# Are You Blinded By Your Ears?



## millionrainbows

The ears hear pitches in a certain way: a fundamental pitch has higher harmonics, and that's the way our ears hear: lowest note , then the higher components. This "bottom up" way of hearing is also the way we hear chords: the lowest note tends to be the most "centric" note, which "roots" chords and gives them harmonic stability. This "low note" idea has been used to determine "root movement" of chords.
All scales can be seen as "harmonic models" of this. Though not _exactly _like the harmonic series, the scales can nonetheless _"model"_ a harmonic relationship between a tonic note and its other, lesser, scale steps.

This is all evident when we hear music that is harmonically based like this.

But when this harmonic modeling is abandoned, many listeners are repelled, seeing the sounds as "unmusical" or intolerably dissonant, such as Schoenberg, Boulez, Ligeti, and others.

Listening to music is an ear/brain process, which involves hearing, as well as cognition.
__________________________________________________
_
My assertion is that, if you reject certain "non-harmonic" music as being too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and cognition of such music. _

A hypothetical list of composers who I see frequently being rejected on these "harmonic" grounds:

Ligeti, Cage Varese, Carter, later Schoenberg, Webern, Nono, Berio, Stockhausen, Ferneyhough, Rihm, and it goes on.


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## mikeh375

It's can be testing even as a composer, exploring a freer or even rootless and gravitationally naughty soundworld, searching for nuggets of music in an honest and intelligent way, so I do have sympathies with any conservative audience...but oh boy, the lure of it all...
My ears are not blinded at all, but they do need discipline in order to write a cogent and sincere piece. I believe everyone should have a sense of adventure and a willingness to put some ear time in when listening to anything beyond overt tonality...there really is great art and powerful succour to be found.


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## AeolianStrains

Is this rehash really necessary? Do we really need yet another thread bashing people who don't enjoy atonal and serialist music?


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## Phil loves classical

I think of dissonance as a musical taboo, like nudity and violence is in film. Good music and film shouldn't all be about dissonance, nudity and violence, there has to be something beyond that. It is a necessary part to explore certain subject matter and themes, etc.


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## millionrainbows

AeolianStrains said:


> Is this rehash really necessary? Do we really need yet another thread bashing people who don't enjoy atonal and serialist music?


By "don't enjoy," you must mean they don't enjoy it based solely on their ears, sensually and viscerally; the way they are used to music sounding. 
I didn't "bash" anyone, I simply said that some are blinded to the cognitive aspects (serial), or just the plain reception of music as pure sound (Cage, Ligeti), because it does not fit the sensual harmonic model. Their cognitive response is also conditioned by the sensual.


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## Open Book

Dissonance in limited quantities has been used even in the baroque era. It's fine if it's used in a limited way and then resolved into something listenable. In fact, it's interesting, satisfying. It's OK to even end in a dissonant way. Unrelenting dissonance is an attack on the ears and the brain -- why should anyone want to subject themselves to it? 

If I'm blinded to the cognitive aspects of dissonance, what am I missing?

I suppose a musician would discern that there are many kinds of dissonance and be fascinated by that, but as a non-musician all I can hear is the negativity it produces on my brain, and I want it to end soon.


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## AeolianStrains

millionrainbows said:


> *I didn't "bash" anyone, I simply said that some are blinded*


Huh, ok then.

Music is meant to be listened to. Unless you have synesthesia, you can't see it. You can see the scores, you can watch the musicians or singers perform, but ultimately it's about listening.

I cannot understand why those who do enjoy this stuff can't see that others just plainly don't. I love natural sounds (running or falling water, bird sounds, wind-shaken branches or its pure howl), bu Cage and Ligeti don't just do sounds. They do noises. I enjoy less the shattering of glass, nails on chalkboard, paper tearing. That's not music to my ears, they're just awful noises.

You might like all that. Great! Doesn't mean I'm "blinded" because I don't.


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## DaveM

Retrain yourself cognitively and fingernails on a chalkboard will sound like a lullaby.


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## millionrainbows

DaveM said:


> Retrain yourself cognitively and fingernails on a chalkboard will sound like a lullaby.


No, you're still trying to "convert" all sound back into "sensual beauty" criteria. If "fingernails on a chalkboard" are what the artist intended, then you're "identifying it" as being unpleasant to you; this is a _cognitive_ failure, not a _sensual_ one.

People like this can't understand visual art, either. They don't realize that visual aspects (color, line, hue) are vehicles for ideas. In that absence of that, they _surely_ don't understand any kind of conceptual art.
To them, art or music is a purely sensual experience, with little cognitive content.


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## Open Book

millionrainbows said:


> People like this can't understand visual art, either. They don't realize that visual aspects (color, line, hue) are vehicles for ideas. In that absence of that, they _surely_ don't understand any kind of conceptual art.
> To them, art or music is a purely sensual experience, with little cognitive content.


I went on a group tour to an art museum. There was an older woman in the group whose favorite painting was the portrait of the museum's founders, one of the few realistic ones on display. She disliked the abstract art, even the ones that I could see were influenced by something in nature, like a landscape of trees.

I like figurative and abstract art equally. They have to have artistic merit. Figurative art shouldn't be too literal. Abstract art shouldn't be just a random mess that a chimpanzee with a paintbrush would produce, there has to be balance and beauty to the brushstrokes and colors and other elements.

It's fair to ask why I can appreciate non-traditional art but not modern music. I don't see good abstract art as visually dissonant. Maybe someone can offer an explanation. Maybe it's as simple as the fact that I can immediately turn away from art I don't like where I might have less control over sound.


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## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> No, you're still trying to "convert" all sound back into "sensual beauty" criteria. If "fingernails on a chalkboard" are what the artist intended, then you're "identifying it" as being unpleasant to you; this is a _cognitive_ failure, not a _sensual_ one.
> 
> People like this can't understand visual art, either. They don't realize that visual aspects (color, line, hue) are vehicles for ideas. In that absence of that, they _surely_ don't understand any kind of conceptual art.
> To them, art or music is a purely sensual experience, with little cognitive content.


I recommend the profound, idea-filled art of Jules Olitski as best embodying mr's notions of color, line, hue as vehicles for ideas. The ideas that flood into my head when I immerse myself in Olitski's works threaten to make my cranium burst.

The piece is called "Instant Loveland". It was painted in 1968.


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## Bulldog

millionrainbows said:


> I didn't "bash" anyone, I simply said that some are blinded


To say they are "blinded" is definitely a form of bashing.


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## EdwardBast

millionrainbows said:


> The ears hear pitches in a certain way: a fundamental pitch has higher harmonics, and that's the way our ears hear: lowest note , then the higher components. This "bottom up" way of hearing is also the way we hear chords: the lowest note tends to be the most "centric" note, which "roots" chords and gives them harmonic stability. This "low note" idea has been used to determine "root movement" of chords.
> All scales can be seen as "harmonic models" of this. Though not _exactly _like the harmonic series, the scales can nonetheless _"model"_ a harmonic relationship between a tonic note and its other, lesser, scale steps.
> 
> This is all evident when we hear music that is harmonically based like this.
> 
> But when this harmonic modeling is abandoned, many listeners are repelled, seeing the sounds as "unmusical" or intolerably dissonant, such as Schoenberg, Boulez, Ligeti, and others.
> 
> Listening to music is an ear/brain process, which involves hearing, as well as cognition.
> __________________________________________________
> _
> My assertion is that, if you reject certain "non-harmonic" music as being too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and cognition of such music. _
> 
> A hypothetical list of composers who I see frequently being rejected on these "harmonic" grounds:
> 
> Ligeti, Cage Varese, Carter, later Schoenberg, Webern, Nono, Berio, Stockhausen, Ferneyhough, Rihm, and it goes on.


Remove the poorly applied lipstick and we've seen this pig countless times before:

Some people like music with normal chords and scales because they think such music sounds good. Because of this preference, they reject other music. Such people are blind(?) to the other music (although, obviously, deaf would have made more sense).

An insult wrapped in an uninspired rehash. Next.


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## paulbest

Great OP Q here, Just wonderS Full

Bach>Beethoven,,,we are in germany by the way, if you failed to note>>>>Brahms>Wagner OK, switch them if you like>>>>Lets see who is next,,,,Bruckner/Mahler>>>>lets see who is next>>>>Hartman>>>??
Stockhausen? 
Some say, YES, the end of the line. 
I say no. 

The next in the germanic classical art is
Hezne, completes the german line of CM

Now sure, if folks wish to remain fix in germany's music up to Brahms/Bruckner, and go not much further. that is their business. 
At least try out geramny;s other great classical composers, THEN makea decision. 
Tonality only carry's the listener so far. I mean how many times can one listen toa Bethoven symphony,,and walk away with a New different impression, other than the feelings aroused in the 1st,2, 3, 4th time listening, If you do not know the Beethoven 5th symphony after say 5 hearings, , then you need some maturity in music,,and when the mature phase of your experience arrives,,,do not be at all surprised if you begin a journey into all sorts of new fresh music, Like Schoenberg, Webern, and others ,,,like Henze.
Now here with Henze,,,few are able to listen even 100 times and can tell me what is coming next in the score. 
Henze is like Beethoven X's 1000,,,X 1000. 

This is my opinion on the subject of pure banal tonality vs the celestial world of atonality, dissonance, ultra modern classical. 

Its like when you were a kid, the merry go round was quite a ride,,,we all had fun,,,then came the 100MPH roller coasters,,,now that was FUN!
Its all about maturity , depths, heights, 
Henze offers all that, far above what you get with Beethoven's 1 dimensional box like structures.


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## paulbest

lol, both pure tonality is taking a good kicjk,,, as well as post modernism ,,lately,,,hahaha


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## hammeredklavier

I think certain types of music requires images and visual elements be associated with them to be 'understood' more easily, much like how opera is a visual art as it is a musical art.
I think Stockhausen's music would work well as background music for horror movies or mystery documentaries

20:00~ 22:00


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## Simon Moon

From an relatively early time, my brain was 'retrained' to enjoy dissonance and atonality via the introduction of avant-prog (a subgenre of prog rock/music), which uses a heavy dose of both.

So, when I first heard music from the composers described, their music just came naturally to me. I have no problem NOT hearing it as 'noise' and hearing their pieces as "music". It does not sound undisciplined at all to me, quite the opposite actually.

Not all beauty has to be obvious, sometimes it is worth the effort to find beauty in the difficult. One might get a feeling of catharsis from some of this music.



> Is this rehash really necessary? Do we really need yet another thread bashing people who don't enjoy atonal and serialist music?


From what I've been able to discern from my time here on TC, usually those of us that talk about atonal, dissonant music, it is almost on threads about such music, or with an honest attempt to get others to give something a listen, that may be out of their comfort zone.

But what I've seen from the haters of atonal, dissonant music, is a lot of snark. Most threads I've seen, with subjects about this music, have comments by those that don't like that are sarcastic, condescending, and insulting.

There was a thread about a year ago, with the subject, "Your Favorite 12 tone piece", or something similar. Along with some serious recommendations, about a quarter of the comments were negative toward the music in general. One particular was something like, "the shortest one", but that was not the only snarky comment.

Please point to a single thread about: Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Handel, Mahler, etc, with a comment anything like the above from a fan of 12 tone and dissonant music. I'll wait...

I do not care for any of those composers, or any music from pre-20th century, so I will not post on threads about them.

Now, with all that being said, I do understand that this particular thread was started with the possibility to stir up some controversy, so I am not referring to this thread.


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## paulbest

Lets consider the pure tonality of Rachmaninov, 
Who can deny the vividly lush gorgeous passages through his music? 
I mean it sparkles with beauty and charm. 
But after some years, some of this beauty and charm begins to lose its appeal. This is where we Modernists have to part ways with Rachmaninov in search for higher realms of creativity,,,Don't get me wrong,,,there will be times we want to revist his 1st piano concerto, maybe his 1st symphony, But as for the rest, its not likely his others works will see the cd player's lazer light,,,,his cds will just collect dust til………
Rachmaninov was a great aid for our introduction into classical music. 

We now say thank you for his tones of color and beauty. 


take Bach...you can play 10 seconds blindly, of any his music,,and almost guess which composer in on the cd player. OK, maybe after 15 seconds of play time. 

Beethoven, maybe after 1 minute, most can guess it is the great classic master. 
Brahms may be more difficult, as his music is more complex,,,unless you know his music well, which I do not. I might say its Dvorak playing,,when in fact its Bruckner...Anyway,,,Betwixt Brahms, Dvorak, Bruckner, Mahler there are differences, yet strong similarities. 



Yes?
Well stick in Schoenberg, Berg, Webern,,,now these 3 stick out faily easy from the previous group. 
= New music. 
New Experiences.
= Depth, width, breather, heights , now we are challenged and need time to digest these 3 masters,,how much time?
Lots. 
I can listen to any Malher symphony, carefully, and gather almost 50%+ on 1st hearing. 
2nd hearing, maybe another 5%,,,3,4,5,10 sessions,,i pretty much know the Mahler symphony,,= nothing new on the horizon..

Now take tubin,,, The theif of some Sibelius and ALOT from RVW. 
We don;'t like thieves, right?
Well in music, it can be , I said MIGHT be a good thing,,,as long as the theif pays back,,AND with INTEREST. 
Tubin, pays back what he stole from RVS/Sibelius , with a  nice sum of Interest. 
Forgiven, and has been granted Redemption status, which is what?
Though he is late 20th C, which might mean he fell for the post mod/avant garde *Trap*,,,he did not, He avoided that pitfall, and actually,,get this,,,actually went neo romantic with modern ideas interlaced throughout,,hahaha
GENIUS!
He is in The Hall of Classical Composers, He made it,,whereas Stockhausen/Boulez countless others thought arte novo , means going it MY OWN WAY. 

Their music aflls sadly, short of being inducted into The graet halls of Classical Muisc. Ligeti thought he was being cool with his new ideas, 
How long can one listen to classical instruments which once played such beautiful toned music, such as our memories of 
Greig

Sibelius]
Rachmaninov

Prokofiev
Bartok

, Now the same instruments which brought us these glorious composers, are now forced to perform sounds which attack us, and confront us, as though we really don't care for beauty, tonal poetics, richly textured melodies and harmonies. 


These very same instruments are now coerced to play sounds they were not meant to perform. 


The New music has to pass through our previous tonal based experiences. 
We are not willing to give up our Grieg for something Berio invents , just because we are told *the New is better and more cool*

Why would I give up Grieg for Berio? . 

If Berio wants my vote, he has to present music that matches Grieg , in a new style.


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## paulbest

Simon Moon said:


> From an relatively early time, my brain was 'retrained' to enjoy dissonance and atonality via the introduction of avant-prog (a subgenre of prog rock/music), which uses a heavy dose of both.
> 
> So, when I first heard music from the composers described, their music just came naturally to me. I have no problem NOT hearing it as 'noise' and hearing their pieces as "music". It does not sound undisciplined at all to me, quite the opposite actually.
> 
> Not all beauty has to be obvious, sometimes it is worth the effort to find beauty in the difficult. One might get a feeling of catharsis from some of this music.
> 
> From what I've been able to discern from my time here on TC, usually those of us that talk about atonal, dissonant music, it is almost on threads about such music, or with an honest attempt to get others to give something a listen, that may be out of their comfort zone.
> 
> But what I've seen from the haters of atonal, dissonant music, is a lot of snark. Most threads I've seen, with subjects about this music, have comments by those that don't like that are sarcastic, condescending, and insulting.
> 
> There was a thread about a year ago, with the subject, "Your Favorite 12 tone piece", or something similar. Along with some serious recommendations, about a quarter of the comments were negative toward the music in general. One particular was something like, "the shortest one", but that was not the only snarky comment.
> 
> Please point to a single thread about: Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Handel, Mahler, etc, with a comment anything like the above from a fan of 12 tone and dissonant music. I'll wait...
> 
> I do not care for any of those composers, or any music from pre-20th century, so I will not post on threads about them.
> 
> Now, with all that being said, I do understand that this particular thread was started with the possibility to stir up some controversy, so I am not referring to this thread.


I hope I addressed at least some parts to your excellent post.

I am one that has issues with past greats, concerning the propaganda the musical community surrounds the past masters.

Like you, my music begins, Debussy, Prelude,,and ends in late 20th C Classical. I don't venture far from these paths. 
I've tried both pre 1900 masters, and also post modern/contemporary. 
I take issues with both eras, as offering music that can meet my thirst for great artistic music.

For me the past has provided a foundation which the modern composer which I am interested in, have built upon , and have paid their respects, by not turning their backs on these past great composers.

The romantic/classical crowds, the majority vote that is, wishes to believe, the truly great edifice is composed , made up of their great composers,,,and that the late composers are only like shubery in the gardens of their *church*. that's all the place they will give to late mod music.

To me , many of the late mod , avate garde composers are like weeds in the garden as far as I am concerned.


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## AeolianStrains

Simon Moon said:


> From what I've been able to discern from my time here on TC, usually those of us that talk about atonal, dissonant music, it is almost on threads about such music, or with an honest attempt to get others to give something a listen, that may be out of their comfort zone.


It's very condescending to assume we _haven't_ given it a listen before.



> Please point to a single thread about: Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Handel, Mahler, etc, with a comment anything like the above from a fan of 12 tone and dissonant music. I'll wait...


You besides 50% of paulbest's comments? Maybe you need more examples?

I also find it hilarious you ask me to ignore using this thread as evidence that this thread is just stirring up the pot. How's that axe-grinding going for you?


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## paulbest

Look 
here is how I hear late 20th C classical,,,and how I draw divisions twix true classical composers and those who have gone the avant garde route.

btw I cked the poll on the link,,,83% voted Mozart as a *god*,,,which is was/is/will forever be. 
Read your greek plays/Plato/carl Jung. the divine archetype always carries meaning in every generation which comes in contact with that particular manifestation.

anyway, 
Classical composer






and

avant garde/post modern art






is my distinction more clearer with these 2 examples from each level of art?


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## Merl

Id say some people are blinded by their prejudices more than their ears.


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## paulbest

Pre-judging? say ye?
Why?
I have heard Mozart PC's. Rachmaninov. Prokofiev' PCs, I know how the concerto is in the classical sense. 
Now biased, Yep, I am that, I am biased 
against post mod/avant garde ,and highly favored of Modern/Late Modern Classical msic.. 
I am a staunch supporter of this final era in the classical tradition. 

Biased To the point where I can count on one hand, composers pre 1900, which are on my cd shelf,
Avant garde has some interesting music, no doubt, Stockhausen, Berio holds some attention,,,but after some time, I find its not going to work in my ideas what music should be. 
As I say
Hats off to that entire Stockhausen/Boulez avant garde genre in the arts, very commendable music. 
Boulez piano music does appear to be a keeper. 

But prejudging, No, I have spent some moments in the avant garde realms of art. It certainly has its moments, who can deny. 
But all in all, I must stay focused and committed to the few late 20th C classical composers who I am in full support. I play their main cheer leader.


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## AeolianStrains

He might not have been referring to you, paulbest...


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## paulbest

Im understand,,,Look, this issue of tiering , raiting post mod/avant garde composers has been on my mind some 15 years now. And since I have made at least attempts to give all the major post mods a spot listen to some of the major works,,,seems to me it is time now to begin sorting through the the material.
My guess if we ask for a list from all post mod club fans, we would see a top 20 composers , most frequently mentioned on the list, Berio, Ligeti, , perhaps Rihm. 

, maybe Schnittke, Henze and even Pettersson may very well be in this Top 20 Most popular avant garde composers. 

Sure enough you would see carter, Henae, Pettersson, henze , lumped right in with the others, No doubt in my mind,,,In fact a few post mod fans, , that is *contemporary music fans*,,,feel Henze, Pettersson are *minor composers* *insignificant*, 


Its all over the place,,every one's opinions varies and ranges far and wide from everyone else in the group. 

Now back in the old days, Bach's day that is, he was fully recognized as genius, no questions asked, Beethoven, to this day he is extremely rated as a major important composer whose music is highly regarded among the classical community. 

That opinion is not going away anytime soon,,or if ever. 
We Modernists just have to *deal with IT*. 


Brahms may be fading bit, Tchaikovsky too seems to be losing some glitter.


Sibelius, has seen fans slowly fade away. 


Changes are in the making, and new attitudes will eventually will arise and make some adjustments. 


The fact that most newbies to the modern classical world, have not even heard the names, Pettersson, Henze.
This is one of my main purposes in this life on earth. To bring some attention to these 2 composers. 
Schnittke and Elliott Carter already have some notoriety,, both are on their way to becoming, *Significant, vital, highly regarded classical composers of the mid/late 20th C era*. 
I can see WIKI editing in this note sometime in the next 30-40 years concerning the epoch of late 20TH C modern classical.
Christian Lindberg is making efforts to present Pettersson to the world stage via the Pettersson Project, From what I hear, it is going over well. 

Henze 's name is just now being brought up in classical music forums. 
Sure has taken some 20 years now. 
The classical community for the most part, is not known at being *enlightened*. They sort of follow the crowds, the popular vote.
But I do believe there is a new breed of classical fans, who will decide for themselves which composers hold meaning, ,, which are good for entertainment, and which are good as only for stepping stones to theb higher forms of music, that is the 20th C modern composers, 
here in this late era, 20th C, is where the Flowering and subsequent fruiting of the classical tree has taken place.
And yet so few can hear, see and taste of these flowers and fruits. 


A fruit tree that is not producing, for what use is it?


And if the ripened fruits are loaded on the tree, why stand aloof, afar off and stare?

The classicists/romanticists want to say, *what a gigantic mighty tree we have, w/o which you modernists would not be able to enjoy the fruits* 
Why do they not want to taste the end results of what their Beethoven has helped produce?
Its beyond me this mystery.


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## ECraigR

paulbest said:


> Im understand,,,Look, this issue of tiering , raiting post mod/avant garde composers has been on my mind some 15 years now. And since I have made at least attempts to give all the major post mods a spot listen to some of the major works,,,seems to me it is time now to begin sorting through the the material.
> My guess if we ask for a list from all post mod club fans, we would see a top 20 composers , most frequently mentioned on the list, Berio, Ligeti, , perhaps Rihm.
> 
> , maybe Schnittke, Henze and even Pettersson may very well be in this Top 20 Most popular avant garde composers.
> 
> Sure enough you would see carter, Henae, Pettersson, henze , lumped right in with the others, No doubt in my mind,,,In fact a few post mod fans, , that is *contemporary music fans*,,,feel Henze, Pettersson are *minor composers* *insignificant*,
> 
> Its all over the place,,every one's opinions varies and ranges far and wide from everyone else in the group.
> 
> Now back in the old days, Bach's day that is, he was fully recognized as genius, no questions asked, Beethoven, to this day he is extremely rated as a major important composer whose music is highly regarded among the classical community.
> 
> That opinion is not going away anytime soon,,or if ever.
> We Modernists just have to *deal with IT*.
> 
> Brahms may be fading bit, Tchaikovsky too seems to be losing some glitter.
> 
> Sibelius, has seen fans slowly fade away.
> 
> Changes are in the making, and new attitudes will eventually will arise and make some adjustments.
> 
> The fact that most newbies to the modern classical world, have not even heard the names, Pettersson, Henze.
> This is one of my main purposes in this life on earth. To bring some attention to these 2 composers.
> Schnittke and Elliott Carter already have some notoriety,, both are on their way to becoming, *Significant, vital, highly regarded classical composers of the mid/late 20th C era*.
> I can see WIKI editing in this note sometime in the next 30-40 years concerning the epoch of late 20TH C modern classical.
> Christian Lindberg is making efforts to present Pettersson to the world stage via the Pettersson Project, From what I hear, it is going over well.
> 
> Henze 's name is just now being brought up in classical music forums.
> Sure has taken some 20 years now.
> The classical community for the most part, is not known at being *enlightened*. They sort of follow the crowds, the popular vote.
> But I do believe there is a new breed of classical fans, who will decide for themselves which composers hold meaning, ,, which are good for entertainment, and which are good as only for stepping stones to theb higher forms of music, that is the 20th C modern composers,
> here in this late era, 20th C, is where the Flowering and subsequent fruiting of the classical tree has taken place.
> And yet so few can hear, see and taste of these flowers and fruits.
> 
> A fruit tree that is not producing, for what use is it?
> 
> And if the ripened fruits are loaded on the tree, why stand aloof, afar off and stare?
> 
> The classicists/romanticists want to say, *what a gigantic mighty tree we have, w/o which you modernists would not be able to enjoy the fruits*
> Why do they not want to taste the end results of what their Beethoven has helped produce?
> Its beyond me this mystery.


Bach was not universally hailed as a genius immediately. It's trite classical music factoid that Bach was less popular than his sons after his death. Not trying to be argumentative, just that taste has never been stable. And, for that matter, is often dependent on many other factors.


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## ECraigR

Simon Moon said:


> From an relatively early time, my brain was 'retrained' to enjoy dissonance and atonality via the introduction of avant-prog (a subgenre of prog rock/music), which uses a heavy dose of both.
> 
> So, when I first heard music from the composers described, their music just came naturally to me. I have no problem NOT hearing it as 'noise' and hearing their pieces as "music". It does not sound undisciplined at all to me, quite the opposite actually.
> 
> Not all beauty has to be obvious, sometimes it is worth the effort to find beauty in the difficult. One might get a feeling of catharsis from some of this music.


I agree with this entirely. I've a kind of natural preference for the difficult so have always preferred 20thC classical. But I also still really appreciate the earlier. I doubt one is superior to the other.


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## paulbest

ECraigR said:


> Bach was not universally hailed as a genius immediately. It's trite classical music factoid that Bach was less popular than his sons after his death. Not trying to be argumentative, just that taste has never been stable. And, for that matter, is often dependent on many other factors.


Excellent info, Great post, Thanks
This may give some hope that later on in this century, both Pettersson and Henze will be discovered. I am confident mankind, at least those involved in appreciating ,dedicating, working towards the sustaining, building up, growing the interest in all things 
great classical Music Tradition.

When humans who have access to the resoucres needed to grant classical music, new life, new energy, new direction,,will be the ones who seek , find and commit to Henze and Pettersson, for the purpose of making great art a means to transform the inner man ina world devoid of meaning.
That when material things, money, wealthy, luxury will be known as *bad energy* and classical music, great that is,,,will be seen as life giving, soul supporting, spirit building.

In that day and epoch, perhaps the music of Henze and Pettersson will be granted wings and the life which neither has known so far.

We all hold out in hope for the best in the few who will work towards these discoveries and share these riches in art with others who also may not have hope to live , yet another day on this earth.

As you presented the case , *tastes do actually change over time*.

Bach became great, then his sons overshadowed,,,then centuries later, Bach makes his return.

Which proves anything can happen. 
If my intuition is right, at least close, Henze and Pettersson will take on the greatness their names and art fully deserves. 
Just the mention of their names, will excite and inflame those discussing their wonderous music.

WE yet await this awakening in the great art of CM.

A short reply to your 
*many other factors*, composers reputations /recognitions undergo renewal and revisions.


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## Woodduck

If I want a purely cognitive exercise I'll do a crossword puzzle. I can listen to music as a cognitive exercise, but if that's all it is I'm generally not interested. It isn't a question of being "blinded," but of wanting music to deliver the unique sort of experience I know it can, in which the cognitive, emotional and sensual parts of my nature are aroused in a perceptual experience that seems to make them indivisibly one.


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## paulbest

ECraigR said:


> I agree with this entirely. I've a kind of natural preference for the difficult so have always preferred 20thC classical. But I also still really appreciate the earlier. I doubt one is superior to the other.


The flowering, fruiting process is , obviously dependent on the health of the tree. 
One organic whole, so yes in a sense both are somehow , mysteriously intertwined..At least those late 20th C composers who have held on to some connections with The Tradition. 
Fluff/filler/tricks and gimmicktry are not worthy to be included in The tradition.


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## Becca

Woodduck said:


> *If I want a purely cognitive exercise I'll do a crossword puzzle*. I can listen to music as a cognitive exercise, but if that's all it is I'm generally not interested. It isn't a question of being "blinded," but of wanting music to deliver the unique sort of experience I know it can, in which the cognitive, emotional and sensual parts of my nature are aroused in a perceptual experience that seems to make them indivisibly one.


Or perhaps try to decipher some of the more obscurantist, sesquipedalian, and circumloquatious posts on TC.


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## paulbest

Woodduck said:


> If I want a purely cognitive exercise I'll do a crossword puzzle. I can listen to music as a cognitive exercise, but if that's all it is I'm generally not interested. It isn't a question of being "blinded," but of wanting music to deliver the unique sort of experience I know it can, in which the cognitive, emotional and sensual parts of my nature are aroused in a perceptual experience that seems to make them indivisibly one.


Excellent post, Which is why I dismiss a few, well actually quite a few ,,,late 20Th C post mod composers for their lack of ability 
*to deliver the goods*,,,and those goods must be free of all

fluff/fillers/tricks and others forms of slick gimmicktry

Mozart has established some standards, to disregard these ideals,,, is to go forth at ones peril.

New is not always better.


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## Woodduck

Becca said:


> Or perhaps try to decipher some of the more obscurantist, sesquipedalian, and circumloquatious posts on TC.


Circumloquatious! Glorious word. I'm in cognitive ecstasy.


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## Open Book

Simon Moon said:


> From an relatively early time, my brain was 'retrained' to enjoy dissonance and atonality via the introduction of avant-prog (a subgenre of prog rock/music), which uses a heavy dose of both.
> 
> So, when I first heard music from the composers described, their music just came naturally to me. I have no problem NOT hearing it as 'noise' and hearing their pieces as "music". It does not sound undisciplined at all to me, quite the opposite actually.
> 
> Not all beauty has to be obvious, sometimes it is worth the effort to find beauty in the difficult. One might get a feeling of catharsis from some of this music.
> 
> From what I've been able to discern from my time here on TC, usually those of us that talk about atonal, dissonant music, it is almost on threads about such music, or with an honest attempt to get others to give something a listen, that may be out of their comfort zone.
> 
> But what I've seen from the haters of atonal, dissonant music, is a lot of snark. Most threads I've seen, with subjects about this music, have comments by those that don't like that are sarcastic, condescending, and insulting.
> 
> There was a thread about a year ago, with the subject, "Your Favorite 12 tone piece", or something similar. Along with some serious recommendations, about a quarter of the comments were negative toward the music in general. One particular was something like, "the shortest one", but that was not the only snarky comment.
> 
> Please point to a single thread about: Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Handel, Mahler, etc, with a comment anything like the above from a fan of 12 tone and dissonant music. I'll wait...
> 
> I do not care for any of those composers, or any music from pre-20th century, so I will not post on threads about them.
> 
> Now, with all that being said, I do understand that this particular thread was started with the possibility to stir up some controversy, so I am not referring to this thread.


There's plenty of snark aimed at Beethoven, Mozart, etc., you don't have to look hard to find it. It's not necessarily coming from devotees of modern music, of course.

Far from feeling snarky and superior, I'm respectful of and rather rather jealous of you that you can see artistry in modern music, something that I am limited in. I don't know why I don't feel the same way about modern art. Maybe because I have taken art courses.

I like some modern music to some degree, but other modern music feels like the composer is simply trolling, before trolling was a verb. Some 20th century music is just pointlessly percussive - a piano that goes - plunk - PLUNK - PLUNK! and seems to be daring the listener to turn it off. It's hard not to be cynical and not feel the composer is just messing with you.


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## paulbest

I see nothing disrespectful at taking fresh new criticisms of Bach, Mozart and Beetthoven. In each new generation. 
This is 2019, post modern days, and we have every right to take new open minded listens to the 3 great masters.


I wonder how many Beethovenians listen to his music,,and have inner thoughts on at least some of Beethoven's scores, and or sections in each score, where the devotee , does not feel such a *devoted fan * afterall. 
Cringe moments. 
Boredom moments. 

Nothing wrong with accepting a composer in the beginning of our journey in music, We all were once fans of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven along with the usual standards, perhaps some Brahms, Chopin, ,,mine standard go to's were Rachmaninov and Sibelius, Debussy and Ravel, my musical world for about 3 years. \Now with Yt it is easily possible to brach out rather quickly...
I am quite sure there are some Beethoven fans here, who are , over time of course,,,beginning to hear some *weaknesses* , *cracks in the walls*,,and are not so sure how to respond...*Best to leave it alone*. 


The protectors of the altars are those who can not handle even the slightest critiques slated in genuine terms,, which may slightly tarnish their idolized image of Beethoven. 


Without taking a step back from our composers who we faithfully follow, makes it rather difficult to discover new music. 
At least this is how my journey has gone forward,,
When I became a honest open listen to my fav composers, then I began to hear things which I never heard before, things both supportive of their music, yet also things which caused me to dismiss some of their works as having *issues*. 


Issues are such things as 
Fluff/fillers/tricks and gimmickery .


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## paulbest

Open Book said:


> There's plenty of snark aimed at Beethoven, Mozart, etc., you don't have to look hard to find it. It's not necessarily coming from devotees of modern music, of course.
> 
> Far from feeling snarky and superior, I'm respectful of and rather rather jealous of you that you can see artistry in modern music, something that I am limited in. I don't know why I don't feel the same way about modern art. Maybe because I have taken art courses.
> 
> I like some modern music to some degree, but other modern music feels like the composer is simply trolling, before trolling was a verb. Some 20th century music is just pointlessly percussive - a piano that goes - plunk - PLUNK - PLUNK! and seems to be daring the listener to turn it off. It's hard not to be cynical and not feel the composer is just messing with you.


No doubt, Post modernism has lots of 
fluff/fillers/tricks and slick gimmickery . 
Probably more of this gimmickery than exists in the pre 1900's era of Classical Music. 
Both eras have these issues, 
Pre 1900 music , the issues/defects of the major compositions, were more subtle and not so easy to perceive. 
Post modernism has issues which attack, nothing hidden, Its obvious. 
The post mods are just as blind to these issues as the romantics are in their favorite composers.

I find the 1900-1970 scores to suffer the least defects. 
Which is why 80%,,make that 95%+ of my collection is of this 1900-1970 epoch.

EDIT: Note to the mods, that's as far as I plan to go with these ideas. Please overlook any unreasonableness in my opinions.


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## Open Book

Simon Moon said:


> From an relatively early time, my brain was 'retrained' to enjoy dissonance and atonality via the introduction of avant-prog (a subgenre of prog rock/music), which uses a heavy dose of both.
> 
> So, when I first heard music from the composers described, their music just came naturally to me. I have no problem NOT hearing it as 'noise' and hearing their pieces as "music". It does not sound undisciplined at all to me, quite the opposite actually.
> 
> Not all beauty has to be obvious, sometimes it is worth the effort to find beauty in the difficult. One might get a feeling of catharsis from some of this music.
> 
> -------
> 
> Please point to a single thread about: Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Handel, Mahler, etc,
> 
> -----
> 
> I do not care for any of those composers, or any music from pre-20th century, so I will not post on threads about them.


When you say your brain was retrained from an early age (how early?), it implies that you passively had this happen to you by listening to avant-prog. Is that true or did you purposely, actively retrain your brain?

Did you ever in your life like any pre-20th century composers? If you feel so completely negative about them, it shouldn't be surprising that some people feel the same way about more modern music.


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## millionrainbows

Really, it turns out to be cognitive: if one's expectations get in the way of the gestalt, then one is "blinded" cognitively. Sensuality must not rule our cognition.


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## paulbest

millionrainbows said:


> Really, it turns out to be cognitive: if one's expectations get in the way of the gestalt, then one is "blinded" cognitively. Sensuality must not rule our cognition.


Not only ones expectations, but ones dogmas, ideologies, doctrines, not to mention ones puerile demands music be as *such* and no other way.

'uh oh,,,did I step on a certain composers fans toes ?
perhaps your feet are too big.


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## mikeh375

From my pov as a composer I am constantly balancing the sensual and the cognitive. One has to decide on the ratio of individuality to popularity sometimes during the creative process (most especially in media work) and my proclivities have developed a mistrust of the easy, the safe, the common, because it is just that. Ultimately, I get carried away with what _I_ want to do and that's the best and only way to work imv - folks will listen, like or hate, or (probably the most likely), not even bother.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Sensuality must not rule our cognition.


How can it not? Without the sense of hearing, how else do I perceive music?


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## Larkenfield

Wait a minute:

*Cognition* ... "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the *senses*


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## millionrainbows

Larkenfield said:


> Wait a minute:
> 
> *Cognition* ... "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the *senses*


Yes, and sensuality must not rule it.


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## paulbest

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, and sensuality must not rule it.


Yes correct. 
Cognition has more to do with intuitive knowing, 
Root word is gnosis, ancient greek, intuitive knowing/observing/grasping something superior than just basic senses. 
Althoughit can be said that w/o a proper use of the senses in this complex process of discovery,,,the mind is at a loss. It is the sharpened senses which aid the mind to bring out this intuitive knowing. So yes senses, the highest forms, do play a part. ...what exactly is all this in reference to,,,oh yes, ears blinded by, pre-juding,,,,ignore-ance. something I have been quite guilt of for decades when it comes to music discovery .

A little anecdote here,,, Kalabis, Tubin,,,both recommends over at other chat forums. ,,,. Made some vain attempts. Nothing clicking,.,,,,
Why?
Pre-juding,,,also known as prejudice, bias, false understanding...also due to lack of openness and lack of maturity,,, now enters a new life phase,,acceptance of both composers, now granted entrance.

many factors can be elicited here in the
cognition 
process hich now, after decades,,
accepts and embraces these 
new modern composers.

Sure there is a neo-romantic element to both, yet cast in such a form that 
excites the senses of hearing,,,emotive level is reached. 
Thus the music now has reached beyond the previous mind set, with all sorts of preconceived ideas which blocked the sounds from reaching my cognitive listening sessions.

Now other Modernists might not hear what I hear in Kalabis, Tubin,,,They may not be ready, or the music somehow does not activate the same modal inner hearing/experience centers, which are now 
alive 
and actively embracing these composers music. 
Its a complex process how we arrive at the music we appreciate and cherish...

Others(The modernists) outside our experience gestalt might have this reaction to both composers music



I have Kalabis VC 1 playing on my computer, off of Supraphon 2013 compilation , the complete Kalabis, 3 cd set,,,while I typed this post.


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## Larkenfield

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, and sensuality must not rule it.


Yes, of course, though the emotions, the senses, the reactions, do not always respond to reason, especially if music for some is about going beyond the tyranny and domination of the mind. I question whether someone's reaction to something by any composer, modern or otherwise, has anything to do with anything other than a direct experience of that particular piece without their mind being involved, and it is possible to observe one's reactions to things whether it feels appropriate for one's life. I limit my exposure to certain kinds of music because I do not feel it is good for me, that it reflects a negative position on life and is destructive rather than healing. This has to do with the intent behind the dissonance, which is something that I don't necessarily avoid, but I'm not interested in those composers who wallow in it and there's never any resolution when I no longer have a need for it at this time in my life. If listeners want to listen to music related to someone finding a dead body in the forest (Erwartung), they're welcome to it and maybe they need to feel those emotions. But I believe that a person can outgrow the need for that and find something that is more spiritually related rather than psychological or neurotic in tonality.


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## paulbest

well the more we know about this world, its history, man;'s past,,,ones musical tastes will alter along with the mind's development.


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## DaveM

The premise of the OP is that appreciating non-harmonic and/or dissonant music is simply a matter of reprogramming cognition. By that reasoning anyone’s taste in the arts can be changed. While it’s true that one can end up liking some things one didn’t like previously, it would seem contrary to the experience of most or all people that one can end up liking virtually everything no matter how much disliked in the past.

I don’t like rap music. I’ll never like rap music. I don’t like Chinese food. I’ll never like Chinese food. I don’t like -and will never like- highly dissonant ‘music’.


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## KenOC

DaveM said:


> The premise of the OP is that appreciating non-harmonic and/or dissonant music is simply a matter of reprogramming cognition.


"Why cannot we understand that in art, as in everything else, there are some things to which we must not accustom ourselves?" --Camille Saint-Saëns


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## DaveM

KenOC said:


> "Why cannot we understand that in art, as in everything else, there are some things to which we must not accustom ourselves?" --Camille Saint-Saëns


And I'm pretty sure he wasn't worried about anyone not understanding this:






On the other hand:


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## Larkenfield

................


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## Rogerx

.......................................


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, and sensuality must not rule it.


Why '_must_' it not? Surely music just does what it does to the listener - there's no 'must' or 'mustn't' about it? It's true that the listener can make a conscious choice to like or dislike on the basis of what the brain and the heart have combined to understand of that hearing.


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## mikeh375

It's quite illuminating for me as a composer to see all of these comments and not a little depressing at times, but so be it. I've seen that a lot of folk here are willing to try new work and that is the best a contemporary composer can wish for outside the academic ramparts. There is often a divide between those that specialise and those that don't. This happens in all walks of life and is not meant in a pejorative sense. Inevitably a rift will develop as the curious and adventurous trained ear pursues newer sonic fields.

I too, can have too much dissonance and unhinged rhythm at times so I put on some Bach or Corelli to remind me that music came from a purer, simpler place compared to say Ferneyhough. 

Perhaps those who eschew dissonance and view it as something to be controlled and contained will never accept the freedom it has today but regardless, some composers will continue to explore it in the search for new ways and in the search to find themselves. Composers need to find their own balance between how far they wish travel in their exploration and use of dissonance and seemingly how much they are prepared to give their listeners in the way of respite (if any) in order for them to follow.

Composers have long accepted that the decision they might take regarding dissonance (especially rhythmic) will have a major bearing on their works communicable efficacy. I don't see that as likely to change for a long, long time unfortunately.


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## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> The premise of the OP is that appreciating non-harmonic and/or dissonant music is simply a matter of reprogramming cognition. By that reasoning anyone's taste in the arts can be changed. While it's true that one can end up liking some things one didn't like previously, it would seem contrary to the experience of most or all people that one can end up liking virtually everything no matter how much disliked in the past.


I read the OP slightly differently. I don't see it as suggesting that one can like all music but rather that one can hear all classical music as music rather than unpleasant noise. Once one hears works as music, one is then freer to sample the sounds and determine whether one enjoys them.

I do not enjoy all modern or contemporary music, but I no longer hear some works as simply sounding awful and essentially unmusical. I don't like the majority of Ferneyhough that I've heard, but I can listen to his 6th quartet and wonder what I'm missing rather than turn it off in disgust as I would have 6-7 years ago.



DaveM said:


> I don't like rap music. I'll never like rap music. I don't like Chinese food. I'll never like Chinese food. I don't like -and will never like- highly dissonant 'music'.


You may never like rap music or Chinese food, but if you have this attitude, you will vastly increase the odds that your statement will always remain true.


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## Guest

mikeh375 said:


> It's quite illuminating for me as a composer to see all of these comments and not a little depressing at times, but so be it. I've seen that a lot of folk here are willing to try new work and that is the best a contemporary composer can wish for outside the academic ramparts. There is often a divide between those that specialise and those that don't. This happens in all walks of life and is not meant in a pejorative sense. Inevitably a rift will develop as the curious and adventurous trained ear pursues newer sonic fields.
> 
> I too, can have too much dissonance and unhinged rhythm at times so I put on some Bach or Corelli to remind me that music came from a purer, simpler place compared to say Ferneyhough.
> 
> Perhaps those who eschew dissonance and view it as something to be controlled and contained will never accept the freedom it has today but regardless, some composers will continue to explore it in the search for new ways and in the search to find themselves. Composers need to find their own balance between how far they wish travel in their exploration and use of dissonance and seemingly how much they are prepared to give their listeners in the way of respite (if any) in order for them to follow.
> 
> Composers have long accepted that the decision they might take regarding dissonance (especially rhythmic) will have a major bearing on their works communicable efficacy. I don't see that as likely to change for a long, long time unfortunately.


Given that CM more broadly has a very limited appeal amongst the general population, it can hardly come as a surprise that that which does not have instant ear appeal (for many of that small percentage) is even less popular.

I don't actually agree with the OP's hypothesis. The time between the function carried out by the ear and that carried out by the brain, with sounds moving from unconscious perception (hearing) to intellectual response (initial understading, organising, pattern finding, recognition and so on) is so small as to be barely worth mentioning. The time between the intellectual response and the emotional reaction, and then their interaction (instant gut liking, disliking and then decision-making - do I like this?) is also very small. From ear to brain to heart and back again happens so quickly that I can't see how the ears must be held at bay to give more considered time for the brain to allow for the unfamiliar, the challenging...the "chinese food" response, if I may borrow DaveM's analogy.


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## mikeh375

MacLeod said:


> I don't actually agree with the OP's hypothesis. The time between the function carried out by the ear and that carried out by the brain, with sounds moving from unconscious perception (hearing) to intellectual response (initial understading, organising, pattern finding, recognition and so on) is so small as to be barely worth mentioning. The time between the intellectual response and the emotional reaction, and then their interaction (instant gut liking, disliking and then decision-making - do I like this?) is also very small. From ear to brain to heart and back again happens so quickly that I can't see how the ears must be held at bay to give more considered time for the brain to allow for the unfamiliar, the challenging...the "chinese food" response, if I may borrow DaveM's analogy.


That's fair enough, but what about putting ear time in with repeated listens in order to get acquainted? Of course one has to trust in the name and reputation of the artist to confidently commit time like this, but there really is treasure to be unearthed if one is inquisitively willing to work at it - how many works in CP where meh to you at first, but you soon grew to love over repeated hearings? Obviously there's no obligation to do this and one may even question as to why one should have to work at music in order to appreciate it but that is perhaps a different debate about value in music.


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## tdc

'Classical music' fractured into so many different areas in the 20th century, some of which are quite far removed from the approaches of the common practice period. I think it is up to each individual to decide which of these paths are valid for them as listeners. Not everything has to be. I think it is possible for some of these experiments to fail. For me music must have perceptible direct connections to the rhythmic and tonal practices used in traditional classical. Composers that I perceive have these connections to tonality in their music for example: Partch, Schnittke, Takemitsu, Crumb (some Ligeti), Minimalist composers etc. create what I perceive as valid forms of music. Completely atonal approaches can be interesting but generally don't qualify as music to me. If it does for others that is their perception and judgement as a listener, but I don't have to agree with it.


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## Guest

mikeh375 said:


> That's fair enough, but what about putting ear time in with repeated listens in order to get acquainted? Of course one has to trust in the name and reputation of the artist to confidently commit time like this, but there really is treasure to be unearthed if one is inquisitively willing to work at it - how many works in CP where meh to you at first, but you soon grew to love over repeated hearings? Obviously there's no obligation to do this and one may even question as to why one should have to work at music in order to appreciate it but that is perhaps a different debate about value in music.


Ear time can't be put in separately from the rest. And in any case, this applies to all music that one is disinclined to listen to. It's not just about the modern and the dissonant. I'm not inclined to listen to Mozart operas or Beethoven's Missa either, but am inclined to listen to Colin Matthews and Emily Howard.


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## mikeh375

Sure, I just meant ear and other parts also needed time, sorry I should have been more clear. I'm with you on the Mozart operas, even more remarkably, I have every one of them on (unopened) CD's from a buy one a month for the rest of eternity offer years back - I wont ask if you want to buy them?..

So having established that I mean ear and brain time, the disinclination to not bother with any effort to get to know perhaps a work that is considered masterful is an understandable and regrettable issue (it's sometimes my malaise too, even with Mozart). I for one try to remedy this when I can. Generally speaking though, it is one thing to not bother with any effort but to make value judgements based on a superficial listening and/or understanding is something I see and hear all too often and is as much a barrier to modern music's comprehension as the music itself sometimes. I do get it from the listeners pov though, I just wish it wasn't so.,,but then I would wouldn't I.


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## Guest

mikeh375 said:


> Generally speaking though, it is one thing to not bother with any effort but to make value judgements based on a superficial listening and/or understanding is something I see and hear all too often and is as much a barrier to modern music's comprehension as the music itself sometimes.


Yes, I agree completely. Added to which is the contemptuous dismissal of the mere attempt to depart from the accepted canon as bringing about the decline of western civilisation.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> If I want a purely cognitive exercise I'll do a crossword puzzle. I can listen to music as a cognitive exercise, but if that's all it is I'm generally not interested. It isn't a question of being "blinded," but of wanting music to deliver the unique sort of experience I know it can, in which the cognitive, emotional and sensual parts of my nature are aroused in a perceptual experience that seems to make them indivisibly one.


I agree, and I did not say that music was ever a non-sensual experience; but simply that it should not be dominated by sensual factors, such as general principles of tonality. If you want a "unique" experience, then music should not always be dominated by that "drone" of tonality in the cognitive background. After all, we are not sitting around a fire at night, playing our tonal drones on flutes, and beating drums.


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## haydnguy

A few of these threads going on right now and I've been reading them. Thought this one was the one I've gotten the most out of. I'll just jump right in.

Many years ago when I went to my first orchestral concert I looked around during the concert and saw people with their eyes closed and assumed they had fallen asleep. 

I now believe (I hope) they were listening. They were focused on the music. I think @ millionrainbows' OP taught me some things. At the same time it expanded what I already believe. The problem is that the music of modern (2nd Viennese School) and CC simply cannot be listened to in the same way or else it just sounds like noise. I'll admit right now I haven't delved into Contemporary Classical (CC) music but it was just because I didn't want to make the effort.

On the first classical forum I was on I knew someone who was winding up his music degree and he allowed me (on a limited bases) to write a private message to him if I had a particularly difficult question when tackling different genre's, etc. He always gave me good advice. Whenever I got stuck he got me "unstuck".

One day I was on the forum and he sent me a message out of the blue. It said you might want to listen to this CD. It was brian ferneyhough's fourth string quartet. (CD has orange cover.) I saw the name Arditti String Quartet and had heard of them so I thought it would be great. When the CD came and I first started listening you can imagine my surprise. I went back to the forum and wrote him a private message. It went something like this.

me: What is this cXXXXX???
my mentor: "Just listen."
me: Yeah, but it's not even music!
my mentor: "Just listen."

At that time I was struggling with Schoenberg. One day I was listening to one of Schoenberg's pieces and the "light" came on at a specific instant in time. I kept on listening in this new way and was able to make sense of music that had been noise before. The key to me understanding the music was that I had to make an effort to focus on the music, and let the music come to me. I could not let my ears anticipate the next note or set of notes. Sometimes I "got" pieces on the first hearing but usually by the third hearing I'd know whether I liked it or not.

If I think back when I was at that first concert, it was only a very few people with their eyes closed. More of them were focused, not doubt. But the majority of the people were probably listening to either familiar music or enjoying the "simple beauty" of the music. If you put a piece by Legeti or something like that they won't have a chance to like it. If you give most people the benefit of the doubt you could say that they seriously don't know HOW to like it.

**now switching to neo-liberal mode**

Ok, the question is, how do we get those people to give Ligeti a chance? The answer lies in what the fellow in this thread said that there were too many old people in the audience. (I'm 64 so I can talk). The older someone gets the harder it is for a person to stay completely out of a rut on most things. The older the person is the more likely it is that they cannot change even if they want to.

If you look at the pic below of a Hilary Hahn album you will notice that the composers on the album are Tchaikovsky and Jennifer Higdon. But look closely at the lettering on the cover. Higdon's name has larger letters than Tchaikovsky! Hahn is trying to push the modern envelope. That is a subtle but powerful move. She generally plays standard repertoire but is the modernist's friend.

I believe it's small things like this that is ultimately the way to keep modern "front and center". The younger a person is the more likely it is that they will like CC right away. If someone doesn't like modern music I certainly understand because I don't like some of it either.










over and out....


----------



## ECraigR

I think that haydnguy’s post is quite insightful. Difficult music is just that: difficult. There’s certainly a learning curve involved in coming to understand and appreciate it, just as there is with coming to understand and appreciate contemporary literature or art. What these various artists were doing was, in many ways, purposefully alienating. 

That kind of mentality can be difficult to overcome, and I don’t have any good recommendations on how to overcome it. At this point in my listening career, difficult music is still difficult and sometimes alienating and grating, but that’s oftentimes the point. Recognizing that unpleasantness is part of the experience is helpful. I also early on decided that these artists had something to say, and had devoted a lot of their time and energy to trying to say it, so it would only be respectful of me to try and understand what they were saying, to not denigrate them or what they are doing.


----------



## mmsbls

I gave haydnguy's post a like, but I would have given it 5 likes if I could.



haydnguy said:


> ... The problem is that the music of modern (2nd Viennese School) and CC simply cannot be listened to in the same way or else it just sounds like noise. I'll admit right now I haven't delved into Contemporary Classical (CC) music but it was just because I didn't want to make the effort.


When I joined TC, I disliked the vast majority of modern and contemporary classical music. I was listening to it in the same way I listened to earlier CPT music, and it simply did not make sense to my brain. I had to learn how to hear the new sounds differently.



haydnguy said:


> At that time I was struggling with Schoenberg. One day I was listening to one of Schoenberg's pieces and the "light" came on at a specific instant in time. I kept on listening in this new way and was able to make sense of music that had been noise before. The key to me understanding the music was that I had to make an effort to focus on the music, and let the music come to me. I could not let my ears anticipate the next note or set of notes. Sometimes I "got" pieces on the first hearing but usually by the third hearing I'd know whether I liked it or not.


I have had this experience repeatedly listening to new music that I had previously disliked (or hated, or felt was simply not music). The feeling of "suddenly" realizing one likes such music seems almost a miracle. I had listened to Berg's Violin Concerto maybe 6-7 times always thinking that the present listening would be the breakthrough that allowed me to enjoy the work that others spoke so highly about, but to no avail. One day I found myself humming the last theme while in the shower. Now it's my favorite 20th century violin concerto.



haydnguy said:


> If you give most people the benefit of the doubt you could say that they seriously don't know HOW to like it.


I would say your statement absolutely applied to me.

So, my big question is, "Were you ever able to enjoy the Ferneyhough quartet?" I have not had that experience yet.


----------



## robin4

"If you want a "unique" experience, then music should not always be dominated by that "drone" of tonality in the cognitive background."

Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls said "people without a center wobble through life".

I say music without a tonal center...........just wobbles along.


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> I agree, and I did not say that music was ever a non-sensual experience; but simply that it should not be dominated by sensual factors, such as general principles of tonality. If you want a "unique" experience, then music should not always be dominated by that "drone" of tonality in the cognitive background. After all, we are not sitting around a fire at night, playing our tonal drones on flutes, and beating drums.


I wouldn't call tonality a "sensual factor." In fact, it's the most basic and powerful of organizing - which is to say _cognitive_ - factor in music, the thing that permits the brain to make maximum sense out of quantities of tones heard simultaneously and successively. Other principles for organizing tones exist, of course, but I'm unaware of any that have equal cognitive power. The power to relate all particulars systematically to a center is, cognitively, uniquely compelling. It isn't an accident that we call a well-composed piece of music "logical." The pleasure and satisfaction we derive from such a composition is not sensual, but cognitive.


----------



## paulbest

Woodduck said:


> I wouldn't call tonality a "sensual factor."...….. but cognitive.


Agree the romantic composers do offer some challenges to the higher levels of our cognitive functions,. Obviously their works are complex art forms, Who can deny writinga concert/symphony si sucha simple task, and at the quality scored. Brahms , Bruckner, Mahler, These composers reflect a high level of genius in the musical art form.

I think what Millionrainbows is getting at is, 
His Argument is that there are many levels of cognitive experience in listening to classical music. 
I mean the Brahms VC is a masterpiece recognized by all in the CC, past 200 years. 
Yet after say , 10 sessions spread over a one year period,,,perhaps the experience is not so new on the 
11th hearing of the work. 
The listener now has a keener sense of the wirk, can hear all its different forms, textures, quite well after the one year is finished...Now the same person lsitens to say,,,,,the Schioenberg VC. 
After the 11th experience of the work, is he now able to predict what comes next,,,can he hum the rsst of the concert through to thev end?

Of course not,,,it is a very complex concerto and takesa higher level of 
'cognitive power to grasp, comprehend the workl. Whereas the Brahms, could be speed humed pretty much through with just bits of the concerto coming on once the hummer is off on memory at certain places...I am sure I could speed hum just about any romantic concerto through with a bit of practice, , which I am attempting to explain this idea:

That the romantic masterpiece, holds less excitement, is now more predictable, and consequently reaches me on a lower cognition level...= I have outgrown the music, Which is to put it nicely, has become a experience of boredom.

Now when we come to some late 20TH VC's, the level of cognition required to grasp the music, is now raised to a higher level . Boredom rarely sets in even after 1000 listens.

Cognition has complex levels,,,but in general the crowds seek the lower listening levels of cognition.

There are more classical fans of the romantic concertos than there are of modern/late modern VC's,.

Modernists prefer the VC's which challenge and electrify the senses,
We like something new after 100 listenings. After 1000 sessions.

This is what Millionrainbows is attempting to get across here.

We Modernists know clearly the romantics are masterpieces,,,its just 
like the old BB King hit
*The Thrill is gone* 
for the romantic compositions.


----------



## robin4

"We Modernists know clearly the romantics are masterpieces,,,its just like the old BB King hit
*The Thrill is gone* "

I'm currently listening to a Haydn piano sonata and the thrill is not gone.


----------



## Guest

paulbest said:


> Agree the romantic composers do offer some challenges to the higher levels of our cognitive functions,. [etc]


I think there may be a problem with some of the terminology due to slight differences in the way words attract nuances of meaning in different contexts.

I've avoided using either 'sensual' or 'sensuous' when referring plainly to our use of the auditory sense because they are often used interchangeably and can be taken to mean "attractive" or "physically gratifying".

There is a similar problem with 'cognitive' if it is taken to mean something qualitatitively more than just the 'functioning of the brain to make sense of input coming in via the senses'. In my posts, I have been referring to the basic functions, not meaning to imply anything about whether this or that music demands greater or higher levels of cognition.


----------



## Woodduck

paulbest said:


> Agree the romantic composers do offer some challenges to the higher levels of our cognitive functions,. Obviously their works are complex art forms, Who can deny writinga concert/symphony si sucha simple task, and at the quality scored. Brahms , Bruckner, Mahler, These composers reflect a high level of genius in the musical art form.
> 
> I think what Millionrainbows is getting at is,
> His Argument is that *there are many levels of cognitive experience in listening to classical music. *
> I mean the Brahms VC is a masterpiece recognized by all in the CC, past 200 years.
> Yet after say , 10 sessions spread over a one year period,,,perhaps the experience is not so new on the
> 11th hearing of the work.
> The listener now has a keener sense of the wirk, can hear all its different forms, textures, quite well after the one year is finished...Now the same person lsitens to say,,,,,*the Schioenberg VC.
> After the 11th experience of the work, is he now able to predict what comes next,,,can he hum the rsst of the concert through to thev end?*
> 
> *Of course not*,,,*it is a very complex concerto and takesa higher level of
> 'cognitive power to grasp*, comprehend the workl. *Whereas the Brahms, could be speed humed pretty much through *with just bits of the concerto coming on once the hummer is off on memory at certain places...I am sure I could speed hum just about any romantic concerto through with a bit of practice, , which I am attempting to explain this idea:
> 
> *That the romantic masterpiece, holds less excitement, is now more predictable, and consequently reaches me on a lower cognition level...= I have outgrown the music, Which is to put it nicely, has become a experience of boredom. *
> 
> *Now when we come to some late 20TH VC's, the level of cognition required to grasp the music, is now raised to a higher level . Boredom rarely sets in even after 1000 listens. *
> 
> Cognition has complex levels,,,but in general the crowds seek the lower listening levels of cognition.
> 
> There are more classical fans of the romantic concertos than there are of modern/late modern VC's,.
> 
> *Modernists prefer the VC's which challenge and electrify the senses,
> We like something new after 100 listenings. After 1000 sessions. *
> 
> This is what Millionrainbows is attempting to get across here.
> 
> We Modernists know clearly the romantics are masterpieces,,,its just
> like the old BB King hit
> *The Thrill is gone*
> for the romantic compositions.


It's true that more complex music requires more effort to comprehend. It's also true that music which is less clearly organized requires us to exert more cognitive effort to try to comprehend it. And it's certainly true that music which we can't easily comprehend is likely to be harder to remember, and will require a similar degree of effort to make sense of and remember the next time we hear it. If that effort never pays off, we will have the "satisfaction" of exerting maximal cognitive effort every time we hear the piece.

Whatever floats your boat, as they say. :tiphat:

The fact that a piece of music is complex and hard to comprehend and remember is not necessarily to its credit. But it may get extra credit from those who are jaded. Humans do tire of things, even fine things, and music to which we've exposed ourselves too often over too long a time can lose interest for us. Often we can restore some of its freshness by not listening to it for a while, or by listening to dissimilar performances. Sometimes we just have to let it go. I suspect, though, that the need to leave familiar music alone may be less related to its cognitive challenges than to natural changes in our outlook and needs as we move on in life. Depending on how it affects us emotionally, a simple song may hold its power forever, while a symphony which pleases us initially may become uninteresting after a couple of hearings.

I doubt that the phenomenon of jadedness is really what millionrainbows is talking about. But it's provided a pleasant excursion.


----------



## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> I read the OP slightly differently. I don't see it as suggesting that one can like all music but rather that one can hear all classical music as music rather than unpleasant noise. Once one hears works as music, one is then freer to sample the sounds and determine whether one enjoys them...


Since the days of 'traditional' classical music, a rather broad spectrum of what is considered to be classical music has developed from the atonal music of Schoenberg to the totally dissonant 'music' of a Ferneyhough. In my mind, the less structure the music has and the more it appears to be an experiment in sounds that can be created by classical instruments, the less likely it can even be called classical music. Thus, the premise that _'one can hear all classical music as music rather than unpleasant noise'_ is dependent on the fact that some of what is being called classical music is not, in fact, what most people perceive as unpleasant noise.

Also, my guess is that most people have been attracted to classical music because of the wide range of emotions it elicits or taps into from the joy of Beethoven's 9th to the tenderness of the Berlioz Romeo and Juliet love theme. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the range of emotions elicited by classical music is inversely proportional to the amount of dissonance present. Taken to the extreme, the music of Ferneyhough will never accompany a love scene. Personally, I have no interest in music that elicits feelings more associated with cacophony than those that are uplifting, reassuring, relaxing and, well, loving.


----------



## haydnguy

mmsbls said:


> I gave haydnguy's post a like, but I would have given it 5 likes if I could.
> 
> When I joined TC, I disliked the vast majority of modern and contemporary classical music. I was listening to it in the same way I listened to earlier CPT music, and it simply did not make sense to my brain. I had to learn how to hear the new sounds differently.
> 
> I have had this experience repeatedly listening to new music that I had previously disliked (or hated, or felt was simply not music). The feeling of "suddenly" realizing one likes such music seems almost a miracle. I had listened to Berg's Violin Concerto maybe 6-7 times always thinking that the present listening would be the breakthrough that allowed me to enjoy the work that others spoke so highly about, but to no avail. One day I found myself humming the last theme while in the shower. Now it's my favorite 20th century violin concerto.
> 
> I would say your statement absolutely applied to me.
> 
> So, my big question is, "Were you ever able to enjoy the Ferneyhough quartet?" I have not had that experience yet.


He's not someone I revisited often.  Maybe I should go back and listen again.

But when I try to explain it to someone I don't use the word cognition either. I would on here, of course. But an average person may not know how cognition relates to music. I still am baffled how mathematics relates to music. I could probably learn but at my age by the time I understood it I would not have put in the best use of my time.

I will give you an example of how people get stuck in ruts. (It's kind of depressing actually.)

I left Facebook, but at one time I was on there and decided that I might try an experiment. Most of the people on my friends list were people around my age of differing levels of intelligence and different priorities in life. But I decided that I would go back to some old pop/rock music that we use to listen to and see if I could find a few songs that they knew the words to by heart and try to find some that had little examples of a music form. Knowing the song so well already, they should have been able to hear something in the song that they had not heard before. I would have expected it to spark a very small bit of interest.

Not one person was interested. That's a rut.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> I wouldn't call tonality a "sensual factor." In fact, it's the most basic and powerful of organizing - which is to say _cognitive_ - factors in music, the thing that permits the brain to make maximum sense out of quantities of tones heard simultaneously and successively. Other principles for organizing tones exist, of course, but I'm unaware of any that have equal cognitive power. The power to relate all particulars systematically to a center is, cognitively, uniquely compelling. It isn't an accident that we call a well-composed piece of music "logical." The pleasure and satisfaction we derive from such a composition is not sensual, but cognitive.


Yeah, a drone is the ultimate in cognition: OOOmmmmmm, mmmmmyyyyy bbbbeinggggg iiiiissss centereddddddd ommmmmm....It's the ultimate "pleasure" to be reassured that one exists, that one is alive, that one is a being, and is not dead...and has not been eaten by a bear. That's what the drone does.

...oooooommmmmm ................IIIIIIIIIIIIII..............exisssssssssttttttttttt........Meeeeeeeeeeeee.....meeeeee....that's really basic, alright. That's what tonality does, it's a security blanket for the ego....

There ARE higher forms of cognition than the reassurance of centricity, the drone. Some listeners DARE to listen to music with NO CENTER....that's incredibly brave. They DARE to probe into the darkness, away from the security of "being," away from the "god-centered" world of tonality...with the light of almost pure cognition they journey into new, unfamiliar territory, away from the 'security blanket' of tonality and its reassuring background drone of centeredness....into a new world in which Man is free to roam.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

millionrainbows said:


> _
> My assertion is that, *if you reject certain "non-harmonic" music as being too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music,"* then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and cognition of such music. _





> then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and *cognition* of such music.


You can't reject something without trying it first, so I'm assuming you're speaking to people who have listened to atonal "non-harmonic" music before, but didn't enjoy it and therefore felt little to no desire to return to it for leisure or enjoyment.

Is that all you mean by "reject?" The connotation of reject is pretty strong and seems to imply some degree of condemnation beyond just dismissal, but I'll just take "reject" as meaning "not listen to because it doesn't appeal to you." If I reject Mozart's string quartets because I don't enjoy repetition with slight variation, and I don't like string timbre in general if it's not rounded out by other timbres, have I let my ears "blind me?" If I reject some pop songs because they solely use the same sequence of 4 diatonic chords in a single key, is that ear-blindness too?

I feel like you're implying that simple dislike for something is distinct from being "ear-blind." I've become wary of most arguments that exalt non-tonal music for the same reason, because there is usually, in my experience, either an implicit or explicit suggestion that it's not a matter of taste but rather a matter of _capability to understand_. And then it never really comes out in the argument how, exactly, it is that some people are capable of performing these "cognitive processes," and some people are not. I never see a specific indication as to what the process is that we're not understanding in not liking non-tonal music. I wish someone would walk me through that cognitive process that allegedly, because I don't like non-tonal "non-harmonic" music, I'm not understanding. A cognitive process is a method of acquiring knowledge through sensing and then thinking. If non-tonal music is the sensory thing, what exactly am I failing to cognitively realize when I listen to it?


----------



## samm

Minor Sixthist said:


> I've become wary of most arguments that exalt non-tonal music for the same reason, because there is usually, in my experience, either an implicit or explicit suggestion that it's not a matter of taste but rather a matter of _capability to understand_. And then it never really comes out in the argument how, exactly, it is that some people are capable of performing these "cognitive processes," and some people are not. I never see a specific indication as to what the process is that we're not understanding in not liking non-tonal music. I wish someone would walk me through that cognitive process that allegedly, because I don't like non-tonal "non-harmonic" music, I'm not understanding. A cognitive process is a method of acquiring knowledge through sensing and then thinking. If non-tonal music is the sensory thing, what exactly am I failing to cognitively realize about when I listen to it?


Yes I agree. What I would add though is that when it comes to tonally-extended or atonal or straight-up experimental music, the reaction to it has a built-in element whereby people dismiss it because it requires a bit of work to interpret, like some poetry. When the music is also using a system unique to the composer, or perhaps even no system at all, all the usual footholds used when listening to tonal music are not provided so it's a trickier terrain.

In that respect I'd say it's probably not 'ear-blindness' because people like what they like, but it's possible to develop new tastes rather than just knowing your existing tastes and satisfying them. With non-tonal music there is a ready-made culture hostile to it and when a person feels they aren't getting anything from a particular work there is a tendency to just run to that camp to justify it.


----------



## KenOC

Minor Sixthist said:


> You can't reject something without trying it first...


Zat so? "You should try everything once except incest and Morris dancing." -Attr. to Sir Thomas Beecham, among others


----------



## millionrainbows

Examples of musicians being overwhelmed by sensual factors, and the 'rhetoric' of tonality, to the detriment of their full cognitive awareness:


----------



## mmsbls

paulbest said:


> Modernists prefer the VC's which challenge and electrify the senses,
> We like something new after 100 listenings. After 1000 sessions.


I don't know what you mean by Modernist. Is is someone who enjoys modern music? Is it someone who enjoys modern music much more than earlier music? Does a Modernist have to not accept most contemporary music as classical music? Could you define your term a bit more?



paulbest said:


> We Modernists know clearly the romantics are masterpieces,,,its just
> like the old BB King hit
> *The Thrill is gone*
> for the romantic compositions.


I will agree with robin4 about the thrill of earlier music. There are likely many dozens of pre-modern composers whose works continue to thrill me as much as any modern or contemporary work.


----------



## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> I don't know what you mean by Modernist. Is is someone who enjoys modern music? Is it someone who enjoys modern music much more than earlier music? Does a Modernist have to not accept most contemporary music as classical music? Could you define your term a bit more?


Come to us with solutions, not problems. Read the entire thread carefully, then come to your own conclusions. This 'defining of terms' tends to slow things down. Come on, let's keep it moving, it's game time.


----------



## paulbest

Woodduck said:


> It's true that more complex music requires more effort to comprehend. It's also true that music which is less clearly organized requires us to exert more cognitive effort to try to comprehend it. And it's certainly true that music which we can't easily comprehend is likely to be harder to remember, and will require a similar degree of effort to make sense of and remember the next time we hear it. If that effort never pays off, we will have the "satisfaction" of exerting maximal cognitive effort every time we hear the piece.
> 
> Whatever floats your boat, as they say. :tiphat:
> 
> The fact that a piece of music is complex and hard to comprehend and remember is not necessarily to its credit. But it may get extra credit from those who are jaded. Humans do tire of things, even fine things, and music to which we've exposed ourselves too often over too long a time can lose interest for us. Often we can restore some of its freshness by not listening to it for a while, or by listening to dissimilar performances. Sometimes we just have to let it go. I suspect, though, that the need to leave familiar music alone may be less related to its cognitive challenges than to natural changes in our outlook and needs as we move on in life. Depending on how it affects us emotionally, a simple song may hold its power forever, while a symphony which pleases us initially may become uninteresting after a couple of hearings.
> 
> I doubt that the phenomenon of jadedness is really what millionrainbows is talking about. But it's provided a pleasant excursion.


Excellent summary of things being discussed here, Exactly, 
In my early days on chat forums, I was defender #1 for my neo romantic moderns, Rachmaninov/Sibelius. 
No one could knock either and get away with it, not as long as I was around.
,,,seems time passes, I read more, educate myself in history and other events which have happened to me, 1 feet of water katrina, I witnessed, heard the levee give way, winds non stop 100+ for 12 hours, tornado struck/shook my home, etc, ,,,horrific,

then BP destroys the gulf coast,,i witnessed the oil on grand isle, ...so these , and other horrific events, some my causeation,,,all add up to a inner change, lIfe ain't what it used to be.

Agree, just because music is difficult, say Anton Webern, Elliott Carter , does not automatically make it a hit with me. 
I have to weigh the actual work, as I hear it. 
And w/o musical EDU, it is sometimes challenging, what to think/feel about a work on 1st few listens,. 
I think it was the music of varese who helped me to expand my musical frontiers..
For me, he is kind of like the door way into all sorts of late modern composers.

Not sure how others feel about his trail blazing compositions. For me he was like a torch bearer leading the way to accepting late modern composers. I think I found Varses before I came to Webern,,,Schoenberg and Varese were like synchronistic same time lines.

Going through these doors, my hearing sensors were never the same...
It was like a 
Brave New World.


----------



## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> In my mind, the less structure the music has and the more it appears to be an experiment in sounds that can be created by classical instruments, the less likely it can even be called classical music.


I would agree that many classical music listeners might not consider a reasonable number of modern and contemporary works as music and perhaps many might not consider a significant number of modern and contemporary works as classical music.



DaveM said:


> Thus, the premise that _'one can hear all classical music as music rather than unpleasant noise'_ is dependent on the fact that some of what is being called classical music is not, in fact, what most people perceive as unpleasant noise.


Did you mean pleasant noise at the end? If so, I absolutely agree.



DaveM said:


> Also, my guess is that most people have been attracted to classical music because of the wide range of emotions it elicits or taps into from the joy of Beethoven's 9th to the tenderness of the Berlioz Romeo and Juliet love theme. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the range of emotions elicited by classical music is inversely proportional to the amount of dissonance present. Taken to the extreme, the music of Ferneyhough will never accompany a love scene.


I would agree with much of this except that I think most of us prefer music with some dissonance rather than none. So maybe the range of emotions elicited by music for most people starts to increase with some dissonance up to a maximum and then might decrease.



DaveM said:


> Personally, I have no interest in music that elicits feelings more associated with cacophony than those that are uplifting, reassuring, relaxing and, well, loving.


I think what MR might suggest (and I would agree) is that music that sounds like cacophony to some can sound enjoyable to others. In fact I will go further and say music that once sounded like cacophony to someone can later sound enjoyable after that person has become accustomed to the sounds. Everyone must decide how much effort to exert in learning to enjoy various music. There is no wrong answer.


----------



## mmsbls

haydnguy said:


> He's not someone I revisited often.  Maybe I should go back and listen again.


I do every now an then, but I think I will need some guidance to find a way "into" the music.



haydnguy said:


> I left Facebook, but at one time I was on there and decided that I might try an experiment. Most of the people on my friends list were people around my age of differing levels of intelligence and different priorities in life. But I decided that I would go back to some old pop/rock music that we use to listen to and see if I could find a few songs that they knew the words to by heart and try to find some that had little examples of a music form. Knowing the song so well already, they should have been able to hear something in the song that they had not heard before. I would have expected it to spark a very small bit of interest.
> 
> Not one person was interested. That's a rut.


I can easily believe that. Most people simply want to listen and enjoy - and there's nothing wrong with that. Some of us prefer to listen "harder" or with more depth and try to get more from the music than simple aesthetic pleasure.


----------



## paulbest

mmsbls said:


> I don't know what you mean by Modernist. Is is someone who enjoys modern music? Is it someone who enjoys modern music much more than earlier music? Does a Modernist have to not accept most contemporary music as classical music? Could you define your term a bit more?
> 
> I will agree with robin4 about the thrill of earlier music. There are likely many dozens of pre-modern composers whose works continue to thrill me as much as any modern or contemporary work.


I just invented this term, to imply a classical group whose main concerns in music begin with say Wagner's Parsifal, definitely with Debussy's Prelude, Premier Paris Dec 22,1894,,, some other late neo romantics like Scriabin, , Ravel and Stravinsky were composing incredible modernistic works as early as 1916.

I would say modernists are those who can find music within the 20th C composers which can offer, , perhaps, some semblances of what is offered within the romantics.

Exapmle, Chopin,,,Modernists may have at one time eraly in their jouney, loved Chopin,,,then along came late Scriabin, also Szymanowski offers some neo romantic piano solo, , then modernists can turn to Ravel, and Debussy...
So a modernist may feel, with all these new neo-romantic works, and along with Debussy, ravel,,,the Chopin, has lost some of its glimmer and does not hold our attention, as his music once did, many years previously,,,

This is my scenario of how a transformation in musical taste can occur over time and , so we become solidly committed to the 20th C composers, making up at least 80% of our musical CD collection.

Take my new discoveries, Tubin, Kalabis. 
hardly nothing in chamber, scant few, and nothing really significant in terms of interesting material.

But the orchestral works, few there are, offer some real exciting ideas, borrowed from Sibelius and RVW.

Its like old material cast in new fabric and with more modernistic textures, hard to explain. We don;'t completely reject the romantic forms, when it is recast in neo romantic/modernistic material. 
Although in the CC opinion, neither are a major composer in the 20th C, Yet as I hear both, they rank a higher tier than other more famous 1800-1930 symphonic composers.

It can be said, old opinions, old standards of ranking composers, holds no meaning for us Modernists.

Historical assessments , means nothing to us.


----------



## Bulldog

paulbest said:


> I just invented this term,


Do you really believe you invented the term "modernist"?


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Yeah, a drone is the ultimate in cognition: OOOmmmmmm, mmmmmyyyyy bbbbeinggggg iiiiissss centereddddddd ommmmmm....It's the ultimate "pleasure" to be reassured that one exists, that one is alive, that one is a being, and is not dead...and has not been eaten by a bear. That's what the drone does.
> 
> ...oooooommmmmm ................IIIIIIIIIIIIII..............exisssssssssttttttttttt........Meeeeeeeeeeeee.....meeeeee....that's really basic, alright. That's what tonality does, it's a security blanket for the ego....


Well, well. Looks like the strain of being rational and civil has become too much to bear. This inevitably happens when someone suggests that there's a flaw in your thinking or choice of words. Tsk tsk.

I'll give you another chance. You said that music _"should not be dominated by sensual factors, such as general principles of tonality. If you want a 'unique' experience, then music should not always be dominated by that 'drone' of tonality in the cognitive background."_ Leaving aside the questionable intrusion of "should" into discussions of music, I reiterate that tonality is fundamentally a cognitive, not a sensual, phenomenon. As I've pointed out elsewhere, it's a principle of organization which may be present implicitly regardless of which of its components are ever actually (sensually) apparent. It does not reduce to a drone, it can accommodate a wide range of consonant and dissonant sonorities, it is capable of organizing a Prokofiev symphony or a Wagner opera, and it has nothing to do with anyone's ego.

Most people have difficulty grasping, and therefore liking, atonal music. They don't hear the "logic" of it - how harmonies make sense, why one thing follows another. They have to learn that a basic premise of their ordinary perception of music is inoperative. The challenge is not one of sensuality versus cognition, but of grasping a different cognitive model, and in the case of some music by the composers you mention in the OP - Stockhausen, Boulez, Ligeti - it may even be one of letting go of cognitive effort entirely and abandoning oneself to the sensual impact of the moment.

In which of these is the experience of enjoyment more cognitive or more sensual?


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> Come to us with solutions, not problems. Read the entire thread carefully, then come to your own conclusions. This 'defining of terms' tends to slow things down. Come on, let's keep it moving, it's game time.


TC has an enormous number of examples where people argue about things because they have not understood one another. I assume all of us have seen countless examples where someone posts that another has misunderstood them. That can bog down threads. So I hope that paulbest will give me a better sense of what he means by Modernist.

I did honestly enjoy your exhortation to keep it moving because it's "game time" on TC.


----------



## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> Examples of musicians being overwhelmed by sensual factors, and the 'rhetoric' of tonality, to the detriment of their full cognitive awareness:...


Will the world end by choking on pretentious artspeak or by sinking into a festering pit of pop psychology? I really preferred the choice between fire and ice. Things were simpler in those days.


----------



## paulbest

Bulldog said:


> Do you really believe you invented the term "modernist"?


No I do not, 
But the way I define a modernist in classical music, may perhaps be unique.

Look as a true Modernist, I still hold values and appreciations for at least some of the older styles of music. 
We never throw the baby out with the bath water.
Take Vivaldi, , I have a place in my soul for Vivaldi, past 35 yrs, that affection for his music has not altered.

There are so many wonderous works in Vivaldi's vast profound output,,,Not sure where to begin..
Let me share a beautiful work, Vivaldi's 
RV407. Beautifully performed here by , who else, a Italian chamber group, with authentic sounding instruments. 
Just gorgeous music, that to me still holds great value, after some 300 years later.
Modernists do have feelings that run deep. Music does not always have to be complex.to hold emotional values.


----------



## mmsbls

paulbest said:


> I just invented this term, to imply a classical group whose main concerns in music begin with say Wagner's Parsifal, definitely with Debussy's Prelude, Premier Paris Dec 22,1894,,, some other late neo romantics like Scriabin, , Ravel and Stravinsky were composing incredible modernistic works as early as 1916.
> 
> I would say modernists are those who can find music within the 20th C composers which can offer, , perhaps, some semblances of what is offered within the romantics.
> 
> Exapmle, Chopin,,,Modernists may have at one time eraly in their jouney, loved Chopin,,,then along came late Scriabin, also Szymanowski offers some neo romantic piano solo, , then modernists can turn to Ravel, and Debussy...
> So a modernist may feel, with all these new neo-romantic works, and along with Debussy, ravel,,,the Chopin, has lost some of its glimmer and does not hold our attention, as his music once did, many years previously,,,
> 
> This is my scenario of how a transformation in musical taste can occur over time and , so we become solidly committed to the 20th C composers, making up at least 80% of our musical CD collection.
> 
> Take my new discoveries, Tubin, Kalabis.
> hardly nothing in chamber, scant few, and nothing really significant in terms of interesting material.
> 
> But the orchestral works, few there are, offer some real exciting ideas, borrowed from Sibelius and RVW.
> 
> Its like old material cast in new fabric and with more modernistic textures, hard to explain. We don;'t completely reject the romantic forms, when it is recast in neo romantic/modernistic material.
> Although in the CC opinion, neither are a major composer in the 20th C, Yet as I hear both, they rank a higher tier than other more famous 1800-1930 symphonic composers.
> 
> It can be said, old opinions, old standards of ranking composers, holds no meaning for us Modernists.
> 
> Historical assessments , means nothing to us.


Thank you for this explanation. If I understand you correctly, I'm not sure there is another TC member who is a Modernist by your definition. I love modern music as well as earlier music at least as well. I think the vast majority of TC members who do love modern music also love much of earlier music. I know one member who likes 20th and 21st century music but does not really listen to anything earlier. 
I'm also not sure if there are TC members who like modern music but not contemporary music other than you.

Do you know others who have the same tastes as you do?


----------



## paulbest

mmsbls said:


> Thank you for this explanation. If I understand you correctly, I'm not sure there is another TC member who is a Modernist by your definition. I love modern music as well as earlier music at least as well. I think the vast majority of TC members who do love modern music also love much of earlier music. I know one member who likes 20th and 21st century music but does not really listen to anything earlier.
> I'm also not sure if there are TC members who like modern music but not contemporary music other than you.
> 
> Do you know others who have the same tastes as you do?


hummm, 

actually, honestly,,,I was hoping there just might bea few,,,well at least one others who was committed 1894-Elliott Carter's last work, and not much beyond.,,if at all. 
But it seems my idea of *Modernists* is more imaginative ,a fantasy on my part, to be honest
I was hoping to start a movement of sorts. 
Guess this Modernist idea has to be *chucked in the can*…
garbage can.


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Examples of musicians being overwhelmed by sensual factors, and the 'rhetoric' of tonality, to the detriment of their full cognitive awareness:


Whose cognitive awareness is being damaged?


----------



## Minor Sixthist

> There ARE higher forms of cognition than the reassurance of centricity, the drone. Some listeners DARE to listen to music with NO CENTER....that's* incredibly brave.* They *DARE to probe into the darkness*, away from the security of "being," away from the "god-centered" world of tonality...*with the light of almost pure cognition they journey into new, unfamiliar territory*, away from the 'security blanket' of tonality and its reassuring background drone of centeredness....into a new world in which Man is free to roam.


Romantic. This sounds like a highly dramatic description of your highly personal listening experience, and fine, it sounds like you truly enjoy these journeys into what you hear. But now tell us about "pure cognition." Are you making mental pictures in your head when you hear the notes? Are the notes translating to words? All I'm really getting is that you're thinking. What about?

All it sounds to me is that you're deriving personal pleasure from this music. You probably have a personal interpretation as to what it means. That would make it no different than anyone else's experience with the music they enjoy and for which they have an interpretation. It doesn't make you some brave or daring pioneer. It just means you like what you like.

Sometimes I think the people who have these great abilities of 'pure' cognition don't actually want to share what they are. That could be for too reasons: either revealing their pure uber-cognition abilities to the laymen would make them less distinct and special themselves, or otherwise, perhaps you put it the best in your own words:



> it's a security blanket for the ego....


and it's really nothing more than that.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

Woodduck said:


> Whose cognitive awareness is being damaged?


I just listened to that video of Matsuev playing the Shostakovich concerto and second this question. How is his "full cognitive awareness" being damaged at all in this performance, let alone by "sensual factors?" Did he hiccup a note or two and you're suggesting it must be because he's so emotionally invested in the music, which that audience agrees he played wonderfully? I think it's your opinion that his sensual investment is overwhelming. I think it's overwhelming to you, not the music...


----------



## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> Whose cognitive awareness is being damaged?


I think what the honorable member meant was that people who listen to this kind of music end up staggering around like vacant-eyed slack-jawed zombies, muttering "Must...vote for...Trump, must...vote for...Trump..."


----------



## Woodduck

Minor Sixthist said:


> I just listened to that video of Matsuev playing the Shostakovich concerto and second this question. How is his "full cognitive awareness" being damaged at all in this performance, let alone by "sensual factors?" Did he hiccup a note or two and you're suggesting it must be because he's so emotionally invested in the music, which that audience agrees he played wonderfully? I think it's your opinion that his sensual investment is overwhelming. I think it's overwhelming to you, not the music...


Ask too many good questions, and we might get a real discussion of musical cognition. Could we bear it?


----------



## Minor Sixthist

Woodduck said:


> Ask too many good questions, and we might get a real discussion of musical cognition. Could we bear it?


I imagine we couldn't bear it, our cognition is not pure enough.


----------



## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> I would agree with much of this except that I think most of us prefer music with some dissonance rather than none. So maybe the range of emotions elicited by music for most people starts to increase with some dissonance up to a maximum and then might decrease.


Could be.



> I think what MR might suggest (and I would agree) is that music that sounds like cacophony to some can sound enjoyable to others. In fact I will go further and say music that once sounded like cacophony to someone can later sound enjoyable after that person has become accustomed to the sounds. Everyone must decide how much effort to exert in learning to enjoy various music. *There is no wrong answer.*


My take is that the opinion of the OP is that there is [a wrong answer].


----------



## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> Examples of musicians being overwhelmed by sensual factors, and the 'rhetoric' of tonality, to the detriment of their full cognitive awareness:


Assuming for the moment (as troubling as that is) that full cognitive awareness is supposedly lost in the early few minutes, did you listen beyond 5 minutes?


----------



## Bulldog

paulbest said:


> No I do not,
> But the way I define a modernist in classical music, may perhaps be unique.


There are already definitions of the word - I'm not interested in yours.


----------



## Woodduck

Bulldog said:


> There are already definitions of the word - I'm not interested in yours.


A pity. One should never lose one's morbid curiosity.


----------



## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> My take is that the opinion of the OP is that there is [a wrong answer].


Well, that could be. I don't know.


----------



## paulbest

My belief is there are 2
distinct styles of performers in the Shosyakovich PC. One who feels a need, a inner demand to act out what the music requires, he can not resist showing his emotional level and is not being purposively ~~pretentious~, = He is playing ~authentic~...
The other broad category of performing, 
, is the performer who feels this same emotional connection, yet its all acted out inwardly, , on a inner expressiveness, Its like his mind is emotional committed, but refuses to allow these feelings to manifest to the outer world, = the audience. 
He does not wish to detract from the music itself, in no way,,
= he wants to disappear and allow only the music to be heard,,and not his emotions to be heard = seen.

Not sure how any performer can play this PC w/o showing at least some emotive expressiveness?

Possible, but , will the feeling elements suffer, = lack the depth, which is required to play the tender section. 


No 
contrary to the Millionrainbows belief its *over done*, I have to disagree here.

Play it as sensitive as possible, as required, let the feeling elements fly off the keys, take wings and drift around the halls,
Let the soul awaken,
Set the spirit free.

Excellent performance


----------



## paulbest

OK to further try to explain my idea of a Modernist in CM. 
Take Sibelius symphonies. 
I know to lose these , leaves a empty spot. 
Now with patience, just likea fisherman , one must have patience. ..and wait,,wait some more,,,,, gota nibble ,,I think,,,ohh could be,,,yeah nice fish,,,,ohh look , double catch , 2 nice trout,. 
,,Kalabis 
Tubin

Really nice little symphonies and a few VC's. 


Now my loss of Sibelius, is forgotten with the new catch. 
Modernists like to upgrade if/when possibhle.
Sure both are neo romantic, but at least free of neo classicism, which is in Sibelius.

EDIT: should add, Sibelius symphonies, just do not offer enough modernism to keep me interested, as it once did, years ago, that's all I am saying. 

His Kullervo is a chorus/vocal/symphonic work based on a old Swedish folk lore. 
This work remains, offers plenty of stunning themeatic material, richly , tonally crafted.


----------



## paulbest

I think what Millionrainbows is getting at 
is, *please play the piece, w/o letting us know how YOU feel about the work*.

And Matsuev's defense would be 
*I can't*


----------



## Minor Sixthist

paulbest said:


> contrary to the Millionrainbows belief its *over done*, I have to disagree here.
> 
> Play it as sensitive as possible, as required, let the feeling elements fly off the keys, take wings and drift around the halls,
> Let the soul awaken,
> Set the spirit free.
> 
> Excellent performance


I agree, I also don't believe it was "over done" in that sense. Even if a performer were only emoting to be "pretentious," how would the listener know the difference between him and the performer who's emoting "genuinely?" That question will logically lead to the realization that performers do not, in fact, emote just to look a certain way at all. On the contrary, a lot of performers feel self-conscious about all the moving they involuntarily do, and the faces they make while playing their instrument. I can attest to both of those facts personally. I'm continually surprised when I look back at pictures of me playing tuba to see that I'm making all kinds of faces I was totally unaware of making. A lot of tuba players raise their eyebrows (a lot) when going for notes in the high register - I do that too, and it's almost futile to try to stop it because you do it so unconsciously. And I could tell you that in some cases if I were able to choose to make a slightly more "natural" face while playing, at least if it were just to look okay in pictures, I would probably choose to - I am without a doubt not the prettiest while I'm making the "bass face" (bass, like the fish) in order open up for the low register, but it is so necessary. And "bass face" is a completely accurate description, with the corners of the mouth down and the bottom lip out, exactly like that of a fish with its mouth wide open - to my occasional chagrin when I'm looking back at photos of a performance and just wish they were more, well, picturesque. Such are the sacrifices you make for the craft...


----------



## paulbest

watching YT performances of say Bruckner's 7th symphony, seems to me, the more body movements I noted happening among the orchestra, the finer the performance. 
Static(lack feeling movements) orchestras, are a thing of the past. 
As you correctly say, this emotive actions, happens *unconsciously*, that is impulsively, automatically. 



Highlighting this approach to much, would be to look at Hillary Hahn's performances and also Mitsuko Uchida, as conductor/soloist in the Mozart's piano concertos. 
Also Vengerov in the Sibelius VC. 
This list could be extended, but these are the ones most notable to my memory. 

An exception in this style, yet he was effective, was Leonid Kogan, equal to David Oistrakh. 
Kogan had steel control of his emotions, yet played gingerly and with great sensitivity.


----------



## KenOC

Minor Sixthist said:


> I agree, I also don't believe it was "over done" in that sense. Even if a performer were only emoting to be "pretentious," how would the listener know the difference between him and the performer who's emoting "genuinely?" That question will logically lead to the realization that performers do not, in fact, emote just to look a certain way at all. On the contrary, a lot of performers feel self-conscious about all the moving they involuntarily do, and the faces they make while playing their instrument...


One pianist I greatly admire, in his later years often appeared to be having serious medical problems while playing. Here's an example.


----------



## Woodduck

paulbest said:


> ,,Kalabis
> Tubin
> 
> Really nice little symphonies and a few VC's.
> 
> Now my loss of Sibelius, is forgotten with the new catch.
> Modernists like to upgrade if/when possibhle.
> Sure both are neo romantic, but at least free of *neo classicism, which is in Sibelius.*


I have to dispute your terminology. Sibelius isn't neoclassical, and Tubin isn't neoromantic.

Neoclassicism was a conscious effort to recapture Classicism's supposed values of objectivity, form and craft, in reaction to what was perceived as the Romantics' excessive subjectivity. Sibelius didn't associate himself with that movement; he was merely fascinated with the possibilities of symphonic form, and developed new structures that met his expressive needs. His roots are in Romantic nationalism, and he never renounced them.

Neoromanticism is a post-serialist phenomenon signaling a return to tonal thinking, not a continuation of Romanticism by composers who had never left it behind. Tubin, like some other Baltic and Nordic composers of his era, was a late Romantic who made use of some conservatively "modern" 20th-century sounds. Kalabis doesn't seem "neo" anything either, but also sounds conservatively modern and rather eclectic. They're both reminders of how much 20th-century music wasn't on board with the avant-garde trends.

As a composer, neither can equal Sibelius.


----------



## paulbest

So lets say , you and I were the 2 main organizers for a major orchestra.
The program schedule for the 2020 season is being finalized by our vote, and no others. 
We have 99% complete schedule, but somehow or other,,,we realize that Sibelius is not represented at all. 
Now what do we do?

I suggest we pass up Sibelius and place both Tubin and Kalabis in these 2 openings.
You might ask, *Why?*
Thus I explain as to why.
What is your rebuttal here. 
Just curious. 

You might say, pick one and give me Sibelius in the other spot, 
Now I suggest if we look over the past 50 years of programming, we can find Sibelius at least once a year, 
Yet not once Tubin/Kalabis. 
I protest strongly, it has to be Tubin/Kalabis in 2020, we can just skip over Sibelius as he had his music performed once , in all past 50 seasons. 
Thus , no Sibelius in 2020, Has to be Tubin/Kalabis. 
Now , how would you approach this conundrum?

No, 3rd tie breaker vote, It has to be a decision acceptable to both you and I.

And not accepting, *we have to program what will fill the most seats*, Not accepting, I'll say, *lets put Beethoven on the 1st part of the program,, intermission then Tubin/Kalabis. 
Beethoven will fill the seats alone. 
They will come for Beethoven. and then next day, we may find a bunch of emails, 
*Fantastic program last night,,,please give us more Tubin/Kalabis, 2 composers we never even dreamed existed,,,great job you 2*


----------



## paulbest

Because really most of the concert goers, really don't know what they want.
I'd guess 50% are there as a *evening out event at the concert*,, Program Sibelius, program Tubin/Kalabis,,,its all the same. 
And then we SURPRISE the other 50% with *brand new composers*, 

*Like WOW, how did you 2 come up with these 2 completely obscure composers,,,both of you get a huge salary raise*


----------



## Sid James

millionrainbows said:


> The ears hear pitches in a certain way: a fundamental pitch has higher harmonics, and that's the way our ears hear: lowest note , then the higher components. This "bottom up" way of hearing is also the way we hear chords: the lowest note tends to be the most "centric" note, which "roots" chords and gives them harmonic stability. This "low note" idea has been used to determine "root movement" of chords.
> All scales can be seen as "harmonic models" of this. Though not _exactly _like the harmonic series, the scales can nonetheless _"model"_ a harmonic relationship between a tonic note and its other, lesser, scale steps.
> 
> This is all evident when we hear music that is harmonically based like this.
> 
> But when this harmonic modeling is abandoned, many listeners are repelled, seeing the sounds as "unmusical" or intolerably dissonant, such as Schoenberg, Boulez, Ligeti, and others.
> 
> Listening to music is an ear/brain process, which involves hearing, as well as cognition.
> __________________________________________________
> _
> My assertion is that, if you reject certain "non-harmonic" music as being too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and cognition of such music. _
> 
> A hypothetical list of composers who I see frequently being rejected on these "harmonic" grounds:
> 
> Ligeti, Cage Varese, Carter, later Schoenberg, Webern, Nono, Berio, Stockhausen, Ferneyhough, Rihm, and it goes on.


I think it helps to keep an open mind when listening to music of the post-1945 period. When listening to such music my own approach was to listen to as broad range of music from the period as possible, and do it in as objective manner as I could. Once I was exposed to it I could simply pick and choose the music I liked over that which I didn't. So subjectivity was more or less the second step of this process.

As with other periods, I listen to music which I enjoy - or, more accurately in terms of the composers mentioned, engage with - the most. In terms of my needs in recent years, I listen to far less of this type of music compared to when I started listening to it around a decade ago. Even though I'm much more mainstream in my musical taste now, I don't regret my earlier explorations.

Of course its not the same for everyone. Its less accurate to say that there are many types of listeners, its more the case that every listener is different. Many will start from the core repertoire of about two or three hundred works (the "warhorses") and proceed to dig further during that same two hundred year period (around 1750 to 1950). Others will start at any point during the history of Western music. Some focus on certain periods, genres, performers and so on. It can even be as simple as listening to something on youtube and continuing with other music that comes up there. There are many ways. In effect, we become our own curators as our experience grows and our preferences develop.

Sometimes the most difficult music is compared to food, and a common way to describe music departing from the standard diatonic system is to say that composers spice the music up a bit. I remember Bruno Walter making this comparison, but I think others have too. I see it as a bit like chocolate, a gradation from white (lots of sugar) to very dark (no sugar). The more difficult the music, the more bitter it gets. It doesn't mean that one is bad, the other is good. Its more like they satisfy different palates. The darker you get, there is the aspect of it being an acquired taste.

My thumbnail sketch of Western music as chocolate could go something like this:

White - Operetta, waltzes, easy listening (eg. Mantovani) and light classical

Milk - A lot of the core repertoire (esp. Baroque, Classical, Romantic eras)

Dark 60 per cent - Some of the heavier core repertoire (esp. late Romantic)

Dark 70-80 per cent - Modern era (e.g. up to roughly 1945), opera

Dark 90 per cent - Post-1945, e.g. atonal, serial, avant-garde


----------



## paulbest

Sid James said:


> I think it helps to keep an open mind when listening to music of the post-1945 period. When listening to such music my own approach was to listen to as broad range of music from the period as possible, and do it in as objective manner as I could. Once I was exposed to it I could simply pick and choose the music I liked over that which I didn't. So subjectivity was more or less the second step of this process.
> 
> As with other periods, I listen to music which I enjoy - or, more accurately in terms of the composers mentioned, engage with - the most. In terms of my needs in recent years, I listen to far less of this type of music compared to when I started listening to it around a decade ago. Even though I'm much more mainstream in my musical taste now, I don't regret my earlier explorations.
> 
> Of course its not the same for everyone. Its less accurate to say that there are many types of listeners, its more the case that every listener is different. Many will start from the core repertoire of about two or three hundred works (the "warhorses") and proceed to dig further during that same two hundred year period (around 1750 to 1950). Others will start at any point during the history of Western music. Some focus on certain periods, genres, performers and so on. It can even be as simple as listening to something on youtube and continuing with other music that comes up there. There are many ways. In effect, we become our own curators as our experience grows and our preferences develop.
> 
> Sometimes the most difficult music is compared to food, and a common way to describe music departing from the standard diatonic system is to say that composers spice the music up a bit. I remember Bruno Walter making this comparison, but I think others have too. I see it as a bit like chocolate, a gradation from white (lots of sugar) to very dark (no sugar). The more difficult the music, the more bitter it gets. It doesn't mean that one is bad, the other is good. Its more like they satisfy different palates. The darker you get, there is the aspect of it being an acquired taste.
> 
> My thumbnail sketch of Western music as chocolate could go something like this:
> 
> White - Operetta, waltzes, easy listening (eg. Mantovani) and light classical
> 
> Milk - A lot of the core repertoire (esp. Baroque, Classical, Romantic eras)
> 
> Dark 60 per cent - Some of the heavier core repertoire (esp. late Romantic)
> 
> Dark 70-80 per cent - Modern era (e.g. up to roughly 1945), opera
> 
> Dark 90 per cent - Post-1945, e.g. atonal, serial, avant-garde


Outstanding post, 
Really just in time, to bring more light and clearer ideas on what we are all trying to express here.
I am a chocoholic , since youth,,,but have slowed a bit now. I used to be milk, Now the darker is what I like best ...When I make brownies, I use milk/white/dark, no cocoa powder. 
Lots of butter

anyway, 90% is a bit too dark for consumption

, Yet the correspondence is real for my classical tastes
I am a *90% Dark chocolate Classical fan-atic*, 90% of my collection starts 1920's - Carter's last works.


----------



## Phil loves classical

millionrainbows said:


> Examples of musicians being overwhelmed by sensual factors, and the 'rhetoric' of tonality, to the detriment of their full cognitive awareness:


Example of musician being overwhelmed by analytical (or sensual, take your pick) factors, and the 'rhetoric' of atonality, to the detriment of their full cognitive awareness:


----------



## millionrainbows

Minor Sixthist said:


> Romantic. This sounds like a highly dramatic description of your highly personal listening experience, and fine, it sounds like you truly enjoy these journeys into what you hear. But now tell us about "pure cognition." Are you making mental pictures in your head when you hear the notes? Are the notes translating to words? All I'm really getting is that you're thinking. What about?


Really, it's the absence of tonality. That's when I know the music is not based on the sensual phenomena of tonality and its relationships.
We hear with "octave equivalency." that means, a G is a G, no matter what octave it's in: 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, etc.

All tonal music and all pitch is subject to this ratio. It is purely sensual, a physical vibration which requires no brainwork.

So anything that's not, requires cognition to take over. That should be just as natural. It does require that our brain, our "will" go along with it, and not resist on sensual grounds.



> All it sounds to me is that you're deriving personal pleasure from this music. You probably have a personal interpretation as to what it means. That would make it no different than anyone else's experience with the music they enjoy and for which they have an interpretation. It doesn't make you some brave or daring pioneer. It just means you like what you like.


No; it's natural for cognition to take over in the absence of tonality. The difference is; I don't resist it.

Everybody knows how to ***** (reproduce); that doesn't require much effort. That's like tonality; a no-brainer.



> Sometimes I think the people who have these great abilities of 'pure' cognition don't actually want to share what they are. That could be for too reasons: either revealing their pure uber-cognition abilities to the laymen would make them less distinct and special themselves, or otherwise, perhaps you put it the best in your own words: "It's a security blanket for the ego."
> ...and it's really nothing more than that.


No, I just shared it. "Cognition" using your brain more than sensual factors is _completely natural _if one does not resist.

I listen for the same things in serial music as in tonal music, except for tonal centers: texture, interesting lines, intervals, rhythms, colors, expression, emotion, etc.


----------



## millionrainbows

Phil loves classical said:


> Example of musician being overwhelmed by analytical (or sensual, take your pick) factors, and the 'rhetoric' of atonality, to the detriment of their full cognitive awareness:


That's assuming that the musician has full cognitive awareness to begin with! :lol:


----------



## Bulldog

paulbest said:


> Because really most of the concert goers, really don't know what they want.


You keep making this assertion without a shred of evidence or insight which is typical of most of your absolute statements.


----------



## millionrainbows

You don't need proof; just believe!


----------



## Bulldog

millionrainbows said:


> You don't need proof; just believe!


So you think I should even believe you? :lol:


----------



## paulbest

millionrainbows said:


> You don't need proof; just believe!


*Hey Joe
I went to the Hillay Hahn show last night, LEGEND,,,you just have to go see her perform,,,*
*Thanks Bob, I will buya ticket online today,,before it sells out*Oh btw, do you know what Vc Hahn is playing?*
*Bob, I think it was the Sibelius VC, ,,,I only went to see the legendary Hillary Hahn*


----------



## Sid James

paulbest said:


> Outstanding post,
> Really just in time, to bring more light and clearer ideas on what we are all trying to express here.
> I am a chocoholic , since youth,,,but have slowed a bit now. I used to be milk, Now the darker is what I like best ...When I make brownies, I use milk/white/dark, no cocoa powder.
> Lots of butter
> 
> anyway, 90% is a bit too dark for consumption
> 
> , Yet the correspondence is real for my classical tastes
> I am a *90% Dark chocolate Classical fan-atic*, 90% of my collection starts 1920's - Carter's last works.


Thank you, although I wasn't trying to speak for everybody. I think its obvious though that all listeners are different, and will have different methods of approaching music.

I could have added other eras and genres like early music, film music, comic opera, chamber, solo instrumental (which is usually piano) and lieder to my chocolate chart. I didn't because some of those are tricky and I didn't have time.

As I said, I'm all for listeners exploring what they respond to the most. Its no longer the case that we always have to defer to experts to figure out our our tastes. There's no problem with seeking advice from others, and it can make things less daunting. I just find that its a bit rich when the experts - wherever they may be, in books or on the internet - claim to be objective and then make some very subjective selections of what music they think we (by that, non-experts) should be listening to. In reality everyone's choices are governed by a mix of objective and subjective factors. Whether the experts like it or not, non-experts aren't too much different from them, albeit they are likely to be less sophisticated in giving reasons for what they do and don't like (or undecided upon). Notwithstanding their expertise, we are in the driver's seat when it comes to choosing where we want to go.


----------



## paulbest

Can not agree, well only in part,,,
THEY, = the powers that be, are in complete control of The Music Industry.

I've noted this 35 yrs now. 
They want to dump their coats on other late 20Th C Composer as they enter the grand orchestra halls. to hear their fav little darlings, 
Dvorak etc etc ETC


Ain;t gonna happen on my watch, I am in protest, against the Propaganda Industry for Classical Music Set Standards.


----------



## Becca

And here I thought that I listened to things because I like them and now I find out that I'm actually listening to them because I was brainwashed into liking them. That, to use the Goebbels theory, tell me often enough that I like it and I will come to believe it.

P.S. I have no doubt that someone will tell me that that's exactly what happened. If so then I can only pity you for your unwillingness to accept that some people do think for themselves.


----------



## paulbest

When ever you do make a effort to hear Schnittke, Pettersson , Henze, in the years to come,,,you may not come around to any of the 3,,not right away,,,but if you do accept these 3 composer,,,years after this acceptance,,,you may find the old standards ,,are well a bit older = lose interest.

I never llisten to music, with pretentions that *oh yes I like this , it s=is very interesting*,,,
In music I never lie about it, Take Tubin,a new found discovery,,His 4th symphony , I find out now, is OK, nothing as great as 1st thought last week His other syms arrive tomorrow, again I will listen , and relsiten, whatever holds up, stays, the rest will be trashed. His 9th symphony is trash. 

Give me 20 or so composers past 300 years,,
the rest I have no interest, no need. 
The CM industry is so bloated with propaganda. 

Mahler's 6th symphony is on as I type, , Nothing, its all just notes being flung around, OH yes back in 1901, it was a grand symphony,,That was before Ravel came along.

Now with Ravel, 1st note to last, is stunningly perfect. Has power in 2019, its alive, Mahler/Bruckner are like sounds, just being flung around, I have zero connections with either, 
Neither's music might not as well exist 
oh yes let me use the protective clause
IMHO
There I am saved from condemnation,,as I stand behind my little old opinion.


----------



## Woodduck

paulbest said:


> When ever you do make a effort to hear Schnittke, Pettersson , Henze, in the years to come,,,you may not come around to any of the 3,,not right away,,,but if you do accept these 3 composer,,,years after this acceptance,,,you may find the old standards ,,are well a bit older = lose interest.
> 
> I never llisten to music, with pretentions that *oh yes I like this , it s=is very interesting*,,,
> In music I never lie about it, Take Tubin,a new found discovery,,His 4th symphony , I find out now, is OK, nothing as great as 1st thought last week His other syms arrive tomorrow, again I will listen , and relsiten, whatever holds up, stays, the rest will be trashed. His 9th symphony is trash.
> 
> Give me 20 or so composers past 300 years,,
> the rest I have no interest, no need.
> The CM industry is so bloated with propaganda.
> 
> Mahler's 6th symphony is on as I type, , Nothing, its all just notes being flung around, OH yes back in 1901, it was a grand symphony,,That was before Ravel came along.
> 
> Now with Ravel, 1st note to last, is stunningly perfect. Has power in 2019, its alive, Mahler/Bruckner are like sounds, just being flung around, I have zero connections with either,
> Neither's music might not as well exist
> *oh yes let me use the protective clause
> IMHO
> There I am saved from condemnation*,,as I stand behind my little old opinion.


When you repeat something enough to make people want to puke, IMHO is nothing but a sarcastic insult to your nauseated audience.


----------



## samm

paulbest said:


> The CM industry is so bloated with propaganda.


A good deal of it coming from your pen.



paulbest said:


> Mahler's 6th symphony is on as I type, , Nothing, its all just notes being flung around, OH yes back in 1901, it was a grand symphony,,That was before Ravel came along.


I'm not even a dedicated Mahler listener, but this stinks of ignorance. To refer to it as "just notes being flung around" suggests to me you are overwhelmed by complicated music. A self-appointed so-called 'reviewer' who can't even read Mahler's score in a rudimentary fashion is of no interest to me; especially when throwing out criticism based upon nothing more than uninformed personal dislike.

Plus the Symphony was premiered in 1906, not 1901.


----------



## millionrainbows

All that Paul Best is doing is espousing and articulating a linear, continuous view of CM which stretches right up to now.

The rest of you are angered because CM is, to you, a tidy package which has already been wrapped up tight.

You are escapists; you are alienated from the present era. You cannot embrace anything about the present, and do not wish to; in fact, you actively reject anything which impinges on this view.


----------



## Becca

Considering that you know very little about the specifics of the tastes of others, that is both and arrogant and derogatory statement. About the only thing in it that rings true is your opinion of yourself.


----------



## Johnnie Burgess

millionrainbows said:


> All that Paul Best is doing is espousing and articulating a linear, continuous view of CM which stretches right up to now.
> 
> The rest of you are angered because CM is, to you, a tidy package which has already been wrapped up tight.
> 
> You are escapists; you are alienated from the present era. You cannot embrace anything about the present, and do not wish to; in fact, you actively reject anything which impinges on this view.


You sound angry, you do not like the fact we do not care for the music you like. We have the freedom to reject your views.


----------



## paulbest

millionrainbows said:


> All that Paul Best is doing is espousing and articulating a linear, continuous view of CM which stretches right up to now.
> 
> The rest of you are angered because CM is, to you, a tidy package which has already been wrapped up tight.
> 
> You are escapists; you are alienated from the present era. You cannot embrace anything about the present, and do not wish to; in fact, you actively reject anything which impinges on this view.


I've noted this attitude among the CM *elitists* while rummaging through LP bins at Tower Records some 35 years ago,...I had picked up this *old is good, new might be interesting,,,but its not so good as our oldies but goodies composers*..Schnoenberg, Berg, Webern had some growing fan base, 
But the big LP bins , were Brahms, Chopin, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky...
At that time Schnittke, Pettersson had no LP bin space. 
I am not so avantgarde as to toss aside the entire past,,but I am such a Modernist to know the new music (new being Debussy's 1894 premiere of Prelude) speaks closer things in my experience, reflects more of my world, versus the antiquated music of say, Schubert. 
Here is a conductor completely committed to the romantics, 100%,,and the Frankfurtians love what he is doing.

They are committed romanticists, I am committed modernist.

WE will just have to get along with each other. And come to terms, accept out divisions. 
Neither side is willing to budge a inch.






35 years ago, this symphony sounded, *old fashioned* why is it still being performed? Is what I would like to know.


----------



## Art Rock

millionrainbows said:


> All that Paul Best is doing is espousing and articulating a linear, continuous view of CM which stretches right up to now.


No, he does not. He's selecting two handfuls of composers that he likes, and declares that the rest is rubbish (based on nothing in most cases) - by the way, the rubbish according to PB includes all living composers, for which he misuses the terms New Age and Post-modern ("right up to now" indeed....). And he does that in dozens of posts per day.

Why not actually read the posts you are defending. And stop making statements about people you clearly know nothing about.


----------



## NLAdriaan

This thread is rapidly moving into mods territory


----------



## samm

millionrainbows said:


> All that Paul Best is doing is espousing and articulating a linear, continuous view of CM which stretches right up to now.
> 
> The rest of you are angered because CM is, to you, a tidy package which has already been wrapped up tight.
> 
> You are escapists; you are alienated from the present era. You cannot embrace anything about the present, and do not wish to; in fact, you actively reject anything which impinges on this view.


Actually that's not what he's doing at all. A critic with a linear view would not be picking and choosing obvious personal tastes and elevating them to a dubious position of importance, while dismissing music, historical and contemporary, on a smattering of knowledge.

Who appointed you the spokesman for modern or contemporary music or a competent judge of everyone's listening habits?

All I currently see in Paul Best is a ferocious river of vacuous iconoclasm, which even fails as iconoclasm because it is built on sand.


----------



## Strange Magic

> Sid James: "As I said, I'm all for listeners exploring what they respond to the most. Its no longer the case that we always have to defer to experts to figure out our our tastes. There's no problem with seeking advice from others, and it can make things less daunting. I just find that its a bit rich when the experts - wherever they may be, in books or on the internet - claim to be objective and then make some very subjective selections of what music they think we (by that, non-experts) should be listening to. In reality everyone's choices are governed by a mix of objective and subjective factors. Whether the experts like it or not, non-experts aren't too much different from them, albeit they are likely to be less sophisticated in giving reasons for what they do and don't like (or undecided upon). Notwithstanding their expertise, we are in the driver's seat when it comes to choosing where we want to go."


I agree completely. Long ago, I made a god of my own tastes. I had tried other gods, but found they did not satisfy; hence developed my assertion that all aesthetics are personal and, as such, equally valid for each. _De gustibus.....?_


----------



## Luchesi

samm said:


> A good deal of it coming from your pen.
> 
> I'm not even a dedicated Mahler listener, but this stinks of ignorance. To refer to it as "just notes being flung around" suggests to me you are overwhelmed by complicated music. A self-appointed so-called 'reviewer' who can't even read Mahler's score in a rudimentary fashion is of no interest to me; especially when throwing out criticism based upon nothing more than uninformed personal dislike.
> 
> Plus the Symphony was premiered in 1906, not 1901.


I agree, but I'm enjoying Paul's assertions and what he shares. It helps us understand how people are so different even when they've spent a lot of time with music. Such acrimony is prevalent in pop music and it has been for many many decades, but CM is such a deeper subject, many more dimensions.

I'm also a little embarrassed because I see myself in him. I often tell my friends they should learn to read and analyze music (they love music so much! and they'll get so much more out of it in my opinion). When they don't completely believe me I probably get quite emotional about it from their point of view, blathering on and on when they're obviously not the audience for it.. <grin>


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I agree completely. Long ago, I made a god of my own tastes. I had tried other gods, but found they did not satisfy; hence developed my assertion that all aesthetics are personal and, as such, equally valid for each. _De gustibus.....?_


"that all aesthetics are personal"

Some people have never learned that it's not about "liking", it's about enduring value.

You can dismiss expert opinion and wallow around on your own - waste a lot of time.

Intelligent people don't do that in any subject. Why is serious listening any different?


----------



## paulbest

Art Rock said:


> No, he does not. He's selecting two handfuls of composers that he likes, and declares that the rest is rubbish (based on nothing in most cases) - by the way, the rubbish according to PB includes all living composers, for which he misuses the terms New Age and Post-modern ("right up to now" indeed....). And he does that in dozens of posts per day.
> 
> Why not actually read the posts you are defending. And stop making statements about people you clearly know nothing about.


Several folks here have already agreed with my premise that the CM tradition have ended.

Just because contemporary artist employ classical instruments does not automatically elevate their work to classical status.

Henze is a classical composer,. Elliott Carter is a classical composer, Afterwards I can not find any entering in to this domain. 
I did not say it is rubbish, I said it does not attain to classical status , I am only only interested in classical traditional status. 
Which is Henze, Petttersson, Carter..I only seen Beethoven quality composers, 1900-2000. There are a few exceptions like Tubin who I am now hear as 2nd tier, maybe 3rd tier, I am waiting on a package of symphonies of Tubin,,that decision yet remains, whether 2nd or 3rd tier. , and Kalabis maybe 1.5 tier, maybe 2nd tier.
Messiaen, Ligeti are not 2nd tier in my standards, they are outside the tradition. .

Post mod composers are not at all rubbish, They are outside the trad, so I am not at all concerned as to how their music goes off.

Rihm, Stockhausen, Berio, 3 famous post mod artists. Boulez ttoo, post mod, not classical. His piano solo, maybe classical status. waiting to review his piano works.


----------



## paulbest

Look the 1950-2000 has hundreds of composers who made their mark, its our job to sort through it all, and sere which make OUR personal classical composers list, and which are avantgarde art.


folks bring up names, speaking in terms as if to imply their favorite is a classical composer. 
I never accepted this notion just because a artist employs classical instruments, he is now inducted into the classical halls of composers. 
Does the composer off
chamber
concertos
large orchestral scores
perhaps a opera of 2

How is the actual score, redundant? Fluff, Fillers, Gimmickery? 
Rihm at least in some of his works, utilizes some of these tricks.


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> All that Paul Best is doing is espousing and articulating a linear, continuous view of CM which stretches right up to now.
> 
> The rest of you are angered because CM is, to you, a tidy package which has already been wrapped up tight.
> 
> You are escapists; you are alienated from the present era. You cannot embrace anything about the present, and do not wish to; in fact, you actively reject anything which impinges on this view.


This is about as insightful as the compulsive, mind-numbing foolishness it defends. Even less, if that's possible.


----------



## Woodduck

NLAdriaan said:


> This thread is rapidly moving into mods territory


The crackpot zealotry that's inspiring so much annoyance here has been in mods' territory for weeks. They're being extraordinarily tolerant as it infects thread upon thread, but there's no reason for us not to call it what it is.


----------



## Luchesi

paulbest said:


> Look the 1950-2000 has hundreds of composers who made their mark, its our job to sort through it all, and sere which make OUR personal classical composers list, and which are avantgarde art.
> 
> folks bring up names, speaking in terms as if to imply their favorite is a classical composer.
> I never accepted this notion just because a artist employs classical instruments, he is now inducted into the classical halls of composers.
> Does the composer off
> chamber
> concertos
> large orchestral scores
> perhaps a opera of 2
> 
> How is the actual score, redundant? Fluff, Fillers, Gimmickery?
> Rihm at least in some of his works, utilizes some of these tricks.


I'm wondering how you know what's fluff/fillers? You let the sounds wash over you and freely associate? Purely subjective, purely dependent upon your mind, this decade, your individual experience and perceptions, BUT you want to objectively categorize? Where is the musical analysis? Where is the knowledge of aesthetics? because we suppress or exaggerate our responses to the point of self-deception.


----------



## Becca

Repeating the dubious mantra time after time after time does not validate it. It is just fluff, filler and gimmicks ... and rather poor fluff, filler and gimmicks also.


----------



## Becca

There is another thread that Art Rock started a short while ago in which he posted one work by a composer for each year from 1918 to 2018 without duplicating any composers. I wonder how many of those composers paulbest is familiar with, and I do not just mean the name.


----------



## Woodduck

Becca said:


> There is another thread that Art Rock started a short while ago in which he posted one work by a composer for each year from 1918 to 2018 without duplicating any composers. I wonder how many of those composers paulbest is familiar with, and I do not just mean the name.


It doesn't matter. They're all just notes being thrown around. All music that doesn't make you want to slit your throat is fluff, filler and gimmickry.


----------



## paulbest

I have been pondering over this issue, this conflict, this divide, this *us versus them* split in the Classical Community.
Here is how I figured ouyt what exactly is taking place. 
Brahms, Bruckner, maybe Mahler others say not, , these 2 or 3 composers, elicit, bring forth, feelings and emotions which trigger a nostalgic atmosphere within the romantics. 
I can more readily understand this power to draw some into that romanticized world, . I mean the music is not complex at all,, It just a matter of sitting, allowing Bruckner to sing his song. 
Its a nice little work. But as far as challenging? 
How so? 
Hear it once twice, 3 x's, what is so new that draws you back in , on the 4th experience?

You should know the symphony by heart on the 5th listen.

So after 5 listens,,what do you want me to do afterwards? 
The 6th session will become utter boredom. 
Now for this same romanticized experience, give me Szymanowski/orchestral/piano/chamber and Scriabin late works.

On the 100 th session , I am still taken in by its charms..
I am listening to Bruckner's 9th as I type, I can tell you w./o Wagners influnces, Bruckner would have a most difficult time making his symphonies, of interest. It is only for the Wagner phrases that I find this symphony 9 of Bruckner interesting. 
The adagio is the only interesting section of this symphony, and that due to Wagnerian phrases.

Which brings me to my redundant , yet unwanted, gripe, why do we still need Bruckner when we have Wagner?


----------



## paulbest

Becca said:


> There is another thread that Art Rock started a short while ago in which he posted one work by a composer for each year from 1918 to 2018 without duplicating any composers. I wonder how many of those composers paulbest is familiar with, and I do not just mean the name.


A few, not many as you correctly surmise.
Yet lets go see the composers catalogue of works,,and compare to who I know belongs in the list of late 20th C composers. 
Schnittke and carter sets the standards. 
So if you wishn to include the 40 or so minor composers as *classical* I guess who is to stop you. 
Just not on my list, that's all.

I mean lets take Ruggles, he has 2 or 3 15 minute works that are of interest to us all. But major 20th C composer? How? Why?

That list by Artrock, has 
1,2,3,4,5 tier composers. 
I am only concerned with top tier and perhapsa few 2nd, 3rd tier in my book are avantgarde 20th C artists.

I've noted this distinction past 30 years now, and gets my grip when folks mix them all up in one big pile.


----------



## Becca

paulbest said:


> I've noted this distinction past 30 years now, and gets my grip when folks mix them all up in one big pile.


And just why should people be expected to accept your particular classification? Or even the very idea of tiers? I for one totally disagree with them. Deal with it and quit rubbing it into every one else's face.


----------



## Bulldog

Becca said:


> And just why should people be expected to accept your particular classification? Or even the very idea of tiers? I for one totally disagree with them. Deal with it and quit rubbing it into every one else's face.


Rubbing it in is exactly what paulbest wants to do, because it's all about attention-grabbing for him. It doesn't make much difference if the responses are negative or positive; any response is better than none. So we can expect a continuation of outrageous/controversial declarations built on nothing. Fortunately, members of this type eventually tire of the nonsense and take their leave.


----------



## Woodduck

Bulldog said:


> Rubbing it in is exactly what paulbest wants to do, because it's all about attention-grabbing for him. It doesn't make much difference if the responses are negative or positive; any response is better than none. So we can expect a continuation of outrageous/controversial declarations built on nothing. Fortunately, members of this type eventually tire of the nonsense and take their leave.


It can't happen too soon. How about two months ago?


----------



## paulbest

Look Ok I am a extremeist, But even the so called *extremeists* In france havea legitimate gripe,,as they are staving to death,,,the gov wishes to pretend all is OK,
So if the TC community wishes to over ride my ideas,,which I conclude from above posts, that they will have nothing to do with my *wistful , looney* ideas on categorization. 
Ok I will back off.
Lookm you guys know the passion and commitment I have for all things classical, great composers, great recordings. 
It has been my passion and hobby , off/on for 30 years now,. So over the years I have formed some rather strong minded ideation..


Look everything in this world has a tier system, I guess what you are saying , is this idea is not acceptable in classical music.
OK fine,
Then I will just stay put within the composers rooms I know and love so much,,These general discussion topids get me in trouble around here.
If over the coming years you guys want to join me over at the Pettersson Pub, I;'ll have a cold brew,,better tea, as its over 95 here in New orleans with 90% humidity. 

So over the years ,give Pett a chance and let me know what you think about his music. 
Start with his 3rd, skip his 4th, move to the 5th,,then go exactly in line.
6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15
skip the 16th as I consider that one a sax style concerto, so not part of the grand cycle. 


Ok . rant over,
,lets get back to the music and stop all this
divisive ideations.

EDIT You can do one symphony at a time, or listen to all
3,5-15 all 
at one sitting,,its only like a 10 hour session. 
I in fact have plans to do just this marathon , once my stereo comes out the shop.


----------



## Bulldog

paulbest said:


> Look Ok I am a extremeist, But even the so called *extremeists* In france havea legitimate gripe,,as they are staving to death,,,the gov wishes to pretend all is OK,


That's a hoot - comparing your situation to humans starving to death.


----------



## millionrainbows

WHAT WE NEED around here is some "crackpot zealotry." I'm tired of the usual bland menu.


----------



## Woodduck

paulbest said:


> I have been pondering over this issue, this conflict, this divide, this *us versus them* split in the Classical Community.
> Here is how I figured ouyt what exactly is taking place.
> Brahms, Bruckner, maybe Mahler others say not, , these 2 or 3 composers, elicit, bring forth, feelings and emotions which trigger a nostalgic atmosphere within the romantics.
> I can more readily understand this power to draw some into that romanticized world, . I mean the music is not complex at all,, It just a matter of sitting, allowing Bruckner to sing his song.
> Its a nice little work. But as far as challenging?
> How so?
> Hear it once twice, 3 x's, what is so new that draws you back in , on the 4th experience?
> 
> You should know the symphony by heart on the 5th listen.
> 
> So after 5 listens,,what do you want me to do afterwards?
> The 6th session will become utter boredom.
> Now for this same romanticized experience, give me Szymanowski/orchestral/piano/chamber and Scriabin late works.
> 
> On the 100 th session , I am still taken in by its charms..
> I am listening to Bruckner's 9th as I type, I can tell you w./o Wagners influnces, Bruckner would have a most difficult time making his symphonies, of interest. It is only for the Wagner phrases that I find this symphony 9 of Bruckner interesting.
> The adagio is the only interesting section of this symphony, and that due to Wagnerian phrases.
> 
> Which brings me to my redundant , yet unwanted, gripe, why do we still need Bruckner when we have Wagner?


You may as well give up "pondering over this issue." There is no "us and them." There is you - and there is everybody who is still capable of loving the breadth and depth of our Western heritage of music. It's a pity that you've lost that ability and can now do nothing but wander the streets gesticulating and screaming at a world that doesn't care.

There should be an ordinance against virtual vagrancy.


----------



## paulbest

Bulldog said:


> That's a hoot - comparing your situation to humans starving to death.


Well I am in full support of the Yellow vests,, the French illuminati gov has been cheating the French comman man for centuries now.

so yeah it is a bit of stretch as I do have food and do not have to work 60 hours a week, drive long distances etc. 
So yes I really do not know what its like to be in their shoes. anyway, I do get a bit carried away, a tad too ansty overs uch things as tiers and *great* and *what is really classical/what is borderline*.
I guess as the Moody Blues line goes
*But we decide, what is real
and what is an illusion*.

then comes in that UNREAL LSO orchestra section, absolutely stunning masterpiece at the end. 
I can't recall exact the line , something like that.


----------



## Bulldog

millionrainbows said:


> WHAT WE NEED around here is some "crackpot zealotry." I'm tired of the usual bland menu.


No, what we need are reasonable classical music lovers who don't go around dumping on composers, classical works, and fellow TC members.


----------



## paulbest

millionrainbows said:


> WHAT WE NEED around here is some "crackpot zealotry." I'm tired of the usual bland menu.


Sorry this chef is done,,,I ran out of recipes and ingredients. 
I'm retired from being the TC tomfoolery champ


----------



## paulbest

Woodduck said:


> You may as well give up "pondering over this issue." There is no "us and them." There is you - and there is everybody who is still capable of loving the breadth and depth of our Western heritage of music. It's a pity that you've lost that ability and can now do nothing but wander the streets gesticulating and screaming at a world that doesn't care.
> 
> There should be an ordinance against virtual vagrancy.


I agree most part,,But what is this 
*western heritage* thing? 
That's sort of academia stuff. 
Some here , don't go for that idea, at least in some of the conclusions. 
I could never read a book on sucha subject,,I'd feel nauseous throughout, the bloviations in many of the conclusions,

Or lets say I agree in part with the common idea of *western heritage*,,,yet is it not true,,,the best is always saved for the last. 
20ThC composers, the flowering and fruiting of all previous forms.

EDIT:

Look at any great culture throughout history,,,early age, middle, late maturity , last epoch was always the most glorious, highest refinements. 
Why should CM be any different?


----------



## KenOC

Bulldog said:


> Rubbing it in is exactly what paulbest wants to do, because it's all about attention-grabbing for him. It doesn't make much difference if the responses are negative or positive; any response is better than none. So we can expect a continuation of outrageous/controversial declarations built on nothing. Fortunately, members of this type eventually tire of the nonsense and take their leave.


When a person like this shows up, it quickly becomes clear that he/she will _never _post anything remotely useful, interesting, or even amusing. In a case like that, the _Ignore _setting is very handy and makes the forum a better place. I have exactly one person on ignore...


----------



## millionrainbows

Ha ha ha. I'm glad to see that "centrist history" members are upset enough to make reportable posts. Go ahead, keep going.

Meanwhile, back on topic: "Classical music" for the centrists is a closed history, a closed tradition which ended at Wagner, maybe Stravinsky, and you centrists can't STAND to see that disputed. Your heroes are icons whom you consider unassailable. You have an air-tight package which can not be argued with. You are self-contained.
That makes for boring discussion which degenerates into ad-hominems and attacks on members. Duly noted;


----------



## paulbest

To ignore me , utterly, might mean there could perhaps be some substance, some truths to what I have to say.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> "that all aesthetics are personal"
> 
> Some people have never learned that it's not about "liking", it's about enduring value.
> 
> You can dismiss expert opinion and wallow around on your own - waste a lot of time.
> 
> Intelligent people don't do that in any subject. Why is serious listening any different?


Some people have not yet figured out that all aesthetics is personal. But they're young and need to follow gods, having little faith in the validity and integrity of their own tastes. Besides, I enjoy wallowing, like water buffalo on a hot day, or pig maybe? Also not intelligent, so that again rules me out.


----------



## millionrainbows

Bulldog said:


> No, what we need are reasonable classical music lovers who don't go around dumping on composers, classical works, and fellow TC members.


You've been dumping on others. Please curb your dog.


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> When a person like this shows up, it quickly becomes clear that he/she will _never _post anything remotely useful, interesting, or even amusing. In a case like that, the _Ignore _setting is very handy and makes the forum a better place. I have exactly one person on ignore...


That's smart, KenOC, very smart.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> You may as well give up "pondering over this issue." There is no "us and them." There is you - and there is everybody who is still capable of loving the breadth and depth of our Western heritage of music. It's a pity that you've lost that ability and can now do nothing but wander the streets gesticulating and screaming at a world that doesn't care.
> 
> There should be an ordinance against virtual vagrancy.


This misses the whole issue, and exposes the self-referential, narcissistic centricity of this position. Western heritage of music is not immune to being criticized or expanded. The more "us" you act, the more "them" the opposing view becomes.


----------



## paulbest

millionrainbows said:


> Ha ha ha. I'm glad to see that "centrist history" members are upset enough to make reportable posts. Go ahead, keep going.
> 
> Meanwhile, back on topic: "Classical music" for the centrists is a closed history, a closed tradition which ended at Wagner, maybe Stravinsky, and you centrists can't STAND to see that disputed. Your heroes are icons whom you consider unassailable. You have an air-tight package which can not be argued with. You are self-contained.
> That makes for boring discussion which degenerates into ad-hominems and attacks on members. Duly noted;


Oh yes indeed, I've always felt listening to the romantics, early Mozart even, Haydn especially, but all the romantics, (minus a few operas) I always felt like walking through a Museum , a music art gallery, with busts of the composers , and a tiny speaker playing their music for the museum visitors. Chopin is there, along with Brahms and Bruckner, Tchaikovsky.

The museum of historic classical composers.

Great call, I had no idea how to describe what I was hearing while listening to Schumann and Schubert, Dvorak, Bruckner.

These corner stones have given rise to a edifice of the glorious modern era composers,,
But in a cathedral,,,, no one stands around and says,, gee what incredible beautiful corner stones...They only stare in amazement at the stain glass windows, the ceilings, the art work.

I would have never understood exactly how to explain what I was hearing So *closed tradition*. *heroes/icons*
Yep this is how I have been observing the romantics attitude toward music past ~3~0~ years now. 
I've been tallying things up past 30.


----------



## millionrainbows

paulbest said:


> Sorry this chef is done,,,I ran out of recipes and ingredients.
> I'm retired from being the TC tomfoolery champ


That was some damn good étouffée, though. Let's take a late night walk through the French Quarter.

And yes, you have to realize that those are icons, and don't forget that the spirit is alive, not packed away as a substitute.

Composers who are ALIVE, and dare to be alive, amidst a sea of icons.


----------



## samm

Bulldog said:


> That's a hoot - comparing your situation to humans starving to death.


And in France??


----------



## samm

millionrainbows said:


> WHAT WE NEED around here is some "crackpot zealotry." I'm tired of the usual bland menu.


Well you've done your best to provide both. Well done for trying at least.


----------



## ECraigR

paulbest said:


> To ignore me , utterly, might mean there could perhaps be some substance, some truths to what I have to say.


Nah, man. Just means some people don't want to listen anymore.


----------



## DaveM

The premise of the OP:
_My assertion is that, if you reject certain "non-harmonic" music as being too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and cognition of such music. _

Or, in some cases, it is not real classical music. Why is it that someone can present something that is almost total dissonance -in the realm of a Ferneyhough- and everyone is supposed to accept it as classical music? And I don't accept the ploy that this stuff is western art music either. Why am I supposed to accept the fact that I am the one with the problem or limitation? Maybe, more often than not, when dissonance and/or lack of harmony or structure reaches a certain point, it is not classical music, but the outpouring of random thoughts from a wandering mind.

Take this, for example. Is it going to fill empty concert hall seats with paying listeners? Or is it going to be relegated to very small venues where the performance is free? In either case, is there going to be a sign outside that says 'This work is beyond the uneducated understanding of the common man/woman. No one admitted unless they've done their homework.'






It is a


----------



## paulbest

millionrainbows said:


> This misses the whole issue, and exposes the self-referential, narcissistic centricity of this position. Western heritage of music is not immune to being criticized or expanded. The more "us" you act, the more "them" the opposing view becomes.


Exactlt, once again, spot on. 
The Modernists, do not like the way the academia, the authorities, the CC elitists , make the conclusions, draw up the votes.

They *beg to differ*. But who has the power?
The powers That Be , of course,,they run the show, they call the shots,,they rig the program , to their groups favor. 
ain;'t nothing gonna change there, that's for sure.
Let the whole thing die off. 
Now who is to blame? 
We might havea fighting chance to at least make some changes and save that which is losing a battle

But they won't, , will not budge an inch from their position.


----------



## Bulldog

millionrainbows said:


> You've been dumping on others. Please curb your dog.


I'm flattered that you remember I have dogs. Are you a dog owner also?


----------



## samm

paulbest said:


> To ignore me , utterly, might mean there could perhaps be some substance, some truths to what I have to say.


Or it could mean you have become tiresome.

Another habit I perceive in your 'analyses' is the grave mistake of looking at past achievements and then dismissing them _after_ they have happened. Something very easy to do in hindsight.

Despite all your phony ranting (in annoying, fractured, stream-of-consciousness prose) about how this or that era of classical music is dead or closed, you yourself inhabit a listening world of another era. One that has made its statement and passed the torch on to a new era.
You are the curator of your own little musical museum imagining it represents the now. It's rather pitiful having the inability to appreciate the breadth of musical output. And yet another mistake in imagining that me listening to e.g. Bruckner means I want to pretend he is contemporary That's not why I would listen to Bruckner.

Go away.


----------



## paulbest

DaveM said:


> The premise of the OP:
> _My assertion is that, if you reject certain "non-harmonic" music as being too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and cognition of such music. _
> 
> Or, in some cases, it is not real classical music. Why is it that someone can present something that is almost total dissonance -in the realm of a Ferneyhough- and everyone is supposed to accept it as classical music? And I don't accept the ploy that this stuff is western art music either. Why am I supposed to accept the fact that I am the one with the problem or limitation? Maybe, more often than not, when dissonance and/or lack of harmony or structure reaches a certain point, it is not classical music, but the outpouring of random thoughts from a wandering mind.
> 
> Take this, for example. Is it going to fill empty concert hall seats with paying listeners? Or is it going to be relegated to very small venues where the performance is free? In either case, is there going to be a sign outside that says 'This work is beyond the understanding of the common man/woman. No one admitted unless they've done their homework.'
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It is a


This is a very good post,. 
Now with some more experiences in my new discoveries I can better judge other discoveries. 
in late modern music, 
I can now find what I am willing to accept and reject. 
the general public as you say, might be put off with some late classical music. 
This complexity, difficult scoring,,is a bit of issue for gaining new adherents ,/supporters for late 20Th C composers. 
valid points there.


----------



## mmsbls

Please get back to the OP topic and refrain from personal comments.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

paulbest said:


> I have been pondering over this issue, this conflict, this divide, this *us versus them* split in the Classical Community.
> Here is how I figured ouyt what exactly is taking place.
> Brahms, Bruckner, maybe Mahler others say not, , these 2 or 3 composers, elicit, bring forth, feelings and emotions which trigger a nostalgic atmosphere within the romantics.
> *I can more readily understand this power to draw some into that romanticized world, . I mean the music is not complex at all,, It just a matter of sitting, allowing Bruckner to sing his song.
> Its a nice little work. But as far as challenging?
> How so?
> Hear it once twice, 3 x's, what is so new that draws you back in , on the 4th experience?
> 
> You should know the symphony by heart on the 5th listen.*


Brahms, Mahler, and Bruckner, not complex at all? What are your criteria? If even one criterion were the definition of the word "complex," this is already objectively false, letting alone what your point was in patronizing essentially anyone who has enjoyed and invested time in appreciating Romantic music.

So "challenging" is the gauge of what great art is now?

I agree with you, something like Dérive 2 is pretty challenging to listen to; it sounds like a small orchestra having a seizure for 49 minutes.

You like what you like. A lot of people on this thread find what you like to be fitful, sporadic masochism. None of us should need to put our heads down and give it another try to prove that we appreciate serious music and serious discussions.


----------



## millionrainbows

Minor Sixthist said:


> Brahms, Mahler, and Bruckner, not complex at all? What are your criteria? If even one criterion were the definition of the word "complex," this is already objectively false, letting alone what your point was in patronizing essentially anyone who has enjoyed and invested time in appreciating Romantic music.
> 
> So "challenging" is the gauge of what great art is now?
> 
> I agree with you, something like Dérive 2 is pretty challenging to listen to; it sounds like a small orchestra having a seizure for 49 minutes.
> 
> You like what you like. A lot of people on this thread find what you like to be fitful, sporadic masochism. None of us should need to put our heads down and give it another try to prove that we appreciate serious music and serious discussions.


Exaggerations, distortions of positions, argumentation, extreme examples. Corigliano, Harbison, Copland, Varese, Carter, Henze, Babbitt, Stravinsky, Webern, Skalkottas, Wolpe... There is room in this world for the new and different. It would be easy to counter this position with "so everything is a museum of the past?" but I will refrain. I'm very happy with all the music I choose to listen to, including Bruckner, Mahler, Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. No problem.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

millionrainbows said:


> Exaggerations,


PB used Brahms, Mahler, and Bruckner as blanket examples of non-complex, non-challenging listening. What have I exaggerated?



> distortions of positions,


What position did I distort? I quoted a small fragment of PB's many positions (very small in relation to the sheer amount of positions he's expressed, many of which are absolute and unprovable statements) and responded to what he said.



> argumentation,


Yes.



> extreme examples. Corigliano, Harbison, Copland, Varese, Carter, Henze, Babbitt, Stravinsky, Webern, Skalkottas, Wolpe... *There is room in this world for the new and different.*


Who ever said there wasn't? This thread is proof that there's lots of room. Does that mean the people who don't necessarily enjoy every corner of the "new and different" should be incessantly fed long theses on why we _should_ listen to those things we don't like, because there is something inherently higher, "purer", more intellectual, more complex, more challenging, more demanding of "cognition"? The suggestion that we should has been presented both implicitly and explicitly, and it's actually less annoying when it's explicit because it's a little less patronizing. So many words for fragments of a point. And for that matter, you didn't respond to my request for an explanation of the term "pure cognition" as you used it to describe the thinking that non-harmonic music ostensibly requires, and which you implied "fundamentalist" music does not. It's frustrating trying to forward a dialogue when it feels more like a monologue in the most important points.



> It would be easy to counter this position with "so everything is a museum of the past?" but I will refrain.


What position? The position you stated right before this sentence was your own, the one I bolded, so you were unclear here what position of mine you would've liked to use this as a counter against. So I agree that it would be an easy counter, but that's because it would be a straw man counter, and the point of a straw man is that it's easier to counter ipso facto.



> I'm very happy with all the music I choose to listen to, including Bruckner, Mahler, Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. No problem.


That's good. I'm happy listening to those I choose to listen to as well, and it shouldn't be a problem. There should be no urgency on the part of individuals to enjoy what's new just because it's new. We don't owe new composers our ear for that reason or any. As a matter of fact, a startling amount of the time new composers' point is actually for the audience to _not_ enjoy their music. They make it their mission statement. But I'd prefer to stay out of that specific topic for now because I'm considering starting a thread of my own with the sources relevant to that discussion.


----------



## 1996D

Minor Sixthist said:


> *PB* used Brahms, Mahler, and Bruckner as blanket examples of non-complex, non-challenging listening. What have I exaggerated?


Jesus...You like to argue so much Socrates would've married you. Brahms and Mahler not complex...


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Some people have not yet figured out that all aesthetics is personal. But they're young and need to follow gods, having little faith in the validity and integrity of their own tastes. Besides, I enjoy wallowing, like water buffalo on a hot day, or pig maybe? Also not intelligent, so that again rules me out.


I'm glum that I won't be able to help you.


----------



## Clairvoyance Enough

I think there are varying degrees of this "blindness" that you're talking about. When I was still new to classical music I would shut off Petrushka within the opening seconds because it sounded weird and ugly, in much the same way that I would shut off operatic singing, anything with an oboe d'amore, and etc. Over time I've found that preferences based on these reflexive impressions of surface level qualities tend to be more malleable than we can realize at the time, and so I do sometimes suspect that people who dismiss dissonant composers based on such impressions could have an epiphany waiting in the wings without realizing it.

There are certain works by Ligeti, Xenakis, Carter, Schoenberg, and etc that, if listened to enough times even by a dummy like me with no theoretical training, reveal themselves to have a somewhat traditional structure in which perceptible themes and motifs are taken through transformations and climaxes at a rate that is consistent with the average person's innate sense of pacing. I would hope that even those inherently disinclined toward dissonance could acknowledge that it is in fact their inherent disinclination to the piece's feeling, not the piece's lack of fundamental aesthetic principles, that prevents their enjoyment.

That said, I find myself disliking many compositions by the types of composers you mentioned for reasons not all that related to dissonance. If I like anything about Ferneyhough's quartets, Stockhausen's Klavierstuck and Cosmic Pulses, or about all of the electroacoustic soundscape composers, it is their surface-level qualities. I love that agitated and spontaneous energy. I love all the crazy timbres and effects.

At some point though, you have to contain recognizable patterns (even if that pattern isn't strictly a melody or motif, just a certain type of timbrel effect, as in Kontakte, a piece that I feel does have narrative structure of sorts), and you can't do the same thing over and over again. That may sound contradictory, but eschewing any sort of pattern doesn't count as a pattern. I think dissonance often becomes the scapegoat for this real, more important issue. A string quartet with the general energy and feel of Ferneyhough's could be written to create the impression of randomness, an aesthetic that some people, like myself, actually like, while actually containing repeating ideas and dramatic start and end points, but instead it just sounds like actual randomness.

I think structural issues like this are often the thing that's really putting people off these composers, because they deny the unique colors and emotions of the music a palatable context. I also think Boulez's 2nd derive could be described as an orchestra having a seizure, but to my personal affectations that description sounds like high praise. I think it also would to a lot of people who are yet to come around if you could cut off the second part of that description: _"...for 49 minutes."
_ IMO this kind of music's failure with a wider audience goes much deeper than the knee-jerk repulsion to harsh noises that I think the OP was getting at with the word blindness.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

1996D said:


> Jesus...You like to argue so much Socrates would've married you. Brahms and Mahler not complex...


You have an interesting way of agreeing with people. I guess he could've been good for practice, but he was notoriously ugly and he wore the same tunic year round. I like to think I have more options.


----------



## KenOC

Minor Sixthist said:


> You have an interesting way of agreeing with people. I guess he could've been good for practice, but he was notoriously ugly and he wore the same tunic year round. I like to think I have more options.


The first modern deodorant was not invented until 1888. Socrates must have been quite ripe. Xanthippe is often criticized, but she may have had cause for her bad temper.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> I'm glum that I won't be able to help you.


I'm OK with that. Actually, neither of us needs some fancy-pants Prof. of Aesthetics to tell us what he thinks we ought to like instead of what we like.


----------



## millionrainbows

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> At some point though, you have to contain recognizable patterns (even if that pattern isn't strictly a melody or motif, just a certain type of timbrel effect, as in Kontakte, a piece that I feel does have narrative structure of sorts), and you can't do the same thing over and over again. That may sound contradictory, but eschewing any sort of pattern doesn't count as a pattern. I think dissonance often becomes the scapegoat for this real, more important issue. A string quartet with the general energy and feel of Ferneyhough's could be written to create the impression of randomness, an aesthetic that some people, like myself, actually like, while actually containing repeating ideas and dramatic start and end points, but instead it just sounds like actual randomness.
> 
> I think structural issues like this are often the thing that's really putting people off these composers, because they deny the unique colors and emotions of the music a palatable context.....IMO this kind of music's failure with a wider audience goes much deeper than the knee-jerk repulsion to harsh noises that I think the OP was getting at with the word blindness.


Man is a pattern-seeking creature, and he can find pattern wherever he searches for it. With Ferneyhough, you have the constancy of the instruments (string quartet), plus a "virtual" pattern of reference to the form, string quartet, and all our ideas and past experience with that medium.

The "failure of this music" (by what criteria?) obviously does go deeper than just harmonic factors, since Ferneyhough is not concerned with harmonic relations at all; this is self-evident.
Once again the music is being blamed for a failure of the listener to "engage" and "like" it.

One aspect of Ferneyhough is almost totally cerebral, an "idea." The complex notation is almost humanly impossible to play, and that's for a purpose: to create an element of randomness, as mistakes or failures, contrasting against the exactitude of the notation. John Cage's Freeman Etudes are similar.

The notation thus becomes a "meta-strategy" which is no longer a simple one-to-one correspondence between notation and its translation into sound.

Further, should this "failure to engage" even be considered seriously? Should we expect to "like" Ferneyhough's music in any way similar to the way we "like" Tchaikovsky? I think not, and I don't think this is an expectation that is built-in to the work to facilitate this notion, or as the composer's intent to "entertain" anyone. The work simply is what it is.

All that we can do as listeners is to engage, listen, and experience. Whatever results from that can't be blamed on the music if it does not satisfy our criteria for what "music is supposed to do."


----------



## Clairvoyance Enough

> Should we expect to "like" Ferneyhough's music in any way similar to the way we "like" Tchaikovsky? I think not


I don't think Tchaikovsky is the other end of the spectrum here. If Ferneyhough is pure spontaneity, the opposite would be something like a minimalist piece that literally repeats the same melody with no phasing effects or changes at all for ten straight hours. The only valuable effect such a piece could likely produce would be a hypnotic one, maybe for the aid of meditation. That is all. It's not something composers tend to try because there isn't much to discover there, no hidden possibilities to unravel.

I think pure spontaneity via a repetitive evasion of pattern is limited in the same way. Stockhausen's klavierstucke, the last 2/3 of his Cosmic Pulses, Ferneyhough's string quartets, many of the electroacoustic soundscapes in a similar style - all of these in my opinion produce that singular effect of erratic energy which is captivating for a few minutes and then becomes tiresome, and yet all of these pieces go on for much longer than that. For what reason? What is the value of producing this same effect over and over? I think that is the real question.

The way that the first third of Cosmic Pulses crescendos into this singular effect I'm describing is far more compelling than the way that effect is drug out for 20 more minutes. That crescendo came from a pattern of increasing tempo and business of sound; Ferneyhough's quartets don't even use this simple device for long periods. If no such dramatic device (not strictly a crescendo, but anything) which operates over extended periods of time is implemented in a piece, then what you really have is a series of miniatures that happen to be stitched together, all of which individually produce a very similar effect, and in series produce merely a different kind of hypnosis. What are the fruits of these investigations? What new and valuable aesthetic effects are being uncovered by these kinds of works?

You say it's not about "liking" the music, but I say it is. In moments, I do enjoy Ferneyhough's quartets in the same way I enjoy Tchaikovsky. That is to say I have a visceral response of emotion to it in the same way, emotions like confusion, agitation, turmoil, cognitive dissonance, and etc. It evokes many things to me.... for a few minutes. And then the effect becomes tiresome because without the interweaving of "what music is supposed to do," which is simply not be purely spontaneous (or maybe random is the word I'm seeking?) or purely repetitive, music necessarily becomes limited. Why should I not blame the music for limiting itself to the achievement of absolutely nothing?


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I'm OK with that. Actually, neither of us needs some fancy-pants Prof. of Aesthetics to tell us what he thinks we ought to like instead of what we like.


Yes, I know. We don't 'like' the predictions that have been validated.


----------



## millionrainbows

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> I don't think Tchaikovsky is the other end of the spectrum here. If Ferneyhough is pure spontaneity, the opposite would be something like a minimalist piece that literally repeats the same melody with no phasing effects or changes at all for ten straight hours. The only valuable effect such a piece could likely produce would be a hypnotic one, maybe for the aid of meditation. That is all. It's not something composers tend to try because there isn't much to discover there, no hidden possibilities to unravel.


Your generalizations are not convincing. La Monte Young has minimalist pieces which are one-note drones which go on for sustained periods, but he has a particular interest in spaces, which is why most of his work is presented in "Dream Houses" that he creates with his wife Marian Zazeela. Young sets up several sine-wave oscillators so that "phasing" effects are produced when one moves around the room. Also different harmonics are emphasized in doing this.



> I think pure spontaneity via a repetitive evasion of pattern is limited in the same way.


I don't agree with Ferneyhough being "pure spontaneity." His work involves algorithms which he developed at IRCAM.



> Stockhausen's klavierstucke, the last 2/3 of his Cosmic Pulses, Ferneyhough's string quartets, many of the electroacoustic soundscapes in a similar style - all of these in my opinion produce that singular effect of erratic energy which is captivating for a few minutes and then becomes tiresome, and yet all of these pieces go on for much longer than that. For what reason? What is the value of producing this same effect over and over? I think that is the real question.


These are generalizations and personal reactions.



> The way that the first third of Cosmic Pulses crescendos into this singular effect I'm describing is far more compelling than the way that effect is drug out for 20 more minutes. That crescendo came from a pattern of increasing tempo and business of sound; Ferneyhough's quartets don't even use this simple device for long periods. If no such dramatic device (not strictly a crescendo, but anything) which operates over extended periods of time is implemented in a piece, then what you really have is a series of miniatures that happen to be stitched together, all of which individually produce a very similar effect, and in series produce merely a different kind of hypnosis. What are the fruits of these investigations? What new and valuable aesthetic effects are being uncovered by these kinds of works?


You seem to think that a linear, narrative flow is necessary for meaning. Even Ferneyhough has variation, and can be viewed as a series of "events" (see blog).

https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/millionrainbows/1521-new-conceptions-musical-time.html



> You say it's not about "liking" the music, but I say it is. In moments, I do enjoy Ferneyhough's quartets in the same way I enjoy Tchaikovsky. That is to say I have a visceral response of emotion to it in the same way, emotions like confusion, agitation, turmoil, cognitive dissonance, and etc. It evokes many things to me.... for a few minutes. And then the effect becomes tiresome because *without the interweaving of "what music is supposed to do," which is simply not be purely spontaneous (or maybe random is the word I'm seeking?) or purely repetitive,* music necessarily becomes limited. Why should I not blame the music for limiting itself to the achievement of absolutely nothing?


I think this is incorrect; as the blog states, music does not have to "do anything" or "lead anywhere." These are YOUR reactions, and not the fault of the music. If you're bored by that, listen to Bruckner.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> You say it's not about "liking" the music, but I say it is. In moments, I do enjoy Ferneyhough's quartets in the same way I enjoy Tchaikovsky. That is to say I have a visceral response of emotion to it in the same way, emotions like confusion, agitation, turmoil, cognitive dissonance, and etc. It evokes many things to me.... for a few minutes. And then the effect becomes tiresome because without the interweaving of "what music is supposed to do," which is simply not be purely spontaneous (or maybe random is the word I'm seeking?) or purely repetitive, music necessarily becomes limited. *Why should I not blame the music for limiting itself to the achievement of absolutely nothing?*


Very well put. I agree, again taking Boulez in the same way you take Ferneyhough: there are moments, say, in the Derive and in _Pli Selon Pli_ where I feel something, and then, as you put it, it's gone in the next second. It is not built upon in the coming moments, or the coming minutes- it's just gone, and much of the time destroyed by the next spasm of notes or song. The music is afraid to settle anywhere, so it skitters off everywhere. And I would agree that that's limiting. Why listen to 49 minutes of interspersed moments of feeling when I can listen to an hour of cumulatively many more moments of feeling in Bruckner 4, and more that are elaborated upon and lead somewhere rather than dropping dead?

_My assertion is that, if you reject certain "non-harmonic" music as being too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and cognition of such music. _

I have said countless times that we are all entitled to like what we like. But this above was the thesis in the original post, so we have to assume this was essentially the point of the thread. It's formatted like a warning against something (a warning against "ear-blindness," for which we're at risk by "rejecting" this music); but reading this thesis over and over, as I have, you'll continuously realize that it doesn't expand on its warning enough to actually instruct anything: It's basically saying "if you reject something because you don't like it [even if you've given it a fair chance and lent it your full attention on more than one listening], you are "blinded" and haven't received and understood the music's point." It first implies that you have to like the music to understand it, which I disagree with. But beyond that it doesn't give any indication how the listener might "un-reject" music they've already rejected, even if they wanted to. Should one just listen to a piece over and over again even if it's torture? I disagree that would make a great solution, but then I see no other solution offered in the OP or following comments.


----------



## Becca

Minor Sixthist said:


> Should one just listen to a piece over and over again even if it's torture? I disagree that would make a great solution, but then I see no other solution offered in the OP or following comments.


Would this be a CM equivalent to the Stockholm Syndrome?


----------



## millionrainbows

Minor Sixthist said:


> Very well put. I agree, again taking Boulez in the same way you take Ferneyhough: there are moments, say, in the Derive and in _Pli Selon Pli_ where I feel something, and then, as you put it, it's gone in the next second. It is not built upon in the coming moments, or the coming minutes- it's just gone, and much of the time destroyed by the next spasm of notes or song. *The music is afraid to settle anywhere, so it skitters off everywhere. And I would agree that that's limiting. Why listen to 49 minutes of interspersed moments of feeling when I can listen to an hour of cumulatively many more moments of feeling in Bruckner 4, and more that are elaborated upon and lead somewhere rather than dropping dead?*


To listen to Bruckner in that way, "the right way" for his music, you have to use your conscious mind and cognition to follow the 'elaborations' and developments, transformations, etc. Some of the 'conclusions' that are reached in the music are taken care of automatically, by the ears, since this is tonal music; but not all of it. It takes a degree of familiarity, repetition, and conscious effort of recognition and memory-retention ('buffer') to do this. This is like reading a book in many ways; part of it comes naturally, and part of it involves musical knowledge and cognition, to follow a narrative of development.

The Boulez takes a different mode of listening. If you see the musical events as "here one moment, gone the next," and if you are expecting it to "lead" somewhere, and your expectations are thwarted, then this is due to _your own perception and expectations, _and not the music's fault. The music "is what it is." If you demand certain criteria for your music, then listen to that kind of music, and don't try to convince us that something is wrong with the music, especially in the case of a respected composer like Boulez.

_My assertion is that, if you reject certain "non-harmonic" music as being too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and cognition of such music. _



> I have said countless times that we are all entitled to like what we like. But this above was the thesis in the original post, so we have to assume this was essentially the point of the thread. It's formatted like a warning against something (a warning against "ear-blindness," for which we're at risk by "rejecting" this music); but reading this thesis over and over, as I have, you'll continuously realize that it doesn't expand on its warning enough to actually instruct anything: It's basically saying "if you reject something because you don't like it [even if you've given it a fair chance and lent it your full attention on more than one listening], you are "blinded" and haven't received and understood the music's point."


The point is, harmonically-based music, based on physical hierarchies of sound (scales, collections of notes, sonorities, triads, chords) takes care of much of the narrative content of the music, even to a new, unexperienced listener. This is because it is based on natural models of sound.



> It first implies that you have to like the music to understand it, which I disagree with.


 No, I don't believe I implied that.


> But beyond that it doesn't give any indication how the listener might "un-reject" music they've already rejected, even if they wanted to. Should one just listen to a piece over and over again even if it's torture? I disagree that would make a great solution, but then I see no other solution offered in the OP or following comments.


The stumbling block is _your criteria_ for what is good music, and _your expectations_ in seeing those criteria fulfilled. I never saw repeated listenings of serial music as "torture," but as a sense of unsolved mystery, of a mission in-progress. Once you get an overview of what it takes to engage with this music, then your old criteria and expectations will have changed.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

millionrainbows said:


> I don't agree with Ferneyhough being "pure spontaneity." His work involves algorithms which he developed at IRCAM.


CE clarified later that the better word would be "random." That something was produced by an algorithm _might_ make the output nonrandom, but order in numbers doesn't automatically translate to order in sound. And at that, an algorithm is just a set of commands carried out on an input in order to produce some output, so algorithms could just as readily produce random outputs (technically, pseudorandom outputs) as they can 'ordered' outputs.



> These are generalizations and personal reactions.


_...oooooommmmmm ................IIIIIIIIIIIIII..............exisssssssssttttttttttt........Meeeeeeeeeeeee.....meeeeee....that's really basic, alright. That's what tonality does, it's a security blanket for the ego...._

And here are your generalizations and personal reactions. Though you did manage to make yours more pejorative. And very hyperbolized.



> You seem to think that a linear, narrative flow is necessary for meaning.


I think CE was just expressing some of the values they find in music they enjoy. People find different things meaningful, so it's perfectly reasonable that CE finds meaning in some things, and you might find meaning in something totally different. There is no "you seem to think," there are just different perceptions.



> I think this is incorrect; as the blog states, music does not have to "do anything" or "lead anywhere." These are YOUR reactions, and not the fault of the music. If you're bored by that, listen to Bruckner.


Music doesn't have to do anything, no. The very reason no listener owes music anything, or especially owes more listening to the music they dislike. Nobody is as fault for enjoying the music that has the things that DO "do something" they like. No qualities of the music are the fault of the music, no- though who said anything about fault?- but in the exact same vain that music has no fault, people owe it nothing. People do not owe new music more listenings because it's harder to like.


----------



## millionrainbows

Becca said:


> Would this be a CM equivalent to the Stockholm Syndrome?


No, not in my opinion.


----------



## millionrainbows

Minor Sixthist said:


> CE clarified later that the better word would be "random." That something was produced by an algorithm _might_ make the output nonrandom, *but order in numbers doesn't automatically translate to order in sound.* And at that, an algorithm is just a set of commands carried out on an input in order to produce some output, so algorithms could just as readily produce random outputs (technically, pseudorandom outputs) as they can 'ordered' outputs.


This is the "cognitive" aspect of Ferneyhough. If you want music that is based on harmonic principles which "automatically" translate its infrastructure into sound, then tonality can do that.

_...oooooommmmmm ................IIIIIIIIIIIIII..............exisssssssssttttttttttt........Meeeeeeeeeeeee.....meeeeee....that's really basic, alright. That's what tonality does, it's a security blanket for the ego...._



> And here are your generalizations and personal reactions. Though you did manage to make yours more pejorative. And very hyperbolized.


My description of tonality might seem pejorative because it is so basic, natural, and primitive, like making love. Anyone is capable of that.



> I think CE was just expressing some of the values they find in music they enjoy. People find different things meaningful, so it's perfectly reasonable that CE finds meaning in some things, and you might find meaning in something totally different. There is no "you seem to think," there are just different perceptions.


OK, that's what I've been saying all along: opinions are opinions, based on your own criteria. But don't try to convince me that it is the "fault" of the music.



> Music doesn't have to do anything, no. The very reason no listener owes music anything, or especially owes more listening to the music they dislike. Nobody is as fault for enjoying the music that has the things that DO "do something" they like. No qualities of the music are the fault of the music - what does this have to do with fault?- but in the exact same vain that music has no fault, people owe it nothing. People do not owe new music more listenings because it's harder to like.


Ok, but if you criticize the music as if it's the music itself that is in question, then I reserve the right to say that your criteria are unfit for such music, so stop whining.


----------



## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> Man is a pattern-seeking creature, and he can find pattern wherever he searches for it. With Ferneyhough, you have the constancy of the instruments (string quartet), plus a "virtual" pattern of reference to the form, string quartet, and all our ideas and past experience with that medium.
> 
> The "failure of this music" (by what criteria?) obviously does go deeper than just harmonic factors, since Ferneyhough is not concerned with harmonic relations at all; this is self-evident.
> Once again the music is being blamed for a failure of the listener to "engage" and "like" it.
> 
> One aspect of Ferneyhough is almost totally cerebral, an "idea." The complex notation is almost humanly impossible to play, and that's for a purpose: to create an element of randomness, as mistakes or failures, contrasting against the exactitude of the notation. John Cage's Freeman Etudes are similar.
> 
> The notation thus becomes a "meta-strategy" which is no longer a simple one-to-one correspondence between notation and its translation into sound.
> 
> Further, should this "failure to engage" even be considered seriously? Should we expect to "like" Ferneyhough's music in any way similar to the way we "like" Tchaikovsky? I think not, and I don't think this is an expectation that is built-in to the work to facilitate this notion, or as the composer's intent to "entertain" anyone. The work simply is what it is.
> 
> All that we can do as listeners is to engage, listen, and experience. Whatever results from that can't be blamed on the music if it does not satisfy our criteria for what "music is supposed to do."


You may have made a case for the fact that the works of Ferneyhough are some sort of music -there are apparently a (relatively) few people who will get something out of almost total dissonance- but you have also made a strong case for the fact that it is not classical music.

If the music does not attempt to engage the listener, if the notation is almost humanly impossible to play for the purpose of creating an element of randomness as mistakes or failures contrast against the exactitude of the notation, if there is no expectation that we should 'like' the music in any similar way to other music we classify as classical and if the composer has no interest in entertaining anyone then it is not, by any credible definition, classical music.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

millionrainbows said:


> OK, that's what I've been saying all along: opinions are opinions, based on your own criteria. *But don't try to convince me that it is the "fault" of the music.*


Nobody did! You took personally our disapproval of the music you enjoy. You're reinventing my argument. Music isn't capable of making choices, so it cannot be capable of "fault," but for that very reason, people also don't owe music anything. And they certainly don't owe more "challenging" or "non-harmonic" music more because it deals them the opposite of a pleasurable listening experience.



> Ok, but if you criticize the music *as if it's the music itself that is in question,*


It is the music itself that's in question. What else is in question? This is a discussion about music.



> then I *reserve the right to say that your criteria are unfit for such music,*


You can say whatever you want. No need to reserve any right. I wonder what makes your criteria any more fit.



> so stop whining.


Objection: projection.


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Ok, but if you criticize the music as if it's the music itself that is in question, then I reserve the right to say that your criteria are unfit for such music, so *stop whining.*


Minor Sixthist was not whining.


----------



## superhorn

Dissonance is not a bad thing at all . People still enjoy such works as "Le Sacre Du Printemps " , Elektra by Richard Strauss , some of the more harmonically adventures works of Prokofiev , the music of Shostakovich, Ives and other leading 20th century composers . 
As uncle Charlie used to say " Take that dissonance like a man ! " .


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Yes, I know. We don't 'like' the predictions that have been validated.


As is often the case, I have no idea what this post means. Can you explain?


----------



## Guest

All music has dissonance, it is just a matter of degree. The intervals of an octave, perfect fifth, perfect forth, major third, minor third, major second, have successively more complicated relationships. There is no bright line between dissonance and consonance. I find the key question is whether relatively strong dissonance is required to resolve to a lower level of dissonance, as in common practice tonal harmony, or whether dissonance is used without this constraint. I like it either way, if it is done well.


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## samm

This is true. There is a lot of dissonance in Chopin, but he's never thought of that way. A good example is a prelude I mentioned a few weeks ago, the op.28 no.4 in Em. Some of those left hand spaced chords are very dissonant. He usually resolves so no-one is left panicking.


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## samm

millionrainbows said:


> so stop whining.


If someone else had replied to you with this, would you be admonishing them and talking about bullying and telling them to watch their step?


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## Minor Sixthist

samm said:


> If someone else had replied to you with this, would you be admonishing them and talking about bullying and telling them to watch their step?


_
"you centrists can't STAND to see that disputed. Your heroes are icons whom you consider unassailable. You have an air-tight package which can not be argued with. You are self-contained.
That makes for boring discussion which degenerates into ad-hominems and attacks on members."_

These sentences followed each other directly without even a hint of irony.

I mean, at least add in a line break or something.


----------



## Woodduck

Minor Sixthist said:


> _
> "you centrists can't STAND to see that disputed. Your heroes are icons whom you consider unassailable. You have an air-tight package which can not be argued with. You are self-contained.
> That makes for boring discussion which degenerates into ad-hominems and attacks on members."_
> 
> These sentences followed each other directly without even a hint of irony.
> 
> I mean, at least add in a line break or something.


For the "something," may I suggest, instead of a line break, a complete break, as in "give me a..."?
My unassailable icons deserve no less.


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## Minor Sixthist

Woodduck said:


> For the "something," may I suggest, instead of a line break, a complete break, as in "give me a..."?
> My unassailable icons deserve no less.


An exceptional suggestion in the realm of nouns, but could I further suggest the more verb side of break, as in "what this argument made me want to do with some pottery over my head?"



> My unassailable icons deserve no less.


And our iconic iconoclastic assailants deserve no more.


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## Larkenfield

I do not consider myself "blinded by my ears" - not over years when I've heard so many works under the sun, including much related to the avant-garde and the experimental (Stockhausen, Nono, many others)... no one can hear everything, but most of the big names... The problem is never in the music but only in the listener? I don't think so... and there's something called _discrimination_ that let's you know whether something is good for you, just like taking medicine or eating certain foods that the body requires. I have never felt that others are obliged in their pursuit of art to expose themselves to something they feel is destructive or deleterious to their well-being. I've heard destructive and feel no obligation to let in anything designated as art as a steady diet because others who may have no idea what they're exposing themselves to believes is a virtue. I don't think so. Look at the dissension and the resentment such an outlook can inspire when others appear to be proceeding on the basis of their own requirements rather than yours. But challenging yourself and being adventurous to know what are some of the current developments going on in the arts can be stimulating and keep one's outlook fresh and from getting encrusted with narrow-mindedness and complacency.

I'm sure there's a rationalization for this but I do not consider it _my_ problem but _his_:






Sometimes I've had the feeling that he was laughing behind our backs for putting up with it.

Then there are his exciting and worthwhile works for percussion:


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## mikeh375

Larkenfield said:


> Sometimes I've had the feeling that he was laughing at us behind our backs for putting up with it.


Contemporary Music has no proper defence to a reaction like this sadly. If one bothers at all, all one can do is trust the sincerity and persona of the artist if they seemingly give no quarter to the listener, ie nothing recognisable to latch on to. Reputation may play a big part too, but only ears and personal aesthetics have the final say for the listener and CM is well beyond what a general consensus deems acceptable as music. Houston we have a problem..


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## Guest

mikeh375 said:


> Contemporary Music has no proper defence to a reaction like this sadly. If one bothers at all, all one can do is trust the sincerity and persona of the artist if they seemingly give no quarter to the listener, ie nothing recognisable to latch on to. Reputation may play a big part too, but only ears and personal aesthetics have the final say for the listener and CM is well beyond what a general consensus deems acceptable as music. Houston we have a problem..


I don't think any music is entitled to a "defence" against any opinion. Opinions are what they are.


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## mikeh375

MacLeod said:


> I don't think any music is entitled to a "defence" against any opinion. Opinions are what they are.


Well maybe not entitled MacLeod, but the uncompromising stance of some contemporary music in not giving the listener any help leaves it wide open to misunderstanding and much worse, in other words it is defenceless against such statements because of what it is.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> The "failure of this music" (by what criteria?)


By the criteria in the rest of the sentence you snipped this from. The majority responding to this debate understand what it means. If I might take the liberty of rearranging Clairvoyance's words: The failure of a wider audience to engage with this music. It doesn't matter where you place the "failure" as long as it is recognised that the composer and listener enter into a mutual contract with neither side obliged in any way. The composer will write what s/he will, the audience will react as it will. Clairvoyance is not attacking the music, merely attempting to explain why the contract between composer and audience sometimes breaks down.



millionrainbows said:


> music does not have to "do anything" or "lead anywhere." These are YOUR reactions, and not the fault of the music. If you're bored by that, listen to Bruckner.


Funny, you've just said almost exactly the same thing as me, but you conclude that there is a fault and it lies with the listener, not the music. There is no fault on either side.

There is no fault, no blame to be attached to either side. And no one needs to be instructed to go listen to something else in quite such a dismissive way.

(Besides...Bruckner? Ugh! :devil


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## 1996D

There is an order in which the human body is constructed, just like there is an order to the earth, and the universe for that matter. We like music that follows the order, it is by no means a result of blindness but actually quite the contrary--the purer person will enjoy the purest music.


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## Guest

1996D said:


> There is an order in which the human body is constructed, just like there is an order to the earth, and the universe for that matter. *I like music that follows the order*, it is by no means a result of blindness but actually quite the contrary--the purer person will enjoy the purest music.


Fixed that for you. There will, I'm sure, be others like you, but I reject your speaking for "us".


----------



## 1996D

MacLeod said:


> Fixed that for you. There will, I'm sure, be others like you, but I reject your speaking for "us".


Did you just admit to being a defective organism not in line with the order of life? 'We' as in healthy humans, enjoy music that praises nature.

One of the reasons Mahler's music is so heavenly is because he composed in nature, for it, exploring its beauty.


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## Guest

1996D said:


> Did you just admit to being a defective organism


I didn't, but I am - you mean you're not? How cool is that!?

You've obviously not heard of The Fall. We're all defective!


----------



## 1996D

MacLeod said:


> I didn't, but I am - you mean you're not? How cool is that!?
> 
> You've obviously not heard of The Fall. We're all defective!


It makes sense that you enjoy that philosophy, the truth is the exact opposite, everything follows a beautiful order, Camus just wasn't quite centred enough to see it--he projected his own inner chaos into the world. How can you even enjoy something as order loving as classical music...or maybe you don't.

What composers do you like?


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## mikeh375

1996D said:


> ........the purer person will enjoy the purest music.


Care to clarify what you are implying with this.....


----------



## 1996D

mikeh375 said:


> Care to clarify what you are implying with this.....


If your reason controls your passions you'll love music that follows a higher order. If however you're decadent and allow your urges to rule your life, you'll lose the sense of righteousness, the love for order, and with it the love for purity in music, and really in everything. You slowly become a fiend, an animal with no morals.

We have a lot of that at the moment.


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## mikeh375

what exactly do you mean by purity in music? Are you referring to a specific style?


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

^^^ Seconded. Please clarify your position. You're making bold statements and accusations without being specific enough to justify your claims. I think I have some idea of where you're going with this, but I don't want to assume that you're implying this that you might not be. I don't think I'll agree with your justification (at least not entirely), but I'm interested to hear what you have to say.


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## 1996D

mikeh375 said:


> what exactly do you mean by purity in music? Are you referring to a specific style?


Not really, it's heard as craftsmanship, excellent counterpoint, excellent creativity, structures that awe. After Mahler it dies out very quickly, the two wars certainly had their effect.


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## mikeh375

1996D said:


> *Not really, it's heard as craftsmanship, excellent counterpoint, excellent creativity, structures that awe.* After Mahler it dies out very quickly, the two wars certainly had their effect.


Ahhh I see. Rest assured all of those qualities are present in the 20th and 21stC canon, just not in languages you get on with perhaps.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

1996D said:


> Not really, it's heard as craftsmanship, excellent counterpoint, excellent creativity, structures that awe.*After Mahler it dies out very quickly, the two wars certainly had their effect.*


This (vague) explanation sounds like a proclamation of your personal taste in music and why music after Mahler doesn't appeal to *you* (though I disagree that craftsmanship and creativity "die out" after Mahler). It is not by any means a justification as to why those that disagree with your tastes, whether it be because they look for different / additional qualities in music or because they find the criteria that you specified in different music, are less "pure" as people.

You know, you can accept your own personal values without always enforcing them on other people.


----------



## Art Rock

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> You know, you can accept your own personal values without always enforcing them on other people.


You'd think that this goes without saying, but we have plenty of people on TC who clearly do not support such a statement.


----------



## 1996D

mikeh375 said:


> Ahhh I see. Rest assured all of those qualities are present in the 20th and 21stC canon, just not in languages you get on with perhaps.


As the 20th century progressed it slowly deteriorated. We have no culture left as composers, with no one to properly teach we have to analyze ancient works and teach ourselves the proper techniques.

I just heard your music and it exemplifies how greed and cultural decline has destroyed art. When everyone is a slave to their passions there is no time left to create high art, we're too busy with the stupid idea of the search for happiness, instead of diligently working at our craft.


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## Becca

A number of posts in another thread which was closed about a month ago makes clear the subtext to the comments about order, purity etc.


----------



## mikeh375

1996D said:


> As the 20th century progressed it slowly deteriorated. We have no culture left as composers, with no one to properly teach we have to analyze ancient works and teach ourselves the proper techniques.
> 
> I just heard your music and it exemplifies how greed and cultural decline has destroyed art. When everyone is a slave to their passions there is no time left to create high art, we're too busy with the stupid idea of the search for happiness, instead of diligently working at our craft.


Glad you didn't like it.
My craft and technique are in good shape thanks to a very good education and diligent study over many years as a student and then as a professional. The fact that you can't at least see diligence and craft in my work tells me all I need to know about your opinion. I think Mahler was a slave to his passion as is any composer dedicated to writing the best he/she can...it's a pre-requisite.


----------



## 1996D

The art of composition is a never ending learning period, the fact that you see your education in the past tells me all I need to know about your mentality. Anyway, I don't blame you, our society's values go in complete opposite direction of the values needed of an artist.



mikeh375 said:


> I think Mahler was a slave to his passion as is any composer dedicated to writing the best he/she can...it's a pre-requisite.


There are passions that stem out of love and there are those that are destructive and need reason to control. I was referring to the latter.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

Becca said:


> A number of posts in another thread which was closed about a month ago makes clear the subtext to the comments about order, purity etc.


I wouldn't say those comments make the subtext here clear. I'm giving 1996D the benefit of the doubt and asking him to clarify his position regarding the subject of this thread and the comments he made early. Comments that he has previously left on the thread you mention are suggestive of his broader views, no doubt, and probably give an idea as to how he might attempt to justify the claims he is making here, but this is a slightly different discussion from the one in that thread and I'd like him to make his position on this topic a bit clearer.


----------



## mikeh375

1996D said:


> The art of composition is a never ending learning period, the fact that you see your education in the past tells me all I need to know about your mentality. Anyway, I don't blame you, our society's values go in complete opposite direction of the values needed of an artist.


Well that's a mighty assumption and wrong of course, a superficial judgement about someone you know nothing of. You might want to hear a little more of my work to see how varied my approaches have been. That comes about from a continuing quest to probe techniques and to find music. Of course it's a life times learning, it's what I'm experiencing, why would I think otherwise. 
So anyway, about the fact that Mahler was slave to his passion along with all musicians and composers then and now (it's the only way to learn and master).....I'm surprised you don't seem to get that, but wont assume it just yet.

Oh I see you've edited above. I guess love = tonality and destruction=dissonance. I can assure you that my decadent music is tightly controlled with rigour and a little passion and fantasy here and there, it's a good blend to work with, tried and tested.
Do you compose?
I'd love to hear something...


----------



## 1996D

mikeh375 said:


> Oh I see you've edited above. I guess love = tonality and destruction=dissonance. I can assure you that my decadent music is tightly controlled with rigour and a little passion and fantasy here and there, it's a good blend to work with, tried and tested.
> Do you compose?
> I'd love to hear something...


You just can't compare present day music to the golden age, it's just such a different level of culture and environment these composers worked under. How on earth did Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel, is very hard to imagine from our decadent point of view, but he did--that's how spiritually disconnected we are from our potential.

Of course I compose but it's not ready.


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## mikeh375

I think Michelangelo used a brush, just like Kandinsky and Picasso (oh hang on, I think he had a ladder and some sort of scaffold rig too). See, me in all of my sonic decadence figured it out...there's hope.
Nice to know you are a fellow composer, that'll explain the harsh, mis-guided, rude and not a little addled judgement about some humble, sincere and_ 'absolute' _offerings of mine. Remind me not to let you hear my programmatic Wall Street Symphony with piatti solo obbligato, nor The Concerto for Pollock Drips and Leather Whip. 
So where does your musical education stand at present? Given that you couldn't at the very least ascertain rigour in my work, perhaps you need to study a little more, remember, it's an ongoing process. 
Still, I really look forward to hearing your one piece and hope of course that it is the very model of purity, a paragon for us all here in the gutter (is that Stravinsky over there?, yes, oh it's nice to see him and Britten finally getting on))....remember....steer clear of those nasty, naughty, decadent intervals and don't let them get on top of one another.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

1996D said:


> If your reason controls your passions you'll love music that follows a higher order. If however you're decadent and allow your urges to rule your life, you'll lose the sense of righteousness, the love for order, and with it the love for purity in music, and really in everything. You slowly become a fiend, an animal with no morals.
> 
> We have a lot of that at the moment.


You're making the same manner of odd, amorphous, sweepingly broad statements you continually made about women in the misogyny argument. It got the argument nowhere then and I'm dubious of it getting this one anywhere now. At least in this one you still have the choice of whether you would like to dig a deeper hole.


----------



## Guest

1996D said:


> It makes sense that you enjoy that philosophy, the truth is the exact opposite, everything follows a beautiful order, Camus just wasn't quite centred enough to see it


Camus? Where did he spring from?



1996D said:


> How can you even enjoy something as order loving as classical music...or maybe you don't.


Er...I don't understand the question. Why couldn't I enjoy CM?



1996D said:


> What composers do you like?


Haydn, Beethoven, Berlioz, Mahler, Debussy, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Sibelius, Poulenc, Satie, Roussel, Fauré, Messiaen, Holst, Stravinsky...Eno, Wyatt, Kraftwerk, Sigur Ros, Genesis, alt-J, The Beatles...


----------



## Phil loves classical

Larkenfield said:


> I'm sure there's a rationalization for this but I do not consider it _my_ problem but _his_:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sometimes I've had the feeling that he was laughing behind our backs for putting up with it.


Thanks for sharing. I find it very interesting sounding. As an avant garde experimentalist, I don't think he is just making up something for the heck of it. He is using pretty conventional melodies, but in a consistently altered way. If he used thirds instead of the major 7's, there would be no surprise.


----------



## ECraigR

1996D said:


> It makes sense that you enjoy that philosophy, the truth is the exact opposite, everything follows a beautiful order, Camus just wasn't quite centred enough to see it--he projected his own inner chaos into the world. How can you even enjoy something as order loving as classical music...or maybe you don't.
> 
> What composers do you like?


Camus didn't invent the Fall. I believe MacLeod was referring to the Judeo-Christian concept of the fall of humanity. Camus may have a book called The Fall, or something similar I can't remember, but Camus isn't really relevant here.

Furthermore, all music is ordered. Even if composed using aleatoric methods, once it's stapled onto the page in ink, it's ordered. It's also a fair bet to assume that everyone on this forum likes classical music, especially a senior member.


----------



## samm

One would do well to keep in mind that 1996D is a conduit for the ravings of people like Jordan Peterson whose courses in thinking for conservative simpletons is all the rage at the moment.


----------



## mikeh375

MacLeod said:


> Haydn, Beethoven, Berlioz, Mahler, Debussy, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Sibelius, Poulenc, Satie, Roussel, Fauré, Messiaen, Holst, Stravinsky...Eno, Wyatt, Kraftwerk, Sigur Ros, Genesis, alt-J, The Beatles...


Hey MacL, from what I've learnt today, more than half of the music you like is degenerate....tut tut...


----------



## Luchesi

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I wouldn't say those comments make the subtext here clear. I'm giving 1996D the benefit of the doubt and asking him to clarify his position regarding the subject of this thread and the comments he made early. Comments that he has previously left on the thread you mention are suggestive of his broader views, no doubt, and probably give an idea as to how he might attempt to justify the claims he is making here, but this is a slightly different discussion from the one in that thread and I'd like him to make his position on this topic a bit clearer.


He probably won't. He probably knows what he sounds like when he explains it.

This is a problem across the Internet. People will really really want something to be true, whether it's a harmful philosophy or not, but they don't want it to come out explicitly, because they know down deep that it's wickedness ..or it's just wrong (like the anti-science posters).


----------



## Becca

Luchesi said:


> He probably won't. He probably knows what he sounds like when he explains it.
> 
> This is a problem across the Internet. People will really really want something to be true, whether it's a harmful philosophy or not, but they don't want it to come out explicitly, because they know down deep that it's wickedness ..or it's just wrong (like the anti-science posters).


It has been my unfortunate experience that this is rarely true.


----------



## millionrainbows

FYI, Paul Best's temporary ban will be lifted on July 16, that's sometime on Tuesday. Let's all welcome him back when that time comes, because we love and value all our members here in the TC family!


----------



## robin4

"One would do well to keep in mind that 1996D is a conduit for the ravings of people like Jordan Peterson whose courses in thinking for conservative simpletons is all the rage at the moment."


I am one of those conservative simpletons who enjoy the ravings of Jordan Peterson.


----------



## 1996D

Minor Sixthist said:


> You're making the same manner of odd, amorphous, sweepingly broad statements you continually made about women in the misogyny argument. It got the argument nowhere then and I'm dubious of it getting this one anywhere now. At least in this one you still have the choice of whether you would like to dig a deeper hole.


Yeah I get it, you have no order to the way you see things.

When you understand the world by value, attributing different values to things by their level of difficulty and rarity, it's easy to make what you call sweepingly broad statements.



ECraigR said:


> Camus didn't invent the Fall. I believe MacLeod was referring to the Judeo-Christian concept of the fall of humanity. Camus may have a book called The Fall, or something similar I can't remember, but Camus isn't really relevant here.
> 
> *Furthermore, all music is ordered. Even if composed using aleatoric methods, once it's stapled onto the page in ink, it's ordered. It's also a fair bet to assume that everyone on this forum likes classical music, especially a senior member.


Yeah I was sure he was referring to Camus. Religion and his mentality go in complete opposite direction: never thought he would be the type to refer to the Bible.

*There are levels of order, levels of complexity.


----------



## 1996D

samm said:


> One would do well to keep in mind that 1996D is a conduit for the ravings of people like Jordan Peterson whose courses in thinking for conservative simpletons is all the rage at the moment.


Jordan Peterson is closer in thought to you than he is to me. He argues the most basic, redundant things, to the lowest common denominator.



mikeh375 said:


> I think Michelangelo used a brush, just like Kandinsky and Picasso (oh hang on, I think he had a ladder and some sort of scaffold rig too). See, me in all of my sonic decadence figured it out...there's hope.
> Nice to know you are a fellow composer, that'll explain the harsh, mis-guided, rude and not a little addled judgement about some humble, sincere and_ 'absolute' _offerings of mine. Remind me not to let you hear my programmatic Wall Street Symphony with piatti solo obbligato, nor The Concerto for Pollock Drips and Leather Whip.
> So where does your musical education stand at present? Given that you couldn't at the very least ascertain rigour in my work, perhaps you need to study a little more, remember, it's an ongoing process.
> Still, I really look forward to hearing your one piece and hope of course that it is the very model of purity, a paragon for us all here in the gutter (is that Stravinsky over there?, yes, oh it's nice to see him and Britten finally getting on))....remember....steer clear of those nasty, naughty, decadent intervals and don't let them get on top of one another.


Read about Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel, the time it took him, the methods he used, the suffering he endured. Then go see the Chapel. You'll realize than we are in a spiritual dark age of greed for money and lust for pleasure, and are so far removed for the spiritual heights that Michelangelo reached in the undertaking of that work.

As for your second question, I've composed hundreds of pieces, but my standards are higher. Your music was judged by my standards, you shouldn't feel offended.


----------



## millionrainbows

Camus? Try this: Then if no one throws up, just play the a bit closer to what it is becoming. If it is green and you see anyone, pour the dynamic duo a glass of wa-wa. If they say how cloudy yours is, then tell them how small the ballot is they're seeing and point out the dinginess If this isnt quite your style, you should say to the porter: "Heeeyyy, mistah pohtah", and, if you think it was terrible, you can rest assured that you are actually George Russell. "Ermm, did we change this dynamic to (whatever) because were playing this by the book?" as if you actually want to know. If this is a suburban place, then don't don't pretend that you are not a taxicab driver, and then you wont stand out. 









 (existentialism)


----------



## Minor Sixthist

1996D said:


> Yeah I get it, you have no order to the way you see things.
> 
> When you understand the world by value, attributing different values to things by their level of difficulty and rarity, it's easy to make what you call sweepingly broad statements.


And inevitably you somehow downgrade from odd, amorphous, and sweepingly broad to odd, amorphous and nonsensical. It's not for a lack of comprehension on my part that these statements have no clarity of meaning and so mean nothing. I "have no order in the way I see things?" I wish you had order in the way you express things.



> Jesus...You like to argue so much Socrates would've married you.


I'd even prefer your backhanded joking to your serious statements by this point. At least there's a chance that the former isn't entirely serious.


----------



## mikeh375

1996D said:


> .....As for your second question, I've composed hundreds of pieces, but my standards are higher. *Your music was judged by my standards, you shouldn't feel offended*.


Oh thank God, I _was_ getting a little worried there...I'll make sure I tell Dimitri S, Pierre B and Olivier M about you when I see them at Madame JO JO'S. I'm sure that they, like me would love to see a score or hear a performance, after all , one should keep learning.


----------



## Phil loves classical

millionrainbows said:


> FYI, Paul Best's temporary ban will be lifted on July 16, that's sometime on Tuesday. Let's all welcome him back when that time comes, because we love and value all our members here in the TC family!


Ooooh, can't wait!  Quite the character. I admire him for admitting his bias in that other thread. He seemed quite proud of it, in fact.


----------



## Guest

1996D said:


> Yeah I was sure *he *was referring to Camus. Religion and *his mentality *go in complete opposite direction: never thought *he *would be the *type *to refer to the Bible.


a) I'm here in the room.
b) I prefer to be spoken to, not about.
c) If I wasn't such a polite person I'd tell you to [email protected]£ off

Try continuing the discussion we were having. Now I've told you what music I like, would you like to offer some positive contribution?

Oh, and my rejection of Christianity as a faith for me is based on knowledge of The Bible, not ignorance of it.


----------



## haydnguy

Here's how I see it. 

I think mllionrainbows is right that music preferences can be influenced by cognitive biases. 

However, the thing that I am wondering is for both camps. I would ask if you are on the Contemporary side of this debate, why do you care if "I don't care if you listen". There is really no need to defend it.

On the opposite side, "traditional" classical", why is this such a debate?


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> FYI, Paul Best's temporary ban will be lifted on July 16, that's sometime on Tuesday. Let's all welcome him back when that time comes, because we love and value all our members here in the TC family!


As far as family is concerned, I find that absence makes the heart grow fonder, though in some cases even absence doesn't help.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> FYI, Paul Best's temporary ban will be lifted on July 16, that's sometime on Tuesday. Let's all welcome him back when that time comes, because we love and value all our members here in the TC family!


According to admin, he hasn't been banned.


----------



## Woodduck

MacLeod said:


> According to admin, he hasn't been banned.


He was, briefly. Just a little time out for reflection, I suppose.


----------



## ECraigR

1996D said:


> Yeah I was sure he was referring to Camus. Religion and his mentality go in complete opposite direction: never thought he would be the type to refer to the Bible.


That's a strange sentiment. I'm currently discerning for the priesthood and am a big listener of late 20th century classical music. Avant-garde all the way. The two aren't opposed; Messiaen proves that.


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> According to admin, he hasn't been banned.


I'm going by what he told me. Maybe July 16 is a date of his own choosing. Whether or not he is banned should be obvious from simply looking at his avatar, not high-level secret meetings with administrators.


----------



## millionrainbows

Wow, that explains a lot. People here wanting to join the priesthood, and these weird exchanges acting as if no one else exists. Classical music attracts a strange, varied lot. I'm glad I'm an omnivore.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> I'm going by what he told me. Maybe July 16 is a date of his own choosing. Whether or not he is banned should be obvious from simply looking at his avatar, not high-level secret meetings with administrators.


Coo! You get secret meetings with admin? Me, I just read Krummhorn's post in Area 51.


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> I'm going by what he told me. Maybe July 16 is a date of his own choosing. Whether or not he is banned should be obvious from simply looking at his avatar, not high-level secret meetings with administrators.


Whether or not someone is banned is apparent by their status listed under one's avatar (or username). If someone is listed as "senior member", then they are not banned. We did have a problem with vBulletin not listing banned members appropriately in special circumstances, but hopefully that will not be repeated. paulbest is currently not banned.


----------



## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> Whether or not someone is banned is apparent by their status listed under one's avatar (or username). If someone is listed as "senior member", then they are not banned. We did have a problem with vBulletin not listing banned members appropriately in special circumstances, but hopefully that will not be repeated. paulbest is currently not banned.


Thanks, mmsbls, for stopping by to clarify this for McLeod. I'll see you later at the Longhorn Steakhouse; it's on me this time.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Thanks, mmsbls, for stopping by to clarify this for McLeod. I'll see you later at the Longhorn Steakhouse; it's on me this time.


Krummhorn usually flies over and meets me at the Ritz.


----------



## samm

robin4 said:


> "One would do well to keep in mind that 1996D is a conduit for the ravings of people like Jordan Peterson whose courses in thinking for conservative simpletons is all the rage at the moment."
> 
> I am one of those conservative simpletons who enjoy the ravings of Jordan Peterson.


Well, you said it.


----------



## samm

1996D said:


> Yeah I get it, you have no order to the way you see things.
> 
> When you understand the world by value, attributing different values to things by their level of difficulty and rarity, it's easy to make what you call sweepingly broad statements.


Like I said, you are a conduit for his empty rantings. I'm sure you view yourself as a modern-day philosopher who has life all worked out in a neat order, but you need to see what it looks like from outside your own head.


----------



## 1996D

samm said:


> Like I said, you are a conduit for his empty rantings. I'm sure you view yourself as a modern-day philosopher who has life all worked out in a neat order, but you need to see what it looks like from outside your own head.


Nobody lives in a box, we all experience the world daily, and of course some (perhaps many) people regularly get angry because their experiences, and passing world events challenge their limited understanding, but in my case there is nothing that doesn't fit the order. This leads to complete tranquility.

The only feeling I get is sadness when looking back at the golden ages of art, yet also a very appreciative sentiment towards all the geniuses in a number of fields whose work is readily available. There is a beauty to living after and connecting in perfect congruence with such great likewise thinking men.

As for Peterson... he's a boy scout out debating people in heavy denial about the most basic things--stop giving him exposure--he's a waste of time for anyone who even partly understands the world.


----------



## samm

I'm not giving him any exposure, you are with your posts. It's the same tired, slightly megalomaniac application of personal opinions, common truisms, sexism (etc) under the banner of 'common sense', confusion of messy social reality with how things 'ought to be' in that personal ideological world.

I find the people most 'tranquil' with their thoughts are those of least interest. I know a lot of tranquil people, they don't really seem to think about anything beyond a superficial level.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

samm said:


> It's the same tired, slightly megalomaniac application of personal opinions, common truisms, sexism (etc) under the banner of 'common sense', confusion of messy social reality with how things 'ought to be' in that personal ideological world.


It couldn't have been said better. This is in mind you realize the best solution may really be to just ignore and assign no value at all to these comments. That rule "Don't feed the trolls," as they say, or "pay no mind to disruptive, attention seeking-behavior," applies well here.


----------



## haydnguy

samm said:


> I'm not giving him any exposure, you are with your posts. It's the same tired, slightly megalomaniac application of personal opinions, common truisms, sexism (etc) under the banner of 'common sense', confusion of messy social reality with how things 'ought to be' in that personal ideological world.
> 
> I find the people most 'tranquil' with their thoughts are those of least interest. I know a lot of tranquil people, they don't really seem to think about anything beyond a superficial level.


"When I said common sense I meant MY sense. And that we should have that in common. That's what I really meant."


----------



## Becca

Paradoxically the most uncommon type of sense.


----------



## Larkenfield

Becca said:


> Paradoxically the most uncommon type of sense.


 That makes sense!


----------



## Larkenfield

Perhaps the sequel to this thread is “Deafened by Your Sight.”


----------



## 1996D

samm said:


> I'm not giving him any exposure, you are with your posts. It's the same tired, slightly megalomaniac application of personal opinions, common truisms, sexism (etc) under the banner of 'common sense', confusion of messy social reality with how things 'ought to be' in that personal ideological world.
> 
> I find the people most 'tranquil' with their thoughts are those of least interest. I know a lot of tranquil people, they don't really seem to think about anything beyond a superficial level.


We have absolutely nothing in common, he's a psychiatrist with a knowledge on mentally diseased individuals, who simply points out that a lot of behavior he currently sees among the people follows the unhealthy patterns of his previous patients.

I'm an artist who sees how so profoundly difficult it is to create art at the level of the masters, while being incredibly easy to express one's feelings in a degenerate way. The grotesque comes easy, while high order takes so much out of you--there's a reason Mozart and Beethoven are considered the greatest.

You're living in denial of what greatness costs because you're so far removed from it.


----------



## 1996D

haydnguy said:


> "When I said common sense I meant MY sense. And that we should have that in common. That's what I really meant."


Common sense comes from verisimilitude which in turn is the collective unconscious--it's what we all have in common. It's our instincts and urges as animals. Darwin wrote extensively about it and Desmond Morris further elaborated on it


----------



## mikeh375

1996D said:


> I'm an artist who sees how so profoundly difficult it is to create art at the level of the masters, while being incredibly easy to express one's feelings in a degenerate way. The grotesque comes easy, while high order takes so much out of you--there's a reason Mozart and Beethoven are considered the greatest.
> 
> You're living in denial of what greatness costs because you're so far removed from it.


Well me and a few others no doubt are still waiting to hear your work. Do you write pastiche then?


----------



## 1996D

mikeh375 said:


> Well me and a few others no doubt are still waiting to hear your work. Do you write pastiche then?


Of course not, we have to take the best from the past and reinvent it. What happened is that after Mahler it kept getting lazier and lazier because the great wars destroyed the hope in humanity that previous artists had. Then capitalism came around and further commercialized music, until where we are now where it has degenerated to a point where nobody can teach the proper mentality to compose anymore.

The best composers today are money oriented and highly commercial in nature... then you have the postmodern degenerates.


----------



## Guest

1996D said:


> Common sense comes from verisimilitude


And this means...?


----------



## mikeh375

1996D said:


> Of course not, we have to take the best from the past and reinvent it. What happened is that after Mahler it kept getting lazier and lazier because the great wars destroyed the hope in humanity that previous artists had. Then capitalism came around and further commercialized music, until where we are now where it has degenerated to a point where nobody can teach the proper mentality to compose anymore.
> 
> The best composers today are money oriented and highly commercial in nature... then you have the postmodern degenerates.


...whatever...so about your music, when do I get to judge your work?


----------



## 1996D

mikeh375 said:


> ...whatever...so about your music, when do I get to judge your work?


You're out for blood aren't you... I'm sorry but I'm not sorry, I don't know how you can have any self respect writing music like that, and no you'll not get to hear anything, and when you eventually do, there will be no way to associate it to this account.

If you can't see how mediocre your music is, and how much more time and love you have to put in to make it respectable, there is nothing I can do to help you. Composing is about having an immense amount of love to put into something without expecting anything back, like a father should love a son.


----------



## samm

1996D said:


> You're out for blood aren't you... I'm sorry but I'm not sorry, I don't know how you can have any self respect writing music like that, and no you'll not get to hear anything, and when you eventually do, there will be no way to associate it to this account.
> 
> If you can't see how mediocre your music is, and how much more time and love you have to put in to make it respectable, there is nothing I can do to help you. Composing is about having an immense amount of love to put into something without expecting anything back, like a father should love a son.


Who are you to decide whether a contemporary composer doesn't put all of himself/herself into their music in the way an artist always has done? This backwards reasoning where you decide you don't like something, then conclude that it must be because the person responsible for it is a hack or a fake or the product of degenerate values and ideas and merely out for a quick pay-day, is for the birds.

You have failed miserably to connect with anything beyond your own tiny perimeter of appreciation and now it's supposed to be the fault of the people writing this music which you don't like/can't comprehend/understand. And the answer to the problem of other people who do appreciate it is to concoct a half-baked theory of why it is no-good.

Get outta here fella.


----------



## Bluecrab

1996D said:


> ...there is nothing I can do to help you.


I have no doubt that that's the absolute truth.


----------



## 1996D

samm said:


> Who are you to decide whether a contemporary composer doesn't put all of himself/herself into their music in the way an artist always has done? This backwards reasoning where you decide you don't like something, then conclude that it must be because the person responsible for it is a hack or a fake or the product of degenerate values and ideas and merely out for a quick pay-day, is for the birds.
> 
> You have failed miserably to connect with anything beyond your own tiny perimeter of appreciation and now it's supposed to be the fault of the people writing this music which you don't like/can't comprehend/understand. And the answer to the problem of other people who do appreciate it is to concoct a half-baked theory of why it is no-good.
> 
> Get outta here fella.


Being honest and hard on the artist only helps him, that's my final gift to him.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

1996D said:


> and no you'll not get to hear anything, and when you eventually do, there will be no way to associate it to this account.


Mike, don't dwell on any of this. This is an ego-proof way of saying "I know my work is bad, but I'm so afraid of ego-damaging criticism that I have the nerve to assure you my music will achieve renown- _you just won't know it's me. _You'll never know what great music is mine, so all of it is mine!"

Forget it. You have better attention to bring to your music than that of sexist creeps who have deluded themselves far over the deep end. I'm firm in my personal interpretation that pigs will fly before his music sees the light of day, but maybe I'll even shorten his sentence and say it will at least be long after a great woman conductor has finished her tenure leading a major orchestra- that might be disheartening enough to knock him off the high horse for a while too. Maybe until that time he could brush up on that rotted world view. Well, and



> associate it to this account


his verb-preposition pairs.


----------



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

samm said:


> Who are you to decide whether a contemporary composer doesn't put all of himself/herself into their music in the way an artist always has done? This backwards reasoning where you decide you don't like something, then conclude that it must be because the person responsible for it is a hack or a fake or the product of degenerate values and ideas and merely out for a quick pay-day, is for the birds.
> 
> You have failed miserably to connect with anything beyond your own tiny perimeter of appreciation and now it's supposed to be the fault of the people writing this music which you don't like/can't comprehend/understand. And the answer to the problem of other people who do appreciate it is to concoct a half-baked theory of why it is no-good.
> 
> Get outta here fella.


This. Not only is his concocted ideology "half-baked", but he continually refuses to explicate the (presumably non-existent) reasoning behind multiple claims he's making beyond the elevation of his subjective interpretation and judgement to universal values. At first his dogmatic rambling was merely gratuitous nonsense, but it's become personally offensive towards another poster, and that's where I draw the line. I guess, given past comments, this was to be expected. I thought this thread might yield a slightly more productive discussion, but in hindsight I probably shouldn't have encouraged him earlier. Maybe I'm too forgiving...


----------



## mikeh375

1996D said:


> You're out for blood aren't you... I'm sorry but I'm not sorry, I don't know how you can have any self respect writing music like that, and no you'll not get to hear anything, and when you eventually do, there will be no way to associate it to this account.
> 
> If you can't see how mediocre your music is, and how much more time and love you have to put in to make it respectable, there is nothing I can do to help you. Composing is about having an immense amount of love to put into something without expecting anything back, like a father should love a son.


No it's just like I say, you've judged me (apparently as a fellow composer), how about a sense of fairness and let a successful professional judge your technique and music. If it's as good as you imply, I'll be impressed and wont hold a grudge at all. Change my mind, because at present, I consider your credibility shot to hell, your opinions irrelevant and your words cowardly and unprovoked as they arose inexplicably from our early exchanges. 
If you are so good (sorry was it just one piece not ready yet, or is it several hundred that aren't ready yet), why not tell us about it.

@minorsixthist, samm, bluecrab and Brahmswasa.......most appreciated and yeah...


----------



## mikeh375

1996D said:


> Being honest and hard on the artist only helps him, that's my final gift to him.


...return to sender


----------



## Bluecrab

mikeh375 said:


> @minorsixthist, samm, bluecrab and Brahmswasa.......most appreciated and yeah...


Thank you, mikeh375. btw, I listened to part of your violin sonata today on your website... very nice music. I'll check out more of your work later.

My supposition? 1996D is nothing more than a troll.


----------



## haydnguy

1996D said:


> Common sense comes from verisimilitude which in turn is the collective unconscious--it's what we all have in common. It's our instincts and urges as animals. Darwin wrote extensively about it and Desmond Morris further elaborated on it


It's a collective bias. It's learned. Is it common sense to put our pants on? No, it's taught. Is it common sense that people love pop/rock music? No. They could just as easily like Beethoven or Mozart. They are bombarded with pop/rock however from birth and so they learn that pop/rock is cool. They are taught that.


----------



## Luchesi

Minor Sixthist said:


> Mike, don't dwell on any of this. This is an ego-proof way of saying "I know my work is bad, but I'm so afraid of ego-damaging criticism that I have the nerve to assure you my music will achieve renown- _you just won't know it's me. _You'll never know what great music is mine, so all of it is mine!"
> 
> Forget it. You have better attention to bring to your music than that of sexist creeps who have deluded themselves far over the deep end. I'm firm in my personal interpretation that pigs will fly before his music sees the light of day, but maybe I'll even shorten his sentence and say it will at least be long after a great woman conductor has finished her tenure leading a major orchestra- that might be disheartening enough to knock him off the high horse for a while too. Maybe until that time he could brush up on that rotted world view. Well, and
> 
> his verb-preposition pairs.


267,000,000 English pages for "associated with"

10,600,000 English pages for "associated to".

I've seen "associated to" used in Technical Reports (TRs) here at the lab by non-native English speakers, especially Italian.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

Luchesi said:


> 267,000,000 English pages for "associated with"
> 
> 10,600,000 English pages for "associated to".


"English pages" from where? Those numbers indicate you mean search results from some database. It would help if you were more specific. I know on Google you could find a couple hundred thousand pages for "vaccines cause autism," and a few million credible enough papers which misuse affect/effect. That there are 10 million pages for "associated to" in your non-specified database doesn't do anything to convince me that it's more correct.



> I've seen "associated to" used in Technical Reports (TRs) here at the lab by non-native English speakers, especially Italian.


Ok. This discussion is not a technical report, though, and this forum is not a lab. If I had ever had the slightest inkling that 1996 was a nonnative English speaker, having had exposure to dozens of his posts across different threads here, I would never have corrected his English. But no indication exists, so this wasn't a mistranslation from Italian, it was a grammar mistake.


----------



## mikeh375

Bluecrab said:


> Thank you, mikeh375. btw, I listened to part of your violin sonata today on your website... very nice music. I'll check out more of your work later.
> 
> My supposition? 1996D is nothing more than a troll.


Thanks so much Bluecrab, I must agree with your supposition whilst being of course, absolutely delighted with your musical opinion (even if you allegedly have degenerate ears like me.. ). If you would like to hear a more tonal approach, check out the Partita Concordia, played by 3 of the UK's most outstanding musicians and recorded at The Menuhin Hall.

(Btw, I have also just painted a ceiling in my house, but I prefer not to show it to anyone yet as I might have got a little bit of paint on the coving...)


----------



## DaveM

mikeh375 said:


> Thanks so much Bluecrab, I must agree with your supposition whilst being of course, absolutely delighted with your musical opinion (even if you allegedly have degenerate ears like me.. ). If you would like to hear a more tonal approach, check out the Partita Concordia, played by 3 of the UK's most outstanding musicians and recorded at The Menuhin Hall.
> 
> (Btw, I have also just painted a ceiling in my house, but I prefer not to show it to anyone yet as I might have got a little bit of paint on the coving...)


Enjoyed listening to your music, especially the Adagio for Strings. Real talent there!

As for 1996D's music , all I know, so far, is that it's on a par with Cage's 4'33".


----------



## mikeh375

DaveM said:


> Enjoyed listening to your music, especially the Adagio for Strings. Real talent there!
> 
> As for 1996D's music , all I know, so far, is that it's on a par with Cage's 4'33".


Cheers Dave, I'll take "real talent" and run with that for a while in my head if you don't mind... Thanks for taking some time out to have a listen, it' most appreciated. Of course you do realise that your tastes are now also suspect.

(Btw, Whoever said that there was no such thing as bad publicity may have been onto something).


----------



## 1996D

Thanks guys for lifting his spirits, I was perhaps unreasonably harsh considering he composes for commercials. Harshness really does help the artist but only one that is highly self critical to begin with, and yes it would be but a troll if that's not the case, which was never my intention. 

Thanks @minor sixth for the grammar correction, you remind me that I'm still a youth, and we can never be humble enough anyway.


----------



## mikeh375

1996D said:


> Thanks guys for lifting his spirits, I was perhaps unreasonably harsh considering he composes for commercials. Harshness really does help the artist but only one that is highly self critical to begin with, and yes it would be but a troll if that's not the case, which was never my intention.
> 
> Thanks @minor sixth for the grammar correction, you remind me that I'm still a youth, and we can never be humble enough anyway.


"He" happens to be here coward, as if _you_ could actually lower my spirits. You have a high opinion of your opinions, well somebody has to I suppose. I see some comments by more discerning and cultured listeners (judging by their posts elsewhere that is), have you on the back foot a little. Not that I care, but perhaps you can ask the bill payer to help you sort out that flummoxed head of yours. From the way it looks here, I doubt those kind posters above where doing you a favour.

So still no music from you, nor a shred of decency huh? By now, you must realise that you look bad here and you have made it easy for one to conclude that you do not have a clue about composing and what it takes. You are also seemingly incapable of even submitting any actual work to a good standard as evidence to the contrary. 
Your posts are as a result, ineffectual and without any credibility whatsoever. All the product of a delusional mind - you have my sympathies.


----------



## Woodduck

1996D said:


> I was perhaps unreasonably harsh considering he composes for commercials. Harshness really does help the artist but only one that is highly self critical to begin with, and yes it would be but a troll if that's not the case, which was never my intention.


Is this supposed to be an apology?



> Thanks @minor sixth for the grammar correction, you remind me that I'm still a youth, and we can never be humble enough anyway.


A youth? About 16, I'd guess. The age when one knows everything.

Eventually some of that "harshness" will come your way and make an adult out of you. Until then you'd do best to withhold the pompous lecturing and get down to work on that superior music you're supposedly writing. The world is waiting to judge its worth (but not with bated breath).


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## mmsbls

Please refrain from negative personal comments. There are ways to make your points without resorting to insults.


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## mikeh375

mmsbls said:


> Please refrain from negative personal comments. There are ways to make your points without resorting to insults.


He started it Sir....

(I will refrain from now on mmsbls- unless provoked again of course)


----------



## EdwardBast

samm said:


> Like I said, you are a conduit for his empty rantings. I'm sure you view yourself as a modern-day philosopher who has life all worked out in a neat order, but you need to see what it looks like from outside your own head.


No Samm, he's a disciple of Ayn Rand.


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## samm

EdwardBast said:


> No Samm, he's a disciple of Ayn Rand.


Oh well at least she's expired. The average age of her sycophants is under 25 I'd guess. Once they have a family and get slapped into reality the copy of _Atlas Shrunk_ can be found in the Goodwill bins.


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## 1996D

EdwardBast said:


> No Samm, he's a disciple of Ayn Rand.


Ayn Rand plagiarized Plato, and quite badly, misunderstanding quite a bit.

@Wooduck Youth as in young man, but a man nonetheless, and a prodigious one.

I don't know what to say to you Mike, my honesty hurts your feelings so maybe we shouldn't converse.


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## Bluecrab

1996D said:


> I don't know what to say to you Mike, my honesty hurts your feelings so maybe we shouldn't converse.


At the risk of making a mistaken inference about mikeh375, I'll venture to say that if you think you "hurt his feelings", you're utterly delusional. Of course, he's more than capable of responding himself.

And when do we get to hear at least one of your compositions?


----------



## DaveM

1996D said:


> ...I don't know what to say to you Mike, my honesty hurts your feelings so maybe we shouldn't converse.


Speaking of your honesty, I'm wondering about:


1996D said:


> As for your second question, I've composed hundreds of pieces, but my standards are higher. Your music was judged by my standards, you shouldn't feel offended.


Where are and what are these hundreds of pieces? You've made a rather negative value judgment on someone else's work -someone who had the courage to put some of it up for others to hear- which must mean that yours is pretty good. Are all these hundreds of works just sitting on paper? Have any of them been performed? Are you a performer? Can you perform your own compositions?

Has anyone evaluated your work? If they're not available for others to evaluate, why not? You inferred that you weren't ready to release your work and even when you do, we won't be able to know. After hundreds? Why not? Because they might be too mediocre? If one is truly a good composer who talks about having high standards, how is it possible to have hundreds of composed works and none of them are ready to be heard by others?


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## Minor Sixthist

"And a prodigious one." God, imagine calling yourself prodigious. How insufferable. 

19 doesn't give a very good face to the youths on this forum. At that, if his username is an indication of his birth year, I'm five years more of a 'youth' than him. Should I expect to go through this phase he's in too? Is there something I could pop twice a day with water to prevent that from happening?


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## mmsbls

I know that all sides have posted comments that play a bit loose (to put it mildly) with our rules. The thread content is actually interesting - much more so than the recent back and forth statements. Can we drop personal comments and get back on track?


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## 1996D

Minor Sixthist said:


> "And a prodigious one." God, imagine calling yourself prodigious. How insufferable.
> 
> 19 doesn't give a very good face to the youths on this forum. At that, if his username is an indication of his birth year, I'm five years more of a 'youth' than him. Should I expect to go through this phase he's in too? Is there something I could pop twice a day with water to prevent that from happening?


That's pretty funny.

The day will come soon where we are all considered equal under this society, the president already talks like he's a cab driver--on purpose--and he's supposed to be conservative. If he can act like that, then I can call myself prodigious.


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## mikeh375

1996D said:


> I don't know what to say to you Mike, my honesty hurts your feelings so maybe we shouldn't converse.


It doesn't at all. I have plenty of alternative and honest opinions to yours on my work, opinions I respect, some I treasure from respected professional musicians and composers - my peers - people who really know what they are talking about. 
All of which renders you and the imagined importance of your assessment quite insignificant, honestly. What does upset me is the fact that you wont post anything of yours in the interest of fairness, for me and other discerning listeners here to judge but instead hide behind anonymity and you know what I think of you for that. I am big enough to know when a piece has more efficacy than anything I could write and will always give the credit where it is due - I hold no grudge in that regard, so put your work where your mouth is to claw back credibility.
If not, it probably is best that we do not converse again, I like this forum and would not want to get banned.


----------



## mikeh375

DaveM said:


> Speaking of your honesty, I'm wondering about:
> 
> Where are and what are these hundreds of pieces? You've made a rather negative value judgment on someone else's work -someone who had the courage to put some of it up for others to hear- which must mean that yours is pretty good. Are all these hundreds of works just sitting on paper? Have any of them been performed? Are you a performer? Can you perform your own compositions?
> 
> Has anyone evaluated your work? If they're not available for others to evaluate, why not? You inferred that you weren't ready to release your work and even when you do, we won't be able to know. After hundreds? Why not? Because they might be too mediocre? If one is truly a good composer who talks about having high standards, how is it possible to have hundreds of composed works and none of them are ready to be heard by others?


Good luck getting answers there Dave.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

mikeh375 said:


> It doesn't at all. I have plenty of alternative and honest opinions to yours on my work, opinions I respect, some I treasure from respected professional musicians and composers - my peers - people who really know what they are talking about.
> All of which renders you and the imagined importance of your assessment quite insignificant, honestly. What does upset me is the fact that you wont post anything of yours in the interest of fairness, for me and other discerning listeners here to judge but instead hide behind anonymity and you know what I think of you for that. I am big enough to know when a piece has more efficacy than anything I could write and will always give the credit where it is due - I hold no grudge in that regard, so put your work where your mouth is *to claw back credibility.*
> If not, it probably is best that we do not converse again, I like this forum and would not want to get banned.


Chimerical... he's gonna need some bigger claws.


----------



## 1996D

mikeh375 said:


> It doesn't at all. I have plenty of alternative and honest opinions to yours on my work, opinions I respect, some I treasure from respected professional musicians and composers - my peers - people who really know what they are talking about.
> All of which renders you and the imagined importance of your assessment quite insignificant, honestly. What does upset me is the fact that you wont post anything of yours in the interest of fairness, for me and other discerning listeners here to judge but instead hide behind anonymity and you know what I think of you for that. I am big enough to know when a piece has more efficacy than anything I could write and will always give the credit where it is due - I hold no grudge in that regard, so put your work where your mouth is to claw back credibility.
> If not, it probably is best that we do not converse again, I like this forum and would not want to get banned.


I've told you before that the time isn't right. Some of the pieces are finished but it's not something I would put out now. The craft is there but the purpose is not. Art always has to somewhat mirror society or preview the one that's coming to lead forward, and we're not quite at that moment yet. I'll enjoy the status quo as long as possible; what's coming is not something you want to rush.

Believing improvement is always possible is another factor--I have time and I'll take every second.


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## mikeh375

1996D said:


> I've told you before that the time isn't right. Some of the pieces are finished but it's not something I would put out now. The craft is there but the purpose is not. Art always has to somewhat mirror society or preview the one that's coming to lead forward, and we're not quite at that moment yet. I'll enjoy the status quo as long as possible; what's coming is not something you want to rush.
> 
> Believing improvement is always possible is another factor--I have time and I'll take every second.


Well I think me and you are done.


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## 1996D

mikeh375 said:


> Well I think me and you are done.


My thoughts exactly.


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## samm

1996D said:


> I've told you before that the time isn't right. Some of the pieces are finished but it's not something I would put out now. The craft is there but the purpose is not. Art always has to somewhat mirror society or preview the one that's coming to lead forward, and we're not quite at that moment yet. I'll enjoy the status quo as long as possible; what's coming is not something you want to rush.
> 
> Believing improvement is always possible is another factor--I have time and I'll take every second.


I love this. "The time isn't right...the craft is there". I fear I won't live long enough to witness this rebirth of composing genius and I'm not even old. I'd have thought that the current social circumstances would have been the catalyst to put any sort of genius to work immediately. I guess you think there is a new promised land around the corner? Made up of some recycled philosophy from the past, cut up and reassembled like a 'hit song' made of samples.

Please, go to the writing desk and bring forth this genius if only for the sake of revivifying human culture! My ears may blind me to its unfathomable power, but I am the past, you are the _future_!


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## 1996D

I'm not really motivated by doubt but thanks anyway.


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## millionrainbows

_My assertion is that, if you reject certain "non-harmonic" music as being too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and cognition of such music.

A hypothetical list of composers who I see frequently being rejected on these "harmonic" grounds:

Ligeti, Cage Varese, Carter, later Schoenberg, Webern, Nono, Berio, Stockhausen, Ferneyhough, Rihm, and it goes on._


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## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> _My assertion is that, if you reject certain "non-harmonic" music as being too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," then you have let your ears "blind you" to the reception and cognition of such music.
> 
> A hypothetical list of composers who I see frequently being rejected on these "harmonic" grounds:
> 
> Ligeti, Cage Varese, Carter, later Schoenberg, Webern, Nono, Berio, Stockhausen, Ferneyhough, Rihm, and it goes on._


Thanks for trying to get the thread back on track. I generally view your assertion as correct although I would state it somewhat differently to lessen some negative connotations.

_If one finds certain "non-harmonic" music too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," one may not have learned how to hear the music in a manner that would allow one to appreciate it.
_

Most of us have listened to enough music such that we respond differently to certain dissonances. As we become more familiar with dissonant tones, the negative perception of dissonance lessens. Both research and personal experience demonstrate that phenomenon. As dissonances become less striking or unpleasant, we become more able to appreciate music that previously we could not.

A similar phenomenon can occur with musical works. The musical language a composer chooses may be too unfamiliar to resonate with us. Repeated listening to those works or other relatively similar works can sometimes change how we perceive the music allowing us to hear it in a manner conducive to enjoyment or appreciation.

Both of these phenomena involve modifying the brain to essentially learn to hear differently (one is no longer "blinded" to the cognition of the music). My understanding is that repeated listening to dissonances is all that is necessary to lessen the psychological jarring of the tones. I strongly suspect that learning to enjoy an unfamiliar musical language requires more than simple repeated listening. One must listen in a manner that allows learning to take place. I'm really not sure exactly how to do this. Clearly one must be open to the possibility of learning to like the work. Perhaps one must focus on particular aspects of the music in order to hear it differently.

A major problem is that no one can tell someone unfamiliar with certain musical languages exactly how to listen much less how long the learning process will take. For some people that process may be relatively quick. For others it may involve a long period (perhaps unpleasant at times) with no real clues as to the likelihood of success or even progress. It's easy to understand why people would choose to forego such a process given the potential time commitment and the uncertainty of achieving one's goal.


----------



## mikeh375

mmsbls said:


> Thanks for trying to get the thread back on track. I generally view your assertion as correct although I would state it somewhat differently to lessen some negative connotations.
> 
> _If one finds certain "non-harmonic" music too dissonant or too foreign to be real "music," one may not have learned how to hear the music in a manner that would allow one to appreciate it.
> _
> 
> Most of us have listened to enough music such that we respond differently to certain dissonances. As we become more familiar with dissonant tones, the negative perception of dissonance lessens. Both research and personal experience demonstrate that phenomenon. As dissonances become less striking or unpleasant, we become more able to appreciate music that previously we could not.
> 
> A similar phenomenon can occur with musical works. The musical language a composer chooses may be too unfamiliar to resonate with us. Repeated listening to those works or other relatively similar works can sometimes change how we perceive the music allowing us to hear it in a manner conducive to enjoyment or appreciation.
> 
> Both of these phenomena involve modifying the brain to essentially learn to hear differently (one is no longer "blinded" to the cognition of the music). My understanding is that repeated listening to dissonances is all that is necessary to lessen the psychological jarring of the tones. I strongly suspect that learning to enjoy an unfamiliar musical language requires more than simple repeated listening. One must listen in a manner that allows learning to take place. I'm really not sure exactly how to do this. Clearly one must be open to the possibility of learning to like the work. Perhaps one must focus on particular aspects of the music in order to hear it differently.
> 
> *A major problem is that no one can tell someone unfamiliar with certain musical languages exactly how to listen much less how long the learning process will take. For some people that process may be relatively quick. For others it may involve a long period (perhaps unpleasant at times) with no real clues as to the likelihood of success or even progress. It's easy to understand why people would choose to forego such a process given the potential time commitment and the uncertainty of achieving one's goal*.


This seems eminently fair imv. Although I'd revise with....."too foreign to be ..music"...(not "_real_ music")

The last paragraph is the most pertinent I'd say and is one of the main sources of contemporary musics problem. Composers also have to get used to dissonance and what to do with it - that can take quite a while in some cases, requiring lots of experience and know how in handling the vertical especially - adventurous ears are essential. The composer then has to decide if he leaves a trail for the listener to follow or not. Either way, great skill and technique are involved when creating works free of tonal gravity and as listeners we are blessed with masterful works over the last 100 years or so, long may it continue.


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## samm

I think it's fair to say that no-one really cares about the _on-topic_ topic because as interesting as the question is, it is also an eternal question here which is never resolved and isn't likely to be resolved for some. I'd go as far as saying that some don't even believe there is a problem beyond the alleged problem of classical music having gone to the dogs with nothing left but a conspiracy of atonalism and plinkety-plonk. With that opinion there is no hope of persuasion.


----------



## mikeh375

samm said:


> I think it's fair to say that no-one really cares about the _on-topic_ topic because as interesting as the question is, it is also an eternal question here which is never resolved and isn't likely to be resolved for some. I'd go as far as saying that some don't even believe there is a problem beyond the alleged problem of classical music having gone to the dogs with nothing left but a conspiracy of atonalism and plinkety-plonk. With that opinion there is no hope of persuasion.


yeah...this too samm. There's no way out of this as far as I can see, the cat's been out of the bag for over a hundred years now and composers are not going to stop roaming anytime soon, it's too seductive for some even if it does come at a price.


----------



## mmsbls

mikeh375 said:


> yeah...this too samm. There's no way out of this as far as I can see, the cat's been out of the bag for over a hundred years now and composers are not going to stop roaming anytime soon, *it's too seductive for some even if it does come at a price*.


The bolded comment can mean several things. I'd be interested to hear a bit more about what you mean.

Many composers prefer to write in a new or fresh style and not to repeat what others have done. So they will not write what's generally called pastiches. People talk about composers finding their unique style. What I have found extremely interesting is how diverse modern and contemporary styles are. I have often thought that the variation of concurrent styles in the modern era could be greater than the variation from Renaissance through late Romantic music (e.g. Reich's Piano Phase, Stockhausen's Telemusik, and Boulez's Rituel in memoriam of Bruno Maderna all within a decade).

A composer friend of mine told me that he felt one must almost learn each modern composer's individual style in order to appreciate/like them. That varies significantly with other eras where styles vary vastly less. Becoming familiar with so many styles takes time and energy.

So one question I have is why has there been such an emphasis on novelty in the past 100 years compared to earlier.


----------



## MatthewWeflen

I read the first and last pages of this thread. The contrast was amusing.

Also, just to clarify, Ayn Rand plagiarized Aristotle, not Plato. She viewed Plato as a nigh-on demonic influence, almost akin to her number one ethical villain, Kant.

To say she was a rather poor student of ethics would be a kindness.


----------



## Luchesi

samm said:


> I think it's fair to say that no-one really cares about the _on-topic_ topic because as interesting as the question is, it is also an eternal question here which is never resolved and isn't likely to be resolved for some. I'd go as far as saying that some don't even believe there is a problem beyond the alleged problem of classical music having gone to the dogs with nothing left but a conspiracy of atonalism and plinkety-plonk. With that opinion there is no hope of persuasion.


You don't sense that "music is at an end"? To me that's part of the intriguing mystery of serious music. What will they come up with next, as a response to history up until their personal time of awareness, AND WHY they're pleased and sufficiently satisfied with their conclusions. I remember Schoenberg's journey as a guide.


----------



## 1996D

MatthewWeflen said:


> I read the first and last pages of this thread. The contrast was amusing.
> 
> Also, just to clarify, Ayn Rand plagiarized Aristotle, not Plato. She viewed Plato as a nigh-on demonic influence, almost akin to her number one ethical villain, Kant.
> 
> To say she was a rather poor student of ethics would be a kindness.


I really don't find her worth any time whatsoever, but Plato influenced Aristotle so stop arguing redundant things.


----------



## samm

1996D said:


> I really don't find her worth any time whatsoever, but Plato influenced Aristotle so stop arguing redundant things.


It's clear you are a bit of a coaster on this subject. I think you'll find that Aristotle, even though originally a student of Plato, developed a particular philosophical methodology (which is how most famous philosophers become known). His massive influence on middle ages scholastic philosophy is not just a case of Platonism.

I'm beginning to seriously doubt your self-appointed genius now. You disappoint me o great one. Where's that kazoo concerto we've all been waiting for?


----------



## ECraigR

Oo! I can finally use my philosophy degree!

Yes, Plato is quite different from Aristotle.

My job here is done.


----------



## MatthewWeflen

I too have several philosophy degrees and taught it at the college level. My considered conclusion:

Plato is indeed fundamentally different than Aristotle. Like, all the way, deep down to their conceptions of metaphysics.

Saying that the former influenced the latter is kind of like saying Obi-Wan influenced Darth Vader, and therefore it would be splitting hairs to differentiate the two.


----------



## Luchesi

Was it Aristotle who hired men to cart him around in a cart so that he could check for displacement among the stars? He couldn't detect any... and consequently the RC church continued for a long time to say that the Earth was the center of everything.


----------



## 1996D

Aristotle owes extensively to Plato, and I much prefer the latter. I never said they were identical.

I will also add that everything Aristotle teaches comes so innately natural, that to me it was common sense before I even read about it. Plato explains things about systems and things outside the control of the individual human will, while Aristotle focuses more so on the individual and on things that I really don't need to read about.

Ayn Rand can easily be understood exactly for what she is while reading Plato alone, with absolutely no need for Aristotle, regardless of who she thought she was plagiarizing.



MatthewWeflen said:


> Plato is indeed fundamentally different than Aristotle.


That's an absolutely ridiculous statement, the differences between them can easily be settled if the two old men had a long conversation in the heavens. They are both so similar as beings, although one explains things that are easier to understand, hence why he caught on slightly better.


----------



## MatthewWeflen

But isn't the real question whether or not you are blinded by your ears?


----------



## samm

1996D said:


> Aristotle owes extensively to Plato, and I much prefer the latter. I never said they were identical.
> 
> I will also add that everything Aristotle teaches comes so innately natural, that to me it was common sense before I even read about it. Plato explains things about systems and things outside the control of the individual human will, while Aristotle focuses more so on the individual and on things that I really don't need to read about.
> 
> Ayn Rand can easily be understood exactly for what she is while reading Plato alone, with absolutely no need for Aristotle, regardless of who she thought she was plagiarizing.


Put that shovel down. Haven't you dug yourself in deep enough? I now demand that you get this musical show on the road. I want to see the music of the future now!


----------



## samm

MatthewWeflen said:


> But isn't the real question whether or not you are blinded by your ears?


I suppose it depends if one's ears are long enough to flap over one's eyes.


----------



## 1996D

samm said:


> Put that shovel down. Haven't you dug yourself in deep enough? I now demand that you get this musical show on the road. I want to see the music of the future now!


You act like such a buffoon, in direct contradiction to the teachings of both.


----------



## AeolianStrains

1996D said:


> You act like such a buffoon, in direct contradiction to the teachings of both.


Have you even read any Plato? Socrates is almost a caricature of a comic buffoon. He just had a point in doing so.


----------



## DaveM

Well if everyone is going to talk about Plato, Aristotle and Socrates in this thread, I’ll just ramble on about whether I should pass on the top tight ends such as Kelce, Ertz or Kittle in the early rounds or wait on a good value such as Mark Andrews in the 14th round of my fantasy football draft.


----------



## ECraigR

1996D said:


> Aristotle owes extensively to Plato, and I much prefer the latter. I never said they were identical.
> 
> I will also add that everything Aristotle teaches comes so innately natural, that to me it was common sense before I even read about it. Plato explains things about systems and things outside the control of the individual human will, while Aristotle focuses more so on the individual and on things that I really don't need to read about.
> 
> Ayn Rand can easily be understood exactly for what she is while reading Plato alone, with absolutely no need for Aristotle, regardless of who she thought she was plagiarizing.
> 
> That's an absolutely ridiculous statement, the differences between them can easily be settled if the two old men had a long conversation in the heavens. They are both so similar as beings, although one explains things that are easier to understand, hence why he caught on slightly better.


This is a really bizarre sentiment, all of it.


----------



## AeolianStrains

ECraigR said:


> This is a really bizarre sentiment, all of it.


It's also just _wrong_. Aristotle was Plato's student, and in many cases was reacting directly against the master. In Aristotle there is much that is completely and utterly absent in Plato.

Ayn Rand does know and does draw on Plato (part of my classes placed Anthem in the context of the Republic, though Hesiod is the bigger influence here---on both), but one cannot assert that Aristotle can be ignored here.

Also, if Rand plagiarized anyone, it was Zamyatin.


----------



## 1996D

ECraigR said:


> This is a really bizarre sentiment, all of it.


Plato gets deeper into abstraction, you need to have a philosopher's gift yourself to fully comprehend and use the understanding to your advantage. You have to be able to see the world as a system. Aristotle was a better scientist/biologist/mathematician than he was a philosopher. In many ways he's a 'feel good' philosopher, and he's easy to understand.

@Aeolian I'm certainly not an expert on Ayn Rand, and have no desire to be, but I quickly understood what she was from reading Plato, not Aristotle.


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## DaveM

1996D said:


> Plato gets deeper into abstraction, you need to have a philosopher's gift yourself to fully comprehend and use the understanding to your advantage. You have to be able to see the world as a system.


Do you have a philosopher's gift?


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## MatthewWeflen

DaveM said:


> Do you have a philosopher's gift?


Didn't you know, DaveM? Gifts are more important than actual experience and education.

Welcome to the 21st century.


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## 1996D

MatthewWeflen said:


> Didn't you know, DaveM? Gifts are more important than actual experience and education.
> 
> Welcome to the 21st century.


Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.


----------



## DaveM

Those with iron pyrites can confuse it with gold.


----------



## MatthewWeflen

OK. I'm going to try to be gentle here. I did not read this entire thread, nor do I wish to. But it was my job for nine years to teach philosophy and try to help people become better persons. So I will try to briefly do that here.

The difference between Plato and Aristotle comes down to their fundamental conceptions of metaphysics. 

1. Plato had a divided metaphysics - this world is made of crude matter, which is shaped by a creator (the Demiurge) into copies of eternal, perfect, unchanging forms. So: if you see a horse in the world, it is an object made of matter that somehow participates in the eternal form of Horse. If you witness a just act, this act participates somehow in the form of Justice. Things and acts in the world are necessarily imperfect, because they are always changing, decaying, are adulterated, etc. Forms are necessarily perfect. They are never altered or adulterated. You could systematically destroy every horse, or every beautiful thing in the world, but you would not succeed in eradicating the form of Horse or the form of Beauty from the universe.

Now, this scheme has some benefit, but also some drawbacks. The benefits are apparent to a student of Pre-Socratic philosophy - they answer the challenge of Parmenides to substance-based physical theories, the challenge being that they require coming to be and destruction, and nothingness, which he found inadmissible. Well, bifurcating your reality into one portion which is indestructible answers this. To the average person, the benefit is the notion of persistent, objective truth. One can always compare an instance of a thing to its form. The Beautiful and the Just by themselves remain standards by which things may be judged. Plato would argue that one could never arrive at a stable conception of such things in the mind through observation of things in the world, because things always change. Nor could one speak intelligibly about such things, if they did not already possess knowledge of them in some fashion.

The drawbacks are in how complex the theory becomes when you try to use it to explain certain things, especially relationships between things. And of course, the theory rests on assumptions that many modern persons would find untenable.

2. Aristotle had a metaphysics based on causes - Efficient, Material, Formal, and Final. Look at any thing, and you can understand it in terms of its cause. A house for instance, has the material cause of bricks, mortar, glass, and wood. Its efficient cause is a builder. Its final cause is to provide shelter. Its formal cause is a blueprint.

So form exists, in a sense, but only in an object. The instance is primary, not the form. Forms do not exist in a separate, unchanging realm. They are descriptions, blueprints, for life, objects, and everything. If you were to destroy all the objects, that form would also cease to exist. If all humans were to die, the forms of house, car, smartphone, would die with them.

The benefits of this scheme are that it relies on inductive reasoning and observation to arrive at the form, which is more amenable to modern sensibilities. It also has a certain causal explanatory power - an oak tree grows from an acorn because the acorn possesses the blueprint of the tree within it.

3. Ayn Rand called her metaphysics "objectivism." But in the main, it was just a simplification and restating of Aristotle's metaphysics. She believed that the things in the world were primary, and that the physical world was the totality of existence. Human beings needed to recognize this and maximize their happiness within this realm, by the only means she believed would be effective - rational selfishness. She hated Plato with a deep passion because she felt that his divided metaphysics appealed to things which do not exist, and this impelled people to hurt one another based on metaphysical flights of fancy. She equated this with religious thinking, and labelled it all a "death centered metaphysics." It's a pretty radical simplification to lump Plato, Christianity, and Kant together all in one box, and it is an uncharitable reading to say the least (by which I mean, that certainly isn't what THEY thought they were doing). 

I enjoy reading Ayn Rand's fiction. I think she is a good dystopian speculative fiction writer. But she is a crap philosopher, to put it mildly. She badly misreads her sources and cherry picks them to create straw men which are not reasonable approximations of their targets.

4. Look. I know what it's like to be in my early twenties. I thought I had it all figured out. But someone who has the "gift for philosophy" would do well to read Plato's Apology and to absorb the ethical example of Plato's Socrates - the greatest foolishness is to pretend to wisdom that one does not possess, and the greatest wisdom is to recognize and admit what one does not know. It's difficult to be humble and it is certainly difficult to admit when one was wrong, to give up a side in an argument. But it's really, really good for you, for your soul, as Plato would put it.


----------



## ECraigR

1996D said:


> Plato gets deeper into abstraction, you need to have a philosopher's gift yourself to fully comprehend and use the understanding to your advantage. You have to be able to see the world as a system. Aristotle was a better scientist/biologist/mathematician than he was a philosopher. In many ways he's a 'feel good' philosopher, and he's easy to understand.
> 
> @Aeolian I'm certainly not an expert on Ayn Rand, and have no desire to be, but I quickly understood what she was from reading Plato, not Aristotle.


Lol. Cool story bro.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

1996D said:


> Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.


You never responded to my question, by the way, when I asked you to elaborate on what you meant when you told me I'm "out of my league." It really is safe to assume you don't even know what you meant. Though you never really seem to know what you mean.

Are you here because you got chased off Reddit for spamming the 'philosophy' subs with this garbage? 4chan is still an option.


----------



## samm

1996D said:


> Plato gets deeper into abstraction, you need to have a philosopher's gift yourself to fully comprehend and use the understanding to your advantage. You have to be able to see the world as a system. Aristotle was a better scientist/biologist/mathematician than he was a philosopher. In many ways he's a 'feel good' philosopher, and he's easy to understand.
> 
> @Aeolian I'm certainly not an expert on Ayn Rand, and have no desire to be, but I quickly understood what she was from reading Plato, not Aristotle.


Someone has been cramming at Wikipedia. And yet...


----------



## Luchesi

MatthewWeflen said:


> OK. I'm going to try to be gentle here. I did not read this entire thread, nor do I wish to. But it was my job for nine years to teach philosophy and try to help people become better persons. So I will try to briefly do that here.
> 
> The difference between Plato and Aristotle comes down to their fundamental conceptions of metaphysics.
> 
> 1. Plato had a divided metaphysics - this world is made of crude matter, which is shaped by a creator (the Demiurge) into copies of eternal, perfect, unchanging forms. So: if you see a horse in the world, it is an object made of matter that somehow participates in the eternal form of Horse. If you witness a just act, this act participates somehow in the form of Justice. Things and acts in the world are necessarily imperfect, because they are always changing, decaying, are adulterated, etc. Forms are necessarily perfect. They are never altered or adulterated. You could systematically destroy every horse, or every beautiful thing in the world, but you would not succeed in eradicating the form of Horse or the form of Beauty from the universe.
> 
> Now, this scheme has some benefit, but also some drawbacks. The benefits are apparent to a student of Pre-Socratic philosophy - they answer the challenge of Parmenides to substance-based physical theories, the challenge being that they require coming to be and destruction, and nothingness, which he found inadmissible. Well, bifurcating your reality into one portion which is indestructible answers this. To the average person, the benefit is the notion of persistent, objective truth. One can always compare an instance of a thing to its form. The Beautiful and the Just by themselves remain standards by which things may be judged. Plato would argue that one could never arrive at a stable conception of such things in the mind through observation of things in the world, because things always change. Nor could one speak intelligibly about such things, if they did not already possess knowledge of them in some fashion.
> 
> The drawbacks are in how complex the theory becomes when you try to use it to explain certain things, especially relationships between things. And of course, the theory rests on assumptions that many modern persons would find untenable.
> 
> 2. Aristotle had a metaphysics based on causes - Efficient, Material, Formal, and Final. Look at any thing, and you can understand it in terms of its cause. A house for instance, has the material cause of bricks, mortar, glass, and wood. Its efficient cause is a builder. Its final cause is to provide shelter. Its formal cause is a blueprint.
> 
> So form exists, in a sense, but only in an object. The instance is primary, not the form. Forms do not exist in a separate, unchanging realm. They are descriptions, blueprints, for life, objects, and everything. If you were to destroy all the objects, that form would also cease to exist. If all humans were to die, the forms of house, car, smartphone, would die with them.
> 
> The benefits of this scheme are that it relies on inductive reasoning and observation to arrive at the form, which is more amenable to modern sensibilities. It also has a certain causal explanatory power - an oak tree grows from an acorn because the acorn possesses the blueprint of the tree within it.
> 
> 3. Ayn Rand called her metaphysics "objectivism." But in the main, it was just a simplification and restating of Aristotle's metaphysics. She believed that the things in the world were primary, and that the physical world was the totality of existence. Human beings needed to recognize this and maximize their happiness within this realm, by the only means she believed would be effective - rational selfishness. She hated Plato with a deep passion because she felt that his divided metaphysics appealed to things which do not exist, and this impelled people to hurt one another based on metaphysical flights of fancy. She equated this with religious thinking, and labelled it all a "death centered metaphysics." It's a pretty radical simplification to lump Plato, Christianity, and Kant together all in one box, and it is an uncharitable reading to say the least (by which I mean, that certainly isn't what THEY thought they were doing).
> 
> I enjoy reading Ayn Rand's fiction. I think she is a good dystopian speculative fiction writer. But she is a crap philosopher, to put it mildly. She badly misreads her sources and cherry picks them to create straw men which are not reasonable approximations of their targets.
> 
> 4. Look. I know what it's like to be in my early twenties. I thought I had it all figured out. But someone who has the "gift for philosophy" would do well to read Plato's Apology and to absorb the ethical example of Plato's Socrates - the greatest foolishness is to pretend to wisdom that one does not possess, and the greatest wisdom is to recognize and admit what one does not know. It's difficult to be humble and it is certainly difficult to admit when one was wrong, to give up a side in an argument. But it's really, really good for you, for your soul, as Plato would put it.


Did Aristotle believe that the lubrication of the crystal spheres wore out and fell as shooting stars and comets - and this massive amount of accumulated debris is far away but visible at night as the Milky Way?


----------



## DeepR

No, it's not possible, but if I were an elephant I'd give it a try.


----------



## Guest

MatthewWeflen said:


> 4. Look. I know what it's like to be in my early twenties. I thought I had it all figured out. But someone who has the "gift for philosophy" would do well to read Plato's Apology and to absorb the ethical example of Plato's Socrates - the greatest foolishness is to pretend to wisdom that one does not possess, and the greatest wisdom is to recognize and admit what one does not know. It's difficult to be humble and it is certainly difficult to admit when one was wrong, to give up a


Hey, I know what's it like to be in my early twenties too. The only members who don't are those who haven't yet reached them.


----------



## 1996D

MatthewWeflen said:


> OK. I'm going to try to be gentle here. I did not read this entire thread, nor do I wish to. But it was my job for nine years to teach philosophy and try to help people become better persons. So I will try to briefly do that here.
> 
> The difference between Plato and Aristotle comes down to their fundamental conceptions of metaphysics.
> 
> 1. Plato had a divided metaphysics - this world is made of crude matter, which is shaped by a creator (the Demiurge) into copies of eternal, perfect, unchanging forms. So: if you see a horse in the world, it is an object made of matter that somehow participates in the eternal form of Horse. If you witness a just act, this act participates somehow in the form of Justice. Things and acts in the world are necessarily imperfect, because they are always changing, decaying, are adulterated, etc. Forms are necessarily perfect. They are never altered or adulterated. You could systematically destroy every horse, or every beautiful thing in the world, but you would not succeed in eradicating the form of Horse or the form of Beauty from the universe.
> 
> Now, this scheme has some benefit, but also some drawbacks. The benefits are apparent to a student of Pre-Socratic philosophy - they answer the challenge of Parmenides to substance-based physical theories, the challenge being that they require coming to be and destruction, and nothingness, which he found inadmissible. Well, bifurcating your reality into one portion which is indestructible answers this. To the average person, the benefit is the notion of persistent, objective truth. One can always compare an instance of a thing to its form. The Beautiful and the Just by themselves remain standards by which things may be judged. Plato would argue that one could never arrive at a stable conception of such things in the mind through observation of things in the world, because things always change. Nor could one speak intelligibly about such things, if they did not already possess knowledge of them in some fashion.
> 
> The drawbacks are in how complex the theory becomes when you try to use it to explain certain things, especially relationships between things. And of course, the theory rests on assumptions that many modern persons would find untenable.
> 
> 2. Aristotle had a metaphysics based on causes - Efficient, Material, Formal, and Final. Look at any thing, and you can understand it in terms of its cause. A house for instance, has the material cause of bricks, mortar, glass, and wood. Its efficient cause is a builder. Its final cause is to provide shelter. Its formal cause is a blueprint.
> 
> So form exists, in a sense, but only in an object. The instance is primary, not the form. Forms do not exist in a separate, unchanging realm. They are descriptions, blueprints, for life, objects, and everything. If you were to destroy all the objects, that form would also cease to exist. If all humans were to die, the forms of house, car, smartphone, would die with them.
> 
> The benefits of this scheme are that it relies on inductive reasoning and observation to arrive at the form, which is more amenable to modern sensibilities. It also has a certain causal explanatory power - an oak tree grows from an acorn because the acorn possesses the blueprint of the tree within it.
> 
> 3. Ayn Rand called her metaphysics "objectivism." But in the main, it was just a simplification and restating of Aristotle's metaphysics. She believed that the things in the world were primary, and that the physical world was the totality of existence. Human beings needed to recognize this and maximize their happiness within this realm, by the only means she believed would be effective - rational selfishness. She hated Plato with a deep passion because she felt that his divided metaphysics appealed to things which do not exist, and this impelled people to hurt one another based on metaphysical flights of fancy. She equated this with religious thinking, and labelled it all a "death centered metaphysics." It's a pretty radical simplification to lump Plato, Christianity, and Kant together all in one box, and it is an uncharitable reading to say the least (by which I mean, that certainly isn't what THEY thought they were doing).
> 
> I enjoy reading Ayn Rand's fiction. I think she is a good dystopian speculative fiction writer. But she is a crap philosopher, to put it mildly. She badly misreads her sources and cherry picks them to create straw men which are not reasonable approximations of their targets.
> 
> 4. Look. I know what it's like to be in my early twenties. I thought I had it all figured out. But someone who has the "gift for philosophy" would do well to read Plato's Apology and to absorb the ethical example of Plato's Socrates - the greatest foolishness is to pretend to wisdom that one does not possess, and the greatest wisdom is to recognize and admit what one does not know. It's difficult to be humble and it is certainly difficult to admit when one was wrong, to give up a side in an argument. But it's really, really good for you, for your soul, as Plato would put it.


Every field, or every genius in these fields; from philosophy, to biology, to psychology; make discoveries, and it's in the synergy between these various fields that we can find truth. When they all reach the same conclusions written in different ways, you can then move on to the next step.

Philosophy comes before everything that's provable, it's the rawest and most experimental form of human thought, and therefore is the the field with the most error.

You need to know about other fields in detail to extract the truth from Plato.


----------



## 1996D

DaveM said:


> Do you have a philosopher's gift?


The philosopher's gift is to have an expansive, eclectic mind. The same creativity that serves me in composition serves me in philosophy, and today, with the large amount of geniuses of the past having discovered almost every truth there is, and having them all at your fingertips, you can really put it all together.

Understanding the world comes thanks to them, they deserve all the glory.


----------



## 1996D

Anyway, the point is that there is no excuse. Everything has already been written, and it's up to you to go and find, and put it together. Some of the comments on this site and really everywhere today, suggest you haven't been reading enough, or perhaps searching, and are disconnected from the discoveries made by brilliant men. Politics are always there to keep people disconnected, and no one will help you find the works that will set you free.

It's right there though, wide open and available to all, there are no excuses. 


I will add that with every thing you read, you must battle your insecurities, and the hate inside you from all your experiences. Some things you will simply reject out of insecurity and you must battle yourself and have perseverance. Then there is the societal barrier with its different levels that can also set you back. In the end you'll get as close to the truth as your courage and wit allows.

In a way society is perfectly designed so that only a few can know certain things, but societies change and crumble, and when they're close to the end of a stage there is ample opportunity.


----------



## Strange Magic

No matter how you slice it.........


----------



## Woodduck

> The philosopher's gift is to have an expansive, eclectic mind. The same creativity that serves me in composition serves me in philosophy, and today, with the large amount of geniuses of the past having discovered almost every truth there is, and having them all at your fingertips, you can really put it all together.


In order to know that "almost every truth there is" has been discovered, you would have to know what those truths are, as well as what truths have not yet been discovered. That seems a tall order, but since you seem confident in claiming that you can "put it all together," I trust that we can anticipate the publication of your _Definitive Philosophy of Everything All Put Together_ in due course.


----------



## mmsbls

The thread has veered off into philosophy. By itself, that's fine. Sometimes thread disruptions can be interesting. Unfortunately, the discussion involves insults and other inappropriate personal comments. Please either drop the philosophy or the personal comments.

A couple of comments were removed.


----------



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

Woodduck said:


> In order to know that "almost every truth there is" has been discovered, you would have to know what those truths are, as well as what truths have not yet been discovered. That seems a tall order, but since you seem confident in claiming that you can "put it all together," I trust that we can anticipate the publication of your _Definitive Philosophy of Everything All Put Together_ in due course.


And I anticipate his solution to the Riemann Hypothesis!


----------



## Minor Sixthist

That's fine. Some things just go without saying anyway.


----------



## samm

mmsbls said:


> The thread has veered off into philosophy. By itself, that's fine. Sometimes thread disruptions can be interesting. Unfortunately, the discussion involves insults and other inappropriate personal comments. Please either drop the philosophy or the personal comments.
> 
> A couple of comments were removed.


Wouldn't you say it's a fine show of human togetherness in the face of a singular point of delusional hubris? If I was in charge here I'd be kinda proud.


----------



## mmsbls

We have no problem with people confronting ideas and posting strong refutations. In fact, in some cases it's critically important as I commented in another thread. We just want people to refrain from negative personal comments. It's remarkable how such comments can reduce the effect of rebuttals.


----------



## Luchesi

mmsbls said:


> We have no problem with people confronting ideas and posting strong refutations. In fact, in some cases it's critically important as I commented in another thread. We just want people to refrain from negative personal comments. It's remarkable how such comments can reduce the effect of rebuttals.


"It's remarkable how such comments can reduce the effect of rebuttals."

That's so true. But I continue to fail to see how if a thread gets nasty it affects the whole forum. The people who want to snipe at each other want a place to practice sniping.

If you designated this as such a thread they might stop, because the dynamic seems to be that being ever wary of the rules keeps the back-and-forth quite creative. One-upmanship.


----------



## haydnguy

Luchesi said:


> "It's remarkable how such comments can reduce the effect of rebuttals."
> 
> That's so true. But I continue to fail to see how if a thread gets nasty it affects the whole forum. The people who want to snipe at each other want a place to practice sniping.
> 
> If you designated this as such a thread they might stop, because the dynamic seems to be that being ever wary of the rules keeps the back-and-forth quite creative. One-upmanship.


It can affect the whole forum because if two people have a quarrel on one thread they can take that quarrel with them to other threads. I've seen this a thousand times. Another thing is that if someone comes to the thread and sees personal insults being hurled they will not likely not post in that thread.


----------



## Luchesi

haydnguy said:


> It can affect the whole forum because if two people have a quarrel on one thread they can take that quarrel with them to other threads. I've seen this a thousand times. Another thing is that if someone comes to the thread and sees personal insults being hurled they will not likely not post in that thread.


Would you avoid threads wherein insults are being hurled?

Maybe the moderators can put the quarrelers on ignore for everyone, without letting them know. That would spare everyone's feelings.


----------



## haydnguy

Luchesi said:


> Would you avoid threads wherein insults are being hurled?
> 
> Maybe the moderators can put the quarrelers on ignore for everyone, without letting them know. That would spare everyone's feelings.


Yes, I would avoid those threads. Especially when has nothing to do with the OP. To each his own.


----------



## samm

mmsbls said:


> We have no problem with people confronting ideas and posting strong refutations. In fact, in some cases it's critically important as I commented in another thread. We just want people to refrain from negative personal comments. *It's remarkable how such comments can reduce the effect of rebuttals.*


I disagree. They sometimes enhance them. There seems to be a strange fetishization of 'no personal comments'. I've seen it numerous times in moderator remarks. I'd be interested to know how it's possible to reply to a person when criticism of their presented ideas, especially when they are a result of personality traits, is bound to eventually be perceived as criticism of the person's thinking abilities?

I mean, if you say: 'this idea of yours is hokum and here's why'... aren't you just just saying: 'you are putting forward ill-thought-through ideas and are therefore really not very bright'?

So it's okay to suggest that someone is probably a bit of a fool, but not okay to just state it? I think that sort of thing is what leads to pages and pages of bickering.


----------



## EdwardBast

samm said:


> I'd be interested to know how it's possible to reply to a person when criticism of their presented ideas, especially when they are a result of personality traits, is bound to eventually be *perceived as criticism of the person's thinking abilities*?.
> 
> I mean, if you say: 'this idea of yours is hokum and here's why'... aren't you just just saying: *'you are putting forward ill-thought-through ideas and are therefore really not very bright'?*
> 
> So it's okay to *suggest that someone is probably a bit of a fool*, but not okay to just state it? I think that sort of thing is what leads to pages and pages of bickering.


No, you're _saying_ only that their arguments are defective. If you're right and argue this convincingly, others will draw the obvious conclusions about the creator of those ideas without further assistance from you. By roundly refuting an argument you're not _suggesting_ "that someone is probably a bit of a fool," you're _demonstrating_ it, which is far better. I wouldn't worry too much about the perceptions of third parties. That's SEP - someone else's problem. Leave the insults to the impotent - by their inability to handle criticism fools will out themselves.


----------



## Luchesi

EdwardBast said:


> No, you're _saying_ only that their arguments are defective. If you're right and argue this convincingly, others will draw the obvious conclusions about the creator of those ideas without further assistance from you. By roundly refuting an argument you're not _suggesting_ "that someone is probably a bit of a fool," you're _demonstrating_ it, which is far better. I wouldn't worry too much about the perceptions of third parties. That's SEP - someone else's problem. Leave the insults to the impotent - by their inability to handle criticism fools will out themselves.


You are actually saying there are "fools" in this forum. I really don't know what's meant by that.

I haven't seen it, but I guess many of us are fools among the very different levels of experience in here. I _have_ seen the very different levels. 
Coincidentally, last night I was at a party given by the astronomy department here and I was observing and thinking about that very issue. Among all the technical talk there was the same old human foolishness. It's not my field so I did plenty of listening. lol

blockhead, dunce, dolt, ignoramus, imbecile, cretin, dullard, simpleton


----------



## AeolianStrains

While I agree that people ought by and large refrain from personal attacks, people on a certain crusade or who always put forth ill-conceived ideas also detract from the forum as a whole, especially when that's coupled with implicit personal attacks. If personal attacks are off-limits, shouldn't baiting and goading as well?

A case could be made against both the constant sniping against atonalism as well as threads like this.


----------



## EdwardBast

Luchesi said:


> You are actually saying there are "fools" in this forum. I really don't know what's meant by that.


You're joking, right? 

If you weren't joking: I was referring to people who make ridiculous assertions, who are politely corrected by someone who actually studied philosophy (or whatever), and then who respond with personal insults because they can't accept criticism.


----------



## MatthewWeflen

EdwardBast said:


> You're joking, right?
> 
> If you weren't joking: I was referring to people who make ridiculous assertions, who are politely corrected by someone who actually studied philosophy (or whatever), and then who respond with personal insults because they can't accept criticism.


FWIW, I have a BA and an MA in philosophy, and completed my Ph.D. coursework. I also taught introductory philosophy for nine years at the college level.

By no means does this make me some special pre-eminent expert in the field. But I did successfully complete the "is Plato different than Aristotle" part


----------



## DaveM

MatthewWeflen said:


> FWIW, I have a BA and an MA in philosophy, and completed my Ph.D. coursework. I also taught introductory philosophy for nine years at the college level.


I would hazard a guess that you know what you're talking about.


----------



## Luchesi

EdwardBast said:


> You're joking, right?
> 
> If you weren't joking: I was referring to people who make ridiculous assertions, who are politely corrected by someone who actually studied philosophy (or whatever), and then who respond with personal insults because they can't accept criticism.


The moderator must've deleted what you're referring to.


----------



## EdwardBast

Luchesi said:


> The moderator must've deleted what you're referring to.


I meant it to be a hypothetical example, not a citation of a specific exchange.

In any case, I reserve the term fool for critiques of decision making. I would never apply it to someone who simply lacks knowledge.


----------



## Luchesi

EdwardBast said:


> I meant it to be a hypothetical example, not a citation of a specific exchange.
> 
> In any case, I reserve the term fool for critiques of decision making. I would never apply it to someone who simply lacks knowledge.


There's some very sharp young people posting online. Before the internet I wasn't aware of such generation gaps.

The human brain doesn't mature until 20 or 21 years. Most of us have an axe to grind. It comes out. I have my grinds, AGW and the way piano is taught, what's yours?


----------



## DaveM

Luchesi said:


> There's some very sharp young people posting online. Before the internet I wasn't aware of such generation gaps.
> 
> The human brain doesn't mature until 20 or 21 years...


Make that 24-25.


----------



## Woodduck

DaveM said:


> Make that 24-25.


The organ itself may mature at that age, but its contents generally take much longer.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

Strange Magic said:


> Location: Nova Caesarea


And here I was all this time thinking Nova Caesarea was some elegant small island in the Mediterranean or somewhere, like you were from some sweet under-the-radar European city, though oddly you used some Northeast mannerisms... very clever.

Though I think I'll still settle for my side of the Hudson.


----------



## EdwardBast

Minor Sixthist said:


> And here I was all this time thinking Nova Caesarea was some elegant small island in the Mediterranean or somewhere, like you were from some sweet under-the-radar European city, though oddly you used some Northeast mannerisms... very clever.
> 
> Though I think I'll still settle for my side of the Hudson.


And I'll settle for my _end_ of the Hudson, the headwaters.


----------



## millionrainbows

EdwardBast said:


> You're joking, right?
> 
> If you weren't joking: I was referring to people who make ridiculous assertions, who are politely corrected by someone who actually studied philosophy (or whatever), and then who respond with personal insults because they can't accept criticism.


Make sure you're covering your own blind spots and biases. It might turn out that someday you will realize that you have made the wrong call in certain cases.


----------



## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> Make sure you're covering your own blind spots and biases. It might turn out that someday you will realize that you have made the wrong call in certain cases.


I thought I was wrong once. But it turns out I was mistaken .


----------



## Minor Sixthist

EdwardBast said:


> And I'll settle for my _end_ of the Hudson, the headwaters.


If you're north of the Bronx, and you may as well be Canada.


----------



## Woodduck

Minor Sixthist said:


> If you're north of the Bronx, and you may as well be Canada.


If it's south of the Bronx, it may as well be the Confederacy. I grew up in South Jersey in the 50s, and believe me, it was. I think the Trump casino debacle in Atlantic City may have shocked them into reality.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

Woodduck said:


> If it's south of the Bronx, it may as well be the Confederacy. I grew up in South Jersey in the 50s, and believe me, it was. I think the Trump casino debacle in Atlantic City may have shocked them into reality.


I was just making a cheap 'everything north of LI and the boroughs is desert' joke, but in that case, we could really use some more debacles in other parts of the country before 2020. You must have been happy when they came to.

It's hard for me to imagine what it was like growing up here in the 50s. Was it really all Norman Rockwell-like? Honestly, some of those ads and paintings just kind of creep me out. The 60s and 70s really whipped some things into shape that needed whipping... not that, even now, there are not still a startling number of people who wish we were still on the earlier side of things.


----------



## Woodduck

Minor Sixthist said:


> I was just making a cheap 'everything north of LI and the boroughs is desert' joke, but in that case, we could really use some more debacles in other parts of the country before 2020. You must have been happy when they came to.
> 
> It's hard for me to imagine what it was like growing up here in the 50's. Was it really all Norman Rockwell-like? Honestly, some of those ads and paintings just kind of creep me out. The 60's and 70's really whipped some things into shape that needed whipping... not that, even now, there are not still a startling number of people who wish we were still on the earlier side of things.


It was idyllic and boring, an ideal existence for the politically unaware, who could enjoy their white privilege, rail against the papists, and leave life's moral dilemmas to Beaver.


----------



## Minor Sixthist

Woodduck said:


> It was idyllic and boring, an ideal existence for the politically unaware, who could enjoy their white privilege, rail against the papists, and leave life's moral dilemmas to Beaver.


Well, _Airplane_ came out when you were 30 and _Beavis and Butthead_ when you were in your 40's. At least you had a knack for laughing at yourselves. Comedy has never been the same.

And sometimes I wonder how my happiness would be different if I grew up away from the temptation of having so many social media...doing so much living outside of real life. I know it's great and all, but it could also be really depressing. It's exhausting to have to cultivate a whole life in your little digital box outside the one you're really living. But it's also really hard to part from, because you can't stay in the know without it, especially during adolescence. You can hardly network without it either. I tacitly agree with my parents when they tell me their childhoods were happier without the online social world.

I don't know. I'm sure it goes both ways. Things are always bad if you only look at the bad things.


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## Strange Magic

As a lifelong New Jerseyan, I've always been partial to my native province: geographically, geologically, topographically diverse for such a small state. Also an unparalleled breeding and nurturing ground for talented, exceptional, and often famous people, especially in the arts (popular and otherwise). I'll often be surprised (though I shouldn't be anymore) to learn that Famous Person X was born and/or raised in, or migrated to, New Jersey. Don't have an exact figure on per capita talent production, but NJ must be at or very near the top. Wikipedia has a fine entry listing well-known Jerseyans using various criteria.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_New_Jersey


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## EdwardBast

Minor Sixthist said:


> If you're north of the Bronx, and you may as well be Canada.


I once lived at the other end of the Hudson. My current locale is the result of a planned escape.


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## AeolianStrains

Minor Sixthist said:


> I was just making a cheap 'everything north of LI and the boroughs is desert' joke


In my parts, it's "anything above 125th is upstate." I balk if I have to cross one of the rivers, but _especially_ the Hudson.


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## Minor Sixthist

AeolianStrains said:


> In my parts, it's "anything above 125th is upstate." I balk if I have to cross one of the rivers, but _especially_ the Hudson.


Hey, I'll settle for anything North of 96th is upstate too!


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## Minor Sixthist

EdwardBast said:


> I once lived at the other end of the Hudson. My current locale is the result of a planned escape.


I could understand. The rustic, sans-electricity farm life up there is more serene anyway...


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## Luchesi

Minor Sixthist said:


> I could understand. The rustic, sans-electricity farm life up there is more serene anyway...


If you're young you probably never experienced the Hudson River Valley climax forests of hemlock, beech and hornbeam that I grew up with. I haven't been back recently, but it's likely mostly gone now. Just small patches left with some old trees surviving from 400 years ago (but no longer in their natural patterns of plant community succession). Very sad.


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## Minor Sixthist

Luchesi said:


> If you're young you probably never experienced the Hudson River Valley climax forests of hemlock, beech and hornbeam that I grew up with. I haven't been back recently, but it's likely mostly gone now. Just small patches left with some old trees surviving from 400 years ago (but no longer in their natural patterns of plant community succession). Very sad.


No, I have not had experience among those forests up there, not that I have spent a lot of time there in my life in general. That sounds like it was a beautiful place, and that is very sad to hear. What happened to make it change so much?


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## Luchesi

Minor Sixthist said:


> No, I have not had experience among those forests up there, not that I have spent a lot of time there in my life in general. That sounds like it was a beautiful place, and that is very sad to hear. What happened to make it change so much?


Property prices soared and the rich people escaped from the City. 2nd stage forest trees will reproduce in suburbs, but 3rd and climax stage plants won't.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> If you're young you probably never experienced the Hudson River Valley climax forests of hemlock, beech and hornbeam that I grew up with. I haven't been back recently, but it's likely mostly gone now. Just small patches left with some old trees surviving from 400 years ago (but no longer in their natural patterns of plant community succession). Very sad.


We are all very fortunate, though, that the Hudson River valley is likely the most preserved such river valley, in the paintings of the Hudson River School of 19th-century American landscape painters. We can still experience, at one step removed, all of the earlier beauty of the river and its environs, mountains, forests, in those magnificent paintings of Sanford Gifford, Samuel Colman, Jasper Cropsey, Charles H. Moore, John G. Brown, and many other artists.


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## EdwardBast

Minor Sixthist said:


> I could understand. The rustic, sans-electricity farm life up there is more serene anyway...


Don't get upstate much, do ya'? 



Luchesi said:


> If you're young you probably never experienced the Hudson River Valley climax forests of hemlock, beech and hornbeam that I grew up with. I haven't been back recently, but it's likely mostly gone now. Just small patches left with some old trees surviving from 400 years ago (but no longer in their natural patterns of plant community succession). Very sad.


I visit old growth hemlock stands all the time.


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## Luchesi

EdwardBast said:


> Don't get upstate much, do ya'?
> 
> I visit old growth hemlock stands all the time.


I looked up where the Hudson River starts at Henderson Lake.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/U...d7dc3cfe!8m2!3d44.0889567!4d-74.0563059?hl=en


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## EdwardBast

Luchesi said:


> I looked up where the Hudson River starts at Henderson Lake.
> 
> https://www.google.com/maps/place/U...d7dc3cfe!8m2!3d44.0889567!4d-74.0563059?hl=en


Pretty reasonable. Some trace the headwaters of the Hudson to the highest body of water in the watershed, Lake Tear of the Clouds, which is just southwest of the state's highest peak, Mount Marcy.


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