception of minimalism, although even there some quite interesting changes can sometimes occur. I would say the same thing in regard to the major time periods, with the possible exception of some types of Medieval music (e.g. Gregorian Chant) but they're such small beer that it's hardly significant.

Predictability is also a function of the frequency of one's listening to the same work: any work would become predictable if enough time was spent focused on it. And the amount of time spent focused on specific works might well be a function of the size of one's music collection. The size of one's collection might itself be a function of one's age/income level, or it might simply be indicative of only a luke-warm interest in classical music.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

starry said:


> I thought my post was extremely clear compared to your own which just seemed a cheap shot loaded with assumptions.
> 
> The threads on intellectualism don't mean that people are anti-intellectual. They wouldn't be on a forum discussing things if they didn't think about music, well many here discuss music anyway some are more what they like/don't like. But then you like that too don't you? That's your populist role, away from the intellectual.
> 
> ...


I'm sorry, man. Evidently I've upset you - I suspected it in your first response but it's on the surface in this one - and I really don't know why or how. In this thread in particular, I didn't mean to say anything... like, cutting or critical or whatever. And nothing was said with you "in mind" as it were.

For example, I didn't mean that "people here can't have perfectly valid things to say as well" or anything like that.

Did the "every literate person" bit offend you? I just tossed that off, intending it to be ridiculously flippant. I didn't think anyone would take it seriously.

If you can tell me what upset you, maybe I can do something about it... or maybe not, I don't know yet, but anyway, I hope we can relax a bit and have more fun. We're just chatting about music.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Piwikiwi said:


> If heard very negative things about that book, that it was pseudo science. Do you disagree?


I have attempted to read the book. I failed mostly due to, ah. expositional style rather than subject matter. The "pseudo" label is sort of misapplied I think. Some of the author's story involves conclusions based on scientifically insufficient data, i.e. some hypotheses may not have been exhaustively tested. Happens a lot with popularizations related to how the mind works. The Pinker guy still makes a good living writing this stuff.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

GGluek said:


> Good point. That's what always bothers me about reconstruction of his Tenth -- that in any given passage they stay with the same instrumentation too long, and that the effect of "never stepping in the same river twice," which is a hallmark of Mahler, is lost completely.


Exactly. I think the person most suited to reconstructing Mahler's Tenth would have been Alban Berg, who learned a good deal from Mahler's orchestral technique (but with a bit of Strauss's lusher idiom thrown in for good measure).



GGluek said:


> Your comments about the adagio of the Sixth also apply to that of the Fourth -- although as a variations movement, it's more to be expected.


Also a great movement, though the structure of the theme is the same each time, unlike with the Sixth. You're right that the variations do go very far afield, though.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Piwikiwi said:


> If heard very negative things about that book, that it was pseudo science. Do you disagree?


That's interesting. Levitin holds a chair in behavioral neuroscience at McGill University and runs a laboratory focused on music perception. He's a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and published regularly in peer reviewed journals in the field related to his book. The book includes many references to published works. All of that doesn't mean that the book is absolutely correct, but generally he is not the kind of person usually accused of writing pseudo-science.

Do you remember where you heard those negative things?


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

science said:


> I'm sorry, man. Evidently I've upset you - I suspected it in your first response but it's on the surface in this one - and I really don't know why or how. In this thread in particular, I didn't mean to say anything... like, cutting or critical or whatever. And nothing was said with you "in mind" as it were.
> 
> For example, I didn't mean that "people here can't have perfectly valid things to say as well" or anything like that.
> 
> ...


It's fine, I was just making some points within that. I don't mind you bringing up some points from a book, but it just seemed to be used as if some people here couldn't relate to the book as they are supposedly anti-intellectual. It just didn't make much sense to me at that level.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Piwikiwi said:


> If heard very negative things about that book, that it was pseudo science. Do you disagree?


I'm not comfortable with the term "pseudo-science" though. Levitin isn't doing anything like homeopathy or astrology or whatever. But then, it's also not "science." A lot of the book is meant to be a popularization of science. Which parts of the science will hold up to a few more decades of research and competing theories and so on? Really, I'm not an expert so I couldn't even make an educated guess.

One thing that I agree with him about: I'd also be _enormously_ surprised if Pinker's that music is "auditory cheesecake" theory turns out to be true.

In terms of this thread, I suspect he's right that there is a spectrum of tolerance/need (I don't remember how Levitin put it and I am probably messing up his ideas) of predictability. Earlier "starry" seemed to believe that his idea was that an individual's place on this spectrum would be permanent, and I think he might have explicitly disagreed with that in his discussion about how children learn music, but even if he didn't, at least I don't see any reason to assume that.

(Even if he did say that or if it turns out to be true, I don't see that it would be anti-intellectual. If he said that a person's place on that spectrum was stable throughout her lifetime, he wouldn't be saying that a person couldn't learn about music, or even that a person's tastes couldn't change [after all, unpredictable stuff repeated becomes predictable eventually]; only that her maximally pleasurable "ratio" of predictability to surprise would be stable.)

For myself, I think I'm on the fairly extreme end of novelty-enjoyment. I'm an explorer by temperament, not only of music but of pretty much everything else (food, territory, ideas, whatever). Similarly, I get bored more easily than most people around me seem to.

I don't think this has limited me in classical music, because I didn't start learning about it until I was an adult, so basically something like Vivaldi is new to me; maybe not as new to me as Ge Gan-Ru, but still, it's not what I grew up listening to. I think the only people who can imagine how opaque classical music (I mean the likes of Saint-Saëns) was to me 20 years ago, are people who grew up in a house like mine, where really the most Beethoven I think I ever heard until I was 17 or so was the "Nobody's Home" answering machine message in a tv ad.

I enjoy Stockhausen and Oliveros and Cage as easily as I enjoy Vivaldi - I don't ever recall _not_ enjoying music like that.

But give me what I grew up listening to - "inspirational" Christian contemporary music and top-40 pop music and "new country" - and I can get uncomfortable pretty fast. I'm not hardcore; I can enjoy some of that, particularly if the performance is creative. And of course I have some sentimental old favorites that remind me of sentimental old things. But basically I don't like that kind of music; if someone plays it, I will usually enjoy it more if they play it fairly differently than I've heard it before.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

starry said:


> It's fine, I was just making some points within that. I don't mind you bringing up some points from a book, but it just seemed to be used as if some people here couldn't relate to the book as they are supposedly anti-intellectual. It just didn't make much sense to me at that level.


Was the other thread the "intellectual" poll thread? If something there bothered you, let me know in that thread and I'll see what I can do.


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## randomnese (Nov 30, 2013)

Ukko said:


> I have long (and I mean long) thought that some folks' initial unfavorable reaction to Brahms' music is caused by its tendency to suggest a path and then not follow it.


Absolutely.

Take Brahms's 3rd Piano Quartet (3rd movement). He throws in a C-natural in the first three notes of an E major movement (which is strange in itself; the rest of the piece is in C minor!). Brahms's tendency to add unexpected and surprising chords is what makes him one of my favorite composers.

Some of my favorite surprises come from Tchaikovsky. He modulates all over the place in some pieces: his 4th symphony swings to wild keys (F minor to A flat minor to B, anyone?) before final settling down. Also, the coda of the 1st movement of his Manfred Symphony starts with a dying bassoon line that sets off a massive tutti coda, the bass instruments pounding out rhythmic figures with all the strings sul G. An awesome, powerful, and dark section. The most famous example would most likely be his Pathétique's first movement, with the _pppppp_ marking in the bassoon part followed by an orchestral outburst. I recall sitting on the bus and upping the volume in this section on my headphones. The jolting and hissing of the bus prevented me from hearing the bass, so I turned the volume all the way up. When the brass came in suddenly, my eardrums nearly blew off and I fell out of my seat! Gotta love Tchaikovsky.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> That's interesting. Levitin holds a chair in behavioral neuroscience at McGill University and runs a laboratory focused on music perception. He's a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and published regularly in peer reviewed journals in the field related to his book. The book includes many references to published works. All of that doesn't mean that the book is absolutely correct, but generally he is not the kind of person usually accused of writing pseudo-science.
> 
> Do you remember where you heard those negative things?


Behavioral and "Exact Science" don't coincide (never have, always have remained in some quarters controversial, or heavily doubted, etc.) The Behavioral is more in the realm of psychology, which is not an exact science no matter how 'solid' some of the premises and data about those premises are.

Behavioralists have always been under fire -- with many a doubt expressed as to the validity of both their premises and conclusions -- from various quarters: I think that is where some of the 'dissing' comes into play


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I'm glad this thread was bumped up; I stopped reading it too soon. (From my viewpoint; YMMV.)

The 'soft' side of Behavioral science has a deeper hole in the middle of it than some other 'soft' sciences. The stimuli can be documented, and so can the gross results. Following the trace chemicals around _and figuring out just what they're doing_ involves that deep hole - and it's _dark_ in there. I'm pretty sure now that Pinker relies on the darkness to make his living.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

There is a difference between music that is 'random' and music that is 'indeterminate.' Total chance does not give me the same sense of control that 'indeterminate' music does.

'Indeterminate' music operates within certain prescribed guidelines, like Pierre Boulez' _Second Piano Sonata,_ Morton Feldman's graphic scores and indeterminate music (MODE), and John Cage's indeterminate music which operates within certain limits of chance.

Is there really such a thing as 'total randomness?' This has been questioned.

If I listen to a recording of an indeterminate John Cage work, then sooner or later it will become familiar and predictable to me, since it is a recording.

The only way music can be 'unpredictable' is if it is occurring in the moment, as a 'live' performance.

The only thing that can be 'unpredictable' is the present moment, and even that is predictable within certain bounds. The sun will rise, etc.



Click image to enlarge.












Morton Feldman: Composing by Numbers - The Graphic Scores, 1950-67 CD Morton Feldman


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## BaronScarpia (Apr 2, 2014)

I like balance. A mix of predictable and unpredictable is perfect for me. That's why I adore Sibelius.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> 'Indeterminate' music operates within certain prescribed guidelines, like Pierre Boulez' _Second Piano Sonata,_


I thought it was his third sonata that was indeterminate. His second sonata is fully written out, unless I'm missing something.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> I love elements that don't quite match our preconceptions about how music will go.
> 
> The Andante from Mahler's Sixth is brilliant. There's nothing superfluous in it, and when one listens to it, it feels self-evidently like the most natural thing in the world. But get down into the construction of it, and you realize that nothing in it matches up to what you might expect. The phrasing is irregular, the melody is broken up among different instruments, and what one hears as "the theme" is different every single time it appears.


Great music avoids the obvious yet sounds inevitable. Mediocre music does the obvious yet sounds unnecessary.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Both. 

I love the formulaic regularity of the Haydn London Symphonies. After hearing 2 or 3, one can almost write a movement given the opening theme, following the formula, except.....I can't.

I also love the chaotic unpredictability of Ives Concord Piano Sonata.

Great music transcends the predictable or unpredictable.


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## Svelte Silhouette (Nov 7, 2013)

I like Surprise and Haydn


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

hpowders said:


> Both.
> 
> I love the formulaic regularity of the Haydn London Symphonies. After hearing 2 or 3, one can almost write a movement given the opening theme, following the formula, except.....I can't.
> 
> ...


Yeah, it clearly does. The predictability thing is pretty unstable anyway_; _not only does it dissolve under close focus, but there must be a limit to how many exceptions can be ignored.

[I'm not a statistician - is there an 'outlier' limit'?]


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Ukko said:


> Yeah, it clearly does. The predictability thing is pretty unstable anyway_; _not only does it dissolve under close focus, but there must be a limit to how many exceptions can be ignored.
> 
> [I'm not a statistician - is there an 'outlier' limit'?]


I think you may be thinking of classical music rather than music in general. If you hear a line of a normal pop song, even if you haven't heard it before, you can probably hum the next line more or less accurately. You probably hear the modulation to the bridge coming a mile away. That's not the same thing as writing out a movement of Haydn, but even with Haydn, if he suddenly went 12-tone you'd be a bit more startled than you are by what he actually does.

It's easier for me to think of in terms of jazz. You've got the head, and then you've got solos. How surprising are the solos? Some guys just change the phrases of the melody a bit, some go so wild that it's hard to tell whether they've even got the beat in their heads or not. And so, which sort of solo do you like better? How wild do you want it to be?


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Both useful, but the unpredictability is what keeps me coming back.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Vesuvius said:


> Both useful, but the unpredictability is what keeps me coming back.


What's interesting about that is that even if we come back to a piece or a performance many times and get to know it well enough that nothing in it is any longer an actual surprise, we can still appreciate and enjoy its originality and resourcefulness in not doing the most obvious thing. Maybe this is somewhat equivalent to reading a good mystery novel more than once: we know "who dunnit" and we remember what happens next, but we can still enjoy - maybe even more than on first reading - the imagination and skill with which the author sets us up, plays around with our expectations, and ties things together in the end.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> What's interesting about that is that even if we come back to a piece or a performance many times and get to know it well enough that nothing in it is any longer an actual surprise, we can still appreciate and enjoy its originality and resourcefulness in not doing the most obvious thing. Maybe this is somewhat equivalent to reading a good mystery novel more than once: we know "who dunnit" and we remember what happens next, but we can still enjoy - maybe even more than on first reading - the imagination and skill with which the author sets us up, plays around with our expectations, and ties things together in the end.


Definitely an appreciation will remain, but I certainly won't have that strong urge to dive in anymore. I think that's why I can listen to Mozart, and now Bach, so much. Currently, my intellect simply isn't strong enough to completely figure them out. So there remains this space of freshness and spontaneity, as it's a place of perception that I haven't reached yet. Absolutely brilliant.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I follow Woodduck's insightful observation with a quote of the final portion of mmsbls's initial post (where the bolding is mine):



mmsbls said:


> I know this topic will have some confusion because predictability can arise from the style of music _*or from repeated listening*._ Still I'd appreciate hearing people's views on predictable and unpredictable (or less predictable) music.


I'm not sure we should talk about predictable/unpredictable music because on closer analysis, such a paradigm breaks down. The key to this is -- repeated acquaintance with a work. Why is it that I can enjoy my 500th listen to the Beethoven Fifth when I know virtually every note ... and especially how it ends? Surely I cannot claim to not love "predictable music". All music becomes predictable after repeated exposure to it.

Much of my work was done in the theatre where few things are as predictable as a play (especially one that a theatre artist is working on). When I directed _Hamlet_ I had known the play for forty years. Surely I should have found it boring. But such was not the case. Even though I know every line, _and how it ends_, it was a thrill to work with the piece. I learned so much.

The same resonance I find in Beethoven's symphonies, which I have been listening to for over half a century. In fact, great art in general possesses a quality that allows for fuller knowledge of the work to add interest rather than subtract it. Why is that? I'm not exactly sure, and yet I've pondered this issue for years. I chalk it up to that ineffable quality of great art -- the mysterious element that makes great art _great_.

When we approach a work for the first time, it is always a surprise, not predictable. Perhaps the surprise_ is_ the work's predictableness, but that is something we cannot predict. We can know it only after experiencing the work. Then we may say: "Ah! That was similar to his last work."

So true predictability is not possible.

Surprise itself may not be a virtue. Suppose the surprise is one we don't like. "Heck," we might say, "I liked the piece until _that_ happened." Something you did not expect is certainly unpredictable, but unpredictability in itself is no cause for celebration.

Worth rumination, perhaps, is the act of encountering a great work of art (one which bears repeated exposure such as _Hamlet_ or the Beethoven Fifth) for the first time. At my age it is difficult to experience a masterpiece in music for the first time. I envy something in those who yet have to hear the Bach _Matthew Passion_ or _B minor Mass_, or the Mahler symphonies, or Berg's _Wozzeck_, or ... I sometimes feel I would give anything to be able to hear the Beethoven Fifth again for the first time. Alas ...

But I _have_ gotten to hear Ferdinand Ries's Symphony No. 5 in D minor, and the surprise of it kept me smiling for hours. (Poor Ries. The symphony is actually his second written, but because of some sort of publishing error it became listed as his Fifth. Sad, really. But funny, too, in a way.) Which is one reason why I seek out new musical experiences, because eventually I will hear, for the first time, a masterpiece (probably one written by a contemporary composer -- I do not mean to imply that the Ries Fifth is such a masterpiece).

In any case, I eschew this concept of predictable and unpredictable music in favor of listening, pondering, and listening again. About the only thing that _is_ predictable, is that few things are, and probably nothing in the field of the arts.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Vesuvius said:


> Definitely an appreciation will remain, but I certainly won't have that strong urge to dive in anymore. I think that's why I can listen to Mozart, and now Bach, so much. Currently, my intellect simply isn't strong enough to completely figure them out. So there remains this space of freshness and spontaneity, as it's a place of perception that I haven't reached yet. Absolutely brilliant.


Although we can tire of anything by listening too often, in the normal course of things that probably won't happen for a very long time. There are things in Mozart and Bach (and others) that still seem fresh after 50 years, even after I have "figured them out," - moments when I'm amazed at the way the composer gets from point A to point B. A great example is how, in the sonata-allegro first movement of a classical symphony or concerto, Mozart or Haydn can take us on a wild ride full of surprises in the development section, and, just when we're thinking "Wow, where is this going?", bring us home to the recap in a way that's so surprising, yet so easy and inevitable, that we want to laugh out loud at the sleight of hand. One of the marks of a lesser composer is that he's not able to give us that experience: either there is sheer predictability - the music makes all the right moves but doesn't interest us in what might come next - or there are unexpected gestures which don't seem to have much purpose and don't satisfy in the end.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SONNET CLV said:


> I follow Woodduck's insightful observation with a quote of the final portion of mmsbls's initial post (where the bolding is mine):
> 
> I'm not sure we should talk about predictable/unpredictable music because on closer analysis, such a paradigm breaks down. The key to this is -- repeated acquaintance with a work. Why is it that I can enjoy my 500th listen to the Beethoven Fifth when I know virtually every note ... and especially how it ends? Surely I cannot claim to not love "predictable music". All music becomes predictable after repeated exposure to it.
> 
> ...


We seem to be of a mind here. Nicely expressed! Thanks.

P.S. I do wonder, though, whether your expectation of hearing a masterpiece by a contemporary composer is based on any recent experience. I think you may be close to my age, but you seem to have retained your youthful optimism longer than I have. In any event, here's to that masterpiece lurking around the corner: :cheers: May we recognize it when we hear it!


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

SONNET CLV said:


> I'm not sure we should talk about predictable/unpredictable music because on closer analysis, such a paradigm breaks down. The key to this is -- repeated acquaintance with a work. Why is it that I can enjoy my 500th listen to the Beethoven Fifth when I know virtually every note ... and especially how it ends? Surely I cannot claim to not love "predictable music". All music becomes predictable after repeated exposure to it.


I think you're talking of structural memorization rather the understanding of the intellectual perspective of the composer. That's what I'm referring to here about predictability and unpredictability. There are pieces of Mozart and Beethoven in which I know the structural melodic lines, but I'm not quite sure how they pulled it from the ether. This remains in the realm of unpredictability.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Vesuvius said:


> I think you're talking of structural memorization rather the understanding of the intellectual perspective of the composer. That's what I'm referring to here about predictability and unpredictability. *There are pieces of Mozart and Beethoven in which I know the structural melodic lines, but I'm not quite sure how they pulled it from the ether. *This remains in the realm of unpredictability.


Perhaps what you mean by the word "unpredictability" is what I'm speaking of when I use the word "ineffable" or the term "the numinous quality" in reference to art. Indeed, there is a mysterious aspect, something too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words, to great art, something deeply aligned with the "human spirit" (whatever that may be) itself.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

SONNET CLV said:


> Perhaps what you mean by the word "unpredictability" is what I'm speaking of when I use the word "ineffable" or the term "the numinous quality" in reference to art. Indeed, there is a mysterious aspect, something too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words, to great art, something deeply aligned with the "human spirit" (whatever that may be) itself.


Our lingo differed, but I think we're on the same page. I'm elated that was so quickly discerned. What an intelligent group we have here.

:tiphat:


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