# Beer, nutella, Einstein, chess and 2 types of musical complexity



## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

I guess there are 2 types of complexity in music:

1) complexity of the result (or of the output): This type of complexity is all about the end result that you have: the piece itself, the score. It's all about the sheer number of things going on together in the piece: the more notes, the more tones, chords, the more complex rhythms, the more polyphony, etc... the more complex the piece is. This complexity is kind of easy to recognize: take some Ferneyhough, or if you want a classical example, take Mozart's symphony no. 41, or some of Bach's counterpoint masterpieces.

2) complexity of the method (or of the input): This type of complexity is all about the amount of talent, effort or time needed for composing a piece, even if the end result is simple. The more time, energy, talent, understanding etc, you need to put into a piece, the more complex it is. Also, the more elaborate theory you need to explain why something works, why it is just like that and not in any other way, the more complex the piece is.

Here are some non-musical examples of high complexity of the input:

a) Good beer. According to the 1516 Bavarian law, the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley and hops. Just 3 simple ingredients. Yet, to make truly good beer, you need a lot of knowledge about all the aspects of the production process and experience that usually can't be acquired in just one generation, but stems from centuries of tradition.

b) Nutella. Similarly, the ingredients are simple... but it's very difficult to get JUST RIGHT proportion of hazelnuts, sugar, oil, emusifers, etc. It's very difficult to recreate the original recipe, and it was probably quite difficult to develop it in the first place.

c) Chess. Sometimes it's necessary to be a world class grand-master or highly advanced computer program performing millions calculations to find some seemingly simple move that can make a big difference in the game. The end result is simple, looks effortless, but is far from easy.

d) E=mc^2 The amount of research needed to arrive to this simple equation and the amount of theory needed to explain it completely are astonishing.

My point is that usually pieces that have simple output (elegant), that seems just right, just perfect, with every note exactly where it should be, a piece in which the slightest change would spoil it... such pieces usually have a lot of background complexity that is invisible in the output, but that was probably present in input. I think such pieces are generally superior to pieces that have a lot of surface complexity and that are complex themselves (the score, output), unless they also have this second type of complexity (of input).

So for example, a monophonic nursery rhyme that has passed the test of time, is probably a better piece of music than some extremely complex work whose complexity doesn't make much sense.

Anyone can compose a complex piece: just use full chromatic scale and put there as many notes as you can in as many staves as you can, vary rhythm as much as you can, etc... and you're there... The end result will be an extremely complex cacophony.

But if you make just a simple melody, but it requires you LOTS of time, modifying it relentlessly until you get it just right, molding it slowly like a sculptor, meticulously removing anything that's superfluous, etc... Than you might get a real masterpiece in the end, regardless of how complex it is.

Of course, *some works achieve BOTH types of complexity*, and that's why they are such masterpieces that they are, for example Beethoven's Symphony no. 5... Really it seems perfect, and slightest change or addition would just spoil it. And I guess it requires A LOT of theory and very deep understanding to be able to know how exactly it works, and why he made certain choices he did in this piece.

Comments, opinions?


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

TL; DR: The good pieces are not those with A LOT of stuff inside, but those with ALL THE RIGHT STUFF AT THE RIGHT PLACE (regardless of how much stuff is there). And to get it all just right... requires tremendous effort, talent, understanding, experience, time, etc... it requires a lot of input, to get even a simple output, if such output is of the highest quality.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Your two posts raise the topic of the Perfect Piece. I will instantly affirm that the choice(s) of perfect pieces are completely personal and unique to each individual. I love classical music, among other musics, but am fussy about it, finding very few works where I revel in every minute--there are _longueurs_ or boring passages or otherwise unpleasing stretches of music one navigates while waiting for interest to be re-engaged. But there are those handful of works--for me, a few concertos, where perfection for me has been attained: the Bach D-Minor keyboard concerto (piano), the Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand, and the Hovhaness Violin Concerto No.2. That's all that pop into my head now; perhaps I will recall others. It will be interesting to see what others' Perfect Pieces might be.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

The nursery rhyme example really gets at my problem with Jazz. The written melodies that begin the tracks are almost always of a more distinct and interesting character than the solos that follow them, and compared to one another are far less homogeneous; doesn't it somewhat follow that if the entire track were composed that way it would be more memorable as a whole? 

Not that I don't enjoy a great number of jazz solos, but I think it is just common sense that improvisation can never quite reach to the level of intensely premeditated music. Over time a consensus has been reached as to which specific measures and minutes of the classical masters are truly great, and yet a similar canon doesn't seem to exist for, say, Charlie Parker. Entertaining as they may be, they all seem to blend together. 

I love Monk, but once his solos begin you can hear him default to the same patterns of meandering over and over again, and unfortunately I feel the same way about almost all the greats of Jazz. In the vast output of Beethoven everyone can still point to the Appassionata, the Hammerklavier, and etc. In the vast output of Art Tatum, where are these pillars?

To me it always seemed like Jazz was the "modern classical" that everyone really wanted: complex art music with a new and unique character that innovated without abandoning the common spectrum of emotions, and brilliantly answered the question "Where can we even go with tonality now?" To me the tragedy is that Monk never sat down to compose his great sonata, or Bill Evans his set of preludes. With improvisation alone they made great music worth preserving as long as possible. I can only imagine what they could have produced with meticulously premeditated composition.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Chopin: "Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art."


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> Chopin: "Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable *when* you have overcome all difficulties. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art."


He was intending to 'overcome all difficulties' first.






_"In a journal entry dated 7 April 1849, Eugène Delacroix asked Chopin about musical logic. Chopin's response illustrates his views on the essential nature of counterpoint within musical structure:

"I asked him to explain what it is that gives the impression of logic in music. He made me understand the meaning of harmony and counterpoint; how in music the fugue corresponds to pure logic, and that to be well versed in the fugue is to understand the elements of all reason and development in music"."_

https://books.google.ca/books?id=1ggkDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT83#v=onepage&q&f=false


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> I can only imagine what they could have produced with meticulously premeditated composition.


But then it would not have been Jazz and they, Jazz Musicians.

Jazz is by definition _improvised_ music.

Jazz is what happens once the Head has been played out. New melodies are improvised over the changes used to accompany the original melody. And as you say, much of the time musicians rely on scale patterns, arpeggios, etc, that are pre-programmed (Charley Parker being a case in point) while they wait for that elusive spark of inspiration to strike. But Jazz not only relies on melodic improvisation, there is mood, timbre, tempo, atmosphere, ambience etc, all of which are at the disposal of the performer to manipulate and redefine so as to lead (when it is successful) to a satisfying aural experience for both performer and listener alike. No two performances of a Jazz number can by definition sound the same precisely because it is improvised (cf. notated) music.

Unfortunately, the moments of really true inspiration in Jazz are all too often limited. There are obvious exceptions however. E.g. Davis and A Kind of Blue. The musicians consistently pulled brilliantly innovative, aesthetically pleasing improvisations "out of the hat" in the studio. I believe Davis had only provided Coltrane, Cannonball, Evans, et.al with the charts shortly before recording began. There are countless other examples. Could it have been any better had it been premeditated? We'll never know but I think not.

But really - who cares?


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

I get that jazz was about improvisation, but to me the more interesting part of it was just the general character of its sound and rhythms. The parts of it that were written sounded distinctly like jazz and completely different from classical (and more often had that distilled complexity the OP is talking about), but they wrote only in small parts and thus had hardly exhausted writing.

I don't buy the idea that improvisation taps into some freer creative spirit that forethought inhibits, or that you can "play the head out" when it is impossible to escape your own head. All I hear it leading to is less intricacy with the left hand, less counterpoint, more limited narratives, and just a general sameness. I tried to hack into Bebop, but I can't shake my suspicions that musicians loved it because doo-bibbipity-bopping the same 7 or 8 fragments of melodies over and over is easier than straining toward a single melody with lasting individuality.

Sure, jazz has a "free" and spontaneous sound to it, but so does Rachmaninov's 2nd sonata, or Debussy's nocturnes. You can achieve that without all of the filler and stalling, with the added advantage of more memorable and well thought out thematic material and well coordinated climaxes. Again, I think it's just common sense that rough drafts with bursts of inspiration will always be inferior to premeditated compositions, which can contain the best parts of 100 impromptu sessions, but agree to disagree I guess.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Truly great art of any kind is the expression of the "being" of the creator. Being is simple; the mind tends to clutter things up. The OP again seems to be obliquely targeting "modern" music.

Serial music is by nature more complex than diatonic music, since it circulates 12 notes rather than 7. Schoenberg was able to compose "from his being," so he "comes through" the music in certain recognizable ways.

"Tuning in to one's being" is in many ways a "limiting" thing, which discards inessential thoughts, and what we are left with are the vestiges of personality, those essential characteristics which are the personality traits, preferences, abilities, and quirks which are the natural result of human existence.

These essential traits are what strike us as identifiable instances of expression, if we are receptive to them.

I've always said that I can recognize John Cage's works, even though he has said he tried to "remove his personality" from them. Works like Fontana Mix, Williams Mix, even Atlas Eclipticalis. Maybe this is fantasy on my part.

As far as jazz, I'm much more interested in John Coltrane's solo excursions on "My Favorite Things" than I am in the more pedestrian theme, which he states at beginning and end. The Rogers-Hammerstein tune is only the vehicle for Coltrane's solo performance, which is a direct expression of his being, and which will be different every time.






This demonstrates, also, that we are listening to music which was conceived and created as an aural performance, not on paper. The luxury of recording allows us to capture performances in every detail, as precise and unchanging as scored music, "snapshots" which preserve each performance "in granite."

This aspect of performance, of human expression and nuance, is the only thing that can bring scored classical music to life. This reveals the score to simply be a set of instructions.

The fact that scored music presents us with "unchanging" ideas is its limitation, as well as its strength; this is only a refection of the composer's original expressive intent, his expression of "being", somehow caught on the fly, and translated somehow into score (debussy's near-improvisational Book of Preludes comes to mind).

The fact that the musical idea becomes permanent and unchanging now becomes secondary, and should not be seen as an end unto itself, especially now that we have recordings. The score was always a way of "recording" a musical idea in the era before sound recording, and also to control large numbers of players. This was done to escape the pitfalls of aural performances, which had to be remembered, and often morphed and changed.

Scores, and the consistency they bring, should not be seen as an end in themselves, now that we have sound recording.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

It all comes down to the moment, when I think about it.

A certain piece of music can change completely in the hands of an interpretator. I went to concerts that were a complete failure and others of the same work that were life-changing. I often visit the RCO in Amsterdam and how great this world class orchestra is, it can both sound bored or dull or completely carry you away. problem is, you never know in advance. More so, one moment I can drown in a specific music recording and another moment it does nothing to me. So, if all is equal, it depends on my own personal factors how the music is perceived.

I play the piano (mainly jazz/improvisation) and about a month ago I played at the funeral of my father in law. Of course I practiced a lot. The performance was a failure in my perception, could have done it much better. But everyone keeps saying that they loved it.

Yesterday I read in the Sviatoslav Richter notebooks, a diary of his musical experiences through many years. A great read. He is very honest in his judgment and makes a difference al the time between good (honest) and bad (artificial, mannered) performances, despite of reputation of the musician. Very refreshing. 

Having said so, I must admit that I listen to a selection of all the available music, so my observations are limited. There is a certain threshold before a piece of music reaches my ears. We all discuss here a limited amount of music. So, your theory could well be used to argue why certain music, certain composers and certain interpretators are discussed here over and over again and most others are ignored. I think that in general we are able to love both simple an complex music. It should however always be played with conviction and understanding (and if possible, with a good reproduction technique). If our mood is right, we are able to enjoy it. For live performances the same goes. Logically speaking, for a live performance the risk of failure is higher. But nothing beats the impact of a successful live performance. 

So far my thoughts on this issue. Nice idea


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

ZJovicic said:


> Of course, *some works achieve BOTH types of complexity*, and that's why they are such masterpieces that they are, for example Beethoven's Symphony no. 5... Really it seems perfect, and slightest change or addition would just spoil it. And I guess it requires A LOT of theory and very deep understanding to be able to know how exactly it works, and why he made certain choices he did in this piece.
> 
> Comments, opinions?


I am not sure that complexity is achieved so much as resorted to. I suppose a composer has some idea of what s/he wants to create and will take the best (usually simplest) route to that. And, when it comes to the listeners experience (what we hear and enjoy), I don't think complexity is at all desirable even if it was involved in the composing. I think a sort of Occam's razor applies whereby the music that gets into us needs to do so with simplicity and that any complexity in its composition needs to remain behind the scenes where only scholars will find it.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> I am not sure that complexity is achieved so much as resorted to. I suppose a composer has some idea of what s/he wants to create and will take the best (usually simplest) route to that. And, when it comes to the listeners experience (what we hear and enjoy), I don't think complexity is at all desirable even if it was involved in the composing. I think a sort of Occam's razor applies whereby the music that gets into us needs to do so with simplicity and that any complexity in its composition needs to remain behind the scenes where only scholars will find it.


I agree that Occam's razor might apply to music as well, though not in very strict sense. I mean, complexity for it's own sake is often, but not always superfluous. Some complexity might be good for its own sake, just to make the piece more interesting.

But usually, I think refined simplicity is a much greater value.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

ZJovicic said:


> I guess there are 2 types of complexity in music:
> 
> 1) complexity of the result (or of the output):
> 
> ...


First, Nutella is disgusting

Wine is more complex than beer with even simpler inputs (but of course at a biochemical they are very complex)

The best chess player in the world (AlphaZero) is a simpler program than the former best chess player (Stockfish), but its operation is more complex (Stockfish - guided brute force search, AlphaZero - deep neural network)

E=MC^2 is simple and brilliant but General Relativity is complex and brilliant and a much greater accomplishment


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

Bwv 1080 said:


> First, Nutella is disgusting
> 
> Wine is more complex than beer with even simpler inputs (but of course at a biochemical they are very complex)
> 
> ...


I realized I made it a bit confusing in the OP.
With my examples: beer, nutella, brilliant chess moves and E=mc^2 I wanted to show how sometimes *to get a simple result, you need extremely complex input. *
But then I realized that to some it might be confusing as input for beer can also *seem *simple (just 3 ingredients). But it's simple only on the surface, in fact it's very complex (technology, experience, skills)... but the RESULTS are simple (but brilliant and hard to replicate).


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