# STRICTLY Classical



## cobragirl (Dec 6, 2010)

Is there anyone that has heard of a person that does not believe in other styles of music as being appropriate for acoustic instruments such as violin and cello? Or, not believing that electric instruments are not true forms of their acoustic? 

I'm writing a paper for school about acoustic versus electric instruments and I need to find someone with a stance of not agreeing with electric instruments. 

If you know of anyone, please let me know! Thanks!


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## cobragirl (Dec 6, 2010)

I forgot to write that I mean it in the sense as acoustic instruments as classical, and electric as basically, everything else, and some classical.


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## Jean Christophe Paré (Nov 21, 2010)

Electric instruments are fine, but should be considered as separate instruments in some - if not most - cases.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Any instrument that requires amplification ought not to be heard in the first place.

There is no reason to amplify existing accoustic instruments except to make a profit. That is to say, selling a lot of expensive electronic equipment to musicians who can't afford to pay for it, or trying to fit so many audience members into a room (to make the $$$) that you have to amplify the musicians.
Chamber music should be played in a chamber, not a football stadium. That's why a string quartet can drive to their venue in a family sedan, but a rock bank needs a 20' container full of crap.

A symphony orchestra makes a sound big enough to fill a 2500-seat concert hall. That's where it should stay, and where it sounds best. You put it in a vast concrete bunker, amplify it and sell tickets to 15,000 fools, and everyone is shortchanged, except the concert promoter.

Electric/electronic instruments are an abomination.
All this electricity is solely intended to produce massive volumes, which are needed to oppress your brain activity so you don't notice that the 'music' itself has all the emotional and intellectual development of a bowl of cocoa-pops.
It's the cultural equivalent of soldiers going mad under constant shellfire; if someone just pounds I, IV and V chords at you at 105dB for ninety minutes, you scream and weep and throw yourself around with bodily spasms. 

I once heard rock music succintly defined as "Monotony tinged with hysteria."
That's what electric instruments are for; to create such physical hysteria that you don't notice the monotony of the music being played.

You take something written for some of these silly electric instrument bands and play it on the piano or by an acoustic chamber group and you'll realise how bad it was to begin with.

The guitar is the most intimate (portable) domestic instrument. It is wistful, romantic. An electric guitar as almost as far from that as you can get.

It staggers me to see all this crap that 'electric players' have to lug around. Jeez, making (non-vocal) music is easy; all you need is an instrument. You don't need a power supply, cables, amplifiers, pick-ups, effects pedals....

It's not a case of "accoustic = classical, electric = everything else". No.
It's "accoustic = music, electric = commercial assault".

cheers,
G


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Thats not true at all. Electronic instruments do lose a lot, and i see no reason to substitue an amplified instrument for an orchestra. However, electric signals provide a composer with infinite possibilties to alter and modify the sound.
Digitising sound provides a versatility never before afforded.

Edit: wow, upon rereading Graeme, i am shocked by your post. It displays an ignorance, prejudice and traditionalism not often encountered on this board.


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## Jean Christophe Paré (Nov 21, 2010)

So all music for Ondes Martenot, Theremin, Telharmonium, etc. are abominations?


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## Random (Mar 13, 2010)

GraemeG said:


> Electric/electronic instruments are an abomination.
> All this electricity is solely intended to produce massive volumes, which are needed to oppress your brain activity so you don't notice that the 'music' itself has all the emotional and intellectual development of a bowl of cocoa-pops.
> It's the cultural equivalent of soldiers going mad under constant shellfire; if someone just pounds I, IV and V chords at you at 105dB for ninety minutes, you scream and weep and throw yourself around with bodily spasms.
> 
> ...


:tiphat:

:tiphat:


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Jean Christophe Paré said:


> So all music for Ondes Martenot, Theremin, Telharmonium, etc. are abominations?


No, they're novelties. Or, more charitably, musical special effects. Like Respighi's gramophone nightingale, Strauss' Alpine wind machine, Rossini's tapping-the-music-stand-with-the-bow-stick, all that kind of thing (dare I add Leroy Anderson's typewriter?).

So, not abominations, no. But not musical instruments per se. Rather splashes of colour. Even Hindemith didn't write a sonata for Ondes Martenot.



emiellucifuge said:


> Edit: wow, upon rereading Graeme, i am shocked by your post. It displays an ignorance, prejudice and traditionalism not often encountered on this board.


No, no. Just observing the emperor's lack of vestments. If the only defence of electronic music is the ability to manipulate the sound, then it's a pretty thin case. It comes down to novelty again.
In fact, the musical painting - approximation, if you like - conjured up in 'unauthentic' sound is actually more effective than the real sound created electronically. The storm in IV of the _Pastorale_ for instance, would be _less_ effective had Beethoven the capability (as exists now) to play a true electronic storm in the middle of the symphony, instead of the instrumental one he creates.
(Apart from which, I'm not interested in paying money to go an hear something artificially created which nature supplies for free!)

I've heard plenty of 'amplified' concerts (I mean with general mikes amplifying the sound, rather than pure electronic instruments) and they're always compromised. As for concerts of pure electronic instruments, they're almost always punishingly loud.
Aren't they?
cheers,
G


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Let us ignore genres such as rock for a moment. 
Let me also agree with you on certain points. There is no need to amplify an orchestra - it is loud enough, there is no need to play electronic violins -you only sacrifice control and expression. Nor am i considering playing sound effects or recordings of other sounds i.e. a thunder storm.

However, as stated earlier, digitizing sound provides near infinite possibilities of manipulation. Never before have composers been able to directly control the frequency, amplitude or wavelength of a sound wave. Computers allow the creation of infinite timbres that have not before existed. I have heard multiple composers complain about the lack of new instruments, including Penderecki; computers may now provide half the solution. 
Aside from computers, digitizing an originally analogue signal (for example, a violin) allows the composer to apply effects and create new sound worlds. Distortion, reverberation.

Hasn't the aim of all composers been to manipulate sound and thus create art? If so - then the electronic revolution will occupy an important place in music.


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## Falstaft (Mar 27, 2010)

Wow GraemeG, that polemic certainly should furnish cobragirl with the material she needs for her paper!


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## dmg (Sep 13, 2009)

What about music played on an electric guitar without harsh chord jamming or distortion, and played skillfully - such as with blues music? Piling all electric instruments in the 'hard rock chord thrash screaming' category is just ... as far off base as you can get. 'Electric' does not mean 'amplified to the point of deafness'.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

dmg said:


> What about music played on an electric guitar without harsh chord jamming or distortion, and played skillfully - such as with blues music? Piling all electric instruments in the 'hard rock chord thrash screaming' category is just ... as far off base as you can get.


Ah, but is there any benefit over the same music played on traditional acoustic instruments?


> 'Electric' does not mean 'amplified to the point of deafness'.


Often it does. But when it doesn't, it means "We need to make it louder to fill the otherwise-too-large venue enough that we can get the punters in to make the $$$...



emiellucifuge said:


> However, as stated earlier, digitizing sound provides near infinite possibilities of manipulation. Never before have composers been able to directly control the frequency, amplitude or wavelength of a sound wave. Computers allow the creation of infinite timbres that have not before existed. I have heard multiple composers complain about the lack of new instruments, including Penderecki; computers may now provide half the solution.
> Aside from computers, digitizing an originally analogue signal (for example, a violin) allows the composer to apply effects and create new sound worlds. Distortion, reverberation.


Possibly all true. But the original post was about instruments, and however useful the computer might be as a composing tool, it's fairly useless as an instrument...
cheers,
G


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## KaerbEmEvig (Dec 15, 2009)

GraemeG said:


> Ah, but is there any benefit over the same music played on traditional acoustic instruments?


Different timbre?
















Sounds different compared to, lets say:


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Graeme G, what a bunch of mindless piffle.


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## Mr Slang (Nov 28, 2010)

It's not a case of "accoustic = classical, electric = everything else". No.
It's "accoustic = music, electric = commercial assault".

Graeme - If this is (seriously?) the way you view/listen to music then I pity you.
I appreciate different genres of music and some artists would not have the same emotional effect played accoustically than if they are 'plugged in' ie Swans/My Bloody Valentine/Colleen to name a few.
There are a lot artists past and present that compose and perform because they have too... because it moves them...not for the love of money or fame.
Maybe your idea of electric is X-factor or britpop?
Just because someone plays an accoustic instrument over electric, doesnt mean they will write or play better than the person playing an electric instrument.
Great composers are also influenced by what is going on at the time, violence, poverty, disorder....These things can be conveyed brilliantly accoustic and (particulary)Electric.
Music is about pushing the boundaries.
Expand the possiblities, Not celebrate the limitations.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

starthrower said:


> Graeme G, what a bunch of mindless piffle.


Wow, a cogently-reasoned, tightly-argued response. I don't know what to say.
G


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Mr Slang said:


> Graeme - If this is (seriously?) the way you view/listen to music then I pity you.
> I appreciate different genres of music and some artists would not have the same emotional effect played accoustically than if they are 'plugged in' ie Swans/My Bloody Valentine/Colleen to name a few.


Too often the emotional effect is just volume, of course. Nevertheless, perhaps I will try to find something by 'My Bloody Valentine' online and listen. Is that the name of a serious group of musicians, by the way? Or a bunch of 9-year-olds thinking up silly names for their 'group'?



> There are a lot artists past and present that compose and perform because they have too... because it moves them...not for the love of money or fame.


Perhaps, but that's nothing to do with accoustic or electric instruments.



> Maybe your idea of electric is X-factor or britpop?


Dunno what those are. 3-minute songs containing half a dozen chords played at earsplitting volume by barely-talented teenagers? Just a guess, of course...



> Just because someone plays an accoustic instrument over electric, doesnt mean they will write or play better than the person playing an electric instrument.


True but irrelevant.



> Great composers are also influenced by what is going on at the time, violence, poverty, disorder....These things can be conveyed brilliantly accoustic and (particulary)Electric.
> Music is about pushing the boundaries.
> Expand the possiblities, Not celebrate the limitations.


I don't know what you're talking about. Poverty? Boundaries? Composers working in an era when electricity is commercially available are obliged to write for electric instruments when Mozart wasn't? Sorry, don't follow you here.
G


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

You don't know what to say? You've spewed enough ignorant comments already.


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## Glaliraha (May 2, 2010)

Mozart would have written music for electric guitar if it existed during his lifetime.

I'm going to write a Drumkit Sonata, which will include two bass drums, 12 toms (one for each note on the keyboard), cowbells, chimes, snare, and ride, crash, china, splash, and hi-hat cymbals.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

starthrower said:


> You don't know what to say? You've spewed enough ignorant comments already.


Argghh, enough with the remorseless logic...
GG


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

I'm with GraemeG on this one. I enjoy concerts more than I enjoy listening to my hifi at home because at the concert it is just me and the performers. They have to make their music unaided. If they were to use any sort of amplification this 'humanness' would be diminished, not least because the amplification would alter the tone of the sound. Very likely the performers or their helpers would have been at the venue beforehand setting up the equipment and fiddling around with equalisers or whatever. 

...and at the performance could I be sure they were really playing?


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Chris said:


> I'm with GraemeG on this one. I enjoy concerts more than I enjoy listening to my hifi at home because at the concert it is just me and the performers. They have to make their music unaided. If they were to use any sort of amplification this 'humanness' would be diminished, not least because the amplification would alter the tone of the sound. Very likely the performers or their helpers would have been at the venue beforehand setting up the equipment and fiddling around with equalisers or whatever.
> 
> ...and at the performance could I be sure they were really playing?


What if a composer is aiming for a machinistic sound? In this respect amplified instruments would serve better that traditional instruments.

The overall point is: They should be appreciated for the qualities of their sound and not compared to violins.


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> What if a composer is aiming for a machinistic sound? In this respect amplified instruments would serve better that traditional instruments.


A skillful composer can make a 'machinistic' sound with acoustic instruments, all the more powerful for being suggestive of machines without using them. Shostakovich was good at it.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Sure so they shouldnt take advantage of existing technology just because they 'should' be able to manage without.
What if we hadnt adopted the tuba, surely the ophocleide can provide a satisfactory sound when used in the right hands? Perhaps we should sacrifice some versatility in exchange for a reputation as a 'skillful' composer.


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> What if we hadnt adopted the tuba, surely the ophocleide can provide a satisfactory sound when used in the right hands? Perhaps we should sacrifice some versatility in exchange for a reputation as a 'skillful' composer.


The argument is about the suitability of electronic instruments and amplification in classical music so I can't quite see the relevance of this example. I'll just say I wouldn't want to hear an electric tuba or a computerised ophocleide.

On the wider point, I am suspicious of a composer who feels he needs to discover, by scientific means, strange and novel sounds. I can understand a creator of sound effects, working perhaps in the film industry, might have a need to create previously unheard aural effects, but surely a composer of music does not need such an infinite palette. In his Pastoral Symphony Beethoven beautifully portrays birdsong using the few instruments available in the woodwind section. Birds do not really sound like flutes and clarinets. It does not matter. Birdsong is pictured to perfection. It even works, if not quite as well, when the symphony is transcribed for piano, such is the quality of the composition. Now if a composer insists that his work must be 'played' on some apparatus that produces some curious unique waveform, I would ask, are his admirers, as they sit cross-legged on the floor, eyebrows making a stern V, enjoying music or merely appreciating its component sounds?


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

The point was, this technology exists so composers can make use of it.

This thread is not about samples to imitate real sounds. I agree with you that Beethoven did this perfectly, should another composer wish to create bird sounds in his music then it is up to their artistic sensibilities how do they do it. At least there should be no taboo on the use of modern technology.
I hardly see how one can predict that any future use of a bird sample will be inferior to Beethovens 6th - perhaps in its proper context?

Speaking on topic about electric instruments such as the guitar. These instruments may be used by composers in a way that suits their own individual timbre. At the very least electric instruments widen the palette of colours available dramatically. A composer is someone who manipulates sound to create art (whatever that may be), and the synthesiser gives a composer unprecedented control over sound. Im sure that in the right hands we will see electronic masterpieces.

As to whether we will enjoy it - that is irrelevant.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Musicians and composers have been writing brilliant music for electric instruments for decades now. I have a huge collection of this stuff by people like Frank Zappa, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Bill Frisell, Joe Zawinul, Allan Holdsworth etc. 

The argument that this type of music can't hold up when performed acoustically is rubbish.

Even in the rock music world groups like Gentle Giant, and King Crimson composed very
advanced, high quality music with great melodies.

As far as acoustic vs. electric guitar is concerned, the intimacy and delicacy is in the hands of the player.
It has nothing to do with the instrument.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

to grame-g:

its not the instrument being amplified electrically that's killing the dynamics in music or creating deafness, its the engineers setting up that concert that are to blame.

I think if one wants to truly hate electronic music than they should learn about the loudness war before anything else - because its the engineer that usually makes this huge mistake in overcompressing music to the point where dynamics are lost. this happened on one of metallicas newer albums (i think 2 years or so ago) and alot of people complained because of how horrible it was recorded (thats not to say the instruments themselves were bad - the microphone positions were off, too much gain was applied to the compressors, the drums were limited to the point of ridiculousness - fault of the engineer who is responsible for bringing a recording to life) 

then by this I can also conclude that some concertos or quartets are also very badly recorded, depending on the engineer in charge, if they're brave enough to compress it to the same standards of pop music, than we would have a travesty for acoustic instruments sounding horrible as well.

Any music can is fine as long as the guy behind the mic (the one whos recording it) knows what hes doing - because not everyone has the luxury of attending a concert hall to appreciate the music.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Igneous01 said:


> to grame-g:
> Any music can is fine as long as the guy behind the mic (the one whos recording it) knows what hes doing - because not everyone has the luxury of attending a concert hall to appreciate the music.


Pretty much all my comments were made in the context of listening to music live. A 'recording' imposes another near-infinite variable between music and listener, and can only ever really degrade the original performance, even if only by degree.
GG


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I'm not against composers using electric instruments, but its not anything I'm really into. If I want to hear great electronic effects I'll listen to the Mars Volta, or something like U2's Achtung Baby. Which I do occasionally listen to. Within a classical context I still prefer 100% acoustic set ups just because I just think they sound better, and still offer an infinite amount of possibilities. As an aspiring composer I embrace the challenge of pushing boundaries within an all acoustic format. But I wouldn't really want to place any limitations or restrictions on what anyone else is doing.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

GraemeG said:


> Pretty much all my comments were made in the context of listening to music live. A 'recording' imposes another near-infinite variable between music and listener, and can only ever really degrade the original performance, even if only by degree.
> GG


while this may be most prominent in recordings, the engineer still has a critical role in live setups, as he/she (or the team) resolve issues with mic and speaker placements - amp settings - feeding it all through the mixer (which then supplies all the effects - compression/limiting/phasing/etc/etc) which finally comes out of speakers - which is why if the engineer has done it right, then as a live performance electronic instruments should sound well versed, and not distorted and compressed beyond belief.

Ive heard on youtube both good and bad live setups, but i guess i cant really fully comment on this since its not in the context of live.


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