# Quality over Quantity



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Not always so. I have a playlist on media player with about 80% of The Beatles' tracks and it comes in at nearly 6 hours. So if you had every track by The Beatles you could say their output was 7-8 hours long. JS Bach's cantatas come in at 72.7 hours! And for those who listen to JS Bach's cantatas will know they are not dross or just conveyor belt churned out garbage. Each one is a masterpiece. How he did it I can't begin to imagine. And then think of the rest of his repertoire, off the top of my head we could be looking at 150-170 hours of music, easily.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Okay. I'm sure you didn't mean it, but looks a lot like you're stating that the Beatles are quality and Bach is quantity


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

How about quality in quantity? Also, the Beatles were only active for 8 years not more than 50 like the esteemed JS Bach.

Me? I love both Beatles and Bach and am very happy that way.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I have no idea what this thread is about, but to make a general statement, I like quality.


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## Robert Gamble (Dec 18, 2016)

I like quality in quantity.


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## St Matthew (Aug 26, 2017)

Subjectivity just called, it wants it's thread Bach


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

I was trying to make the point that...you know what, you really don't need to know!


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

classical yorkist said:


> How about quality in quantity? Also, the Beatles were only active for 8 years not more than 50 like the esteemed JS Bach.
> 
> Me? I love both Beatles and Bach and am very happy that way.


But didn't Bach write the majority of his cantatas over a period of 4-5 years as well as composing his secular works also?


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Bach didn't have to go on concert tours for months to perform his compositions like the Beatles had, they were also performing musicians. Besides if this is the comparison between written compositions by past composers vs recorded songs/compositions by contemporaries, like a pop or rock band - then almost all past composers were more prolific than modern/contemporary musicians, and anyway, we go by the knowledge only what they actually record, there have to be songs that didn't make into the records/tapes /CDs. This is a comment on quantity only.


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

And all of the feature films, tv specials and videos that Bach made are rubbish.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Marinera said:


> Bach didn't have to go on concert tours for months to perform his compositions like the Beatles had, they were also performing musicians. Besides if this is the comparison between written compositions by past composers vs recorded songs/compositions by contemporaries, like a pop or rock band - then almost all past composers were more prolific than modern/contemporary musicians, and anyway, we go by the knowledge only what they actually record, there have to be songs that didn't make into the records/tapes /CDs. This is a comment on quantity only.


some good points there - plus pop musicians could earn a fortune from 1 record


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## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

beetzart said:


> But didn't Bach write the majority of his cantatas over a period of 4-5 years as well as composing his secular works also?


I was going to say something like that but was too lazy to check (there are some pre-Leipzig cantatas too) and it's late.

Of course, Bach was hardly ever stoned so he had that advantage productivity-wise.

I'm only posting to make the unoriginal observation that the greatest composers were extraordinarily productive. I'll only mention the example of Schubert (who did like to get a bit pissed now and then, now that I think of it) but who, in his all-too-brief career, dashed off roughly 500 more songs than the Beatles have left us.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

But the Beatles stopped touring in 1966 didn't they? Look, I like the Beatles; I like Bach more though. I just thought the ratio was worth mentioning because it is so huge. I mean 72.7 hours of just cantatas and not a bad one amongst them! Some of the most famous melodies lie in that huge body of work. The man was a machine with emotion unlike other prolific composers like Czerny and Telemann. Yes, The Beatles wrote some great tunes no doubt whatsoever but why are there no JS Bachs around today?


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

beetzart said:


> ...but why are there no JS Bachs around today?


Some of this has to do with him being there to make use of equal temperament's very rich and untapped potential.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

eugeneonagain said:


> Some of this has to do with him being there to make use of equal temperament's very rich and untapped potential.


Yes, I agree. But didn't George Harrison remark how he couldn't believe that great tunes were still being written by using just a simple scale? Yet some of the Beatles' melodies are orgasmic and Revolution 9 is one of my favourite tracks incongruently to most people.


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## Steve1087 (Sep 17, 2017)

beetzart said:


> but why are there no JS Bachs around today?


Its simple really, Bach had no distractions like the telly or internet.
Or more likely he didn't have himself to live up to. I wonder how much of a modern composers work ends up in the litter bin (or computer recycle bin).


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## Aloevera (Oct 1, 2017)

To be fair, the addition of lyrics forces artists to severely diminish their output . Mainly because theres always a limited amount to say whereas in composition with the absence of lyrics there are infinite things to compose and an infinite amount of variation of a single tune. Also, the standard of living was worse back then so many were forced to write that much in order to survive


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