# Does music progress?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Does music progress? If so, how? If it truly progresses, doesn’t that imply that more recent music is “better” than older music?


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Of course it does, pop music is better than classical music in that it sells better. That was the goal of it.

In this same culture classical music stopped progressing for a long time because high art cannot thrive in money oriented societies.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I think it just is what it is during any given era of time neither progressing nor devolving. However, what speaks to you is special, what makes it magical and all worthwhile; this can be of any era and should be the only thing we really care about.

We can compare/contrast music of different eras, but to claim superiority in terms of attaching the term "progressing" or "devolving" to it can be arrogant.

However, I have made a few threads on this board about the classy/refined nature of Classical Music which speaks to me. Not all music offers that, and not all listeners are seeking that, and that is ok.

Just be ready to accept what your taste says about you in terms of how you personally identify with it.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I think it just is what it is during any given era of time neither progressing nor devolving. However, what speaks to you is special, what makes it magical and all worthwhile; this can be of any era and should be the only thing we really care about.
> 
> We can compare/contrast music of different eras, but to claim superiority in terms of attaching the term "progressing" or "devolving" to it can be arrogant.
> 
> ...


That is on an objective level. Personally, based on my taste, I think music has devolved in modern times.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Music does change, like in Fashion, but the new is not better than the old.


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## Honkermann (Jan 17, 2020)

There will always be people making bad music and people making truly great music.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

I think, to a certain extent, music did 'progress'. The invention of harmony and the moving away from plainchant I think should certainly be argued as a sort of 'advancement' that improved the quality of music being made. As music became increasingly complex and musical notation standardised it becomes increasingly difficult, at least in my opinion, to distinguish between musical 'progression' and what is merely change. But at least in the infancy of the Western Classical Music tradition I do think that music 'progressed' in a definable way.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Music "progressed" (="changed") for several hundred years. But now it is in a state of small random directionless constant minor change, and will remain in that state of Brownian motion for the foreseeable future.


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## mrdoc (Jan 3, 2020)

There is good and bad but from a personal perspective if it abandons melody and meter then to me it is just noise many examples on YT.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Classical music has regressed and its popularity has decreased. Popular music has regressed and its popularity has increased.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Progress? At my age I've seen a lot of mentalities of acquaintances "progress", and what is currently in evidence is nothing like what I once knew. Which is sad, as well as frightening.

Does the phrase "Your condition will progress until …" necessarily suggest a _betterness_ at the other end?

Music, as do all arts, changes over time. This is not necessarily progress. A composer's career may progress, but that doesn't mean the composer's later works are better than his early ones.

A good piece of ancient music remains a good piece of music. A good piece of Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic, Modern, or Experimental Contemporary music remains a good piece of music. A good piece of music in the key of C with no sharps or flats introduced remains a good piece of music; a good piece of atonal music remains a good piece of music. A good song for a single voice well sung is just as good in its way as a good song performed by a large, double chorus, well sung. A Medieval dance number played on rebecs or on sackbuts is good if it is good, and a modern dance number played on violins or trombones is good if it is good.

One might better use the word "innovation" rather than "progress" to speak of music. But innovation does not necessarily create "better" either. One may argue that a certain string quartet by some composer is _better_ (or _worse_) than another string quartet by the same composer, whether the works showed a progression in time passage or in personal compositional innovation and growth. An early Beethoven quartet is certainly different from a later Beethoven quartet, and "progress" of some sorts is in evidence compositionally, but can one really suggest that one of these works is "better" only because of that progress?

I'm not certain there is much point to pursuing the questions of this thread:



KenOC said:


> Does music progress? If so, how? If it truly progresses, doesn't that imply that more recent music is "better" than older music?


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Of course it progresses - but that doesn't mean it's better. The early 20th c composers were able to look to those composers in the late 19th c and learn from them - from them they learned to expand their harmonic language, the use of form, and how to handle the orchestra in brilliant ways. But then it all got to be to much and composers revolted and demanded simplification - the neoclassic movement, the 12-tone school and other new trends were born. And so it has always gone.

Country music started out basically as folk songs with acoustic string instruments. Slowly it evolved and then came Elvis - to compete the c/w people had to bring in electric guitars. Recording companies like RCA promoted a smoother, less hillbilly sound and added strings, horns, and other orchestral effects. C/W was then in danger of losing its natural sound and there were some performers who revolted and tried to right the ship and get back on track to what country was. Fighting the rock 'n roll influence was/is harder.

Broadway evolved from the moon-June-spoon world of operetta into the folksy creations of Rogers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe and others. Then came West Side Story which changed direction and now you have things like Rent, Cats, Hamilton which are so far removed from the Golden Age as can be imagined. 

But in all these forms, I hear a terrible slackening of creative genius. Today's Broadway shows do not have the memorability that the older shows did. Country music today is made up of tunes that have a spread of 4 notes it seems. The great melodies of Hank Williams and Marty Robbins are long gone. And there is practically nothing in the classical world worth saving these days. Musically, we are quite impoverished. Why? Has music run its course? Where are the fiery geniuses to renew it?


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## Guest (Jan 18, 2020)

KenOC said:


> Does music progress? If so, how? If it truly progresses, doesn't that imply that more recent music is "better" than older music?


Ed Sheeran > Beethoven, obviously.

QED


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DaveM said:


> Classical music has regressed.





mbhaub said:


> But in all these forms, I hear a terrible slackening of creative genius.


Why do you think this is?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

1996D said:


> Of course it does, pop music is better than classical music in that it sells better. That was the goal of it.
> 
> In this same culture classical music stopped progressing for a long time because high art cannot thrive in money oriented societies.


Your Darwinian approach to this is seductive but I think if we look more closely at evolution we will see a story of diversifying and specialisation. To measure the success of music only by numbers (of punters, of dollars) is like arguing that bacteria are the most successful organisms on Earth when clearly that tells so little of the story.

The diversification of music - with specialised audiences (we can move freely between them if we wish) and composers increasingly exploring more specialised and particular niches - is probably best thought of as a flowering. The same is true of natural evolution - the "tree of live" branches outwards as new niches are opened up by new organisms.

But does music advance? In the sense of this flowering it has advanced but I don't think that means that any music now is greater or better than what came before it. There are limits to the value of natural evolution as a metaphor here but again what I am saying matches how natural evolution has been - you can't say that wolves and "better" than dinosaurs (both were supremely adapted to their environments, an environment that changed constantly), for example - so no advance and no backwards steps, either.

As a more personal note to 1996D - remembering a discussion in another thread in which it seemed you had run out of music that is new to you to listen to: what a shame you can't get on with modern and contemporary music as you would find a mine of the new to explore.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Does music progress? If so, how? If it truly progresses, doesn't that imply that more recent music is "better" than older music?


Ken, I'd say that from a composer's pov, the now is an exciting time given that all conventional barriers are lifted so to speak. This could be deemed progress for a composer at least, because of the very removal of dominant traits, trends and restrictions within the perception of what music should be. The freedoms hard won over the last 100 years or so allow the composer to dig deep into their aesthetics, especially if they have the verve and desire to step to their own music so to speak along with the courage to explore and discover with a sense of adventure and openness.

Of course as a listener YMMV about the music you may hear, but that's not going to stop a composer's individual temperament hunting out music that first and foremost speaks to them as a composition. The potential for originality is enhanced with an open field imv....that is a sort of progress although ironically the same freedoms are open to abuse and perhaps even charlatanism - a price to be paid unfortunately.

I must say though that I disagree with mbhaub's pessimism re the value of contemporary art music. There are many highly gifted, unique composer's alive today, all contributing to the great Canon and I believe it will always be so, regardless of whether or not it is to one's taste. I do however agree with him/her about genius. It's always been rare and allied with the bewilderment amongst audience (and some musicians) about the merits of some contemporary art music, even more difficult to discern.

Oh and mbhaub is spot on re modern musicals - utter money spinning crap, there, I said it.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Music changes, it doesn't "progress." Aesthetic perspectives change, they don't "progress." Verily, verily, I say unto you, if there was a Talk Classical Music Forum in the 14th century, most would consider this as *THE* _ Missa solemnis _:


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I have to modify my previous general statement. There was progress to a certain degree and in certain eras. The Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Romantic had definite progress over Medieval and Gregorian Chant. The Romantic Era had the most complex and personal utterances in Music. And no doubt the Renaissance had more form than the music before. Even though I like 12-tone and serial music a lot, I have to admit its evolution went sideways and even down from that point on in terms of progress.

Are the timbres by say Lachenmann any better than Ravel or Bach? Are the rhythms better in Ferneyhough than Rachmaninov or Varese? A matter of taste there. But say Glass, Cage (or La Monte Young, my new favourite target) compared to Hummel, Raff, or Clementi (I took Mozart and other big names out to prove a point). That is not just a matter of taste.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ You can't equate evolution with progress or improvement and evolution even in/or music can't go sideways - it can only demonstrate continual adaptation to changing situations.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

mikeh375 said:


> Ken, I'd say that from a composer's pov, the now is an exciting time given that all conventional barriers are lifted so to speak. This could be deemed progress for a composer at least, because of the very removal of dominant traits, trends and restrictions within the perception of what music should be. The freedoms hard won over the last 100 years or so allow the composer to dig deep into their aesthetics, especially if they have the verve and desire to step to their own music so to speak along with the courage to explore and discover with a sense of adventure and openness.
> 
> Of course as a listener YMMV about the music you may hear, but that's not going to stop a composer's individual temperament hunting out music that first and foremost speaks to them as a composition. The potential for originality is enhanced with an open field imv....that is a sort of progress although ironically the same freedoms are open to abuse and perhaps even charlatanism - a price to be paid unfortunately...


Since 'all conventional barriers are lifted', what would 'abuse and charlatanism' look like?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ What did it ever look like? If someone is skilled at it they can get away with it for quite a while.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I understand that music progresses in the sense that it becomes more varied with time, with new styles, techniques and timbristic possibilities becoming available as the years pass. A composer today can imitate the baroque style, but a baroque composer couldn't have composed in the style of _Tabula Rasa_.

This said, I also believe that music's _quality_ does not necessarily progresses, as I have never listened to a nowadays composer whose music is for me greater than, say, Bach's.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

I would argue that music that music follows a pattern that became more pronounced by the 20th century, where musical epochs went into overdrive (lasting years rather than decades). The pattern, which isn't necessarily bad, is one of continually chaffing against forms and constraints and expanding music's tonality. I personally see it over and over again, though it's harder to spot in the transitions of the 17th and 18th centuries. 

The rococo was a reaction to the "complications" of the baroque. Composers wanted to "simplify" music. By the time the rococo evolved into the classical era, the sonata form was like the counterpoint of the baroque. Composers were chafing against it and you started seeing very "simple" forms at first: the preludes by Chopin, the Nocturnes of John Field, until Sonata form was eventually abandoned or so modified as to no longer be recognizable. The Piano Sonata was traded in for shorter one movement pieces like the Bagatelles of Beethoven and the later the shorter piano works of Liszt, Schubert and Schumann, etc...

American folk music, jazz, pop and eventually rock & roll could all be seen as a reaction to the veering off of classical musical into the nether regions of atonality and formlessness. Except for such few diehards as you will find on classical music discussion forums, only a very, very small minority of listeners care about or listen to modern classical. The greater public turned to folk music, pop and rock for their recognizable melodies and formulaic musical structures. 

But even in rock and jazz you saw the same thing happen---the seemingly inevitable drift toward atonality and lack of structure. Each phase has its loyal followers but the general public moves on, always preferring the newest way to keep things simple. When any given form of music veers off into atonal and amelodic naval gazing, the public moves on and finds the next version of the rococo---melody and tonality above all. So, I don't so much see music as progressing as cyclical.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I think that the progress could be seen in the fact that with time it explores new things* (sounds, techniques, approaches, tunings), new concepts) and we as listeners we are able to have new points of view. At least in this sense I think there's a progress.


*and no, I'm definitely not one of those who believe that "everything has been done in the past... nobody was doing electronic music in previous centuries, just to make one example


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> ^ You can't equate evolution with progress or improvement and evolution even in/or music can't go sideways - it can only demonstrate continual adaptation to changing situations.


You're right. I meant to say "Even though I like 12-tone and serial music a lot, I have to admit its progress went sideways and even down from that point on." But I'm not sure if you'd agree with that.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

music progresses but not in the sense of getting better. It is rather like progress in human clothing. Various fashions and styles come and go, but the basic functionality remains the same and there is no real progress, because the basic need of the human body to be clothed does not change that much.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Jacck said:


> ...because the basic need of the human body to be clothed does not change that much.


Or the basic need for melody, form and tonality. (I know, them's fighting words in these parts.)


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Room2201974 said:


> Music changes, it doesn't "progress." Aesthetic perspectives change, they don't "progress." Verily, verily, I say unto you, if there was a Talk Classical Music Forum in the 14th century, most would consider this as *THE* _ Missa solemnis _:


Spot on. "Progress" is an extremely vague term that is often exploited without being defined. If by "progress," we only mean "change," then of course music (and all art) changes with the shifting cultural tides of the times. But if by "progress," we mean "improvement"- well, that's really a matter of personal taste. I don't believe that serialism showcases "improvement" in music, but many feel that way and I respect that. The only way I would take offense is if someone said, "serial music is obviously superior, simply because it is more progressive," which is not a real argument IMO. Now, I've never actually heard anyone say that; I'm just using it as an example. Conversely, I believe Bach's music represents the pinnacle of the Western art music tradition. But to say music has "devolved" since then is sheer lunacy. We can indeed have debates on the relevance of changing perspectives on aesthetics and metaphysics through the course of history (as Room points out), but only if we take the time to define "progress" and acknowledge its inherent subjectivity.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> ^ What did it ever look like? If someone is skilled at it they can get away with it for quite a while.


So now that conventional barriers are lifted, is it not possible that a significant amount of the dinking, dunking, plinking, plunking and screeching passing for music is abuse and charlatanism?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> You're right. I meant to say "Even though I like 12-tone and serial music a lot, I have to admit its progress went sideways and even down from that point on." But I'm not sure if you'd agree with that.


OK. Do I agree? Well, I don't see progress or its opposite in the development of music. The strongest argument for "progress" might be what happened when music started to be written down. But even that was really music exploring new possibilities and needs in a new environment.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DaveM said:


> So now that conventional barriers are lifted, is it not possible that a significant amount of the dinking, dunking, plinking, plunking and screeching passing for music is abuse and charlatanism?


In my view, the "barriers" are what make the music. For many and probably most of us, when we think about the music that matters most to us, it is music constrained by the clearest and strongest barriers -- barriers either inherited or invented. It may accept the barriers gladly or struggle against them, but still it is constrained.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

KenOC said:


> In my view, the "barriers" are what make the music. For many and probably most of us, when we think about the music that matters most to us, it is music constrained by the clearest and strongest barriers -- barriers either inherited or invented. It may accept the barriers gladly or struggle against them, but still it is constrained.


Yes; if there is some distinction between music and noise or sonic art (which I believe there is) it must surely lie in the constraints under which music operates.


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## soni (Jul 3, 2018)

BachIsBest said:


> Yes; if there is some distinction between music and noise or sonic art (which I believe there is) it must surely lie in the constraints under which music operates.


What's the point? If people listen to it for pleasure, then for them it's music. Some of my relatives in Africa believe that Beethoven isn't music, since it's different to what they are used to. This is no different to what you're claiming, presumably targeted against the likes of John Cage.

Next time someone asks me what music I listen to, I'll say "I don't listen to music, I listen to sonic art by Milton Babbitt".


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

soni said:


> What's the point? If people listen to it for pleasure, then for them it's music. Some of my relatives in Africa believe that Beethoven isn't music, since it's different to what they are used to. This is no different to what you're claiming, presumably targeted against the likes of John Cage.
> 
> Next time someone asks me what music I listen to, I'll say "I don't listen to music, I listen to sonic art by Milton Babbitt".


I'm not sure how a post on the definition of music could be 'targeted' at John Cage. All I said was that, surely, if there is a difference between general noise (i.e. a vacuum cleaner) and music it must be that music has some sort of 'rules' by which it operates. You may be of the opinion that this is hogwash and that there should be no real difference in the denotations of music and noise but, at this opinion, one has to wonder what the point of the word music is.

Regardless, traditional music of all cultures (including traditional African music) operates under a set of rules that, considering they were invented largely independently, produces remarkably similar results; there is universality in what people consider music and it is not all just a sea of cultural relativism.


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## soni (Jul 3, 2018)

BachIsBest said:


> I'm not sure how a post on the definition of music could be 'targeted' at John Cage.


Fair enough, I simply made a false inference.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Yes, of course music advances, but that doesn't mean to move, go, or proceed forward; to advance, as in _They progress through the museum,_ or to improve; to become better or more complete, as in _Societies progress unevenly,_ or to move (something) forward; or to advance, to expedite.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Hello again.
Reporting that I've made some progress since my post on this thread yesterday.
But my post here, today (this one) seems not an improvement over that other, so I refer you back to that one, should you care.

Does music progress?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

BachIsBest said:


> I'm not sure how a post on the definition of music could be 'targeted' at John Cage. All I said was that, surely, if there is a difference between general noise (i.e. a vacuum cleaner) and music it must be that music has some sort of 'rules' by which it operates. You may be of the opinion that this is hogwash and that there should be no real difference in the denotations of music and noise but, at this opinion, one has to wonder what the point of the word music is..


Cage thought that anything could be music, including a vacuum cleaner. What is important is the way you listen to it. He thought that the point of listening to music is to clear your head space.


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2020)

BachIsBest said:


> cultural relativism.


When I heard the words "cultural relativism", I reach for my pistol. Yes, I know I'm misquoting, but I think you are too. Just to be clear, would you explain what you mean by the term? Thanks.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Cage thought that anything could be music, including a vacuum cleaner. What is important is the way you listen to it. He thought that the point of listening to music is to clear your head space.


Which is silliness. The more dumbed down the concept of music is, the less skill will be required to compose it, the more people will declare themselves to be composers and the fewer people will want to hear the result. And that is exactly what is happening in present-day classical music where orchestras such as the LA Phil commission dozens of works never to be heard again. The fact that anyone would take Cage seriously is the reason why the dumbing down CM has had the sort of traction that is contrary to all common sense.


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## Lilijana (Dec 17, 2019)

Does music progress?
_Does_ music progress?
Does _music_ progress?
Does music _progress_?
Does _music progress_?

What is the progression towards? And from where is 'music' coming? Is this progression able to be abstracted from the economic, social, technological, anthropological influences? _Should_ it be abstracted from those influencing factors? Can we talk about 'music' as some kind of abstract quantity that either undeniably 'progresses' or it doesn't?

Hmm

What about certain kinds of music? Do 5 voice madrigals 'progress?' Do Britten operas 'progress?' Does Javanese Gamelan 'progress?' Does Gagaku orchestra music 'progress?' Does ancient Babylonian music 'progress?'

Generally speaking...

I think 'music' is an incredible cultural phenomenon that exists all around the world all throughout human history, and it changes along with other aspects of culture over time.

It seems to me that there are other cultural phenomena that also change, certainly cuisines change, language changes, dance, literature, film, television, video games....

But do they........*progress?* And does that truly make it better, as KenOC tells us that it implies?

Not _that_ is a question that I, as someone with absolutely no knowledge of 'progression' whatsoever, am not qualified to answer in any constructive way.


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## Lilijana (Dec 17, 2019)

DaveM said:


> Since 'all conventional barriers are lifted', what would 'abuse and charlatanism' look like?


I'm definitely not answering your question, because it is a moot point, but....

I've decided I am actually going to completely _own_ this as a composer, myself. From now on, I will describe myself as a complete charlatan. So much a charlatan, in fact, that I even successfully conned my favourite string quartet ensemble into playing my music. I have no skill as a composer, none at all.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

DaveM said:


> So now that conventional barriers are lifted, is it not possible that a significant amount of the dinking, dunking, plinking, plunking and screeching passing for music is abuse and charlatanism?


Yes and no Dave, at least by my reckoning (I see I've given you some ammunition here...damn.....), although 'significant' is unfair and unrelenting imv. Even you (as one who dislikes modernism that is), must realise that composers like Boulez, Lutoslawski, Carter, Ferneyhough et al are utterly sincere in their work, have written music that has shaken and progressed the canon and are rightly hailed as great, irrespective of your own aesthetic taste.

I should say that by 'charlatanism', I mean sincerity (and I might add that this is obviously a personal view only, even contentious perhaps). For example, in an age where rules and procedure are seemingly non applicable, or more likely, so far under the hood that they become indiscernible as signifiers for a listener, it is easier for a composer to find, or rather _settle_ (yes, I am speaking pejoratively here), for compositional solutions more readily and in a manner that lacks a more profound integrity. The only way out of falling into this (sometimes seductive) trap in the compositional process for me at least, is to adhere to a guiding technical rigour, one that can offer a more intimate familiarity with any material and produce more controlled, navigable and inevitable creative options. This control of material, allied to the musicality of the composer is capable of banishing any sense of randomness and able to dispel any accusation of charlatanism.

Some composers may disagree with these remarks and fair enough, they are not the only blueprint for successful composing, but what is on offer for atonality via rigour (and not just serialism), is a pathway through a morass of dissonance that has been ploughed with sincerity and worthy of being followed if the listener wishes, with a confidence that the music has internal logic and is not random. This is what great contemporary music displays for me. The rigour, control and musicality is felt for me in the lines, emotion, invention and even the imagination/fantasy of a work. If I can't discern at least some of these traits in a work by an unfamiliar composer (especially one less known), I do begin to question why I should listen, given that I know how easy it is to sometimes 'fake' such work (most composers could sit at a piano and 'improvise' dissonance without thinking, using just fantasy).

One expects as a listener, due consideration and even profound familiarity with the material and choices on the ms by the composer as they are the pathways into the work and the personality. However the historical expansion and subsequent dismissal of functional harmony in particular has allowed for the possibility that music can be written without strictures in place that can ensure sincerity, integrity and as such, instil confidence. Worse still, given the difficulty of comprehending a language that isn't 'placed' in a overt and obvious functional sense, one can more readily justify random choices too as displaying integrity and sincere representation of the creator, such is the ambiguity of the medium....and who am I to argue.

One's receptivity to dissonance in all its forms (harmonic, melodic, rhythmic) has to be cultivated with considerable effort and dedication for a listener, but it is no less so for a training composer who has the more difficult problem of navigating their aesthetic proclivities through the choices, the techniques, sifting through finding what resonates and doesn't for them and then finding a way to speak fluently within their choices and present to the listener. The more training a composer has, the less likely he will be prone to, or want to cut corners. Apologies if I waffled and wavered too far.

(to my fellow composers, it goes without saying that YMMV)


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Well done Jess...kudos.

http://jackquartet.com/


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

As only a little music per century happens to survive, we cannot offset the survivors of centuries against today's music.

Of course, since distribution of music became a business, things changed. We have everything available at our fingertips. And also, living composers of most music don't depend on musicians anymore, as they can generate their music synthetically.

It would be interesting to speculate which music will be played/made in 100 years from now. Will Beethoven still be as popular as he is now and will Dr Dre still be recognized for his music?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

As only an audience member I can say that the options available to me/us grow and improve all the time.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

composer jess said:


> I'm definitely not answering your question, because it is a moot point, but....
> 
> I've decided I am actually going to completely _own_ this as a composer, myself. From now on, I will describe myself as a complete charlatan. So much a charlatan, in fact, that I even successfully conned my favourite string quartet ensemble into playing my music. I have no skill as a composer, none at all.


Well done you!

I like things which snap into focus at the end, it makes me want to listen again and again to spot all the Mozart.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

NLAdriaan said:


> As only a little music per century happens to survive, we cannot offset the survivors of centuries against today's music.
> 
> Of course, since distribution of music became a business, things changed. We have everything available at our fingertips. And also, living composers of most music don't depend on musicians anymore, as they can generate their music synthetically.
> 
> It would be interesting to speculate which music will be played/made in 100 years from now. Will Beethoven still be as popular as he is now and will Dr Dre still be recognized for his music?


The "beauty" of the New Stasis is that everyone's music will be equally popular. It will be like walking on an infinite beach that is covered with shells, looking for the shiniest....


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## Iota (Jun 20, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Well done you!.


Indeed. That seems like a very successful musical palimpsest.



KenOC said:


> Does music progress?


No. It goes to different places.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

composer jess said:


> I'm definitely not answering your question, because it is a moot point, but....
> 
> I've decided I am actually going to completely _own_ this as a composer, myself. From now on, I will describe myself as a complete charlatan. So much a charlatan, in fact, that I even successfully conned my favourite string quartet ensemble into playing my music. I have no skill as a composer, none at all.


That's a fun and teasing piece, Jess - or that's how I heard it. Thanks for posting it.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

DaveM said:


> Which is silliness. The more dumbed down the concept of music is, the less skill will be required to compose it, the more people will declare themselves to be composers and the fewer people will want to hear the result. And that is exactly what is happening in present-day classical music where orchestras such as the LA Phil commission dozens of works never to be heard again. The fact that anyone would take Cage seriously is the reason why the dumbing down CM has had the sort of traction that is contrary to all common sense.


The history of classical music shows that every era has tons of music that was written and then forgotten. That's because Sturgeon's Law also applies to music composition - and it always has. There is also what I call the Room2201974 Corollary to Sturgeons Law: The 90% places the 10% in perspective as much or more as the 10% does itself.

So when do you think Sturgeon's Law first went into effect, the 20th century?

I'm sorry you didn't get anything from Cage, my experience was different. I read _Silence_ and then years later started training on classical guitar. So I was more than prepared for the concept that for a classical guitarist, controlling the space between the notes, the silences, is just as important as playing the notes themselves. Cage would wholeheartedly agree.....and so would Segovia.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Room2201974 said:


> The history of classical music shows that every era has tons of music that was written and then forgotten. That's because Sturgeon's Law also applies to music composition - and it always has. There is also what I call the Room2201974 Corollary to Sturgeons Law: The 90% places the 10% in perspective as much or more as the 10% does itself.
> So when do you think Sturgeon's Law first went into effect, the 20th century?


So 90% of modern music is crap (the premise of Sturgeon's Law as you've applied it to music)? Interesting.

A lot of 19th century CM was 'forgotten', but a remarkable amount of it has been, and continues to be re-discovered and recorded. From my reading and understanding of the development of 18th & 19th century composers and their music, the very nature of their education and moving up through the ranks acted as a built-in quality control system. Composers who were composing 'crap" didn't survive so I doubt that 90% of music of that era was crap. I don't see those same quality control constraints being applied practically at all with latter 20th, into the 21st century CM.



> I'm sorry you didn't get anything from Cage, my experience was different. I read _Silence_ and then years later started training on classical guitar. So I was more than prepared for the concept that for a classical guitarist, controlling the space between the notes, the silences, is just as important as playing the notes themselves. Cage would wholeheartedly agree.....and so would Segovia.


I don't see the connection between Cage's views on silence and the silence that occurs between notes in a composition.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Cage thought that anything could be music, including a vacuum cleaner. What is important is the way you listen to it. He thought that the point of listening to music is to clear your head space.


Cage is a self-confessed charlatan. He admitted he had no ear, so he fooled people into thinking anything can be music, as if shuffling noises, mixing operatic pieces together randomly, etc. are worth hearing, and as if the distinction between music and non-music, or meaning is only in your mind. I'd say the non-distinction exists only in his mind.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

MacLeod said:


> When I heard the words "cultural relativism", I reach for my pistol. Yes, I know I'm misquoting, but I think you are too. Just to be clear, would you explain what you mean by the term? Thanks.


I do agree that this term has become a bit hopelessly ambiguous in overuse. The sense I was using it, and the sense in which I understand it to mean, is a true cultural relativist believes that everything an individual does can only be interpreted through the cultural experience of that individual. Thus, specifically in music, a cultural relativist would believe that there is no music that is universally 'good', but rather, music can only be established to be 'good' within a certain culture. In my post, I attempted to argue (or rather just avered it to be the case; the point of the post was not whether cultural relativism can be applied to music) that there are universal characteristics in music that both make music appealing and transcend culture. Thus my opposition to so-called cultural relativism.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> Cage is a self-confessed charlatan. He admitted he had no ear, so he fooled people into thinking anything can be music, as if shuffling noises, mixing operatic pieces together randomly, etc. are worth hearing, and as if the distinction between music and non-music, or meaning is only in your mind. I'd say the non-distinction exists only in his mind.


The key concept is "listening as music", that you can listen to a sound in the same way as you listen to music. That's presumably why David Tudor was there at the creation of 4.33.

Anyway I think you run the risk of being too dismissive. Put it like this, the composer of Two Squared for two pianos, or Four for String quartet, was up to very different things from the composer of Water Walk. The number pieces prove that he was no charlatan, that he had a good ear.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DaveM said:


> So 90% of modern music is crap (the premise of Sturgeon's Law as you've applied it to music)? Interesting.
> 
> A lot of 19th century CM was 'forgotten', but a remarkable amount of it has been, and continues to be re-discovered and recorded. From my reading and understanding of the development of 18th & 19th century composers and their music, the very nature of their education and moving up through the ranks acted as a built-in quality control system. Composers who were composing 'crap" didn't survive so I doubt that 90% of music of that era was crap. I don't see those same quality control constraints being applied practically at all with latter 20th, into the 21st century CM...


It would be interesting to go through a stack of 19th-century concert programs and see how much of the music is still heard - and how much is not. I'd bet that less than 10% has survived to our time.

Even among the bigger names, how much has survived? What percentage of Liszt's output is heard today? Thalberg? Even J. Strauss Jr, with his 500+ dance works and several operettas - how much of his work is heard? Schubert wrote about a thousand pieces of music, most of which is never heard. Even Brahms has an opus listing surprisingly rich in forgotten music. Some prolific composers may be remembered for a single work or, like Litolff, for a single movement of a single work. And, in fact, the composers we know are likely far outnumbered by composers we've never heard of.

This isn't to say that the unheard works are "crap" of course. That's a matter of definition.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> The key concept is "listening as music", that you can listen to a sound in the same way as you listen to music. That's presumably why David Tudor was there at the creation of 4.33.
> 
> Anyway I think you run the risk of being too dismissive. Put it like this, the composer of Two Squared for two pianos, or Four for String quartet, was up to very different things from the composer of Water Walk. The number pieces prove that he was no charlatan, that he had a good ear.


Ya, I was exaggerating. He did write some more interesting stuff. My criticism is for his lazy compositions involving sketchy, provocative concepts.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Related to this interesting and unsolvable question is this: why haven't audiences progressed? I believe that audiences have actually regressed. Play a concert of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky or Brahms and they come. Play a concert of Schoenberg, Boulez or Rubbra and good luck filling the seats. Is the lack of music education in schools? Or are the higher art forms just the victim of the cultural wars? And let's face it, popular culture has won. With so few people interested in art music these days, what chance do contemporary composers have? I know that a lot of modern composers and their supporters desperately believe that there are "great" composers among us whose music will stand the test of time. And there are a very few who just might. But I serious doubts. Orchestras, chamber groups, opera companies, classical FM stations, summer festivals all by and large still play the great masterworks of the the early 20th, 19th and 18th centuries. If audiences were more musically attuned and accepting, more music from the last 60 years would be demanded and played. But that's not the case. And I don't see any way that the more people will ever be converted.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Schubert wrote about a thousand pieces of music


The only famous composer to have written 600+ pieces in one genre and not get criticized for it. I mean look how Vivaldi get criticized for his concertos, Bach for his cantatas, Mozart & Haydn for their symphonies. I've never ever seen Schubert get criticized for writing mind-numbing 600+ pieces in one genre. And are we just supposed to believe he was somehow more creative? 
One day I was driving with my dad and played Chopin's 17 Polish Songs Op.74 from my phone. We were in agreement that Chopin's songs were underrated (even David Wright agrees) and better than Schubert's _Winterreise_. The constant use of the tenor voice and the usual vampy accompaniment (where Schubert never fails to disappoint every time) in Schubert's are a bit tiresome to listen to on the long run.
Personally I consider Mendelssohn's _Lieder ohne Worte_ the best pieces of that genre in their time and I'll take them over Schubert's mind-numbing 600+ any day. I'm inclined to believe the main reason why Schubert is considered the God of Lieder is due to quantity, not quality.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> The only famous composer to have written 600+ pieces in one genre and not get criticized for it. I mean look how Vivaldi get criticized for his concertos, Bach for his cantatas, Mozart & Haydn for their symphonies. I've never ever seen Schubert get criticized for writing mind-numbing 600+ pieces in one genre. And are we just supposed to believe he was somehow more creative?
> One day I was driving with my dad and played Chopin's 17 Polish Songs Op.74 from my phone. We were in agreement that Chopin's songs were underrated (even David Wright agrees) and better than Schubert's _Winterreise_. The constant use of the tenor voice and the usual vampy accompaniment (where Schubert never fails to disappoint every time) in Schubert's are a bit tiresome to listen to on the long run.
> Personally I consider Mendelssohn's _Lieder ohne Worte_ the best pieces of that genre in their time and I'll take them over Schubert's mind-numbing 600+ any day. I'm inclined to believe the main reason why Schubert is considered the God of Lieder is due to quantity, not quality.


This is hopeless as analysis or criticism, as well as just another pointless, context-free attack on a composer you don't happen to appreciate. Lucky for Schubert, he has a huge audience of appreciators who are bright enough not to think that being prolific is a fault.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> A lot of 19th century CM was 'forgotten', but a remarkable amount of it has been, and continues to be re-discovered and recorded. *From my reading and understanding of the development of 18th & 19th century composers and their music, the very nature of their education and moving up through the ranks acted as a built-in quality control system. Composers who were composing 'crap"* *didn't survive *so I doubt that 90% of music of that era was crap. I don't see those same quality control constraints being applied practically at all with latter 20th, into the 21st century CM.


It's largely impossible to compare the musical outputs of eras in which musical genres and the social groups that listened to them are not strictly comparable. Our society is far more diverse than Mozart's, and musical genres are correspondingly more diverse. But even with regard to a single so-called genre, what music should we include when we speak of the "classical" music of 19th-century Vienna or 21st-century New York? Do we include Johann Strauss and Stephen Sondheim? Can the music of today's university-based "classical" composers be rated meaningfully against that of the court composers of 18th-century Europe? When we ask whether 90% of some era's music is crap, the antecedent question should be: which music? - and the next question should be: for which audience?

That said, I think you're right to point out that among composers working in more complex genres for more sophisticated audiences, there was a higher prevailing standard in Mozart's time than there is now, and that's simply because of the simple existence back then of standards of craftsmanship. Since the later 20th century, a person with no standards of craftsmanship whatever, operating under the assumption that craftsmanship is irrelevant, may freely call himself an artist and will be accepted as one if what he does tickles someone's fancy, makes someone some money, or garners some social cachet. "Art" is whatever someone says it is, and "good" art is whatever earns prizes in juried competitions or gets parked in the courtyards of public buildings at public expense and to public bafflement.

Most of the music of any era is not distinctive or memorable and will disappear unless some enterprising, historical-minded musicians and recording companies revive it as an exhibit in the world museum we all live in. That doesn't mean that forgotten music is bad. The difference is that in earlier times it was generally possible to tell, at least after a couple of hearings, whether it met some recognized criteria of excellence. That has become less and less true as music has "progressed."


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> That doesn't mean that forgotten music is bad. The difference is that in earlier times it was generally possible to tell, at least after a couple of hearings, whether it met some recognized criteria of excellence. That has become less and less true as music has "progressed."


Not at all, music has been ignored and revived, they didn't know much better back then. Many composers and painters for that matter have been ignored, and only with time has the public gained the competence to understand their art.

Every artist, even bad ones, get their 15 minutes, it's only great art that lasts through the ages.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

1996D said:


> Not at all, music has been ignored and revived, they didn't know much better back then. Many composers and painters for that matter have been ignored, and only with time has the public gained the competence to understand their art.


I think that's largely a Romantic fantasy - the old "misunderstood artist starving in a garret" cliche. All the composers of the past we regard highly were recognized in their day for composing fine music. In some cases full appreciation may come slowly - contemporaries can't foresee a composer's place in the longer development of the art - but that isn't the question I was addressing.



> Every artist, even bad ones, get their 15 minutes, it's only great art that lasts through the ages.


This too is wrong. We enjoy plenty of music from the past that's less than "great" but still offers pleasure


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I think that's largely a Romantic fantasy - the old "misunderstood artist starving in a garret" cliche. All the composers of the past we regard highly were recognized in their day for composing fine music. In some cases full appreciation may come slowly - contemporaries can't foresee a composer's place in the longer development of the art - but that isn't the question I was addressing.


They were only recognized by the aristocracy or by their contemporaries/small circles, and after their deaths many had their music buried, only to be revived much later. Mahler and Bach are good examples of this.

Every artist gets his 15 minutes during his lifetime but this means nothing, the true measure of art is time.



> We enjoy plenty of music from the past that's less than "great" but still offers pleasure


Like what? From 200+ years ago? No.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

1996D said:


> Like what? From 200+ years ago? No.


Certainly. I've listened to many of Händel's Concerto Grosso for pleasure and, although they are expertly done, would not consider them great in the way _Messiah_ is.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

1996D said:


> They were only recognized by the aristocracy or by their contemporaries/small circles, and after their deaths many had their music buried, only to be revived much later. Mahler and Bach are good examples of this.


Obviously, a composer can be recognized only by people who have the opportunity to hear his music. Those who had larger audiences had wider recognition. With the growth of public concerts any number of composers were widely known and enjoyed, their music even disseminated in piano arrangements for use at home by people who couldn't get to concerts and theaters.



> Every artist gets his 15 minutes during his lifetime but this means nothing, the true measure of art is time.


Nice-sounding aphorism.



> Like what? From 200+ years ago? No.


Yes, now that we have recordings, all sorts of minor but very capable composers are eagerly listened to. Hmmm... I haven't heard any Thuille for a while. No Brahms, for sure, but there's some lovely music there.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

BachIsBest said:


> Certainly. I've listened to many of Händel's Concerto Grosso for pleasure and, although they are expertly done, would not consider them great in the way _Messiah_ is.


It's still by a great name



Woodduck said:


> *Obviously, a composer can be recognized only by people who have the opportunity to hear his music.* Those who had larger audiences had wider recognition. With the growth of public concerts any number of composers were widely known and enjoyed, their music even disseminated in piano arrangements for use at home by people who couldn't get to concerts and theaters.


It wouldn't have made a difference, music is free today and still there is a very small percentage of the world that listens to it.

As far as judging composers by the audiences they had, there doesn't seem to be a solid case. By this measure Justin Bieber is the greatest musician and composer of all time, but just wait some time for him to be buried forever.

Art is like philosophy, science, and mathematics, fields only those with substance and intellect will ever appreciate. In a way high culture is useless to 99% of people, and is really only rediscovered, because most everything has already been accomplished. You're lucky if you're able to add a brick to the already large and beautiful house, and still then it's only the man that will add the brick on top of yours that will see the full measure of your talent.

That's the tragedy of excellence, but it's fair, because we're all equal under God.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> This is hopeless as analysis or criticism, as well as just another pointless, context-free attack on a composer you don't happen to appreciate. Lucky for Schubert, he has a huge audience of appreciators who are bright enough not to think that being prolific is a fault.


The member in question seems intent on reminding us, repeatedly, of his inability to appreciate great music. While we naturally feel a sincere sympathy for his misfortune, such feelings are gradually eroded over time by an increasing sense of impatience.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> The member in question seems intent on reminding us, repeatedly, of his inability to appreciate great music. While we naturally feel a sincere sympathy for his misfortune, such feelings are gradually eroded over time by an increasing sense of impatience.


Deftly understated.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

1996D said:


> As far as judging composers by the audiences they had, there doesn't seem to be a solid case. By this measure Justin Bieber is the greatest musician and composer of all time, but just wait some time for him to be buried forever.
> 
> Art is like philosophy, science, and mathematics, fields only those with substance and intellect will ever appreciate. In a way high culture is useless to 99% of people,


I didn't suggest judging composers by the size of their audience. I merely said that composers who had audiences larger than the "aristocracy or...their contemporaries/small circles" that you were limiting everyone up to Mahler to were appreciated by those audiences. The absolute size of the audience is beside the point; there's a limited audience for everything. I have never known a single person who would dream of listening to Justin Bieber, who must be getting so old now that even he's tired of listening to Justin Bieber.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> ...I have never known a single person who would dream of listening to Justin Bieber, who must be getting so old now that even he's tired of listening to Justin Bieber.


The nightmare of TC: That Justin Bieber will, within our lifetimes, be universally recognized as one of the greatest musicians of our age. Of course it could be Taylor Swift...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> The nightmare of TC: That Justin Bieber will, within our lifetimes, be universally recognized as one of the greatest musicians of our age. Of course it could be Taylor Swift...


At least she'll never be confused with Biber.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> That said, I think you're right to point out that among composers working in more complex genres for more sophisticated audiences, there was a higher prevailing standard in Mozart's time than there is now, and that's simply because of the simple existence back then of standards of craftsmanship. Since the later 20th century, a person with no standards of craftsmanship whatever, operating under the assumption that craftsmanship is irrelevant, may freely call himself an artist and will be accepted as one if what he does tickles someone's fancy, makes someone some money, or garners some social cachet. "Art" is whatever someone says it is, and "good" art is whatever earns prizes in juried competitions or gets parked in the courtyards of public buildings at public expense and to public bafflement.


The above is more the core of what I was getting at without getting too far afield with the topic of your first paragraph (Johann Strauss, Stephen Sondheim etc.)



> Most of the music of any era is not distinctive or memorable and will disappear unless some enterprising, historical-minded musicians and recording companies revive it as an exhibit in the world museum we all live in. That doesn't mean that forgotten music is bad. The difference is that in earlier times it was generally possible to tell, at least after a couple of hearings, whether it met some recognized criteria of excellence. That has become less and less true as music has "progressed."


In the pre-recording days, the CM cream tended to rise to the top (though not always) given that live performances were the only venue and hearing much of the music being composed for any group of listeners would have been a challenge. Hyperion and a few other labels are constantly coming out with newly revived works from that era that are pretty good (at least by my standards ). Good enough to deserve being recorded and IMO are often a darn sight better than much that is passing for CM today.

The Goetz (1840-1876] Piano Concerto 1 is an example of the rigorous requirements to succeed in 19th century CM. It was composed in 1862 when he was 22 and was submitted as a student as part of what appears to have been comparable to part of a final exam requirement. Partly as a result of it, Reinecke recommended Goetz for a position as a pianist and choirmaster at Winterthur, Switzerland. The Adagio is not a masterpiece, but is remarkable for a 'student-level' work. The sequence starting at 3:25 alone is worth the time spent listening to the whole Concerto. (It is only recently that this Concerto was revived and recorded.)


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

BachIsBest said:


> Certainly. I've listened to many of Händel's Concerto Grosso for pleasure and, although they are expertly done, would not consider them great in the way _Messiah_ is.


Which is a bit like saying that the Brandenburg Concertos are not as great as the B minor Mass.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2020)

BachIsBest said:


> I do agree that this term has become a bit hopelessly ambiguous in overuse. The sense I was using it, and the sense in which I understand it to mean, is a true cultural relativist believes that everything an individual does can only be interpreted through the cultural experience of that individual. Thus, specifically in music, a cultural relativist would believe that there is no music that is universally 'good', but rather, music can only be established to be 'good' within a certain culture. In my post, I attempted to argue (or rather just avered it to be the case; the point of the post was not whether cultural relativism can be applied to music) that there are universal characteristics in music that both make music appealing and transcend culture. Thus my opposition to so-called cultural relativism.


Thanks for your reply.

To be honest, I'm not clear what the term does mean, though my brief research suggests that what it doesn't mean is that all art is of equal merit.



> According to Marcus and Fischer, when the principle of cultural relativism was popularized after World War II, it came to be understood "more as a doctrine, or position, than as a method". As a consequence, people misinterpreted cultural relativism to mean that all cultures are both separate and equal, and that all value systems, however different, are equally valid.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_relativism

In the case of music, it is easily misused as a term of abuse to hurl at anyone who, they would claim, asserts that the works of Billy Eilish, Glenn Miller, Garth Brooks, 50 Cent, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Reich and Mozart are all of equal merit, equal value. Since, AFAIR, no serious contributor here has ever made such a claim, the only "cultural relativists" are the trolls who swing by to make a provocative declaration and then leave us to our ruffled feathers.

My own answer to the question, "Does music progress?" is to say that since there is no such thing as one single homogeneous thing called music (except as an abstract) the question is unanswerable. "It" can't progress, because it is not a thing that can make progress.

Even the narrower question, "Does classical music progress?" hits similar difficulties (certainly at TC) because there is no one single definition of what CM is that can be agreed upon in the first place. In any case, the very act of defining leads in part to pre-answering the question, since including this or that within the definition is dependent on a framework of definition biased towards either embracing or rejecting works in relation to their place in a chronology.

I have to say that even if you exclude all that might be included in DaveM's 'dinking, dunking etc' (and I wonder just how much of that there really is) on the grounds that it is not music, what you are presumably left with is what looks like and sounds like the CM we all know and love from, say, 1750 to 1850. In which case, the answer would be, "No, because the only music worth considering in this question is the music I define as that which most closely resembles what has already been."

As a passing thought, I don't think John Cage did seriously mean that anything _must _be considered music, but that there is a serious philosophical question to answer about what constitutes music, and that he found mischievous, humorous and provocative ways to pose that question.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> As a passing thought, I don't think John Cage did seriously mean that anything _must _be considered music,


_Can_, not _must_.

_Listened to in the same way as_, not _considered as _


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> Related to this interesting and unsolvable question is this: why haven't audiences progressed? I believe that audiences have actually regressed. Play a concert of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky or Brahms and they come. Play a concert of Schoenberg, Boulez or Rubbra and good luck filling the seats. Is the lack of music education in schools? Or are the higher art forms just the victim of the cultural wars? And let's face it, popular culture has won. With so few people interested in art music these days, what chance do contemporary composers have? I know that a lot of modern composers and their supporters desperately believe that there are "great" composers among us whose music will stand the test of time. And there are a very few who just might. But I serious doubts. Orchestras, chamber groups, opera companies, classical FM stations, summer festivals all by and large still play the great masterworks of the the early 20th, 19th and 18th centuries. If audiences were more musically attuned and accepting, more music from the last 60 years would be demanded and played. But that's not the case. And I don't see any way that the more people will ever be converted.


The world has changed in the last 60 years. "High art" is no longer promoted as necessary knowledge for an educated person. Such promotion would be condemned as elitist (and don't get me started on _that_). I have no doubt that this could be reversed with a change in our societal attitude to it (perhaps seeing it as our birth right and not just something for the privileged few) and with education. But I do think the word "audience" leads us astray in making us think only of concerts. A lot of people listen to a lot of classical music via recordings and the range available to them (presumably a measure of the market) is huge in a totally unprecedented way. Classical music and particularly newer classical music are no longer mainstream interests that everyone needs to know something about but as more specialised (and perhaps deeper?) interests.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> _Can_, not _must_.
> 
> _Listened to in the same way as_, not _considered as _


Since I was saying what Cage did _not _say, I'm slightly confused by your suggested substitutions.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

BachIsBest said:


> Certainly. I've listened to many of Händel's Concerto Grosso for pleasure and, although they are expertly done, would not consider them great in the way _Messiah_ is.





Enthusiast said:


> Which is a bit like saying that the Brandenburg Concertos are not as great as the B minor Mass.


Actually I've been thinking this way too. 'Focusing more effort and inspiration into writing liturgical vocal works than secular orchestral works' was a common trend among pre-Romantic composers. With late Classicism, there was a gradual shift of emphasis toward secular orchestral works, and Beethoven and his Eroica (1805) effectively mark the end of this pre-Romantic trend.

_"Leopold Mozart was a talented musician who well understood his craft as a composer....many of his church pieces, of which we find masses, litanies, offertories and many others in considerable number are among the best that he wrote."_
-Ernst Fritz Schmid
_"his liturgical works are of greater worth than his chamber pieces."_
-German musicologist Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart
_"As a church composer, Leopold stands at the height of his time."_
-Wolfgang Plath
_According to his autobiography: "Of the manuscript compositions by Herr Mozart which have become known, numerous contrapuntal and other church pieces are especially noteworthy."_

The guy was obviously not a Bach or a Handel, but you can tell he knew his stuff:

[ 26:40 ]


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Does music progress? If so, how? If it truly progresses, doesn't that imply that more recent music is "better" than older music? _

Music, like most art forms, changes over time. Whether or not that implies improvement (progress) is opinion.

Most times the most revolutionary changes are not considered progress when they occur. All of Wagner, Debussy, Beethoven (the Eroica symphony), the Second Viennese School and others were considered bad changes at the time they occurred … then were accepted later as transformational genius and were copied relentlessly by composers, leading the way to new forms.

It is the same in all art forms. One of the greatest films ever made, "2001 A Space Odyssey," was derided by influential critics as junk when it arrived 1968. However, young people made it the top grossing film of 1968 and it has gained increasing stature over time.

It is now considered the greatest science fiction film ever made and some have it among the top 10 films ever made. Its influence is so great that even today, more than 50 years after its release, 21st century space travel films like "Arrival" and "Interstellar" copy its themes and style.

Most interesting is "2001" itself was produced around three short stories but was influenced by a 1950 movie called "Destination Moon" that had among other things an outside repair to its vehicle -- a key section copied in "2001." This is another way art copies its original and improves it over time.

It is to film what Eroica, La Mer, the Ring cycle, La sacre du printemps and others became in classical music. That, I think, is progress because these works of art will be just as meaningful a century from now as they are today.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Music is decoration and diversion in sound. There is no progress and there is no regress, any more than there is progress or regress for hair styles. There is just changing tastes.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

DaveM said:


> So 90% of modern music is crap (the premise of Sturgeon's Law as you've applied it to music)? Interesting.
> 
> A lot of 19th century CM was 'forgotten', but a remarkable amount of it has been, and continues to be re-discovered and recorded. From my reading and understanding of the development of 18th & 19th century composers and their music, the very nature of their education and moving up through the ranks acted as a built-in quality control system. Composers who were composing 'crap" didn't survive so I doubt that 90% of music of that era was crap. I don't see those same quality control constraints being applied practically at all with latter 20th, into the 21st century CM.
> 
> I don't see the connection between Cage's views on silence and the silence that occurs between notes in a composition.


I'm not referring to Cage's philosophical views about silence or 4'33". I'm referring to his working definition of music that is in his book _Silence_, that music is both organized sound and silence. As a young music student struggling to "hit the notes" in proficiency on musical instruments the focus was on the notes. I mean, how often does one practice the quarter note rest portamento? In theory class, did you ever have have an assignment in which your prof asked you to voice lead 32 measures of whole note rests? It's not just the concept of, "There is a rest, don't play." It's more like, "Hey, the rests in this piece are organized just like the notes are." I had never looked at it quite like that until I read _ Silence_. Later, my classical guitar teacher said something I thought very similar: "You'll never be a good guitarist until you learn to control and organize your silences. If you can't do that, you'll end up sounding technique-wise like Bob Dylan on a Stratocaster, instead of Segovia on a Hauser."

Wish I had more time to discuss this but I'm hip deep in working up an arrangement of a Nietsche sonota for the local Hans Von Bulow festival. They love his stuff here in Florida. Oh, he's very popular. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sl*ts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, [email protected](kheads - they all adore him. They think he's a righteous composer dude.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> One trick is to cut out all music between 1750 and 1950. And in fact with the exception of JS Bach you could probably start at 1700.





Mandryka said:


> *Music is decoration and diversion in sound.* There is no progress and there is no regress, any more than there is progress or regress for hair styles. There is just changing tastes.


Interesting definition of music. I think that it can fit perfectly well with some baroque compositions, but not overall with the music of the great composers of the 19th century, and now I think I can understand why you don't seem to like music from 1750 to 1950.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Allerius said:


> Interesting definition of music. I think that it can fit perfectly well with some baroque compositions, but not overall with the music of the great composers of the 19th century.


Why? 19th century composers were just like the composers of all other centuries. Different style, that's all.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Why. 19th century composers were just like the composers of all other centuries. Different style, that's all.


I understand that they were interested primarily in the possibilites of expression in music, that could go far beyond diversion or decoration. I'm thinking for example in a Brahms symphony or a Schubert lied cycle such as _Winterreise_, that don't fit in your definition in my view.


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## mark6144 (Apr 6, 2019)

To me, "progress" implies a shared purpose, direction or goal against which that progress could be assessed. For example, one could say that keyboard music progressed during the C18 & early C19 when composers were striving to realise new possibilities introduced by the extended range and dynamics of newer instruments.

I would differentiate that from stylistic change, which happens organically without any particular direction.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Allerius said:


> I understand that they were interested primarily in the possibilites of expression in music, that could go far beyond diversion or decoration. I'm thinking for example in a Brahms symphony or a Schubert lied cycle such as _Winterreise_, that don't fit in your definition in my view.


Winterreise is a text, so put that aside. Diversion and decoration can be expressive, some sorts of wallpaper make you feel cheerful, some paint colours are depressing. I don't hear anything in Brahms which goes beyond that in any fundamental way. I don't see how it could.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Music changes, like hairstyles, because people get bored and are driven to explore new options.

I'm amazed how they always come up with brand new hair styles but I fear the musical well may be running dry. Or maybe changes just don't happen at a constant rate and there are temporary lulls.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I don’t want to underestimate the importance of hair and fashion. You know, Yves Saint Laurent believed his dresses helped free women from oppressive, male dominated, bourgeois regimes. If that’s right, his dresses were progress. I don’t know if classical music has had this sort of social importance.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Whenever I read that comparison with hairstyles I picture the hair of stone age people. Presumably it was dirty and unkept, straggly and matted? Perhaps they died it with some coloured paste. Perhaps the cut it in tufts. Of course, we can't know. But it does not seem too much of a stretch to suggest that there has been some progress in hairstyling since then. I suppose it to be the same for music. There was surely a time when the only music was very crude, unimaginative and unambitious? At some point, though, music became something else, something better. This may have been 1000 years ago or more and I do not really think there has been "progress in music" since that hypothetical time. But to get from the crudest early musical sounds to what we have now in all its variety and power must surely have involved progress at some point in our history?


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## soni (Jul 3, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> I don't know if classical music has had this sort of social importance.


Controversial suggestion: maybe classical music doesn't have any importance in today's society because music has progressed beyond it into pop? Not related to your point, just nobody has brought this up so far...


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

"Are you, like me, puzzled to learn that Popular Science magazine recently shut down comments on its website, declaring that they were bad for science? Are you amazed, like me, that Duck Dynasty is the most-watched nonfiction cable show in TV history? Are you dismayed, like me, that crappy Hollywood films about comic book heroes and defunct TV shows have taken over every movie theater? Are you depressed, like me, that symphony orchestras are declaring bankruptcy, but Justin Bieber earned $58 million last year?

If so, you need to read _The Revolt of the Masses_. You've got questions. Ortega's got answers."

The above remarks are found near the beginning of Ted Giola's wonderful Daily Beast appraisal of Ortega y Gasset's groundbreaking 1929 book, The Revolt of the Masses. As Giola points out, Ortega y Gasset wrote of the rise of mass opinion and the collapse of the reign of the judgements of elites and experts. He was shocked by this and foretold of a new era in politics and art (and, for our purposes, music).

Giola's fine, brief article: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-smartest-book-about-our-digital-age-was-published-in-1929

Much of this trend toward overthrow of cultural elites was discerned even earlier by Alexis de Tocqueville when he interacted with ordinary Americans during his tour of the new country; he found then in the early 1800s that same indifference--even contempt--for received opinion from higher authority or experts in a field.

When we couple Ortega y Gasset's analysis with Leonard Meyer's 1960s-era explorations of the New Stasis in Music and the Arts (_Music, the Arts, and Ideas_, Part II) which then are reinforced by the explosion of universal and instantaneous transmission of ideas and trends, and the retention of all past data, we are confronted with today's peculiar situation wherein all thoughts of "progress" in music and art are rendered null and void. Instead, we are confronted with a white noise of artistic micro-movements in all directions simultaneously. This can be seen as both a curse and a blessing: those hoping to see their particular trend grow into a mature and dominant genre or school or movement will be bitterly disappointed; those who hope their particular niche enthusiasm will have a home and some followers somewhere can count on a certain immortality for said enthusiasm.

I encourage anyone interested in the present and future of Art and Music to read The Revolt of the Masses and also Meyer's book. Both rise above the "ground clutter" of more local concerns of immediate art trends, and see beyond to the horizon.....


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

soni said:


> Controversial suggestion: maybe classical music doesn't have any importance in today's society because music has progressed beyond it into pop? Not related to your point, just nobody has brought this up so far...


I thought I had seen several posts suggesting this (maybe a different thread??) but it seems wrong to me. It isn't about what the majority like, it's about a growing diversity of choices for musicians and audiences.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Controversial suggestion: maybe classical music doesn't have any importance in today's society because music has progressed beyond it into pop?_

It's questionable whether pop is a progression of classical music since there isn't much in common between the two. Pop is more a progression of spirituals or religious hymns written in the 17th and 18th century than classical music. Hymns are based on three repeating stanzas with an interval in the third. Classical music was for centuries based on sonata format that is far more sophisticated in development.

I think if classical music is dying, as some suggest, it is probably more likely that we no longer need it as an art form. Until the 20th century classical music was for the most part written for the aristocracy or religious leadership. It relied on wealthy patrons and others with money. This changed in the 20th century but still most classical music is either created at conservatories or in university musical departments, not in the cellars or poor people's homes.

Pop music can be written or developed in a garage, has no need for people of wealth since anyone can afford it, and still has not for the most part developed beyond the strophic. Going back to Elvis for every creation such as "Bohemian Rhapsody" there are 10 zillion strophes.

I think big band music of the 1940s and postwar era, one of the last forms of popular music before pop and rock, was more closely related to classical music. Many also see a debt to classical in American jazz though I am not one of them.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Music is decoration and diversion in sound.
> 
> Diversion and decoration can be expressive, some sorts of wallpaper make you feel cheerful, some paint colours are depressing. I don't hear anything in Brahms which goes beyond that in any fundamental way. I don't see how it could.


I never realized before this that I should have had a career in wallpaper instead of music. It wouldn't have required a college degree, I'd have made more money, and it would have made me feel just as cheerful. I wonder if Brahms ever thought about that?


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Music is decoration and diversion in sound. Diversion and decoration can be expressive, some sorts of wallpaper make you feel cheerful, some paint colours are depressing. I don't hear anything in Brahms which goes beyond that in any fundamental way. I don't see how it could...I never realized before this that I should have had a career in wallpaper instead of music._

Bach didn't realize it when he invented the fugue and equal temperament. Haydn didn't realize it either when he invented the string quartet. Schubert didn't realize that either when he invented the art song. Beethoven didn't realize it either when he created a symphony twice as long as any ever written. Wagner didn't realize it either when he created the concept of music-drama-scene.

I think it possible, however, that Steve Reich realized it when he wrote 18, the first minimalist hit.

John Cage definitely knew it and was up front saying everyone determines their own value and assigns it to music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> It wouldn't have required a college degree,


You might just be wrong about that!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> You might just be wrong about that!


Nowadays you may be right.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

larold said:


> Bach didn't realize it when he invented the fugue and equal temperament. Schubert didn't realize that either when he invented the art song. Beethoven didn't realize it either when he created a symphony twice as long as any ever written.


Bach invented the fugue? Didn't Johann Pachelbel, Dieterich Buxtehude, Girolamo Frescobaldi write theirs before Bach did his?
Bach invented the Equal Temperament? This is also something I've never heard before. 
Also, didn't Beethoven write song cycles before Schubert did? I'm not sure what you mean "Beethoven didn't know he was writing a symphony twice as long as any ever written." He clearly meant to write it that way and did it knowing clearly what he was doing and the implications of his actions.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I'm not sure what you mean "Beethoven didn't know he was writing a symphony twice as long as any ever written." He clearly meant to write it that way and did it knowing clearly what he was doing and the implications of his actions. _

Go back to the original thesis: Beethoven didn't realize music is nothing more than decoration and diversion in sound and comparable to wallpaper. He thought it could actually change the world.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

In the c19 there was an idea that artists, musicians, were a spiritual elite because they had perceived some aspect of reality not readily available to the rest of us, and they used their paintings, music etc to try and communicate their wisdom to the people. 

But this is nonsense! I mean you just have to say it to see that it’s nonsense. No one except some crazy neo-platonist would say that today.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> In the c19 there was an idea that artists, musicians, were a spiritual elite because they had perceived some aspect of reality not readily available to the rest of us, and they used their paintings, music etc to try and communicate their wisdom to the people.
> 
> But this is nonsense! I mean you just have to say it to see that it's nonsense. No one except some crazy neo-platonist would say that today.


Well, I'm not a neo-platonist, and I haven't been diagnosed as crazy, but I think the idea that great artists are more sensitive to some aspects of reality than most other people is not bizarre. Note that my statement is a little less strong than yours. If we can grant that not all people are equally aware and sensitive, that most of us are at any given time unconscious of things humans can become conscious of, and that artists - poets, painters, composers - bring us observations of our inner and outer worlds that we might otherwise miss, it isn't far-fetched to call the greatest artists a spiritual elite - or, to sound less religious, an elite of consciousness.

As an artist I've always known that the state of mental and emotional receptivity involved in creation entails a significant increase in awareness, and that the attempt to record what is seen and imagined necessitates that enrichment and intensification of everyday consciousness. I'd say that the exceptional ability to experience and transmit an expanded and intensified reality is primarily what distinguishes the artists we call great. To participate in an artist's reality, and in consequence to see our own reality altered, however subtly, has been seen as a kind of sacred rite, not merely by 19th-century Romantics but by primitive cultures where art is intimately tied to religious ritual. It's the culture that sees art purely as a commodity made for momentary pleasure that's the outlier.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Originally Posted by *Mandryka*

_ Music is decoration and diversion in sound.

Diversion and decoration can be expressive, some sorts of wallpaper make you feel cheerful, some paint colours are depressing. I don't hear anything in Brahms which goes beyond that in any fundamental way. I don't see how it could. _

I don't hear diversion and decoration in Brahms, nor do I listen to his music so that it will make me feel an emotion one way or the other. I don't listen to or study classical music for any of that. If all that is going through someone's brain while listening to the third movement of Brahms _ 3rd Symphony _ is, "Isn't this music sad sounding," then boy are they missing the music. If someone tells me that Brahms wrote two "pretty sounding melodies" in the first 8 measures to open the fourth movement of _ Ein Deutsches Requiem_, I'd tell them a class in music theory may do them some good.

I want to know why a piece of music works, how it's organized, why the composer did A instead of B, what are the unifying elements, how are they used, and so forth. You see, I'm just like one of the Schuyler sisters....I'm looking for "a mind at work." Why here is a mind at work....nearly 7 minutes of thematic development over the course of multiple key changes....and all of it...all nearly 7 minutes including the contrasting theme...... are derived from the first four measures. Brahms Piano Trio, first mvt, Opus 101.

Diversion and decoration??? Hardly!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Room2201974 said:


> I don't hear diversion and decoration in Brahms, nor do I listen to his music so that it will make me feel an emotion one way or the other. I don't listen to or study classical music for any of that. *If all that is going through someone's brain while listening to the third movement of Brahms  3rd Symphony  is, "Isn't this music sad sounding," then boy are they missing the music.* If someone tells me that Brahms wrote two "pretty sounding melodies" in the first 8 measures to open the fourth movement of _ Ein Deutsches Requiem_, I'd tell them a class in music theory may do them some good.
> 
> *I want to know why a piece of music works,* how it's organized, why the composer did A instead of B, what are the unifying elements, how are they used, and so forth. You see, I'm just like one of the Schuyler sisters....I'm looking for "a mind at work." Why here is a mind at work....nearly 7 minutes of thematic development over the course of multiple key changes....and all of it...all nearly 7 minutes including the contrasting theme...... are derived from the first four measures. Brahms Piano Trio, first mvt, Opus 101.
> 
> *Diversion and decoration??? Hardly!*


Why this either/or? Music offers a variety of experiences. Noting how music makes us feel, and listening because it makes us feel fantastic, is as natural as, and certainly more common than (since most people haven't studied or composed music), analyzing its structure. An exclusive preoccupation with how a composer does what he does could just as validly be called "missing the music," or maybe missing the landscape for the trees. Art regarded purely as a formal exercise is just another kind of diversion, albeit a sophisticated diversion for minds trained in composition or formal analysis. But music is more than a sonic erector set, and the range of emphasis on one aesthetic value or another between _Der Kust der Fuge_ and _Das Lied von der Erde_ is incalculably wide.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> But music is more than a sonic erector set, and the range of emphasis on one aesthetic value or another between _Der Kust der Fuge_ and _Das Lied von der Erde_ is incalculably wide.


At the end of the day music is music, and all creative human brains work alike. The counterpoint of Bach and Mahler is similar enough, the latter just has more emotional range.



> I want to know why a piece of music works, how it's organized, why the composer did A instead of B, what are the unifying elements, how are they used, and so forth.


It's largely creative and not planned, when you reach mastery you just write the music without thinking, even before it's just something natural. It's hilarious how some people overanalyze everything when it was done in the moment as a creative spark; you can't learn that.

Why did the composer do A instead of B? Because it was tasteful, because it enhanced the structure, because it made logical sense, because the idea happened to pop in his head in the moment. Composing is creative, you just do.


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## mrdoc (Jan 3, 2020)

soni said:


> Controversial suggestion: maybe classical music doesn't have any importance in today's society because music has progressed beyond it into pop? Not related to your point, just nobody has brought this up so far...


If you replace progressed with regressed you would be nearer the mark, schools used to have music studies on the curriculum but that is very rare to day except in the elite schools also when I was a child a piano was not a rarity in peoples homes not so today, but all is not lost, I recently followed a TV program that covered a singing competition between schools it was about choirs and was a varied repertoire that covered many genres including CM to see these young people perform and see the pleasure they were getting restored my faith in the education system standards.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

In High Art and Low Art (Classical and popular) the playing field is gradually being leveled. The older paradigm of the composer as a heroic individual was only "in touch" with society when it was the only game in town. Now that power structures have changed, the money that drives and enables music has shifted to the mass consumer realm. Certain characteristics of the popular arena are now showing up in High Art, and even the distinction of High Art is questioned by those who cling to the old paradigm.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

1996D said:


> At the end of the day music is music, and all creative human brains work alike. The counterpoint of Bach and Mahler is similar enough, the latter just has more emotional range.
> 
> o.


What is emotional range? More emotions quantitively, more emotions per hour, more hard hitting emotions, more ineffable and rare and subtle emotions or what? And how do you know that Mahler has a greater emotional range than Bach? Is it just your response you're talking about or something less personal.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Mahler descends from Beethoven and Wagner, not really directly comparable to a master like Bach.

That said, I think Bach's counterpoint is more advanced and his music has more depth, variety and brilliance. He is generally rated higher than Mahler and deservedly so.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

tdc said:


> Mahler descends from Beethoven and Wagner, not really directly comparable to a master like Bach.


But Beethoven and Wagner descend from Bach, it's transitive.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Why this either/or? Music offers a variety of experiences. Noting how music makes us feel, and listening because it makes us feel fantastic, is as natural as, and certainly more common than (since most people haven't studied or composed music), analyzing its structure. An exclusive preoccupation with how a composer does what he does could just as validly be called "missing the music," or maybe missing the landscape for the trees. Art regarded purely as a formal exercise is just another kind of diversion, albeit a sophisticated diversion for minds trained in composition or formal analysis. But music is more than a sonic erector set, and the range of emphasis on one aesthetic value or another between _Der Kust der Fuge_ and _Das Lied von der Erde_ is incalculably wide.


If there be a happy balance in music between eros and logos, composition by it's very nature tilts toward logos.

In saying that I wish to know how a piece of music works I do take into account the emotional element. But here is the problem with that: I know of no theory and composition book, nor have I ever sat in a theory or comp seminar in which instructions for writing angst, love, joy ect. were covered. "Ok ladies and gentlemen, get out your musical notebooks, today we are going to cover writing love themes."

Ah, but I have had a prof say, "Hey look at this passage. See how the series of appoggiatured augmented sixth chords heightens the tension?" (A famous love theme, but if it was absolute music, no one would have known what emotion was being "portrayed.")

I don't know what emotions a composer is trying to evoke in a piece of music because it is so subjective. Not only that, I don't know what feelings the composer himself has just by listening to his work, unless he comments about it on the side. If twenty people listen to a piece of music we could get twenty opinions about how that music feels to them. But all twenty could agree on what an inversion is, or what notes make up a Neapolitan chord.

Yes, I believe with all my heart that music evokes emotion. Yes, I believe with all my heart that music can convey feelings that are impossible to state in words. Maybe of all the arts it does this better. But, as my prof would say, did say in fact, "the emotional side of composition is innate and cannot be taught or learned."


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> But Beethoven and Wagner descend from Bach, it's transitive.


Beethoven admired Bach, and learned from him, but I think his compositions show a will to go in a different direction, there is very little of Bach in Beethoven's music. Likewise I think Wagner admired Bach and was impacted by his use of harmony but Beethoven, Mozart, Berlioz and Liszt were composers that probably had more of an impact on his aesthetic. As far as I know Mahler was not really interested in pre-Beethoven music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

> If there be a happy balance in music between eros and logos, composition by it's very nature tilts toward logos.
> 
> In saying that I wish to know how a piece of music works I do take into account the emotional element. But here is the problem with that: I know of no theory and composition book, nor have I ever sat in a theory or comp seminar in which instructions for writing angst, love, joy ect. were covered. "Ok ladies and gentlemen, get out your musical notebooks, today we are going to cover writing love themes."
> 
> ...


Now that's better.  I'd take issue with only two things: calling the lack of an instruction manual for representing and evoking emotion in music a "problem," and not recognizing that representing and evoking emotion musically is not entirely a free-for-all. Unique though each of us may be in our responses to certain rhythms or chords, the areas of agreement on what sorts of feelings music is conveying are striking and bear investigation. Composers of opera or song in search of music to express the meaning of a story or a poem are not just rolling the dice.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> What is emotional range? More emotions quantitively, more emotions per hour, more hard hitting emotions, more ineffable and rare and subtle emotions or what? And how do you know that Mahler has a greater emotional range than Bach? Is it just your response you're talking about or something less personal.


Mahler was the more emotional person, he was more sensitive, more unstable perhaps. Bach also has great range but he keeps everything in order, Mahler's counterpoint is much more disorderly. Other than that they are similar in the way they build great structures.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

The quality music is dead. (With few bright exceptions to justify the rule)

The bad music is progressing every day. It becomes worse and worst with geometrical progress.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

1996D said:


> Other than that they are similar in the way they build great structures.


I think Mahler is closer to Beethoven in how he builds great structures, but differs from both Bach and Beethoven in that the material he combines to create the structures is not all logically connected in the same way. He juxtaposes music that has essentially no logical connection at all and creates massive structures out of disparate materials and contradictory elements creating a heightened sense of schizophrenia. I find a similar 'schizophrenic' approach in much Beethoven, but Beethoven would generally use *smaller basic thematic material* for building blocks and his themes are developed and logically connected within classical sonata form.

*As a rule the most simple thematic material was developed the most in the classical era. Simple theme = complex structure. Longer more complex themes generally don't stand up well to the same sort of rigorous development processes.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

tdc said:


> Beethoven admired Bach, and learned from him, but I think his compositions show a will to go in a different direction, there is very little of Bach in Beethoven's music. Likewise I think Wagner admired Bach and was impacted by his use of harmony but Beethoven, Mozart, Berlioz and Liszt were composers that probably had more of an impact on his aesthetic. As far as I know Mahler was not really interested in pre-Beethoven music.


Here's a paper on the Mahler/Bach relationship (which I've not read yet, so it may be no good!)

https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Bach-Mahler.pdf

Fugues were clearly a big element of Beethoven's late music, and indeed variation form, but I have no idea if his use of these ideas has much in common with Bach's procedures.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> Here's a paper on the Mahler/Bach relationship (which I've not read yet, so it may be no good!)
> 
> https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Bach-Mahler.pdf
> 
> Fugues were clearly a big element of Beethoven's late music, and indeed variation form, but I have no idea if his use of these ideas has much in common with Bach's procedures.


It is an interesting paper, suggesting perhaps Mahler held Bach in higher esteem than I realized. (I read somewhere that Mahler said the only composers who were really important to him were Beethoven and Wagner). However, clearly there are some influences on his music from other composers outside of those two such as Bruckner for example. I think Mahler liked Brahms initially at first too, but eventually soured on his music. So composers views on these things can change from time to time.

The paper, points out the fact that Mahler owned much of Bach's music and became more interested in counterpoint in the later stages of his life, and that he employed some of the same elements in his music as Bach, such as counterpoint, palindrome and some similar religious elements.

So ultimately, I think yes, Bach had some influence on Beethoven and Mahler, but on the whole I see their aesthetic as quite far removed from Bach compared to say Mozart and Brahms.

In terms of the counterpoint and variations of Beethoven, he did use some of Bach's ideas, but ultimately took both things in his own direction. Sections of the _Hammerklavier Sonata_ can be seen as a timeline and parody of sorts of different styles of counterpoint, ultimately culminating in Beethoven's own style and vision.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

tdc said:


> I think Mahler is closer to Beethoven in how he builds great structures, but differs from both Bach and Beethoven in that the material he combines to create the structures is not all logically connected in the same way. He juxtaposes music that has essentially no logical connection at all and creates massive structures out of disparate materials and contradictory elements creating a heightened sense of schizophrenia. I find a similar 'schizophrenic' approach in much Beethoven, but Beethoven would generally use *smaller basic thematic material* for building blocks and his themes are developed and logically connected within classical sonata form.
> 
> *As a rule the most simple thematic material was developed the most in the classical era. Simple theme = complex structure. Longer more complex themes generally don't stand up well to the same sort of rigorous development processes.


Really you feel Mahler's music is schizophrenic?

Complex themes can be developed but usually you would just move on instead, everything has already been said. But having two complex themes in counterpoint creates a great complexity.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

tdc said:


> Sections of the _Hammerklavier Sonata_ can be seen as a timeline and parody of sorts of different styles of counterpoint.


Like Clavier Ubung III


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

1996D said:


> Complex themes can be developed but usually you would just move on instead, everything has already been said. But having two complex themes in counterpoint creates a great complexity.


 Moving on isn't always the case. Complex themes can contain a wealth of motific potential for development and further revealing of nascent material within. Probing and expanding material via technical means will reveal unexpected twists, new directions, inspired moments and can ensure inevitability. If you move on, you can potentially deprive the work of a unity and make the job of composing much harder than it already is - sometimes the solution to a problem can be found in what has gone before. At the very least one should apply procedures to motifs to see if anything fruitful can be found before moving on.

Whilst I agree with your fixation on counterpoint as a powerful technique up to a point, in order to make it speak well with your own voice, you need to make sure you have mastered it. I recommend these texts below because without sustained practice of these techniques over a decent period of time, you might never fully reach your potential in a linear driven style. It's better to know than not to know and as a TC members signature says...

"Tradition is not the worship of ashes - but the preservation of fire!"
Gustav Mahler

The composer has to progress too...

https://archive.org/details/contrapuntaltech22morr/page/n8

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.166045/page/n5


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

1996D said:


> Really you feel Mahler's music is schizophrenic?


I like some of Mahler's music and struggle with some of it. His use of form is unique and radical, and I think it reflects a decadent time where past and present were clashing and cultures also were clashing and this caused unique mental and societal challenges for many. So I don't think the schizophrenic description is off the mark in some works. To a degree I think some of his music is supposed to be that way reflecting a kind of turmoiled inner world, perhaps influenced by Freud and his ideas of the subconscious. These aspects of his music are also related to his uniqueness as a composer and his impact on modernism.

I think I tend to gravitate to music that is more focused on amplifying one particular kind of mood or feeling rather than displaying a multitude of different characteristics in one work, and this just relates to personal preference.

Perhaps this is why I find no fault with _Das Lied Von Der Erde_. It is simpler in form and more consistent in emotional feel throughout, without jarring contrasts. It comes across as more transparent to me and I find it is his most effective work. I consider it one of the finest works of the 20th century.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

I'm sure Mahler would say his work is all encompassing rather than schizophrenic, but there might be a truth to tdc's adjective in a different way as well. Mahler will quite happily incorporate ironic street music in his symphonies and that might be a little bewildering or off putting for some, not for me though. He is prone to emotional outbursts too and could be construed as being over the top or a little mercurial for some people.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

tdc said:


> As far as I know Mahler was not really interested in pre-Beethoven music.


Mahler was a renowned opera conductor who frequently conducted Mozart and Wagner. And his last word was "Mozart". And I think there's some connection between the ending of Mozart string quartet in D minor K421 and the beginning of Mahler's 5th in motifs.



tdc said:


> became more interested in counterpoint in the later stages of his life, and that he employed some of the same elements in his music as Bach, such as counterpoint,
> Bach had some influence on Beethoven and Mahler, but on the whole I see their aesthetic as quite far removed from Bach compared to say Mozart and Brahms.
> In terms of the counterpoint and variations of Beethoven, he did use some of Bach's ideas, but ultimately took both things in his own direction. Sections of the _Hammerklavier Sonata_ can be seen as a timeline and parody of sorts of different styles of counterpoint, ultimately culminating in Beethoven's own style and vision.







One thing to remember is, just because something is fugal or contrapuntal it doesn't automatically mean it's of Bachian origin or influence. For example, a lot of 18th century composers (including Mozart in his Salzburg years) also implemented fugal techniques without knowing a lot of Bach works at the time.
One thing I find interesting about Mozart's Salzburg period is that it shows certain purely Classical aspects of fugal writing. Unlike Bach, Classicists seem to use fugal writing as means to an end, to reach some kind of climatic conclusion.

I find the Et vitam venturi (17:39) from Missa in honorem Sanctissimae Trinitatis K167 remarkable how, in the middle of the fugal development, Mozart starts to gradually hint, nudge, and wink at the original Credo material (18:42) with strings, and uses the material to eventually reach a climax (19:19). Not sure how to describe it, but it conceptually reminds me of what the piano does in the midst of orchestral tutti in the beginning of Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 (albeit they're completely different in style and genre).

[17:39]










I think Beethoven also somewhat adheres to these Classical ways of effect:

[14:33]










(btw, I heard someone saying on another website "Seid umschlungen" from Beethoven's ninth symphony reflects the Dona nobis pacem of Mozart K167. I don't think there is a clear evidence of direct influence though.)

An interesting video on Mahler's use of counterpoint:


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

hammeredklavier said:


> Mahler was a renowned opera conductor who frequently conducted Mozart and Wagner.


Good point. It's interesting to me that Mahler never composed an opera. As you say he was an excellent opera conductor, and as evidenced by his lied was also good at setting words to music. It seems like opera is a genre he might've done very well with.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Now that's better.  I'd take issue with only two things: calling the lack of an instruction manual for representing and evoking emotion in music a "problem," and not recognizing that representing and evoking emotion musically is not entirely a free-for-all. Unique though each of us may be in our responses to certain rhythms or chords, the areas of agreement on what sorts of feelings music is conveying are striking and bear investigation. Composers of opera or song in search of music to express the meaning of a story or a poem are not just rolling the dice.


Opera composers get to use words to convey specific emotions that cannot be conveyed by the music itself. The same happens with program music. Strip the program notes from program music and the libretto from opera and you may still have great music that tells an emotional story...but no one would know what that story specifically was.

Going back to the famous "love" theme. I could study the concept of "love" all my life and still not understand how the composer created a heightened degree of tension in that famous passage. I can say however, that the innovation of the augmented sixth chord with the appoggiatura added tension through the tension created by the intervals in that chord.

Certainly emotion can inspire a composer to want to write a piece of music. It's a huge motivator. But if you didn't know the story, CBAG#A are just five notes with no more meaning attached to them than the notes F#EBflatC#G. Understanding why two composers were obsessed with that theme does not explain what they did with it.

Call me crazy, but musical ideas are the unifying and organizing elements of a music composition and not feelings. Those musical ideas my evoke emotions and feelings and those emotions and feelings are very important. But if I could invent the irony chord, I would give it to a certain alphanumeric poster in here even if I think he wouldn't understand it. But, alas, I don't know of anyone with that compositional power.

"He who makes songs without feeling spoils both his words and his music," has been a motto of mine for well over 40 years. But it's never been my organizing principle.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

mikeh375 said:


> Moving on isn't always the case. Complex themes can contain a wealth of motific potential for development and further revealing of nascent material within. Probing and expanding material via technical means will reveal unexpected twists, new directions, inspired moments and can ensure inevitability. If you move on, you can potentially deprive the work of a unity and make the job of composing much harder than it already is - sometimes the solution to a problem can be found in what has gone before. At the very least one should apply procedures to motifs to see if anything fruitful can be found before moving on.
> 
> Whilst I agree with your fixation on counterpoint as a powerful technique up to a point, in order to make it speak well with your own voice, you need to make sure you have mastered it. I recommend these texts below because without sustained practice of these techniques over a decent period of time, you might never fully reach your potential in a linear driven style. It's better to know than not to know and as a TC members signature says...
> 
> ...


Thanks for the intention, but I'm past that. I've developed my own style of counterpoint, a style completely original.

As far as thematic material, it really just comes naturally, the next theme that will reveal itself will be the correct one, in complete balance with the piece. I suppose some composers are methodical but I'm not, it all comes naturally, the ideas come and they come finished with logic and connection to one another, all I have to do is write them down.

What really concerns me are the emotions and themes rooted in reality one can write about. The headspaces one can get in to find a truer and more powerful emotion; the philosophical wisdom and goodness of heart to portray something that no one has.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Room2201974 said:


> If there be a happy balance in music between eros and logos, composition by it's very nature tilts toward logos.
> 
> In saying that I wish to know how a piece of music works I do take into account the emotional element. But here is the problem with that: I know of no theory and composition book, nor have I ever sat in a theory or comp seminar in which instructions for writing angst, love, joy ect. were covered. "Ok ladies and gentlemen, get out your musical notebooks, today we are going to cover writing love themes."
> 
> ...


I agree that "the emotional side of composition is innate and (is not usually) taught/learned" because it is not an external, objectified formal element of craft.

About art analysis: In objective "formal" analysis, only external, formal elements are considered. In painting, this would be the colors themselves, and all visible formal elements. 
Then there is the other side of this analysis equation, which considers subjective questions:
What was the artist's intent? What was the artist trying to accomplish? Was the artist sincere?

In other words, this second approach is concerned with inter-subjectivity: the artist and his intentions, his sincerity, his thoughts, his state of being and all those subjective factors of another person, as well as our own. It is an empathy. It assumes that art is an expression of another person's being (subjectivity of the artist) as it is experienced by us.

The emotion conveyed by music is the product (objective manifestation) of the artist's subjective world of feelings and emotions (his state of being) as it communicates to us on a human level. Ideally, as art, music is not an "object" divorced from any connection with "being" except our own. Art is always a two-way street if it is to have a dimension of meaning.

Otherwise, we are just "counting notes" and observing formal characteristics which exclude "the meaning" the art was intended to convey. That could be any beautiful thing, or natural phenomena, like a flower or a beautiful rock.

Is it possible to create emotions or produce effects and sympathetic behaviors in people using formal external forms? Yes, this is what composers do; it does so on a level which is sincere if it is the sincere expression of the composer. In other words, it helps the authenticity if the artist also "believes" in what he is conveying.

However, if it has reduced subjective reactions to repeatable formulae, or "observable data" like behaviorism has done, it can become the artist's "style" or personality., or just a mannerism or style. 
Therein can emerge a form of cynicism, and music at this level is not as sincere and authentic as art which truly emanates from the sincere permanent reference of "being." This would be a "pure" style.

This "sincerity" might be more directly conveyed or apparent in the realm of performance than composition.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

The short and easy answer is no, it does not progress. When we say some field of human endeavor progresses we mean it is more effective at achieving some desired end (taller buildings, faster planes, more effective drugs). What could this mean when applied to music?

It's possible to speak of music becoming more sophisticated in specific ways, but more sophisticated means don't bring us closer to any particular goal.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> The short and easy answer is no, it does not progress. When we say some field of human endeavor progresses we mean it is more effective at achieving some desired end (taller buildings, faster planes, more effective drugs). What could this mean when applied to music?
> 
> It's possible to speak of music becoming more sophisticated in specific ways, but more sophisticated means don't bring us closer to any particular goal.


If we can safely dismiss the concept of progress as implying a simple increase in value (later music not being "better" than earlier by virtue of chronology), I think there's a great deal of potential progress implicit in "more sophisticated in specific ways" and "more effective at achieving some desired end." I don't see how an immense expansion of techniques such as music has attained over the centuries could fail to enlarge music's possible range of form and expression, and so fail to constitute progress toward a "desired [or at least a desirable] end."

A composer writing in 1900 had options unimaginable to a composer in 1700, one of which was to compose using the techniques of 1700 - or 1200, or 1800. If being able to do more things, and consequently to express more things, represents progress in the career of an artist, why doesn't it represent progress in the development of the art form as a whole? A Palestrina mass may be as fine of its kind as a Wagner opera or a Mahler symphony, but that kind involves a much narrower set of artistic possibilities and goals. Moments in _Parsifal_ evoke the purity of Palestrina's musical universe, but given the tools at his disposal and the cultural milieu in which he wrote Palestrina had not the means to explore the emotional multiverse of _Parsifal._ Numerous innovations had to ensue after Palestrina's day in order for music to progress far enough to express the varied - subtle and extreme - states of feeling that composers would eventually explore.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Music progresses only to point it can be understood. If the last dying words of a great melodist are sung in the forest right before he dies, and no one is around, does it make a sound?


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Ethereality said:


> Music progresses only to point it can be understood. If the last dying words of a great melodist are sung in the forest right before he dies, and no one is around, does it make a sound?


If there's a singer in the forest singing the melody how is there no one around...


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

I'd like to go back to the OP for a minute:



KenOC said:


> Does music progress? If so, how? If it truly progresses, doesn't that imply that more recent music is "better" than older music?


I'd prefer to say that Western Art Music has made a progression in the expansion of materials and structures available to the composer. In the sense of having more options to choose from I think this is a very positive trend. Does having an expanded palette of options make modern compositions "better?" And if we say that, does it also apply to the ability of composers? Are composers getting "better?" Is is true that _Opus 23_ by Schoenberg is "better" than Bach's _Mass In B Minor_ thus making Schoenberg the "better" composer. Well of course no one is saying that here (I think) and the problem is with the word "better."

Or, shall I flip the argument: Would Beethoven have been a "better" composer had he been a serialist, a polytonalist, or a microtonalist???

"Better" implies a value judgement that I would like to avoid. Oh, don't get me wrong here, I have my musical preferences just like anyone else. But I don't have a definitive answer for what is "better." Instead I'd rather ask the following:

What were the materials and structures known to the composer at the time they were composing?
How did they use those materials and structures in constructing a composition?

In the past I have gone down the rabbit hole of value judgement only to find that time spent on that subject takes me away from the time I could be spending on those two questions.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Does "music" progress? Music is the expression of being, so whatever can reach us is good. Right now is not the time. We have bigger fish to fry. "Onward, into the Valley of Death rode the 600..."


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

In the case of classical music, insofar as great composers emerged and great works were produced that were original in ways that had never been heard before, it did progress throughout the 19th century and into the early 20th century with the likes of Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Richard Strauss and Rachmaninoff. However, IMO, there’s a serious question as to whether what has happened since World War 1 can be considered progress.

Progress usually infers ‘better’, but that doesn’t always apply to the arts.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Putting aside subjective taste for a moment if I may and speaking as a composer, I'd have to say there is progress in a creative sense for sure. To have new exciting options to explore, rather than be at worst hidebound, is energising and exhilarating at times. Not that all composers will take advantage of the new freedoms (as in a 100 or so years old new that is), but I do feel that composers today should at least assess and hopefully assimilate in their own way, whatever resonates with their proclivities from the last century or so.

Although the new has to deal with some issues imv, not least of all the chasm between listener and creator, at least the composer's aesthetic spirit of adventure can be sated to any extent they wish. 
Do I like all contemporary trends, not particularly, some trouble me a lot, however that they exist, is a testament to the questing human spirit imv and surely progress can only occur if the water in the well is changed now and again to avoid creative stagnation.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

mikeh375 said:


> Putting aside subjective taste for a moment if I may and speaking as a composer, I'd have to say there is progress in a creative sense for sure. To have new exciting options to explore, rather than be at worst hidebound, is energising and exhilarating at times. Not that all composers will take advantage of the new freedoms (as in a 100 or so years old new that is), but I do feel that composers today should at least assess and hopefully assimilate in their own way, whatever resonates with their proclivities from the last century or so.
> 
> Although the new has to deal with some issues imv, not least of all the chasm between listener and creator, at least the composer's aesthetic spirit of adventure can be sated to any extent they wish.
> Do I like all contemporary trends, not particularly, some trouble me a lot, however that they exist, is a testament to the questing human spirit imv and surely progress can only occur if the water in the well is changed now and again to avoid creative stagnation.


You have to find new subjects to write about, subjects that motivate you to put everything into a piece. A real passion for a subject or cause can make you put everything and more into a piece; extreme amounts of time and dedication that you otherwise might not have put in.

Inspiration becomes more powerful if it has a purpose behind it, honestly I can't write absolute music anymore, I just won't have the motivation to put in the time and effort to create something great.

What it was great for was developing a style and ironing out technique, but even then you get better by simply composing and putting in time, and you'll put in a lot more time if you feel motivated by the subject matter.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

mikeh375 said:


> Putting aside subjective taste for a moment if I may and speaking as a composer, I'd have to say there is progress in a creative sense for sure. To have new exciting options to explore, rather than be at worst hidebound, is energising and exhilarating at times. Not that all composers will take advantage of the new freedoms (as in a 100 or so years old new that is), but I do feel that composers today should at least assess and hopefully assimilate in their own way, whatever resonates with their proclivities from the last century or so.
> 
> Although the new has to deal with some issues imv, not least of all the chasm between listener and creator, at least the composer's aesthetic spirit of adventure can be sated to any extent they wish.
> Do I like all contemporary trends, not particularly, some trouble me a lot, however that they exist, is a testament to the questing human spirit imv and surely progress can only occur if the water in the well is changed now and again to avoid creative stagnation.


So what are these new options to explore? And who's exploring them?

I may be wrong about this, but the music I'm hearing these days seems less free than what was being done in the past. Helmut Lachenmann, with his 2017 Marche Fatale.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

1996D said:


> You have to find new subjects to write about, subjects that motivate you to put everything into a piece. A real passion for a subject or cause can make you put everything and more into a piece; *extreme amounts of time and dedication that you otherwise might not have put in.*
> 
> Inspiration becomes more powerful if it has a purpose behind it, honestly I can't write absolute music anymore, I just won't have the motivation to put in the time and effort to create something great.


One does not have to find subjects, other than those of the notes variety. Time, effort, skill, reflection and more time and effort is obviously part of writing music. Similarly, inspiration and the sense of psychological 'flow' needs to be worked for, not waited for. Open the door to let them in, you need to learn how to do that in your work or you will spend a fortune on silk dressing gowns because you'll keep wearing them out with all that anxious waiting and if you do happen upon a lucky find, you still need the skill to present it to your adoring public. Music for music's sake is still as valid as it always has been and will always be so.

As always, your pronouncements betray you and your supposed ability by which I assume you mean to conquer concert art music. Any other style will obviously be more forgiving of a slapdash approach but not at the highest levels of attainment.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

mikeh375 said:


> One does not have to find subjects, other than those of the notes variety. Time, effort, skill, reflection and more time and effort is obviously part of writing music. Similarly, inspiration and the sense of psychological 'flow' needs to be worked for, not waited for. Open the door to let them in, you need to learn how to do that in your work or you will spend a fortune on silk dressing gowns because you'll keep wearing them out with all that anxious waiting and if you do happen upon a lucky find, you still need the skill to present it to your adoring public. Music for music's sake is still as valid as it always has been and will always be so.
> 
> As always, your pronouncements betray you and your supposed ability by which I assume you mean to conquer concert art music. Any other style will obviously be more forgiving of a slapdash approach but not at the highest levels of attainment.


I can only tell you about my experience, and I've found that more time is put in unconsciously when the piece has a subject that enlightens the mind.

The absolute music written by someone like Mozart had behind it the great society in which he lived; the great order and optimism of his time are reflected in his music. Today we live in a different society and this will produce very ugly music if that's the subject matter or inspiration.

This is why the romantics went to nature to find inspiration, because their societies were declining from Mozart's time. All they wanted was to look to the past to find a better world and a purer inspiration.

Art needs an environment to draw greatness from--this can be physical or intellectual.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> So what are these new options to explore? And who's exploring them?
> 
> I may be wrong about this, but the music I'm hearing these days seems less free than what was being done in the past. Helmut Lachenmann, with his 2017 Marche Fatale.


Yes, it may seem ironic Mandryka that discipline has to be imposed on freedom but it is essential imv. to curtail the randomness of choice in an open arena of sound and necessary to impose order which will then imprint the creator's will and spirit into the material, thus creating cogent, expressive work.

The freedoms/options come from an unlimited choice of vertical and linear possibilities and the potential arrhythmical impositions on musical time, that do not need a regular pulse (in the simplest unifying sense). The option to create one's own functionality that needn't refer to any other system except itself i.e create one's own parameters, is immensely powerful as a creative spur and can lead to very original thinking and music.

In one sense modernism is not really different in approach from say a CP approach, its just that the initial parameters are now pretty much unbounded and awaiting definitions from the composer which are not beholden to past practice if that is what's desired. Application/manipulation of any set of rules often follows a search and find regime, followed by a working out.

These creative rules can be as broad as one wishes of course, and depending on the composers willingness to tread a well worn musical path or an unknown path, the decisions made in the initial stages of composing, the set-up if you like, will be one of the defining factors in how their work is perceived. Throw in electronics and the timbral/sonic possibilities are equally unlimited.

Just my personal take you understand..


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

1996D said:


> Art needs an environment to draw greatness from--this can be physical or intellectual.


yaayy, we agree for once. But not about the ugliness...

"You goddamn sissy... when you hear strong masculine music like this, get up and use your ears like a man!"...Ives

Or less contentiously and more pertinent for a composer, develop your curiosity and explore, open your ears and mind. You do that by getting under the hood of the notes.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

mikeh375 said:


> yaayy, we agree for once. But not about the ugliness...
> 
> "You goddamn sissy... when you hear strong masculine music like this, get up and use your ears like a man!"...Ives
> 
> Or less contentiously and more pertinent for a composer, develop your curiosity and explore, open your ears and mind.


Taste is the enemy of creativity, but I've enough of the latter to care more greatly for the former.


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